Here is a new thread to follow work on the Diplomatic and Espionage Backdrops.

Mike is working to add the Diplomatic and Espionage features, among
other things, to make the game more playable. These require two new
UI windows for these features for each major race. The windows will be
2560 x 1600 window. The backdrops will use the layout provided by Slim's
idea sketches.

(Slim is a professional graphic novel and game artists. His work can be seen
in such games as Star Trek Online. First credit for the backdrops will be
Slim's with those of use doing finish work getting secondary note.)



Work is currently asigned:

Federation - Anti-Distinctlyminty
Cardassians - Captain Bashir
Dominion - Corny2x
Romulans - Kenneth of Borg
Klingons - Anjel


The art work for these windows is not secret and can be displayed online
here. The way Mike will design game play of Diplomacy and Espionage
remains, for now, top secret.

Slim hopes to have the Federation Espionage, and Klingons done by this Sunday. The Dominion will follow.

If you play Star Trek Online you will be seeing some of Slim's work. He did a number of the backdrops down on the planets in the game.

He also is in touch with some of the people working on the new Star Trek films. There are rumors about the next two films done as a two film sequence, who the villain / villains will be and actors. They will have to kill me if I say more.

I talked to Slim again this weekend. He is aware of the aspect ratio issue.


His original Tal Shiar expanded on a 2560 by 1600 frame looks like this. It leaves a black bar where falling short of the window frame. He will be adapting his drawings to fit the 1.6 wide by 1 high ratio.


He decided he wants a more "realistic" look as is seen in a 3D render. I will do the Tal Shiar in Blender instead. It will take longer to complete as will the Romulan Senate. Also he wants to stay close to his layout. I will not add any extra figures or equipment.

Early work by Captain Bashir on the Obsidian Order image.

I'm still working on it. CB

I just got off the phone with Slim. The key features he wants to see
is staying true to the layout. Do not change the focus. He is working
on some suggested color schemes for us as well.

@Captain Bashir
That Cardassians emblem should be OK as it does not change the focus of
the image. The Cardassians are still spying on others and their own here.

I dropped the toon look I was doing in my painting and went with a render
form 3D to look more like what Captain Bashir is doing and more like what
Slim is use to. Here is the first stage of work on the new Tal Shiar image.
This is just the outer background walls, floor and ceiling for the Tal Shiar
center and even that will get some more refinements.

Slim gave us suggestions on the Federation Diplomatic image. Here is what he said and the image he sent.

"The main building should be the focus, everything is is not as important in aspects of color. buildings surrounding it should be pale (light greys, light tans or other colors will pop the main building out) in comparison. Keep in mind the shadows and figures and how they render the Daedalis (USS Cousteau) is up to them. They do not need to abide by my colors, but the main building should look like the proud federation building it is."

Here are two suggestions from Slim for the color schemes for the card diplomatic. Try to be consistently warm or cold colors as seen on the left and right but not both.

Slim wrote:
"I did two version in one. On the right using traditional flames of yellow and red to illuminate the frame and the violet flames in the center.
Regardless of the color you chose it should illuminate everything and be part of every part of the picture. They can choose whatever color they wish, a glowing yellow green, a shiny violet or red...Whatever.
It is pretty straight forward, but keep in mind King Garak and Damar are on fire. I wanted the city to be a burning inferno of industrial might and pollution. My vision of Cardassia's re-emergence was King Garak pouring everything into making his world a powerhouse."

It looks better without the overpowering green.
A lot of Romulan ships are in green but
the rest of their culture does not use it much.
I have a lead on some humanoid figures to save
time on building them myself.

Here is a section of the Rom Senate with color added by Slim.

I will ask vjecko about a textured planed or two to use in Blender for this.

Slim writes:
Comments: Two ways of doing this 1. Using a one color theme throughout like a green or red or how I did it here. Knowing the Romulan single moon, which is a red mars type planet and the fact that Remus is is facing away from the sun so in this view the rotation faces the dark side where the Remuns live...I did with molten lead and cracks of light colors and some of the moons red highlight. The sky has stars in it not shown and graduates to pale green clouds...Now this is markers so not easy to blend, but you get the idea.

The city itself a combo of ogre, green and grays...The ship being build on the right is a metallic light ogre...

Slim sent a preliminary drawing for the Federation Espionage. The final product will be out in a few days. He added a reference to section 13.

