Star Trek Builders Unite 8: THE REBOOT

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Comments

  • Well with Tasha Yar done I think I can seal the deal on the TNG crew. Over all I'm really happy with how they turned out. A shoutout to Scopely Games for the original game models I referenced when I constructed the G8 builds. 

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  • Looks like Discovery is getting new uniforms again. Hard to keep up! Though they look simpler than the original blue uniforms.

  • FleetAdmiral01 said:

    Well with Tasha Yar done I think I can seal the deal on the TNG crew. Over all I'm really happy with how they turned out. A shoutout to Scopely Games for the original game models I referenced when I constructed the G8 builds. 

    Looks great!

  • I'm back with another outfit conversion. A little invasion from the Mirror Universe this time.

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  • FleetAdmiral01 said:

    I'm back with another outfit conversion. A little invasion from the Mirror Universe this time.

    The Vulcan outfit looks cool. Good stuff. 

    PS - Sent you a PM. LMK.

  • Wertz' Cardassian for G8.

     

    Yes my method of converting models into G8 morphs even works fro older M4/V4 content.

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  • RonwaldRonwald Posts: 71

    Hi.

    Here's my attempt so far at creating textures for the mid 2380s uniform seen on Picard.

    -and-

    Given a decent set of FC/DS9 uniforms was made using the Lunar Guard Outfit for Genesis 3 Female(s), I thought I'd use the same base for these.

    Feedback and suggestions are most welcome.

     

  • jestmartjestmart Posts: 4,449

    just clearing an old comment that never got posted

     

  • Ronwald said:

    Hi.

    Here's my attempt so far at creating textures for the mid 2380s uniform seen on Picard.

    -and-

    Given a decent set of FC/DS9 uniforms was made using the Lunar Guard Outfit for Genesis 3 Female(s), I thought I'd use the same base for these.

    Feedback and suggestions are most welcome.

     

    yes Very good :-) 

  • RedfernRedfern Posts: 1,602
    edited October 2021

    Ronwald said:

    -and-

    I know your focus is the uniforms, but I just wanted to praise your inclusion of a Caitian!  Thanks to Lower Decks Dr. T'Ana, that species is finally getting the attention I've wanted to see for 39 years!  (Yes, I know the Filmation series debuted in 1973 and I watched it first run, but I never really "took notice" of M'Ress until 1982 after seeing Paul Shrader's "Cat People" awoke "something" in me.

    I assume you employed Oso3D's https://www.daz3d.com/osodreamers-felinefolk-for-genesis-8-female

    Post edited by Redfern on
  • RonwaldRonwald Posts: 71

    Catherine3678ab said:

    yes Very good :-) 

     

    Thank you! 

  • RonwaldRonwald Posts: 71

    Redfern said:

    I know your focus is the unifoerms, but I hust wanted to praise your inclusion of a Caitian!  Thanks to Lower Decks Dr. T'Ana, that species is finally getting the attention I've wanted to see for 39 years!  (Yes, I know the Filmation series debuted in 1973 and I watched it first run, but I never really "took notice" of M'Ress until 1982 after seeing Paul Shrader's "Cat People" awoke something in me.

    I assume you employed Oso3D's https://www.daz3d.com/osodreamers-felinefolk-for-genesis-8-female

     

    I've always thought the Caitians were a species which should have been more on display in later incarnations of Trek. There were a lot of things in the Filmation animated series I thought were great.

    Yes, it is Oso3D's felinefolk. I think they make perfect Caitians. 

  • RedfernRedfern Posts: 1,602

    Ronwald said:

    Redfern said:

    "Snipped"

     

    I've always thought the Caitians were a species which should have been more on display in later incarnations of Trek. There were a lot of things in the Filmation animated series I thought were great.

     

    You've probably heard or read the story that Gene Roddenberry wanted to exclude or disavow the animated series shortly after "Next Generation" reached the air.

    The reality is considerably weirder.  In the late 80s Filmation (the animation studio that produced the 1973 cartoon adaptation of Star Trek) closed shop and was purchased by the French division of L'Oreal.  Yes, the makeup company!  I won't blame you if you think I'm "blowing smoke".  Well, here's proof, or at least reasonable evidence.

    https://americanradiohistory.com/Broadcasting_Individual_Issues_Guide.htm

    (Scroll to page 94 for the short article in question.)

    Basically, the company wanted to diversify into different markets, including, strangely enough, animation.

