Mac Port Project Underway

As you may have read on our Facebook page, we're currently exploring the possibility of porting LCARS 47 to Mac OS X and above.

There's no major news on the front, but we thought we'd let you all know what we're up to and why Drydock is a bit behind schedule. We should have a beta of LCARS 47 for Mac available soon.

Until then here's a photo of the LaunchCenter running on Mac OS X—we had to take a photo because Stefan's Mac had no Internet and no USB ports.

LCARS Anticuus Popularity

It seems that LCARS Anticuus is rapidly growing in popularity lately. Those of you that already have the beta that was released as part of 6.2 should be fairly familiar with its layout.

In light of this, we're going to start putting more work into it and really start filling it out. By the end of October, we should be ready to release Anticuus v1 as part of the LCARS 47 version 6.2.1 update. So, if you have any ideas that you think might work well with Anticuus, let me know as soon as possible.

The things already on the list are Drydock functions Champaign functions (if you haven't noticed already with the beta, you can edit the ship name and registry in Anticuus as you would with Prolixus and Vexillum, just find the right config files in the install directory), ship's logs, mission logs, Roster and other such stuff. We'll also be adding some really classic sound files that should make fans of the TOS movies feel rather nostalgic.

In the meantime, if you haven't already downloaded version 6.2, go do it, have fun and Boldly Go.

Windows Thinks You're Too Stupid to Use this Feature and has therefore Disabled it. Access Denied

For those of you having issues with Windows 7's childproofing and can't edit any files. (Eleanor says that Windows 7 inherits its 'attitude problem' from Vista).

• Either manually take control of the LCARS 47 directory after installing as an Administrator under compatibility mode with XP Service Pack 3, or
• Enable the hidden default administrator account typing:
  net user administrator /active:yes into CMD. Of course, you'll need to run CMD as an Administrator, after taking an IQ test, followed by going on a quest to get the secret password after saving Princess Vienna before you are allowed to hit the "Enter" key... But fear not, my noble quest goer, once you enable the admin account, you can rejoice in baby-proof free computing.

Also, do this at your own risk. Eleanor ain't responsible if you mess stuff up (or get killed by a dragon while you're doing the quest).

6.2 Published

LCARS 47 version 6.2 has now been published and is ready for download. Have fun.

The LCARS 47 Dev Team

Quattuor Celebrationes

It's a special time here at LCARS 47. We've been working on Prolixus for a year, and version 6.2 is upon us. To top that, this is our 100th blog post and we've just passed 30,000 page views since opening up the Dev Blog.

Version 6.2 will be released on Friday as promised, so check back then and get ready to experience even more customization options including, cutsom mission files such as your ship's assignment, custom mission logs, an improved Drydock with interactive animated cutaway diagrams, class-unique alert sirens remastered from the series, tons of new database files and loads more.

Prolixus isn't the only one getting a bit of TLC, Vexillum has had a few touch ups and we're releasing 2 new public betas (Anticuus, the older LCARS and HaSta the full-on Klingon computer). There will also be a production alpha version of Project Alvearium. If that's not enough for you, we're hosting a Skype conference call on launch night, details here.

Cardassian Alphabet - Part 2

In my last post, I told you about the basic workings of the Cardassian alphabet, this time around, I'm going to tell you how it all strings together (I promise there will be no big, complex words in this one).

Cardassian is written in both horizontal and vertical lines. The direction of reading is variable, although there are some typical indicators within a line of text and a paragraph that give the reader clues as the reading direction:

Cardassian text incorporates 3 primary punctuation marks and one secondary mark: for want of better names, I will call them small circle, large circle, paragraph circle and large dot.

• The small circle and large circle resemble a small and large circle respectively, outlined. There use is to generally give the reader a general sense of direction in reading a paragraph: text is read away from a small circle and toward a large circle.  
• The paragraph circle does what it's name says, marks paragraphs. usually, although by no means exclusively, it marks the beginning of a text.
• The large dot is used to cap the end of lines.

Cardassian text is usually overlaid over a central line, however it can be written without this central line where necessary. When this is the case in a paragraph, it's usually because the written information is of secondary importance, or is an annotation to the main line of text.

The overall writing direction for Cardassian is preferably from top to bottom, however, bottom to top is not uncommon.  Finally, letters can be written in a reverse direction; flipped horizontally in relation to the letters in a text, this serves a similar function to italics in English.

In the final part (which I promise will be shorter), I'll discuss numbers.

LCARS 47 v6.2 Release Schedule

Short post, but I thought I'd give you guys a copy of the release schedule.

Via Google Docs: http://i.lcars47.com/ReleaseSchedule

No Federation Sick bay should be Without...

As you probably know from yesterday's post, I've been working with 3D, specifically working on an animation that will form part of the Sickbay systems. Today, I've taken a break from the 3D and started to work on some more 'traditional' animations.