In the mean time I have been learning how to pose human animated figures. There is a femanoid Romulan in the image now. Vjeko is
working on a texture to put on her video wall. I hope to lay in some transparent layers in front of her to give the wall a holographic look.
I need to make her clothing hang better. The side wall are temporary.

I decided to start over and redo most of the original image. The ceiling was too low and I couldn't get a good camera angle on it. There are still details to add from Slim's drawing and I will be working on those. I am also not happy with the edge bevel and specularity of the oval disk-shaped machinery to the left of the catwalks. And of course it needs Cardassians (there are 14 in the original picture!!). I am pretty pleased with most of the color scheme. Your opinion Kenneth?

Captain Bashir

That is looking very nice. I have some humanoid figures in .blend. If you like I could try to export them to your format.
Information like UV mapping and rigging tends to get lost on an export though. I will likely darken the final render and
cut down on the color saturation before I am done. As a background I would like mine to be low key on the amount and
variety of colors.

Here is a downsized version of a texture vjeko made
for me to use on the Romulan video wall. OMG
Thanks and great work.

I translated the Romulan text and the answer is yes.

Thanks, glad to help.

OMG. That's brilliant! It'll really set off the Romulan Intel screens with images like this on their consoles. Nice touch having info on all of the other empires on the same screen too. But the pictures themselves *look* like they're parts of some spy mission, with cloaked ships scanning Federation shipyards, and acquisitions of Klingon construction charts. Great work mate!

Slim has outdone himself with this one.
It is Klingon Diplomacy. The city is
Mentas Kor rather than the usual
view of the council chambers. All these
images are intended to be early in
the time line and the ships are early.

I am guessing this is the Klingon
diplomat returning from a successful
negotiation of terms of surrender.


Fed Espionage is coming along soon.

Here is more about the Klingons from Slim:

The Klingon Diplomacy is the ancient city of Kovor. I hope your noting the names I give you...
Now I researched un seen cities. Kovor is where foreign guests are entertained and tested. Since no outsiders are permitted audience with the Emperor or Council without their permission. Another words they call you.
Kovor is were the test your resolve and warrior spirit, to talk of famous battles, and honored dead. They are not interested in trifles and diplomacy. The Klingon Imperial Diplomatic Corps (KIDC) are honored elite warriors selected for ambassadorship. If one meets with you. It is here where he entertains you as an honored guest, but you better come prepared. Their agenda is never stopping war or keeping peace, but carrying out Council agendas. Their missions are not failures if war breaks out, they are highly rewarded, but by gaining territory or needed materials. They are also praised as conquering heroes if they attain military alliances.


Think of it as a Bar with food and drink. The Klingons operate their Espionage like Ninjas and Diplomacy like Samurai. The warrior in front is bringing a fresh kill of their native (Boar) to honor the delegation in coming. The City of Kovor is one of their most sacred and prestige's locations. It is where 10,000 Klingon warriors fought off an invasion force of 250,000 from a race called Hur'q Empire, a highly advanced civilization, who still battle them along bordered space. The great city of Kovor is strictly used to hunt and entertain and the large domes are arenas of various warrior games. I have a feeling your holding on to my explanations to post later. Forgive my spelling. You have the City of Vospec and Kovor. A nice combo.

Hope that explains it. (above)

Below is the Kliongon Espionage.
Here is what Slim said:
The Klingon Espionage Piece
Is the great City of Vospeq

Now as you view this it is a meeting place for the council where espionage agents report or die. Since the Klingons do not believe in deceitful spies and simply take what they want. They either succeed or have to do battle to save their honor.

In the game they can gain great honor if successful two ways, getting what they want or through succeeding in hand to hand battle both increasing prestige and power.

I created this picture to show a sort of council meeting area and death pit at he same time. Surrounded by the great city of Vospeq and it massive library of secrets. Famed Klingon houses can arrive and access any information within the great klingon archives. The background is the saturn planet of Hog mar with transparent images of famous spies. The male a famous Romulan centurion with his fake romulan ears and the bumps lightly done to show his true heritage, and a Federation officer/ Klingon hero...

Here is Federation Espionage: Missing in this early version is the sign that reads "Section 31" on the door in the back and "Do Not Disturb."

Slim write:
I also changed their uniforms to give them JJ-Period look as I said, to show Section 31 has been around a long time and started off as a large org.
I also added more clutter, panels in front of the pair, an andorian officer, and another room in the side wall.

Here is Slim's color comp for the Tal Shiar. This is the color
scheme I will shoot for in the final render.