    So how does this tie into the absence of Caitians, Edosians and other things from the cartoon in later Trek productions?  In a nutshell, it was a question of ownership.  Characters, ships, locations and other elements that previously appeared in the 1966 series, well, they were owned by Paramount, no debate.  But charcaters like M'Ress or Arex, planets like Dramia or Magus-Tu that were created for the cartoon series, who exactly owned them?  Was it Paramount as those elements were expansions upon the Trek IP, or did they belong to Filmation and by extension of its buy-out, L'Oreal?

    Until those questions could be decided within a board room with contracts agreed upon and signed, Paramount could not risk referencing those elements in any new material, be it a live action series, a movie, or even a comic book.  Fans who bought DC's run of Star Trek during the 80s may recall Paramount asked several characters to be dropped around the time "Next Generation" was being developed including Arex and M'Ress whom Peter David had re-introduced.  L'Oreal's purchase of Filmation was part of that reason.

    By the time "Enterprise" aired, an agreement apparently was made because that series presented a few subtle references to the cartoon and by the time CBS came into the picture and had the effects for the '66 series "remastered", we had things like the city of "Shi'kahr" (depicted in "Yesteryear") appearing on the horizon in "Amok Time".

    So, really, it was a question as to who really owned the Caitians.  Until CBS/Paramount/Viacom (whomever else is in the mix) could hold aloft a document stating, in essence, "We own M'Ress; deal with it!" they couldn't do anything with the sci-fi cat people.  Then it was just a matter of somebody involved with Trek actually wanting to include them.  The creators of "Star Trek Online" made them playable characters and Mike McMahan subverted the trope of the "sexy catgirl" by introducing Dr. T'Ana in "Lower Decks".

  • RonwaldRonwald Posts: 71

    Redfern said:

    So, really, it was a question as to who really owned the Caitians.  Until CBS/Paramount/Viacom (whomever else is in the mix) could hold aloft a document stating, in essence, "We own M'Ress; deal with it!" they couldn't do anything with the sci-fi cat people.  Then it was just a matter of somebody involved with Trek actually wanting to include them.  The creators of "Star Trek Online" made them playable characters and Mike McMahan subverted the trope of the "sexy catgirl" by introducing Dr. T'Ana in "Lower Decks".

     

    I had never heard Filmation had been purchased by someone else.  I had just assumed Roddenberry didn't like the Animated Series for whatever reasons and declared it wasn't canon.

    Thank you for the information. It explains a lot.

  • RedfernRedfern Posts: 1,602

    Ronwald said:

    Redfern said:

    SNIP

     

    I had never heard Filmation had been purchased by someone else.  I had just assumed Roddenberry didn't like the Animated Series for whatever reasons and declared it wasn't canon.

    Thank you for the information. It explains a lot.

    To clarify, Roddenberry in the late 80s did start to consider what he thought was "official" material, partially spurred by his disappointment with "Star Trek V: the Final Frontier".  He also had a personal assistant named Richrad Arnold who kinda' built up himself as being something of an official spokesperson for Roddenberry.  Arnold openly disliked the Filmation series and used his position to "speak for Gene".  Now, if these were the only factors that caused the exclusion, Paramount could have easily reversed that "declaration" upon Roddenberry's passing.  But it went deeper than that and proved to be a matter of legal ownership.

    Obviously, the issue was eventually settled because we now have M'Ress getting some fun scenes in a Trek/Transformers crossover comic, Caitians as playable characters in Star Trek Online, Dr. T'Ana as a main character in "Lower Decks" (already exceeding minutes onscreen with dialogue compared to M'Ress) and even a piece of physical merchandise (beyond comic art) in the form of a hanging ornament of M'Ress by none other than Hallmark!  (Yes, I have the figurine!)

  • I always liked Caitians as well.  Here's a little beauty I cooked up for some of my patrons.  Looks like she's maybe investigating the latest mishap on the holodeck.

     

    catian.png
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  • Redfern said:

    Ronwald said:

    Redfern said:

    "Snipped"

     

    I've always thought the Caitians were a species which should have been more on display in later incarnations of Trek. There were a lot of things in the Filmation animated series I thought were great.

     

    You've probably heard or read the story that Gene Roddenberry wanted to exclude or disavow the animated series shortly after "Next Generation" reached the air.

    The reality is considerably weirder.  In the late 80s Filmation (the animation studio that produced the 1973 cartoon adaptation of Star Trek) closed shop and was purchased by the French division of L'Oreal.  Yes, the makeup company!  I won't blame you if you think I'm "blowing smoke".  Well, here's proof, or at least reasonable evidence.

    https://americanradiohistory.com/Broadcasting_Individual_Issues_Guide.htm

    (Scroll to page 94 for the short article in question.)

    Basically, the company wanted to diversify into different markets, including, strangely enough, animation.

