Bridge Commander Universe

**Moonraker** · BCU Mod Team Joined: 17 Nov 2000 Posts: 56

heres a quick setup of common fed registries and the fonts you can use to make your own.

ive often complained about this not being right, so here what it SHOULD look like

ive made a pic at the bottom showing the most common setups. note that this is from TMP on thru eras, no TOS or afterwards till TMP. there are some conjectures about the markings used between TOS and TMP, but ill just leave those out, since they are conjecture anyhow.

the first set ive shown is the typeface normally used on the warp nacelles' reg numbers and the other markings such as 'united federation of planets' in the insignia heralds and on the rear-facing name of the vessel, this is used in all eras mentioned here. now ive seen three versions of the number 1 used on the ships so ive included them all, the middle one is the most common tho. the bottom 1 is apparently used more on most recent TNG era fed ships, even the main registry on some of the very small vessels uses this typeface i.e. the defiant.

the second set is what is most common for the main hull registries on the 'saucer' sections of most ships, as well as behind the bridge module on TMP ships. this typeface is also used for the ship's name above said registry.

the last is most common on TNG era ships, this usually has a dark blue with red outline rather than black with red, and on some ships the area between the blue and the red is white.

there are some ships that dont necesarily follow the rules, as the ambassador class enterprise had all black registries... im sure this was an issue with production time rather than an actual practice.

so there you go, a nice litte guide to fed regs...

ive included the font names that i think best represent the correct typeface, just do a quick search for them if you dont already have them.
the starfleet BdEx Bt might be a little hard to come by, but its out there someplace.

if you have any questions let me know.

AoC|Jeedai Joe! · **Posted**: 02-21-2004 12:07 AM

thanks alot moonraker, ever font I'd found just didn't look right somehow...specially registry fonts

bren · Commodore Joined: 24 Aug 2001 Posts: 1285

If you have those fonts could you attach them to your next post? Thanks.

AoC|Jeedai Joe! · **Posted**: 02-21-2004 07:01 AM

here's both of the fonts

CaptAidy1701 · **Posted**: 02-24-2004 10:17 AM

eR GUYS HOW DO YOU ADD YOUR OWN REGISTRIES TO SHIPS THAT YOU ALREADY HAVE?

AoC|Jeedai Joe! · **Posted**: 02-25-2004 12:13 AM

with a graphics program (Photoshop, Paintshop Pro)....you have to use whatever text tool is in it and do each lettter/number, and possition them into an arc etc....some programs even allow you to arc a whole string of text...

ThunderchiId · **Posted**: 02-26-2004 07:55 AM

How'd you get the red outline around the text?

AoC|Jeedai Joe! · **Posted**: 02-26-2004 09:19 AM

its in the font...its the lettering with outline....use a red font, and flood fill hte lettering with black Smile

..its very good quality...I used this on the blank textures for Kahlban's Connie Refit....this looks like the exact same font used on those...

**starforce2** · **Posted**: 02-27-2004 12:44 PM

http://www.neutralzone.de/archiv/archiv_e.htm

the neutrazone also has alienfonts for various species markings.

Durandal · **Posted**: 03-01-2004 03:33 AM

There's also a nice little page about Federation registries here.

**starforce2** · **Posted**: 03-16-2004 07:54 AM

who here is good at doing these properly for tmp feds?

-Scimitar · **Posted**: 03-16-2004 06:01 PM

You could release the picture with the fonts in the first post as PSD, as some kind of template for fed hull regs

**scotchy** · **Posted**: 03-19-2004 12:54 AM

I cooked up a technique recently for using the fed font that has the outline built in and giving it the proper coloring. I'll make a picture totorial at some near future point, but I'll attempt to write it out so folks can try it before I get a tutorial out.

This lazy text tutorial requires Adobe Photoshop 7 or above... maybe v6... but I've never owned v6.

Step 1: Lay down the registry (NCC-12345)

Step 2: Once the registry is in place and the curvature and shape look fine, RASTERIZE the type layer.

Step 3: With the magic wand tool (with the checkboxes for antialiased and contiguous checked) select the area outside of the text and the holes inside the letters (in this case 4, and the lower part of 5 might give ye trouble). THE ULTIMATE GOAL HERE IS TO SELECT JUST THE OUTER SHAPE OF THE TEXT SO YOU CAN APPLY A LAYER STYLE INNER OUTLINE EFFECT TO IT. Just keep that in mind of the next steps confuse ye.

Step 4: Invert the selection. Ye can do this on the 'Selection' menu up with the filter menu and all that.

Step 5: Paint the entire selection black (or dark blue, whatever is appropriate). Ye can deselect at this point of ye want. If the shape doesn't look right or some letters ran together, try undoing the painting and removing or adding some areas to/from your selection.

Step 6: Apply an inner glow layer style to the registry layer. You can do this by either going into the layer menu (with selection and filter and edit, file... all that up there), or double clicking the layer 'tile' next to the layer name in the layer view window thingy... toolbar-guy.

Step 7: The inner glow effect can be tweaked to apply the original inner outline to the font. White is appropriate on most ships. normal settings, full opacity, medium or high choke, low size, and change the little / looking rollout guy to the /\ one so it just won't be a glow from the edges and will skip some space.

