USCSS Nostromo - Discussion Thread

[dagonweb]

In a year or so, we can use this technology

http://www.thoughtware.tv/videos/watch/4522-City-Simulations

to make a perfect rendition by entering positions of (cleaned-up) available photographical resources. Even if we don't I propose creating an archive, linked via Google Wave (when it comes out of beta) entering every single photo, date, sketch, reference and factoid of that period and project in a single interlinked database and timeline. This isn't as hard as it sounds, most data is readily available.

My longterm plans (one of many) do include doing some Second Life work. Would anyone be interested in doing an alien "extended version" (about twice as long) with interspersed and elongated scenes using SL? We could use the original scenes, machinima-ize them uss the original sounds, add bits with voice actions and literally reconstruct an authentic alien version (say, somewhere between 150 and 200 minutes long) in lowgrade, low treshold CGI. WE can always upgrade and improve from that point later on.

[Matsuo]

Just scanned this thread from end to end... Outstanding!

M

[joberg]

Welcome aboard Dagonweb...thanks for sharing; great idea, looking forward to see how everything is going to pan out.

[bizbazboz]

I seem to remember Ron Cobb initially wanted the Nostromo to have a smooth underside, to depict a heat-shield. Ridley Scott however wanted the whole surface covered in detail. (guess who won !!)

The Nostromos' appearance IMHO is the best combination between an expert engineering approach to design & what looks stunning on screen.

I agree that those antennae on the front aren't practical, but we can stick a bit of "artistic liscence" in there & say they retract or something.

[Space Jockey]

PLEASE NOTE!! An IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT has been posted within the Prop Shop!

Acme Archives didn't work out unfortunately, which is good in one sense I guess as I'll be able to control quality myself and offer them cheaper.
Though they really liked it, they haven't sold any of the excellent Dropship cutaway they have (it's the price probably...) and they said if I want to draw any Star Wars stuff, to contact them for definite.
I was born in '79. I've had enough of Star Wars it's been around all my life, I wanna draw ALIEN, LOL!
Though these will be a strictly limited run only.

Ah well....

[FenGiddel]

Too much thinking about Nostromo vis-a-vis real science can be painful, but I agree it makes you realize how much care was taken to suggest reality.

Regarding landfall: Perhaps Nostromo takes a long time to spiral down from orbit. I wish I knew someone with aeronautics background who might figure how much thrust it would take to lower the ship from orbit at a rate slow enough to prevent burning off all the cool little greeblies on her pitted hull....

Here is a photo of the ship where that primary boom antennae on the bow was stowed in a horizontal position instead of angled downward, from the starboard side of the model.

[dagonweb]

I remain dumstruck by the realism by the original designers, much of which even now has to trickle down to popular imagination. Look for instance at the rotating design for the vessel by Ronn Cobb



which is genius. The object rotates along the axes - in the middle those two boxlike shapes are the engines. The entire shape rotates along those engines to generate gravity. Those hexagonal boxes at the far end are cargo. The engines move "up and down" the central bar, to compensate for cargo being empty or full, as to compensate for rotational momentum. At the end closest is the docked leviathan laning vehicle. I still wonder if a design such as this would have looked better - it would have been harder to model and far more incomprehensible to audiences

(visuales jock staggering out of the theatre "I don't like get it durr")

As for the descent stage - it was perfectly plausible. The Nostromo is a brick, basicly. Fortunately it is a brick which can keep itself afloat perfectly fine. It can pull along the refinery - and it can perfectly keep afloat above the planet at full VTOL thrust - (except for that small risk of mechanical failure - the technology looks rather ..."messy")

The descent on a small atmospheric dense moon (1200 kilometers and .87 standard gravity? - VERY dense!) would take about an hour from injection. In other words, the structure moves to the planet, the nostromo disengages, it injects in the orbit, it aims its engines in the plane of the planet, brakes, starts falling down, and 'gently applies breaking power' ( I wouldn't want to stand anywhere close - the exhaust power would have to be brutal) untill it lands. Nothing that would be impossible if you have water-based fusion. I regard the entire scene as completely plausible. At no stage would it need a breaking shield - the engines would easily take care of breaking manouvering.

[/list]

[USCSS_Nostromo]

[dagonweb]

Shortly after Alien and Star Wars I was up and about making my own spaceships, disassembling my models to stick them "on something big". What I found is that stuff stuck "on something big" looked crap - what you get is a big thing with crap glued on it, even though it was all painted in the same color.

Enter greebles. What you want is breaking the countours of a spaceship, without making it look (a) cluttered or (b) a jungle or (c) recognizable.

Cluttering meaning - covered with stuff from front to end. Like the first battlestar. In BSG it only works because the models are big, but close-up - it looks just silly. Like the thing was welted together from old junk. The refinery gets away with it, but it probably took quite a bit of trial and error (and the legendary hammer and chisel myth) to dispell some excesses.

Jungle meaning - glued on greebles sticking out to far and breaking the countours. It makes it all look dumb - just doesn't work. It's not clutter - it is worse than clutter, it doesn't look like "it makes sense". Like that car designed by Homer - a jumble of parts.

Recognizable is a big sin - and I am talking (a) tie fighter cuppola's and (b) tie fighter angled wing sections and (c) eagle lander feet top squares and (d) X fighter wing struts.

