The CGI studio model: note add.
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==The ''First Contact'' physical studio model==
==The ''First Contact'' physical studio model==
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When it came to producing {{film|8}}, the producers deemed the original studio model too crude and not detailed enough to hold up to big screen requirements and had both [[John Eaves]] and, briefly, [[Ricardo F. Delgado]] submit design variations.
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When it came to producing {{film|8}}, the producers deemed the original studio model too crude and not detailed enough to hold up to big screen requirements and had both [[John Eaves]] and, briefly, [[Ricardo F. Delgado]] submit design variations. Delgado's obelisk proposal had openings through which the Borg sphere could be clearly viewed, as well as an opening at the top which, according to Delgado, was purely decorative. ({{STTM|1|23}}, p. 54)
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===Design===
===Design===
[[File:Borg cube second variant design process.jpg|thumb|Eave's design process]]
[[File:Borg cube second variant design process.jpg|thumb|Eave's design process]]
[[File:Borg cube design variant.jpg|thumb|left|The obelisk shaped variant Ricardo Delgado submitted]]
[[File:Borg cube design variant.jpg|thumb|left|The obelisk shaped variant Ricardo Delgado submitted]]
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Eaves, the designing process quickly gravitating towards him, started out with experimenting with a tetragonal shape. "''The first one I did was very, very smooth; that was when it was still very large. It was this reflective block and it had all these inset passages you could fly through or other things could fly out of. They said, "OK, that's kind of cool. Let's carry that a little bit further, but not so smooth; we need that Borg detail.(...)I knew that Goodson was going to work on the model - they were going to use brass etch, and there's really no way you can draw it - so what I did was just a guideline for the kind of shapes. I try to do that with all the drawings I do; I leave a lot of the spaces open so the modeler can be part of the creative process.''" Adhering to the producer's wishes Eaves second pass suggested more paneling and large recessed areas. Finding the patterns too regular, Eaves third pass was an effort to break up the regularity. "''That was also rectangular, but it's got a lot of really deep valleys and its got a little round escape sphere on the surface. That one they really liked; they said 'Let's go with that.'''", Eaves continued.
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Eaves, the designing process quickly gravitating towards him, started out with experimenting with a tetragonal shape. "''I did three or four passes in the rectangular shape.''" (''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation Sketchbook: The Movies]]'', p. 208) "''The first one I did was very, very smooth; that was when it was still very large. It was this reflective block and it had all these inset passages you could fly through or other things could fly out of. They said, "OK, that's kind of cool. Let's carry that a little bit further, but not so smooth; we need that Borg detail.(...)I knew that Goodson was going to work on the model - they were going to use brass etch, and there's really no way you can draw it - so what I did was just a guideline for the kind of shapes. I try to do that with all the drawings I do; I leave a lot of the spaces open so the modeler can be part of the creative process.''" Adhering to the producer's wishes Eaves second pass suggested more paneling and large recessed areas, but, "''They liked the idea of the detailing on it; it had ribbon-shaped canyons. They liked the feel of that, but they felt that the pattern was too mathematical.''" Eaves third pass therefore, was an effort to break up the regularity. "''That was also rectangular, but it's got a lot of really deep valleys and its got a little round escape sphere on the surface. That one they really liked; they said 'Let's go with that.'''", Eaves continued.
