Found & Copied Serenity Deck Plan
POSTED BY: BountyBoy56
UPDATED: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 09:50
VIEWED: 19645
PAGE 5 of 6
Objects in Space has some excellent shots of the guest dorm in the scenes in which Early ambushes Book and captures Simon. In the latter scene, the Tams' hallway looks straight at the red and silver ball sculpture that adorns the wall opposite the infirmary. And, Saffron's room is clearly in a diagonal hallway in the "marry me" scene. I blame early senility.
Anyway, that's the long way of saying that I now agree with CAPNRAHN's diagonal dorm hallways.
There are a bunch of ladders throughout those halls, and I think the guest rooms may be stacked two deep. There certainly seems to be a couple of doors near Early when we're looking up at him as he clings to the two ladders in the Tams' hall. Interestingly, there's only one ladder in the other hallway.
There's also a room behind Simon's, and probably one behind River's. At the end of River and Simon's hall, there's also a short set of stairs (Simon sits on them) leading to a ladder that goes to the ceiling (and presumably through it).
And, the hall that connects the infirmary and guest quarters to the cargo bay appears to be at an angle, placed where there's a diagonal line right next to, and fore of, the infirmary on CAPNRAHN's plans.
In Bushwacked, there's a good scene with everyone watching Simon work on the lone survivor. Kaylee stands on the stairs aft of the infirmary. Wash stands on a short set of curving steps that lead to a door on the fore end, where that diagonal line is. The fore end of the lounge, which is pretty dark, seems to end in a recess filled some large greeblies rather than a door. In other eps and the "marry me" scene (IIRC, but we've seen how that goes), it looks like the door next to Wash leads to the cargo bay.
Of course, that puts the whole infirmary at an angle to the axis of the ship and really messes with the angle of the guest dorms.
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Yes, definitely a lot of unexplained areas left. The front hall is pretty wide and the ladder holes to the crew quarters barely cut into it. So underneath the hall and between the rooms must be more space. Even if only to access the plumbing and wiring. Probably reachable via that room under the bridge.
But then that's what makes them old Fireflys so popular with smugglers and the like. All the nooks and crannies. 
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Quote:
Originally posted by Fortunatus:
My first post!Quote:
Originally posted by Tunnel:
You are correct. There are doors at the back end of the catwalks opposite the main ramp.
They never let on as to where they lead to though.
The deck plans place the doors to the shuttles between the upper and lower decks. The doors at the end of the catwalks are at the same height as the shuttle doors, and would therefore lead to the big blank area between the aft hall and the guest dorm on the deck plans. They were probably put there to give Serenity some room to grow down the road.
You are probably right...listening to the commentary for Serenity again, I noticed Joss said (in reference to the stairs leading down at the front of the bridge, but probably equally applicable to the mystery doors at the back of the catwalk): "...and then, what's down those stairs is something we never established...because you always have to have a few spaces left..."
RIVER
Purple elephants are flying.
MAL
Good. Thanks for the update.
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I'm working on my own version of the interior layout. My disast-- er, work-in-progress area:
Except I've run up against a problem. The CG Serenity and the Serenity stage used for live action filming, are not the same ship! I can't tell if the CG guys got creative, mis-measured, or what. Maybe the stage just makes for a really funny looking ship. At any rate, the interior doesn't fit inside the exterior in two major places.
(currently very crude model, use yer imagination)
1. The arrangement of the dining area, forward corridor, and cockpit. We see many times that there's only 3 or 4 steps up from the forward corridor up into the cockpit. But if you place the cockpit, take 3 steps down, then go straight back, you run out of ship. There needs to be a more substantial flight, perhaps 10-12 steps, to make it fit. Or have the corridor slope downward to match the profile of the 'neck', which it doesn't. Or the cockpit interior would need to be about 25 feet tall, which it isn't.
2a. The passenger berths and common area. If sized to what seems appropriate given the size of the other rooms (the floor plan as far as I can tell was drawn with a 1/2 inch marker, not exactly the best to-scale reference), the common area and medbay will fit, but pushes the passenger berths so far to back at they hang out of the ship in a lengthwise fashion (Z). They're supposed to a little bit, note the steps that Simon sits on when talking to Early, but not this much.
2b. Plus they're simply too wide in the beam to fit anywhere in the ship (X). If the passenger berths are scaled back so that they fit, it becomes a hotel for dwarfs or perhaps broomsticks depending which way you scale it. They almost fit here, but notice how the port and starboard halves of the berths area collide. (this is looking from the top in wireframe, that's the engine room mixing itself in)
There is a slight vertical distance between the cargo bay floor and the common room, perhaps 3 steps, but I haven't modelled that yet. It's going the wrong way anyway, it goes down and we need up.
Does anybody have any suggestions on how to correct these problems to best bring the interior and exterior into parity?
As a side effect of this project I've also found substantal "missing space" in the ship, above the common room. More than enough space for another compartment. Very mysterious.
The idea about the ladders at the end of the passenger berths leading to an engine crawlspace or similar seems reasonable.
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Hopefully I can help with one of your problems
1. Here's a really good picture of the steps leading up to the bridge.
I count ten steps (including the landing).
Editted to add: Here's the original url http://www.average-bear.com/firefly/img/serenity-interior_1. (I left off the jpg suffix so that this shows up as text instead of an image)
I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!
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I think one way to help gain persepctive on the size opf the ship is to start at the shuttles.
On the pictures we have posted on the front page link (Serenity up close) you get a scale of the shuttle on the overhead view.
We know the shuttle cockpit is two seats, close together, probably a 5x4 space, this is directly adjacent to the main shuttle area, which we have seen in good proportion thanks to Inara's outings, and we can estimate it at a 10x12 room.