Step 8: Now that you have done this you can add an inner shadow of red. Inner shadow with the distance set to 0 becomes essentially a second inner glow effect. Tweak it as before minus the /\ thing. Once you've done this you start to see how you can use the layer effects to create the registry proper look.

This may sound like a bunch of work to accomplish one registry, but it's very useful if you want to build a number of registries for the given ship and have them all packed into a layer set for easy toggling. Just repeat steps 1-5 and then drag the effects from the already made registry layer to the new one in the layer toolbar, thus copying the layer styles to the new registry saving you the trouble of having to do the work again and again.

Honestly, this approach doesn't take much time at all once you figure it out and produces a VERY clean result. I'll try to get a visual tutorial together soon.

Starfleet Headquarters · **Posted**: 04-11-2004 03:39 PM

**scotchy** · **Posted**: 04-30-2004 02:33 AM

EDIT: Refer to later post.

jdiplock · **Posted**: 05-24-2004 09:54 AM

Also there is alot of Star Trek fonts on: www.trekconnection.com these can be used for regestries and many more things in BC

**scotchy** · **Posted**: 05-29-2004 06:56 AM

Here's the REAL tutorial. Must have mixed up my attachments in the previous post.

tiqhud · **Posted**: 08-28-2004 02:29 PM

starfleet BdEx can be found in the Font pack ,,, possibly have to buy it on ebay now,,, it came on a 3.5 floppy (so you need one )(or someon to put it on CD)

**Moonraker** · BCU Mod Team Joined: 17 Nov 2000 Posts: 56

looks like the first pic is gone... oops

ModderMan · **Posted**: 08-30-2005 04:00 AM

I can't seem to find any good Sov fonts can someone help ?

Rat Boy · Lieutenant Joined: 24 Mar 2002 Posts: 378

Plain old Federation is what's used on the CG Sov 1.0; comes with the registry tutorial. The real kicker is trying to place all the letters and numbers just right so that it's curved at the right angle and spaced out properly. I couldn't figure out how to bend the registry right in Photoshop, so I just manually put in each character and free transformed them until they vaguely looked aligned. Doesn't stand up under close scrutiny, but I can live with that.

ModderMan · **Posted**: 08-30-2005 03:52 PM

kool thx

F9thDaihak · **Posted**: 08-31-2005 12:46 AM

I was just directed to this post, so this is probably old knowledge, but here it goes anyway.

In Photoshop 7, all you need to do is place the ship name (U.S.S. whaterver), and the registry ( NCC - XXXX or NX - XXXX) on two separate text layers, then simply use the Create Warped Text tool, select an Arc shape, and simply adjust the degree to the appropriate size you desire.

Once that's done, and you have the arc of the text as you want it, simply go to Layers, then Layer Styles, and then select Stroke. A window will pop up, and I recommend selecting the size of the Stroke to 1 pixel, set the Position to Inside, and the Blend Mode to Normal. Set the Opacity down to around 70 percent or lower. It all depends on your personal tastes. And have the Fill Type to Color, and simply select the color you wish to use.

This will give you any color border around the registry text, and you should have something very similar to the actual studio production registries used for TNG ships. Use the Starfleet Bold Extended Type font for this.

This is the method I use when doing registries, and the results are quite impressive, and the best part is, you can always go back and change any of the Stroke effects anytime you want, unlike when Rasturizing a text layer, no additional changes can really be made.

Not sure if this process will produce the effects that the BC Community will like, but, for me, it tends to be alot easier.

Just thought I'd share what I know. Attached is a sample of my registry work.

SpawnsDeath1977 · **Posted**: 10-30-2005 07:24 AM

I was digging around in an old box and i found fonts I put on disk years ago. So have fun and enjoy. Twisted Evil

**starforce2** · **Posted**: 11-03-2005 01:32 PM

every time I try to make the text black while keeping the outline red I get the outline red too. WTF?

SpawnsDeath1977 · **Posted**: 11-03-2005 05:09 PM

ok i found that i had this prob when I started.
Use the extended bold and lay out your registries, make sure that you do the registries in black then go to Layer then Layer styles then hit Stroke. Reduce the pixels to 1 then drop then set the postiion to outside, the color to red, blend mode to around 40-50 and the red will be there around the outside and inside of the letters & lookin good.
That should help you out abit Starforce2

**starforce2** · **Posted**: 11-04-2005 04:30 AM

what exactly does stroke do? All I've seen it do so far is blur and bleed things more.

**starforce2** · **Posted**: 11-04-2005 05:45 AM

Ok, I finaly did it. Opinions?

NathanMX · **Posted**: 11-04-2005 01:31 PM

Hey guys, I made alittle tutorial where you don't have to rasterize your text layer. Hope you like it. So you can adjust your text with the right spacing and use it for other regstries. When you have any questions, feel free to ask ...

To starforce2: looks good, maybe the spacing ... But I'm not sure

SpawnsDeath1977 · **Posted**: 11-04-2005 03:42 PM

looks pretty good starforce. Looks like you got it by jove, keep it up and you'll be a master.