    So how does this tie into the absence of Caitians, Edosians and other things from the cartoon in later Trek productions?  In a nutshell, it was a question of ownership.  Characters, ships, locations and other elements that previously appeared in the 1966 series, well, they were owned by Paramount, no debate.  But charcaters like M'Ress or Arex, planets like Dramia or Magus-Tu that were created for the cartoon series, who exactly owned them?  Was it Paramount as those elements were expansions upon the Trek IP, or did they belong to Filmation and by extension of its buy-out, L'Oreal?

    Until those questions could be decided within a board room with contracts agreed upon and signed, Paramount could not risk referencing those elements in any new material, be it a live action series, a movie, or even a comic book.  Fans who bought DC's run of Star Trek during the 80s may recall Paramount asked several characters to be dropped around the time "Next Generation" was being developed including Arex and M'Ress whom Peter David had re-introduced.  L'Oreal's purchase of Filmation was part of that reason.

    By the time "Enterprise" aired, an agreement apparently was made because that series presented a few subtle references to the cartoon and by the time CBS came into the picture and had the effects for the '66 series "remastered", we had things like the city of "Shi'kahr" (depicted in "Yesteryear") appearing on the horizon in "Amok Time".

    So, really, it was a question as to who really owned the Caitians.  Until CBS/Paramount/Viacom (whomever else is in the mix) could hold aloft a document stating, in essence, "We own M'Ress; deal with it!" they couldn't do anything with the sci-fi cat people.  Then it was just a matter of somebody involved with Trek actually wanting to include them.  The creators of "Star Trek Online" made them playable characters and Mike McMahan subverted the trope of the "sexy catgirl" by introducing Dr. T'Ana in "Lower Decks".

    Other elements no doubt complicating things to take into account:

    Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

    Question: did Paramount, Filmation, or Larry Niven own these guys?

    (and with the 1974 notes of the biography of M'Ress further making a mess of things by stating Caitians were offshoots of Kzinti, thus making Larry Niven yet ANOTHER direct stakeholder on our favorite Communications Officer)

    And in addition, there were Caitians (& Kziti in later editions) playable in the 1982 Star Trek RPG

    Fun times to be a lawyer back then :D

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • RonwaldRonwald Posts: 71

    xialiubei said:

    I always liked Caitians as well.  Here's a little beauty I cooked up for some of my patrons.  Looks like she's maybe investigating the latest mishap on the holodeck.

     

     

    Excellent image! 

  • RonwaldRonwald Posts: 71

    Ryuu@AMcCF said:

    Question: did Paramount, Filmation, or Larry Niven own these guys?

    (...snip...)

    (and with the 1974 notes of the biography of M'Ress further making a mess of things by stating Caitians were offshoots of Kzinti, thus making Larry Niven yet ANOTHER direct stakeholder on our favorite Communications Officer)

     

    I believe the Kzinti belong to Niven as they are a part of his Known Space universe. He's published a series of books about the Kzinti over the years, including a stack of them after 1974 and there wasn't any mention on the copyright page of Paramount or Filmation.

    I had heard there were plans for an appearance by the Kzinti in the fifth season of Enterprise. But that fell through when Paramount decided to cancel the series.  Apparently Niven had given them his okay.

  • genejokegenejoke Posts: 129

    Yep, and given that Kzinti are mentioned in Picard and there's a Kzinti crew member in Lower decks says a lot. 

  • Yeah, IIRC, the ST:TAS episode "Slaver Weapon" started out more or less as an adaption of the Known Space short story of the same title.... but made heavy changes to it to rework it into a Star Trek story, since they had to swap out the humans in it with the regular Star Trek crew (who clearly were VERY different characters from the ones in the story) and replace the human ship with a Starfleet shuttlecraft, though I gather they changed some other things in it, too.  I'm not familiar enough with the original short story to know what all they changed, though.

  • xialiubeixialiubei Posts: 71
    edited October 2021

    Ronwald said:

    Excellent image! 

    Thank you!  Actually spent quite a bit of time on that one.  It's harder to make a sexy catgirl than it seems.

    Post edited by xialiubei on
  • RedfernRedfern Posts: 1,602
    edited October 2021

    Too many interesting comments from different people to trying "quoting" using this forum's buggy software, so forgive if I just summarize things.

    The Kzinti (as an IP) IS and interesting case.  They are, ultimately, Niven's concept, so for Trek's owners (CBS, Paramount, Viacom, et al) to use them (at the time of this post), contracts or deals are made on a case by case basis.  This was discussed upon the TrekBBS and a member did provide a link quoting the showrunner of "Picard".  (At present, I'm still trying to find it.)  Basically, he reached out to Niven for permission and an arrangement was made for Jean-Luc to mention them.

