Propstore's Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction: Los Angeles Summer 2024 propstoreauction.com/auctions/catalog/id/397 Learn more about Michael and Denise Okuda's work at facebook.com/Michael.Denise.Okuda vimeo.com/187841208
There is something amazing, when a good graphics design meets a good engineering. In my previous company, we made a warehouse automation from a scratch. And one of the amazing parts was control panels. It was as much "user friendly" as you can imagine. Even a non tech personel could find their way and see what is wrong in a system of hundreds of sensors. It is something incredible, when someone can make a control panel in a way, that even a lame person can at least get a hint why it is there, what it does and where the real device is located. But it takes time to create such beauty and for many people it is too easy to read - tech assistance is much less involved. So in the next company I worked for, I found out what it means a "bad design on purpose" - You have all the info you need to locate a fault on the screen, but it is put forth in so unpallatable way, that you need an hour, a manual and schematics to find out where that malfunctioning sensor or part of the equipment is localised... Even if you know those sitems like your backpocket. And it was all done on purpose.
The Okuda's are why I became a Graphic Designer. Okudagrams were my gateway drug, at age 6 I read in the Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual about what Adobe Illustrator was and who the Okudas were. As a 45yo Creative Director for a major company, I owe my career and a debt of thanks to the Okudas. I've had the pleasure of meeting them and conversing a handful of times in puerson and online, and am forever in their tutelage.
Same! I'm a 42 year old graphic designer, and having all those books of theirs was my first introduction to design as a career. Can't overstate their contribution to media enough!
Same here - I also have a copy of the technical manual since it came out. I am UX / UI developer for a non-profit creating immersive experiences and their work on Star Trek continues to inspire me with everything I do.
Okay I have a legit question and I hope you or someone else can help guide me on this. I regularly make projects at home, or program tools at work, but almost always my roadblock is making something that's aesthetic and user friendly. I just kind of blunt force it. I've always been massively interested in how Graphic Designers come up with their designs but I never could find the toe hold to start learning it. Do you or anyone else have any suggestions on books or resources on the conceptual ideas on how Graphic Designers design? Like everything says "You want there to be balance, and things to flow cleanly".. Like yes but HOW?? I'm sure those ideas don't just miraculously come to people.. They have a starting base of skills and concepts to work with... That's what I'm lacking.
@NickC84 see 2:05 think of organic shapes and flow charts. Would it make sense if "thruster control" was one or two (virtual) "buttons" or several in a line? Would you put directional controls with engine output or separate? I guess the best way to say it is that the graphic design has to make sense in it's own "universe".
@@NickC84 While I can't talk at length about aesthetic, I can do it about user friendliness. "Intuitive" is a bit of a trick word in design, because intuition relies in "common sense", which might differ slightly based on experience. The concept of common sense depends on shared knowledge, so for something to be intuitive it has to rely on a set of expected knowledge. Some knowledge just comes from being human and you can rely on that, but for some specialist tools you might rely on knowledge that comes from the profession. It's very common to see different presentations or dashboards that convey the same information but arranged differently because they're for a different set of people with different backgrounds (and purposes). What I do is answers these questions before designing: - what are the people using this familiar with (not only other apps but OS, paperwork and physical tools) - which processes surround this tool (so we can stay in context from before and after using this tool) - what do people expect to get out of this tool - reading direction (though almost everyone uses left-to-right, top-to-bottom in UI) - expected physical screen size (not only for font and button sizes, but for line length and distance between elements. Can I see the whole screen at once or am I looking at portions?) and while designing I keep these in mind: - spatially group things that work together, respect conceptual ordering if there's any. Think of what's sequential and what's parallel or optional. Consider if collapsing often unused elements is better than having a separate view for them based on known usage patterns. - visually link groups that are related while keeping them separated from those that are unrelated (spatial hierarchy) - important things are larger (just size) or heavier (contrast or thicker lines), but be subtle! don't have too many different levels or it'll be confusing (importance hierarchy) - duplicate groups between views if it makes sense, label them clearly so people will know they're seeing the same in both views - avoid clutter (small mental models mean less mistakes), guide the eye along the expected flow through alignment (if you put some element in a far disconnected corner, it will go mostly ignored, this is why usually search goes at the top of a stack of results). Add visual elements if alignment is not enough (don't make me follow a long invisible line!) - Between views (or any view change, really), think of where the user's eyes are! if I click OK, my eyes are at the OK button when the shift happens. Will I see and understand the effect of clicking it? (say, clicking a button at the bottom takes me to a new view AND makes an icon at the top left change color.... I'll probably miss the icon color change). - KEYBOARD FOCUS SHOULD MATCH READING ORDER, keyboard-only users are faster when the app allows them! - Consider annoyances for repeated use. Dogfooding helps here, but it doesn't always make sense. That was a lot! I should write this down.