Upon consideration, however, the producers eventually decided to go along with the established cube design (though the tetragonal shape was later revisited with the [[Borg probe]]) and Eaves went on to rework the cube, "''"The first one was really overly detailed. That's where I started incorporating 45-degree lines all throughout it. They liked that; it was very intricate, but it was too busy, so they had me go with version two. That was the same breakup; I started putting a heavier panel on top of it and incorporating the escape hatch. That was more the direction they were wanting, so Zimmerman had me do a color pass on it. That one has the hatch on the left-handed side; for the very final pass they had me put the hatch on on the right side and they went back to a little finer detail. It was almost going back in a full circle back to the first sketch. It had a little bit of heavier panel but more of the fine-scale stuff.''" During this process the size of the cube was in flux ranging from 3,000 feet to 1,500 feet, the size eventually decided upon, which Eaves himself considered too small. He tried to remedy that by downsizing the detail on his design as to create a sense of scale. At first the circular escape hatch was an prominent feature on the cube, "''As the model went on, they decided to keep the door hidden, so it wouldn't be seen during the attack and wouldn't be revealed until the very last moment. On all the drawings you can see where the port is; that established where on the cube that hatch is, but, in fact you never saw it except for that one where it opens, so really it could be anywhere.''" ({{STTM|1|23}}, pp. 53-58)
Upon consideration, however, the producers eventually decided to go along with the established cube design (though the tetragonal shape was later revisited with the [[Borg probe]]) and Eaves went on to rework the cube, "''"The first one was really overly detailed. That's where I started incorporating 45-degree lines all throughout it. They liked that; it was very intricate, but it was too busy, so they had me go with version two. That was the same breakup; I started putting a heavier panel on top of it and incorporating the escape hatch. That was more the direction they were wanting, so Zimmerman had me do a color pass on it. That one has the hatch on the left-handed side; for the very final pass they had me put the hatch on on the right side and they went back to a little finer detail. It was almost going back in a full circle back to the first sketch. It had a little bit of heavier panel but more of the fine-scale stuff.''" During this process the size of the cube was in flux ranging from 3,000 feet to 1,500 feet, the size eventually decided upon, which Eaves himself considered too small. He tried to remedy that by downsizing the detail on his design as to create a sense of scale. At first the circular escape hatch was an prominent feature on the cube, "''As the model went on, they decided to keep the door hidden, so it wouldn't be seen during the attack and wouldn't be revealed until the very last moment. On all the drawings you can see where the port is; that established where on the cube that hatch is, but, in fact you never saw it except for that one where it opens, so really it could be anywhere.''" ({{STTM|1|23}}, pp. 53-58)
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[[File:Borg Cube movie studio model at auction.jpg|thumb|Movie studio model at auction]]
[[File:Borg Cube movie studio model at auction.jpg|thumb|Movie studio model at auction]]
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For the close-up battle damaged scenes, a sixty-inch side was specifically constructed to showcase battle damage, with especially designed model sections, that could be removed ''and'' replaced, with a burn then airbrushed around the "damaged" areas. John Goodson recollected, "''We had about six pieces on it. They were held in with tiny... [...] little machine screws, really tiny, like what you'd use in your glasses, and these sections would unscrew and come off. And so you'd have these gaping rips in the thing, and then we would take an airbrush with a little bit of gray paint and do kind of a blast mark on it, and you had instant damage. And to repair it, a can of black spray paint, blast the hole [with the paint], do a little bit of touch-up with some color, screw the piece back in, and it was fully restored. It took minutes to change.''" ([[Star Trek: First Contact (Blu-ray)]] special feature, "Industrial Light & Magic – The Next Generation") For the destruction scene of the cube, no less than ten thirty-inch [[Studio model#Breakaway model|break-away model]]s were blown up, supervised by [[Geoff Heron]] to depict the scene, the scene being shot by [[Martin Rosenberg]] from underneath with the high-speed camera protected by piece of plywood that covered the matte box. "''At the end of each take, the matte box was maybe 4" deep in plastic! We knew when the shot was finished when we couldn't see anything!''", Rosenberg recalled. (''[[American Cinematographer]]'', December 1996, p. 70)
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For the close-up battle damaged scenes, a sixty-inch side was specifically constructed to showcase battle damage, with especially designed model sections, that could be removed ''and'' replaced, with a burn then airbrushed around the "damaged" areas. John Goodson recollected, "''We had about six pieces on it. They were held in with tiny... [...] little machine screws, really tiny, like what you'd use in your glasses, and these sections would unscrew and come off. And so you'd have these gaping rips in the thing, and then we would take an airbrush with a little bit of gray paint and do kind of a blast mark on it, and you had instant damage. And to repair it, a can of black spray paint, blast the hole [with the paint], do a little bit of touch-up with some color, screw the piece back in, and it was fully restored. It took minutes to change.''" ([[Star Trek: First Contact (Blu-ray)]] special feature, "Industrial Light & Magic – The Next Generation")
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For the destruction scene of the cube, no less than ten thirty-inch [[Studio model#Breakaway model|break-away model]]s were blown up, supervised by [[Geoff Heron]] to depict the scene, the scene being shot by [[Martin Rosenberg]] from underneath with the high-speed camera protected by a piece of plywood that covered the matte box. "''They blew up several black cubes packed with debris''", stated [[Alex Jaeger]], "''and we were able to match up those blast elements to our model photography.''" As part of the compositing, explosions on the Borg cube's hull were colored green, to match the ship's interior and exterior color motif. (''[[Cinefex]]'', issue 69, p. 109) Rosenberg added, "''At the end of each take, the matte box was maybe 4" deep in plastic! We knew when the shot was finished when we couldn't see anything!''" (''[[American Cinematographer]]'', December 1996, p. 70)
Used only once, though some footage taken for the movie was later used in {{VOY|Unity}}, the model, known as {{stala|1778-0105|Lot 105}}, part of the ''[[40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection]]'' [[Star Trek auctions|auction]], estimated at US$1,000-$1,500, was eventually sold on 5 October 2006 with a winning bid of US$80,000 ($96,000 including buyer's premium), in the process becoming the most undervalued object of the auction.