You will of course, remember the "Patient Biomedical Scan" monitors from various Sickbay monitors. This proved to be a tricky animation to get just right but I think I got it just the way I wanted it. There's an option to switch the animation for a flat-line where vital signs will slowly fade.

Sadly, there were no medical sounds in Star Trek: Nemesis to use as event sounds for this animation. With that said, I'm gonna get to work remasteing some audio from Star Trek: Voyager so they sound like they'd be from Nemesis so they fit with the theme. You're now cleared to go on away missions, because in the next update, LCARS 47 has you covered...

3D and the Lack Thereof

It always annoyed me that LCARS 47 didn't have 3D elements in there. There were a few tiny 3D elements, but they were done on the fly and let's face it, they're pretty crude. Other bits just 'look' 3D through perspective trickery.

Well, all that's about to change. I just learned 3DS Max... This image will become part of a "Molecular Analysis" animation for the medical systems. Click the image to the right to see an animated GIF version. It's basic, but it's 3D. So far, my skills are limited, but I'm told I have a warped mind, so I should be able to pick it up fairly fast.

Thankfully there are a ton of 3DS starships out there on the Internet already meshed up thanks to the generous contributors of places like Scifi-Meshes and so on, so I guess there's no knowing how far we could take this.

Cardassian Alphabet - Part 1

 

This is the first of a two part post about the Cardassian alphabet we have come up with here at LCARS 47. It is, to say the least, a bit complicated to explain, but I will try my best to keep it concise and understandable. So here goes...

In analyzing the the Cardassian text in Star Trek, I noticed several things of interest:

• There are a lot of rectangular letters...
• Some of the rectangular letters have one, two or three rectangles cut out of the top of them.
• One or two dots occur in texts frequently between the main rectangular letters.
• Text can run horizontally or vertically, left-to-right or right-to-left

All of this indicated that something a little more intricate than a simple alphabet was going on. I decided to look to Star Trek for examples of Cardassian words, names, and phrases to give me a clue about what kind of sounds a written language should be representing. There were very few actual Cardassian words to go on, but there was a large number of names of things, such as people, planets, ships, etc.. This gave me the clue that the phonology of Cardassian was as complex, of not more so than English.  

At this point I looked to inspiration in the other languages of the world, and noted with interest the Caucasian languages of South West Russia and the Caucasus Mountains. These languages (in particular the Northwest Caucasian languages) have very few vowels (usually just "ah" and "uh"), but very intricate consonant systems: the consonants have secondary articulations such as palatalization (pronouncing a consonant simultaneously with a "y" sound), labialization (rounding the lips simultaneously to give a "w" sound), and pharyngealization (a tightening in the throat). These secondary articulations affect the two basic vowel sounds to give the languages more actual vowel sounds than there appears to be at first glance.

Taking all this into account, I decided that Cardassian phonology should be based on the Caucasian languages. Based on all of this data, I can break down the Cardassian alphabet as follows:

• There are 37  basic consonants, many more than English.
• Cardassians has a three-way distinction between stops consonants and affricates: voiceless & voiced (like in English) and ejective (pronounced with a glottal stop;  the sound in-between the "uh" and "oh" in "uh-oh").
• There are only 3 base vowels: a schwa or "uh", which is unwritten; "a", written with one dot; and "ah", written with two dots.
• Most of the consonants can have secondary articulations: palatalization, indicated with one rectangle in the upper corner of a letter; labialization, indicated with two rectangles; and pharyngealization, indicated with three rectangles. 
• The secondary consonant articulations effect the pronunciation of the base vowels: after palatals, "uh" becomes "i", "a" becomes "e" and "ah" becomes "ae"; after labials, "uh" becomes "u", "a" becomes "o" and "ah" becomes "oh".
• Pharyngealized consonants don't affect the pronunciation of the basic vowels too significantly, but they do give the syllable a slightly creaky sound.
• The semi vowel consonants, "y" and "w" affect the vowels the same way the secondary articulations do.
• At the end of a syllable, "y" and "w" lengthen and alter the preceding vowel.

In part two, I will discuss writing direction, paragraphs & punctuation, and anything else I've left out of here, because this is beginning to turn into a novel!

For Cardassia!

403 Bandwidth Exceeded

Okay guys this is becoming a major problem for LCARS 47. Users are reporting issues when viewing image on LCARS47.com and our Facebook page. The error message is because it's maxing out our image hosting bandwidth (currently Google).

I know that those of you that are reading this are not responsible; it's the bots that crawl through our pages in search of stealing wallpapers and hotlinking. Either way, it's killing our bandwidth and subsequently affecting the quality of LCARS 47. Please accept our apologies while we rectify this issue.

MSD Cutaway Development Videos

If you're with us on Facebook, the chances are, you've already seen these videos. If not, we've uploaded them to YouTube.