@@seth1422 On my bookshelf behind me. I don't remember when I bought it though. I even have the CD Interactive Tech Manual sitting on the shelf above my monitor.
The Okudas are not only legendary, they’re genuine and down to earth. I recall as an LCARS obsessed 14-year old, I stumbled upon Mike’s email address, and sent him a note never expecting a reply. He sent a delightful reply within 24 hours, offering some guidance on creating my own panels at home. Meant a lot to nerdy teenage me.
@@KiraSlith I don’t have it digitally anymore, but I’m almost certain I still have the email printed somewhere in a file. I’ll dig for it and let you know if I find it.
Wil Wheaton has said a few times that he took the Okuda's note to heart about it being designed for him. He had the layout of the buttons all worked out in his head, so setting courses and whatnot was always consistent
Yeah, I remember seeing his interviews about that. Making up your own sequence of stuff. A favorite example of this is in another show with Firefly, with Alan Tudyk's character Wash being the pilot of Serenity. Tudyk made it a point to always flip a trio of switches on the overhead controls before doing anything with the forward dash. On planes you often see the pilot flipping switches on an overhead panel and when the set designers gave him one too, he made sure to incorporate it in everything he did to make it look more like Wash knew what he was doing. He'd joke those three switches he hit were is "getting ready to do something" switches that he had to hit before doing anything else.
to my knowledge, Wil Wheaton took inspiration from William Hartnell, the First Doctor from Doctor Who, where Hartnell would pencil in what each lever and button on the TARDIS console would do, so they were consistent throughout his tenure. Wheaton supposedly did similar when figuring out how to use the LCARs on the bridge.
Michael and Denise Okuda managed to build a UI that is timeless and still looks modern today and will likely look modern for decades to come. Amazing job.
Which is extra funny when you see that the video's thumbnail on certain platforms (Discord, at least) features Adam and the Okudas together with arms crossed.
@@shieldgenerator7 But so is the Okudas'. Most of Tested's guests are enthusiastic about their subject matter, but the Okudas' enthusiasm is exceptional.
As an amateur geek and amateur trekie, I clicked on this expecting to hear Adam geeking out on this topic. To instead find him doing an orchestral waltz with the Okudas, is a marvel to witness ! B----)
This is a beautiful example of how subjective truth is portrayed as objective truth. While some may find it interesting, that perspective isn’t universal. It's important to recognize that what one person finds compelling might not resonate with everyone. I fell asleep after 2 minutes.
Oh my God The Video I have been waiting for all my life. As a 45 year old Graphic Designer/ Animator - this is absolutely my favourite Graphic Design of all time. Michael and Denise are my heroes.
August 2024 - My jaw dropped as I watched this interview of the Okudas. Original Star Trek control panel design influenced me as an engineer. Any Human Factors or Ergonomics Lab would appreciate their flowing designs. They make sense. Please thank them for me as an inspired fan and engineer since 1967! 🟥🟧🟨🟨🟨🟩😊
as a vfx artist who worked on For All Mankind, seeing Adam chat with the people who likely created some of the interfaces we ended up compositing and seeing the actors using in our shots, is wildly cool to see that they put that amount of dedication to accuracy. as a space nerd myself i've thought that it was some of the most spot-on accurate and well-designed (when they were fictional) interfaces and displays i've seen in a scifi. and now i know why. this tickles me greatly.
I cannot enumerate the hours of the 90s I spent looking at grainy stills and pixelated jpgs of the Okudas art. It's a core part of me almost down to my dna. (Sometimes you find out you're on the spectrum late in life but in hindsight it was not subtle.) I'm glad to see them doing well! This warmed my heart to see
I love the idea that whatever button you push, it is the right button. This is directly reflected in our smart phones today. The app locations are specific to the user and change over time. I just rearranged mine because I added an app that I use more frequently than others. I can easily believe that button on a display would relocate from time to time.
I keep the apps on my phone arranged specifically too with the most used in certain spots so I can just muscle memory my way to them time and time again. The idea that you could do that with an LCARS panel had never occurred to me and blows me away. The Okudas are either ahead of there time or from the future lol
It depends. Microsoft has done something similar from time to time, in the Start Menu and in Office applications. And for the most part is has been an infuriating experience. We can rearrange apps, sure. But when the system does it, stuff suddenly is not where we expect it to be.