From there scaling can come into proportion. If you look at the nose of serenity she is the size of a shuttle, the cockpit area has that elongated space down front (couch space)
Abyway, I know that there is "dead" space on the ship, and we can figure a lot of it is mechanical.
Anyway, I'd be interested in seeing your work as it goes. I am doing a fan film and doing an actuial 3d model of the enitre inside of the ship as we are shooting the majority on green screen. So I am keenly working on scale and modeling myself.
Keep up the good work.
www.fof-films.com
Firefly Fan Film - Coming SOON
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Not all of the rooms need be entirely level, do they? Like the crew hallway - couldn't it be sloping down a bit? Not sure how drastic it would need to slop to fit the CG, but...
Or maybe, some rooms are sideways, or upside-down. After all, they do have artifical gravity
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I'd not have a problem with rooms going off in strange directions, not staying all on one plane of orientation, but they don't seem to. That would make for some very bizarre camera work, since the directors were fond of following people as they walked around the ship. What do you do if your actor/s get to a "grav change" area? Methinks it would just make it seem disjointed and awkward, though scientifically acceptable (if you accept the premise that they have localized artifical gravity).
Anyway, with the cockpit, I played some more after seeing the 10-steps-up picture (don't know why I thought it was only 4 steps). It still doesn't fit. The problem is the low spot in the hull directedly forward of the dining area. The fore-corridor's vaulted ceiling must clear that low point, so the fore-corridor's position is a constant. The cockpit's relationship to the fore-corridor is also a constant, the cockpit floor is about level with the bottom of the corridor's vaulting. If you put the cockpit there, it needs to be too tall to meet the top of the front viewports (12 feet?), plus there's not enough space left under it for that little equipment area in the nose.
The passenger area is similarly impossible :) From careful screenshotting, I've noticed that the entire corridor floor in there is cuved upward, not just the end. Good try, set designer people, but 1) the whole area is too wide to fit in the ship at all, curving won't help you and 2) those rooms branch off at a 45, so the curvature of the ship's bulbous butt wouldn't be like that.
A third problem that's surfaced is the relationship between the cargo bay and the common room. The cargo hold is placed high enough in the hull that there's a crawlspace under. We get a good shot of this height in Bushwacked when Kaylee has to get in there. That all works fine. The problem is when you want to get into the common room, there's some stairs leading down. I suspected those were a problem and now know they are: put those in, and it makes the common and passenger areas push out of the ship even farther.
At this point I'm figuring that I'll forget about trying to match up to the exterior hull, and just take the interior as canon.
"This must be what going mad feels like..."
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Quote:
Originally posted by Momaw:
(stuff cut)
The problem is the low spot in the hull directedly forward of the dining area. The fore-corridor's vaulted ceiling must clear that low point, so the fore-corridor's position is a constant. The cockpit's relationship to the fore-corridor is also a constant, the cockpit floor is about level with the bottom of the corridor's vaulting. If you put the cockpit there, it needs to be too tall to meet the top of the front viewports (12 feet?), plus there's not enough space left under it for that little equipment area in the nose.
The passenger area is similarly impossible :) From careful screenshotting, I've noticed that the entire corridor floor in there is cuved upward, not just the end. Good try, set designer people, but 1) the whole area is too wide to fit in the ship at all, curving won't help you and 2) those rooms branch off at a 45, so the curvature of the ship's bulbous butt wouldn't be like that.
A third problem that's surfaced is the relationship between the cargo bay and the common room. The cargo hold is placed high enough in the hull that there's a crawlspace under. We get a good shot of this height in Bushwacked when Kaylee has to get in there. That all works fine. The problem is when you want to get into the common room, there's some stairs leading down. I suspected those were a problem and now know they are: put those in, and it makes the common and passenger areas push out of the ship even farther.
At this point I'm figuring that I'll forget about trying to match up to the exterior hull, and just take the interior as canon.
"This must be what going mad feels like..."
Very good analysis! I've been working on my own plans and cutaways, and am coming up with similar problems. There are several constraints around the ship that limit what you can fit in there. As you mentioned, the low point between the front hall and the bridge is one. The height of the bridge is another - in many scenes we can see the people standing in front of the bridge window. The top of the window looks like it is just above their heads, the bottom at the level of their feet, but comparing it to the side views of the ship overall this would make the people much too tall. But when you scale down the people, the top of the forward window is suddenly 10-12' high!
The little room below the bridge is also a big problem. You have to shrink the scale of the ship way down before there's room for another level down there. For now I'm assuming it is just some sort of electronics room or sensor pod, maybe no more than 5' high. In at least one episode (I wish I noted which one) we see Wash and Mal climbing up the ladder from that area, so it can't be too small.
Another problem is the ladder from the passenger area up to the rear hallway. Remember, the floor of the passenger area is below the floor of the cargo bay. The cargo bay is almost three floors high, with the dining area above. And the dining area is at least a couple of steps below the rear hall. From what we've seen of the ladder going up from the passenger area, and the stairs/ladder it meets at the top (another set, I know), it doesn't look like it goes up high enough.
Another constraint on the scale of the ship is the shuttles. Take the top view of the ship. We see half a shuttle jutting out both sides of the ship. Copy, paste, and rotate those half ships so we can see just how wide the shuttles are, and how far they extend into the body of the ship. Remember that there seems to be a short airlock between the shuttle and the cargo bay. Whatever space you have left between the shuttles (and airlocks) is the maximum width of the cargo bay. And since the cargo bay walls go out as you go up, the floor of the cargo bay is even narrower. If we take a guess at the width of the cargo bay (30'?) we can start to get the scale of the ships.
Also, the floors of the shuttle seem to be only a foot or two higher than the upper catwalk.
Unlike you, I have not had any problem fitting the passenger dorms in t
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