Origional Star Trek Stars?
computer magic - Origional Star Trek Stars?-
I don't really want to use this effect, but I was just wondering - how did they create the moving starfields in ST (origional)? Did they have (what it looks like) lots of lights on strings? Or did they have a number of clear plates with dots painted on? Or something else?
Good question.
are you talking for inside looking out windows or outside as the ship flies?
For ST TNG and DS9 window shots they used a black, probably velvet, curtain with broken safety glass sewn/glued/held on with gum when the lights hit it and the curtain was moved, they twinkled, on those shows they probably used CG "screensavers" for the exterior shots.
You might want to look in the archives if you can since this has been asked in one form or another a few times
later
TOm
------------------
What everyone seems to forget is that once we look past race, religion, gender, and all that, everyone on this planet is first and foremost...
...a PERSON
In the original series (Star Trek TOS, to those uninitiated in the ranks of squid-dom) all of the optical effects were generated on film as CGI effects were at least 25 years away. To do the main viewscreen "moving thru the stars" effect, a star field was created, either by poking holes through a large black card, pieces of glitter on black velvet, whatever. This was set in front of the camera, and the camera did a nice,long, slow zoom into the star image. The camera was backwound about 1/2 or 3/4 back to frame 1, the starfield card was switched out for another (or it was rotated 90 degrees) or otherwise made so the stars didn't line up exactly the same, and another long slow zoom was done. Then this action was repeated 'til they had a minute or two of stock starfoeld footage that was reused week after week.
There is a good possibility that each time a new zoom was done, that it faded in at the end of the shot, and faded out at the end, just to keep the stars from "popping" on suddenly. I did a starfield just this was back about 1980 in college using a Bolex.
Even more interesting was creating a warp jump effect by holding the shutter open during the zoom, creating the same stretched stars effect as seen in the first Star Wars movie. All that without the use of a computer!
What they used in alien for the stars was light reflected off pieces of aluminum duct tape. They might have gotten the idea from ST.
All times are ET (US)