@@kaasmeester5903 Honestly, you view it differently. A smartphone commonly only has the ability yo customize the position of apps on the Home screen, not in the menu. Window's Start Menu is a menu; you should be using the Desktop for that comparison, in which case I do the same; the Desktop (both Windows and Linux) is where I organize buttons/icons to match my usage style, not the drop-down menus.
@@kaasmeester5903 They got it right on the Windows Phone, ironically. You could arrange apps like a heat map and change their sizes and shapes almost exactly like LCARS. Make the things you use more frequently bigger and nearest to where your fingers are on the phone.
As someone who uses dozens of custom macros in my job, the idea that the ship interface is customized for the user makes me salivate-like of COURSE each person would accumulate different shortcuts to make their workflow easier. It doesn’t even need to be fully consistent for the same person across the show, because they might have their own sub profiles for different tasks they can change between at will depending on the project they’re working on or as they decide to create new shortcuts.
I can't express how much I love LCARS. They're incredibly clever. TOS had panels that were almost too 'alien', that looked like an arrangement of unlabelled gemstones on a table. LCARS are still mostly meaningless, but they look functional and made the show more believable. They also just look pleasing.
Yeah, LCARS is one of the few fictional interfaces that look like they have a system and purpose behind them. In most SF shows of the time, the interfaces / controls look like so many random blinking lights and buttons. It also made sense to have them as touch panels. I once designed an actual interface in LCARS form... I built a "holodeck" in Second Life for the company I worked for at the time, that allowed people to call up or collapse stored buildings and stages for various event. On a lark, I used LCARS to design the control panel and it came out surprisingly well, people had no issues using it with minimal instructions.
@@kaasmeester5903 I love LCARS, but the only issue I had was when it came to shuttle crafts. With small ships, where the pilot is controlling everything, you'd think it make more sense to have a more tactile control interface. Instead, we have the pilot for example hitting a hundred buttons just to turn left at a steep angle.
I was 15 when TNG finished. I was 100% obsessed with that show. I had the TNG Techincal Manual written by Michael Okuda. I took it to school with me, i read it at night. I loved that ship, and they did such an amazing job creating a believable lore and design. Fantastic video sir.
I not only had the tech manual, I built and painted a model of the 1701-D to hang from "invisible" wire beside my bed. I had glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling so it was almost like the ship flying through space. Loved that show, loved the thought and attention to detail folks like these brought to it.
God I'm going to show my age here, but... I had that book and used it so that a friend and myself could make a point and click game for ourselves in AMOS (if anyone remembers that programe language). I did the backgrounds in DPaint as well as the character animations whilst my mate programed away. Was a fun little project that kept us busy for hours. I was about 27 at the time and still loved the Star Trek universe.
Michael and Denise are absolute legends! As a child, the LCARs and various interfaces across Star Trek absolutely gripped me. I am an interface designer today thanks to these two.
And again in DS9's "Starship Down," where he has to take command from Engineering and doesn't like how the engineering petty officers customized their displays when he needs to use them.
yeah that's what makes it kind of unrealistic. Modern militaries define standards for literally everything that soldiers touch, from the moisture content of their biscuits to the depth of their pockets. But it is a very good direction for actors
That almost every ship have a quite differing design seem to indicate Starfleet make a point of not doing standards though. ;) I used to assume there were not all that many ships, due to the insane resources it would require, and thus the technology would also change so much between each design when they were built, maybe decades apart. But later shows (because of CGI I suppose) changed that perspective with almost Star Wars like armadas. This was of course also before Star Trek sadly leaned ever more into the militaristic undertones.
@@IlIlllIIIllIIlIIlII isn't the point that Starfleet is *not* a military? It's mission statement being to explore worlds and bring species together, it's prime directive being to not affect species that are not ready to join the Federation Starfleet are floating stately homes, workboats, science vessels first and foremost. Things you live in, that you modify to do a specific task efficiently
Same here, it just looks right. I recently made a home screen background for my phone, using LCARS displays and steampunkish/rusted metal frames and panels. The idea behind it was to make the phone a bit like a tricorder and phaser in one, even went a step further and also made it a pocket multi-scanner, it can track time in the current simulation (aka a clock), and i added some for show displays with graphs and numbers as well as detailed graphics, plus a big red phaser button.