    This makes the situation in "Lower Decks" rather intriguing.  Not only does it go further to reveal a Kzinti on camera, he appears in more than one episode and actually gets a few lines in "The Spy Humonguous"!  I wonder what kind of deal was made for that.

    I gotta, switch to my company laptop for work, so I'm cutting this post short.  I'll continue later.

    Post edited by Redfern on
  • https://www.daz3d.com/the-heist-outfit-for-genesis-81-male

    I think this would make a good base for some uniforms maybe...

  • xialiubei said:

    Ronwald said:

    Excellent image! 

    Thank you!  Actually spent quite a bit of time on that one.  It's harder to make a sexy catgirl than it seems.

    Have you no respect for Andrew Lloyd Webber ?

  • RedfernRedfern Posts: 1,602

    I researched a few publishing dates to illustrate a point.  Niven's Kzinti reached a reading audience some 8 months before the original Star Trek debuted on NBC.  The story story was titled "The Warriors" and appeared in the February 1966 issue of "IF" magazine.  "The Soft Weapon" was publish 12 months later, February 1967 for the same publication.  I knew Niven created them independently of Trek, and that initial publication date drives home the point.

    Hop to the early 70s when the animated Star Trek was being developed.  Alas, I don't have a quote I can link to prove the following, but I feel certain I read some passage that Niven reasoned animation might be the most logical way to adapt his works to a larger mainstream audience.  He must have considered it a viable opportunity because "The Soft Weapon" was actually his second submission to D.C. Fontana who served as the day to day producer of the cartoon adaptation.  His first was an original treatment which Fontana rejected and Niven later developed into "The Borderlands of Sol" (at least according to the Wiki article for "The Soft Weapon").

    So, in a nutshell, the Kzinti are flat out Niven's creation and he has merely "loaned" them to Trek on and off over the decades on a "case by case" basis.  Whatever happened within closed doors, it looks like "Lower Decks" got a pretty sweet deal!  Heh, heh, it would be funny if LDs can show them, even give them dialogue, but they can not be addressed as Kzinti either in dialogue or text on screen.  I'm NOT claiming that is the case, just that it would be a humorous twist.  (Now watch this silly thought turn into a game of "telephone" with fans months from now claiming it as undeniable fact.)

  • ericolsenericolsen Posts: 350

    Hey guys!  Been away for a while, I'm just getting back into some Trek fun here.  I thought I'd share something I noticed about the snazzy SC20 Botanical Garden product available in the store--just for fun, it works quite well as an interesting (IMO) portion of cylindrical transport containers used by the Ptolemy-class ships (for fans of the old Franz Joseph designs).  The scale and shape of the SC20 set is almost perfect for this.  I boosted the height of the side walls/ceiling by 5%, and then it nearly fits perfectly within a transport container.  (The far edges don't, but those aren't visible when the set is inside an appropriately-scaled container module, and one could tinker with the x-scale if one really cared about such things, which I don't for just fooling around).  This is actually two copies of the Botanical Garden set laid end to end, with a couple quick-and-dirty turbolifts and doors added. And TOS props, thanks to the usual suspects.

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  • ericolsenericolsen Posts: 350

    Speaking of the Kzinti, I recall that David Gerrold did some fun stuff with them in his Voyage of the Star Wolf, although when he re-tooled it to not be in the Trek universe the names changed etc. But I liked his treatment of the feline folk. 

  • RedfernRedfern Posts: 1,602
    edited October 2021

    Here's my contribution to the "clowder", a simplr full body portrait of M'Ress, but one in which I tried to replicate the pose of the Hallmark brand hanging ornament released a few years ago as a convention exclusive.

    The base figure is Aiko 3 with face pose I "dialed up" years ago.  The uniform is Oshikai's freebie retro-dress with the Trek texture set.  The hair is Ali's HR-086.

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    Post edited by Redfern on
  • randym77randym77 Posts: 276

    GRFK DSGN Unlimited said:

    https://www.daz3d.com/the-heist-outfit-for-genesis-81-male

    I think this would make a good base for some uniforms maybe...

    That is a useful looking outfit.

    Though I still think Valiant/Courageous are the best for uniforms. The long tunic can be shortened via material zones into just a shirt, or be a TOS style uniform dress, or even a long, Deanna Troi type dress. The pants have morphs to tuck into the boots, for uniforms with boots, and can also fit over the boots so they look like shoes. Wish someone would make outfits like that for newer figures.

    Loving all the cat people...

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