Everbody used those, I picked them out years later in nearly any model. Freezeframe through blade runner and you'll spot all four above literally hundreds of times. It's a riot.

What I found what worse is to design a spaceship with flowing countours and then break these a little with elevation differences. And then immerse the greebles in them following the countours. Simon mentioned the absolute sin of sticking on wheel parts - you recognize that - hey, wheel parts stuck to the hull. You have to follow the gradient, make them melt in the background and make it all look functional. I made up these freeflowing elaborate explanations in my mind back then, what these machineries were doing. I'd find studying the old galactica I couldn't stop wondering, what the hell is all that stuff for?

Best greebling I have seen is clearly on the Auriga - they break the silhouette of the shapes, create depths, then partially fill these troughs - and most of all consistency. If you add three repeating shapes after another, apply exactly the same detail greebling in all three. It makes sense.

Finally I love color patterns on my ships. The over-used orange/black danger markings. I found that if these stripes go straight over the greebleness, it looks absolutely great. Hence, I'd love the black Nostromo, but I would have loved some pattern painting on it - a few angled industrial stripes along the length of the main hull, broken by rust, minor repairs and denting. Would have been even better.

Best greeblers these days are found in the 40K scene. A pal from ZAON (Justin) also is amazing at making stunningly subtle greeblish shapes on his space vessels, and he replicates the old arts to stunning effect in Maya and 3DS.

[USCSS_Nostromo]

Thanks for the explanation, Dagonweb.

Yes, the detailing and use of bits from other kits, etc, can all too easily look terrible if just stuck on and obviously recognisable.

[FenGiddel]

[joberg]

Greebles If you read "Sculpting the Galaxy" by Lorne Peterson (one of the best model-maker in the business) of hear other model-makers on the RPF the word they use is "greeblies"...Joe Johnston in ILM would go around the shop with a chisel starting to hack away at greeblies he thought were useless on the models
It's an art to make a space ship (or any object) look like it could be a logical working/flying machine. Look at all those Tie- fighter's shells stuck to the bottom of the refinery in Alien

[USCSS_Nostromo]

[FenGiddel]

Here is a manipulated image where I've tried to get a better look at the airlock assembly on the production model:



Wouldn't it be interesting to find a good picture of this to see more detail? It appears they were going for a "folded up lift and support leg" look to me, from this muddy pic.

I have also been studying the set and model photos and still agree that SpaceJockey's airlock placement decision is sound. The set photos reveal that the airlock was low enough to open onto the landing legs at the point where there is a gap between landing bay door sections. This is much lower than if the airlock were on the bottom of the hull, which would mean the airlock was extended much lower than depicted on the model. However, this is a 'migraine' area I referred to earlier where reality and dramatic license collide. (Much like the fact that the landing gear seem to be rotated in different shots, sometimes the 'toes' point to the corners of the bay doors, sometimes at the bay doors themselves.)

Shows how much a blueprinting project like this can cause a struggle, trying to find a compromise solution. The interiors project SJ has mentioned (if it goes forward) suggests it will be very difficult since it will be purely conjecture aside from the established set drawings (and there will still be endless discussion about those! ). If it proceeds, I hope we can keep this on an even keel throughout... (A good example of how bad behavior ruined an excellent project would be Rob Brown's MIllennium Falcon site. He closed it down after getting sick of the rudeness of others who felt they had more invested in the project than he did. You can only find it on those net archive sites, a pale comparison to the exciting site it was years ago.)


Posts on this site have stayed remarkably on-topic for the most part and have shown geniune interest and marvelous insights.

[IEDBOUNTYHUNTER]

[FenGiddel]

NURNYS, Greeblies, it's all good... Hopefully the guy didn't tear you up too bad. Sometimes people forget that part of appreciating things is LEARNING about them, especially jargon.

Cheers!

[Space Jockey]

Wow, some great comments and suggestions here.
Greeblies are called wiggets in England, so yet another interpretation.
I love that sketch from Ron Cobb. The technical explanation he gives to certain sections of the ship are amazing. It looks a little similar to another ship I really like - the Event Horizon (probably the only decent film Paul WS Anderson has done IMO), though we don't actually see all that much of the interior in the movie.

The array on the bow swinging up as the Nostromo lands - perfectly plausible. That way it doesn't hit the lanscape. I wonder if the other arrays and antenae do the same thing? Maybe those are telescopic.

The whole Ash blister and airlock module thing was real tough. As you've noted Fengiddel, the model orientation of the undercarriage doesn't match up with the full size set. Martin B said to me that the full size set was built first before the model, and it was just a slip-up in communication between art department and model workshop.
I think your idea in your original blueprints is a great one with the airlock serving as an elevator - I see no other option, as with the airlock model being so far down, and the angle of the hull behind - there's just no way the airlock antechamber where Ash opens the inner doors can be located that far down too.

The 3d sketchup model is going well and I hope to get some section cuts on here of the hull outlines very soon for us to use.

[Space Jockey]

Anyone want to buy an original set blueprint? I haven't seen one of these in a while. Interesting to look at.

Ebay ID No. 130340800208

[Harry Harris]

[joberg]

The widget is used to dress a panel/set/decor, etc...A greeblie/ greeble/nurny/ wigget is used to dress a scaled model I'm sure ther're other regionalism out there in the industry...who knows?