As a designer and massive Star Trek fan, this was a real treat to watch. I should add that these "old school" ways of doing things for TV and film are often so much nicer. Comparing the LCARS from legacy, classic Trek to those used on Picard for example, the older ones look so crisp with deep blacks and popping colors.
This is also why the segments from the miniseries Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy were so wonderful. It looks super crisp and "CG that's somehow better than CG" doing things like just putting text up on the screen. In reality, it was all preprinted text and the "scrolling" was accomplished by dragging a black matte along to expose new words to the backlight. No computer cycles at all were involved in any of those sequences.
This video was an absolute joy. I will probably never get to own an actual LCARS panel, but just to be near one would probably bring me to tears. What a wonderful conversation with two people that made a show that has brought me so much joy feel as real and authentic as it did. So, so grateful for all of their work. ❤
Yeah, he had mentioned that when working on TNG, he had made up his own sequences for what things did using the LCARS display at his station. Hit this sequence to lay in a course, hit these ones to enter the numbers the captain says, hit these ones to engage the system to do the thing he just entered, etc. Not surprising it came back to him years later when he sat at his old seat.
That Bird of Prey concept model is awesome. Great retro styling - it looks like it could come straight out of an old Flash Gordon serial, and yet you can still see the Romulan design lineage in there.
I can see that. It me it looks like post adoption of the Klingon D7 on the way to becoming the TNG Warbird with hints of the Balance of Terror (66) Warbird. Throw on some green highlights in post and that is the ship 1701-C was fighting!
I love how this stuff was just in their garage (at least according to their Facebook group). Imagine being that deep into Star Trek that you just have all this unique, amazing stuff....in your garage.
Painting it purple, what a great term. I did this in the US Army in the early 80s. When we had inspections, I would leave a small deficiency for the Sgt to find. Once he found something, he would move on. My roommate spent hours making things perfect. The Sgt would take it a a challenge to find an issue. Thus things like a speck of dust in an air vent became a big issue to them. For me it would be, dirt on the bottom of a shoe and move on.
3 месяца назад+93
In video game development it's called a "duck". The story goes: During the development of the original Battle Chess game, the designers had a particularly controlling PM who just *had* to change something, anything, on their output even if it was perfect just to leave a mark. The designers didn't want to compromise on their original designs so they decided to give the queen a pet duck. They were careful about how they animated it, so it wouldn't intersect with the queen's sprite and would be easy to remove. The PM then predictably said "Everything is great... but get rid of the damn duck!"
It's also how OSHA Safety Inspections and Board of Health restaurant inspections are handled. It's better to have them find a couple minor issues instead of having them tear apart walls and find some "problem" that wasn't one. Extension cords were a good OSHA write-up, or leaving a knife out on the counter for Health Inspector to find.
Yep, did that in the late 1990's/early 2000's for exactly the same reason (slightly cloudy spit shined boots). Unfortunate side effect was that squad/team leaders would think I was the screw up and would scrutinize everything I did to the point where I had to be perfect every day. Those were the 2 most stressful years of my 8 year career.
A tried and true technique. My former boss always had to proof my work to contribute something. I always left something obvious to find and easy to fix. Never failed.
More than super fans, they’re ultimate Trekkies. My mother went to high school with him and said he used to carry a briefcase around campus with the Enterprise blueprints in it!
That's exactly the kind of people you need to have working on modern interpretations of a property with a pre-existing fanbase, ESPECIALLY if that fanbase is absolutely obsessed with it. For a recent example, there is the manga/anime One Piece which released its live action last year, and so many of the people involved are superfans that the live action adaptation hit it out of the park on all sorts of little details. And just yesterday, a behind the scenes was offered for a new anime reboot of the show that is still in production, and half of it was just the (starstudded) animation cast geeking out about how they grew up with One Piece, how they spent time modeling towns in 3D and so on just to get an idea of the best way to visualize things. People who love something will do so much better than those who are just doing their job. It's amazing.
I recall Wil Wheaton telling a story of when he was at the helm station and having to mime putting in commands. He made up what buttons did what (initiating thrusters, impulse, warp, setting a course, etc) and he would try to be consistent every time they filmed to sell the believable of it being a real computer on a real ship.
Humble people. The ships dedication plaque has their names on it and still use the breif opportunity when talking about it to highlight other members of the team and credit them. Pure class.
