Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Unity (Star Trek: Voyager)" in English language version.
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 modeler 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.
Actually it is really the other way around for new effects. They have created nice stock shots that are repeated throughout the series but when we do a show we do basically all of the effects except for the stock shots (ship in space with basic starfield), most phasers and transporter effects, and a few others. 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.