Used only once, though some footage taken for the movie was later used in {{VOY|Unity}}, the model, known as {{stala|1778-0105|Lot 105}}, part of the ''[[40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection]]'' [[Star Trek auctions|auction]], estimated at US$1,000-$1,500, was eventually sold on 5 October 2006 with a winning bid of US$80,000 ($96,000 including buyer's premium), in the process becoming the most undervalued object of the auction.
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== The CGI studio model ==
== The CGI studio model ==
[[File:Borg cube CGI second variant.jpg|thumb|Foundation's CGI version]]
[[File:Borg cube CGI second variant.jpg|thumb|Foundation's CGI version]]
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As {{USS|Voyager}} approached Borg space in [[VOY Season 3|season 3]] of the series, it was clear they would run into their ships sooner or later as they would in "Unity". Since the VFX of the series was already in the midst of the transition from traditional miniature photography to CGI, the decision was quickly made to make the Borg vessels [[CGI model]]s. [http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/the-borg-cube/] The model was built at [[Foundation Imaging]] by [[Emile Edwin Smith]], who based it on the ''Next Generation'' and ''First Contact'' physical models, elaborating, "''Well, when I built the new cube for ''Voyager'' I based everything off image maps and then modeled around them. To make it real simple I had an underlying cube that was mapped with an image. I then took the main image that I had created into modeller and started building on it. Basically it was large areas of chunkiness raised above the inner cube with many of the detailed areas of the map modeled on these areas. I also interconnected the pieces with tubes and added edge pieces to make it look more dimensional and 3d on the edges.''" [http://groups.google.com/group/comp.graphics.apps.lightwave/msg/089a0449433a508d?hl=en] Making its debut in "Unity", this model was used in every subsequent episode the cube made an appearance in, though some stock footage taken from the ''First Contact'' model was also used. [http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.startrek.current/msg/334263b5fcc57779?hl=en]
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As {{USS|Voyager}} approached Borg space in [[VOY Season 3|season 3]] of the series, it was clear they would run into their ships sooner or later as they would in "Unity". Since the visual effects of the series was already in the midst of the transition from traditional miniature photography to CGI, the decision was quickly made to make the Borg vessels [[CGI model]]s. {{DrexFiles|2009/11/01/the-borg-cube/}} The model was built at [[Foundation Imaging]] by [[Emile Edwin Smith]], who based it on both the ''Next Generation'' and ''First Contact'' physical models, elaborating, "''Well, when I built the new cube for ''Voyager'' I based everything off image maps and then modeled around them. To make it real simple I had an underlying cube that was mapped with an image. I then took the main image that I had created into modeller and started building on it. Basically it was large areas of chunkiness raised above the inner cube with many of the detailed areas of the map modeled on these areas. I also interconnected the pieces with tubes and added edge pieces to make it look more dimensional and 3d on the edges.''" [http://groups.google.com/group/comp.graphics.apps.lightwave/msg/089a0449433a508d?hl=en] Making its debut in "Unity", this model was used in every subsequent episode the cube made an appearance in, though some stock footage taken from the ''First Contact'' model was also used, as Smith has stated, "''In the episode Unity, I built the Borg ship, and we animated 90% of all the visual effects, the other 10% were stock model shots. Of course this varies with each episode, some we do no work on, but that is typical...''"[http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.startrek.current/msg/334263b5fcc57779?hl=en]
== Annika's toy model ==
== Annika's toy model ==