Love the Okudas! Thank you for the great interview! I had to share a bit of trivia. If you pause at 2:23 and check out the LCARS, the abbreviations are cast and crew names. AV BRK: Avery Brooks, TE FAR: Terry Farrell, AR SHIM: Armin Shimerman, RE AUB: Rene Auberjonois, SU SHI: Suzie Shimizu, DI OVE: Diane Overdiek, JE FLE: Jerry Flek, AR FUK: Arlene Fukai, DA TRO: David Trotti, CO GEN: Cosmo Genovese. I'm glad to see these great old pieces of the sets being preserved. Awesome!
"... They're based on YOUR user profile, so the button you hit is correct." Shades of Galaxy Quest: "They designed those controls after watching YOU. Take her out."
I love how humble Adam is, even when they said they were a fan of his work, he didn't make it about him, he made it about them. I will always be a fan of Adam, i am 35 now, and I have been since I was a young teenager watching his shows with my dad.
I've known since I was a little kid in the 80s that if I ever won the lottery, I'd have a movie theater in my house that was designed like the Enterprise D bridge....those hallways, console panels, the overall design...my childhood lol
I don't rate the Ent-D bridge too highly (or the Ent-D itself) but the faults I have with it would make for a great home cinema. Those faults being that it's too large and open (ideal for more seating), it's bland (which doesn't matter in the dark) and most relevantly the carpets always reminded me of cinema carpets. 🙂
So, you have the Bridge and the Ready Room, but INSIDE the Ready Room, you put the Holodeck doors... so when the movie is over, you walk off the Bridge, into the Ready Room, and then out of the Holodeck Doors into a hallway of your regular house!
The Okudas are legends. I have several LCARS pieces of theirs in my collection (I'm currently in the process of building custom backlit frames for them), and they are stunning. LCARS panels are somewhere in between a movie prop and a beautiful artwork.
This was amazing to watch. Star trek, and The Next Generation especially, affected me in a way I cannot fully put into words. I'm eternally grateful to all the people who put so much of themselves into its creation. Thank you both, Adam and the Okudas, for taking time to share this slice of its history with us.
I've had the pleasure of talking with Michael a few times and he is absolutely a kind, sweet, and amazing human being. If you'd told young me I'd have the chance to meet and even befriend a few of the folks who've helped create this franchise I wouldn't have believed you. Star Trek has changed my life in so many significant ways. Thank you, Michael and Denise, and thank you, Adam for all the inspiration.
One great example of "Painting it Purple" from animation is in the Merrie Melodies cartoon "An Itch in Time". They had a gag of the dog getting bitten by a flea, and dragging his backside around the house while yelping -- but they thought the censors might cut it. So they added an extra gag: in the middle of racing around the house, the dog stops dead, turns to camera, and says, "Hey, I'd better stop this -- I might get to like it!", then resumes the dragging. It was designed specifically so it could be cut out entirely without missing a frame of the intended animation. The censors didn't mention it at all.
I think that is slightly different but still in the same spirit. If you think someone is looking for stuff you don't want them to find, you put a decoy in their path, so they're likely to think they found the thing they want and stop looking further.
I had to learn to do this in my home remodeling job. The customers will go over the finished job with a fine tooth comb to find something no matter how good the job is so I will purposely leave a little paint smudge that can easily be seen and they will point it out then I can run to the van, grab the paint and a brush then 'fix' it right in front of them. The vast majority of the time the customers will be satisfied and stop looking for other, tiny imperfections.
In my previous role we called it "the Duck Theroy" - we would add a duck to our UI Design. Someone higher up would of course ask about the duck and we would say we don't need it and remove it - everyone was happy and felt like they impacted the project.
As a Graphic Designer who learned their craft in the digital age of design, watching Okuda and Adam talk about our craft kinda feels like if I had a RUclips video of Picasso and DaVinci just hangin’ out talking about their process. Thank you both for being pioneers and inspirations to younger designers like me!
These two are absolute treasures, and we fans can never repay what they brought to us in Star Trek and beyond. And what kind, wonderful, gentle human beings they are on top of everything. I am always in awe of them, and can listen to their stories for days.
I remember Mike told a story in an interview one time about a reporter that phones him up and asks "how does the Heisenberg Compensators work"? To which he replied "they work very well thankyou" and hung up 😂😂
What a great episode. You can just tell that they are true geeks who are experts in their field. Just listening to Adam and the Okudas speak made me smile the whole episode.
They are so engaging that it almost slips notice that they are holding museum quality science fiction artifacts. Just amazing details and fascinating stories. I could listen to them chat for hours. Thank you for sharing this.
