Here is the set that I have been working on for the Endeavour. It's still not complete, but it's close.

This pic is if the ship is traveling through the Earth-Link
Click to view attachment

And this is without the Earth-Link
Click to view attachment

The two main elements left is the helm console and the holo panels for all of the consoles

helm console is built. now to finish up the textures and wait for photoshop CS5 to be released later this month so I can use the trial version to make my holo panels

Click to view attachment

That's looking nice.

thanks, just got the doors left and then wait anxiously for a new trial of photoshop for my holo panels!

I've been working on the holographic displays and things. It looks really cool when they're all moving and stuff. Will upload and animation once complete:

Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment

that's working real well.

A test render of the holo-displays in action!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiDDxnMWv70

That looks great.

thanks, here's the display for energy and power:

Click to view attachment

Very nice. That's a great holo effect.

My initial reaction is to suggest breaking it up a little (adding scan lines or something to disrupt the image a little) as it looks a bit too perfect as presented. After thinking about it however the effect simply works and looks fine as is. If going for more realism you may want to add that 'noise' in.

Looking good!

well, it takes place 2,000 years in the future, my "science" behind it is that holo-technology has been perfected now. It interacts like it's real (ie, you can grab a holo panel and move it around, tilt it, walk it from one side of CNC to the other)

That's not what I meant.
Your science works fine for imaginary stories and people.

I'm talking about the aspect of filmmaking that I'm sure you already are aware of; artificial images generally need to be altered for the imagery to appear believable. This is why imperfections are generally added to props and images in big budget movies... to make the images/effects blend in with what is real.

It's that Star Wars 'life-in-a-lived-in-real-world' look versus classical Star Trek 'it's-obviously-a-prop' thing. It's about images with a visible history. In short, imperfection can help with a viewer's suspension of belief as we have an expectation of what is acceptably real. If everything looks perfect then the world doesn't look lived in (i.e. it has no apparent grounding in reality or sense of history) and suspension of belief is harder to achieve.

More info than I meant to relate or that you likely wanted...
If your aim is more stylistic than hyper-realistic then there may be no need.

Added: One of the most effective alterations of CG images can be gained through the use of the Post Effect known as 'Film Grain'.
It's quite handy in adding the imperfections that help us recognize the images playing on our screen as a 'real'.

i do intend to add some noise to the vid in post. I just currently lack the software that does that sort of thing because iMovie decided to not have basic vid effects installed with the program after Version 8.

A:M's 'Film Grain' Post Effect is the one I refer to here. You have that already.

i tried it last night, mind you it was late, but at the moment, I have no idea how the post effects work. All I do know, is bringing animations into AM is very delicate as they have the tendency to constantly crash the program

I didn't get too much work on this today, but I started the helm displays
Click to view attachment