Section 31 wouldn't have a door with a sign saying "Section 31". In fact they don't have offices or anything. Even in Enterprise, with the first murmurings of a shadowy organisation, they didn't have any true assets. They just had great officers who could use the resources of others without their even knowing...

Slim Writes:

He is correct that they have no established location, but at one point in history they would have. I have read numerous Star Trek books and novellas of all different parallel and versions of the early years of the Federation Espionage called Starfleet Intelligenge and how that would have looked like early on during Archer and Kirks times. In one book, Section 31 in its infancy coordinated with Starfleet Intelligence and perhaps prior to an incident never explained, may have actually worked in the same office (thus my drawing) I contend that though it may not have been called Section 31, that it would have worked similar to many of today's espionage and historic departments. Like the FBI and CIA. Section 31,
Unlike other secret police organizations in the Star Trek universe, such as the Romulan Tal Shiar and the Cardassian Obsidian Order, Section 31 is not an actual branch of government. Unlike those organizations, who are greatly feared within their populaces, Section 31 does not exist to enforce government policy or punish traitors. So Starfleet Intelligence and Section 31 coordinated to weed out spies, traitors and those who would do the Federation Harm. It became a single man show in the end with one mans perverted view of protecting Starfleet from deciding genocide to killing anyone who stood in their way.

Here is some reference material but remember you now have two timelines. Your not bound by any of it.
Whose to say this Section 31 gets it right...

Slim

The cat scratch tower in the center is well underway.
It snowed today so I was able to work undistracted.

"Slim" has asked that we call him TSS in the credits. I will
refer to him as TSS from here on out.


Here are some color suggestions for the Klingon from TSS.
This is done with markers so is not any exacting color
scheme. It is a suggestion for color selection.

Wow Slim sure does nice stuff. I can only try to do it justice. Here is an update as I sort through the detail on the Obsidian Order image. There is a lot there. Vjeko1701 deserves a boatload of credit for most of the viewscreen images. Thanks Vjeko!!!

Captain Bashir.

Thanks for the feedback Captain.
It is looking nice in there.
I know what you mean trying to live
up to the work that TSS has done
in the drawings and color compositions.
He is the pro and do we ever know it now.

It is a slow process as I am pushing
into new features in blender to get
the results called for in his work.
The center tower in the Tal Shiar
had to have what is called a
lattice to get that shape. You build a
tube, stretch it out and then
link it to a lattice to pull the shape
out like putty to get the final form.

Now I will have to do the same with
the wires. After that it is mist and
more people. Boy, are the people
complicated.

I was just thinking the easiest one will be the guy forming on the transporter pad on the tile. CB

Brilliant Klingon concepts, it really captures their warrior spirit. The diplomatic picture remins me of a line in Day of the Dove, Kang's wife says: "We are hunters captain, the Klingon system has only four planets, we must push out if we are to survive"

Oh wow there's been some fantastic developments here since I last posted here! I really like the Klingon composition. The red colouration looks the best to me. Reds, yellows, and browns definitely are the colours that best represent the Klingons, and the red image simply enforces that.

I like the image with the Romulan woman as well. In front of the rounded area, she almost looks like she's conducting an invisible orchestra.

Keep up the good work guys, your artwork is going to make Supremacy a truly beautiful game.

TSS has a color composition for the Federation Espionage.

Here are the instructions:
"I didn't go crazy here, and its under done. This has several ways to go. I'd get interior color references to the metallic substances used in their interior walls then keep the scene in one tone.
You can choose to make each of these see through screens multiple colors, a bright yellow, blue, red, green but keep in mind the reflection and light sources. If I were you I pick one for all the screens, or at least most of them because of the multi colored fed uniforms. OR make the scene a variation of one color using the glowing screens as your light source. Like a submarine on red alert.
Here I did things in an illuminating sky blue to show what I was speaking of. You can make the characters any color in uniform wise and I made the Section 31 agent a black/grey shirt to separate them. Use whatever colors you wish, but I'd avoid multiple colors with the multiple colored figures. It will clash too much.
The inside of the Section 31 room has an oval star studied screen. As if he is keeping an tight grip on all federation sectors.

The figure sitting with flaming hair is a Fluidean- an elemental race, and purple man in front is another race.
I'd also take out the lime greens...Add your Do Not disturb, section 31 signs and have fun"

Good advice and nice work. I like the idea of keeping the section 31 sign. It will get people going and give Matress something to explain beside when the next update will be online.