What a treat!! I grew up with TNG, and even found a way to make my old PC look like LCARS back then. I felt soooo cooool! Thanks to both Okudas, and you for finally making a video dedicated to their outstanding work. It may sound silly, but these two people had quite an influence on this nerd's life. As an early 80s born German, I wasn't proficient enough in English in the 80/90s, and our boradcasters rarely aired anything beyond the actual episodes. I've caught up quite a bit since then, but never seen more than pictures of these two amazing people and the odd quote. Seeing them talking about their work and passion finally, has been a great delight. Thank all three of you!!!
WOW. A video with the Okudas: legends in bringing Star Trek to life and making it real and tangible for all of us. This is my favorite Tested video of all time.
Wow! This was an amazing treat! I could sit all day listening to these two talk Trek and all the other projects they have worked on! They really made me believe I could I fly a Starship!
The Okudas are so precious to me, and to every 'Star Trek' fan. I was seven years old when TNG premiered. While I love the Trek that came before, and I love the Trek that came after, it was that late-1980s and 1990s era - TNG, DS9, VOY - that was so foundational for me as a kid and adolescent. The design language that Michael and Denise helped to shape feels like home to me. I'm so glad they continued to work with Ron Moore on 'For All Mankind', which I think is honestly the best current sci-fi show.
Most movies that i watch, most TV shows - I find behind the scenes just so much more interesting than the movie itself The work, ideas, the sheer creativity that goes into things, often even minute things that movie goers dont often get to see is simply amazing! Thank you Adam for this interview!!
The passion and creativity in older film&tv productions is truly heart warming and if you don't think so I can only ask you to visit any film history museum
Now I love For All Mankind even more than I did. I knew there were a lot of Star Trek alums in that production but was unaware the Okudas were involved
I grew up with TNG and as a result 'my ship' was always the Enterprise-D. I had no idea how emotionally linked I was to that ship until the last series of Picard where I just burst out in tears on seeing it and the bridge in all it's HD glory, along with the actors at their posts all these years later. Star Trek as a franchise is so, so special.
Seeing the Enterprise weaving between the Borg cube's protrusions and firing _all_ of the phasers was fun. This is a starship that can go faster than light and has a dozen phaser banks. This ship isn't some sluggish pushover; she's the pride of Starfleet, nimble and powerful! The original show couldn't do her justice, but modern CGI can.
@@argvminusone I'm rewatching TNG at the mo for the first time since watching the modern series. It definitely still holds up, no doubt however modern CGI just brings the ships to life and the possibilities now of what they can show are endless. It really makes me excited to think about what battles they can come up with in the future.
I've always had a headcanon that the transparent film with light bulbs behind it was canon. See, screens made of pixels are designed to work with human eyeballs. Our pixels are RGB because our cone cells are RGB. Other races would have evolved different cone cells, and would have a hard time making out what's on human screens. The obvious solution is to avoid pixels entirely.
Or how about more advanced pixels that can accurately emit all wavelengths instead of RGB. Or for aliens with different resolution get rid of pixels and have one single crystaline screen that can display images even on the molekular level. Of course with dynamic fps so that all species see moving pictures instead of sequencial ones.
I absolutely adore the Okudas. I swear I read the St:TNG Technical Manual once every few years and swear it is real. I wish Ford or one of the other auto makers would hire them to build their infotainment UI. 😁
I've had the Star Trek Encyclopedia and Chronology on my shelf since I was about 5 years old and they've been read cover to cover so many times, both written by the Okuda's. Hearing them talk Star Trek is amazing, could listen all day
Star Trek lives in my heart like it’s a piece of me (and surprisingly, I hadn’t even seen any of it until I began watching TNG a few years after college (30 or so years after it originally began airing apparently, yet it instantly became the best show I had ever seen). I got too excited the second he mentioned they now work for the show For All Mankind (on Apple TV+), which happens to be the best space themed show (both an alternative history show and science fictions show) I’ve seen in a long time. It makes a lot of sense they’d be working on that incredible masterpiece of a show currently. It is absolutely worth subscribing to Apple TV+ just to watch For All Mankind.
The first season (TNG) transporter panel actually had little metal touch pads on the panel for the actor to use. They removed them by season 2 as the actors kept missing the pads and they weren't very responsive.
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Propstore's Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction: Los Angeles Summer 2024
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Learn more about Michael and Denise Okuda's work at facebook.com/Michael.Denise.Okuda vimeo.com/187841208
Adam, I'm still waiting for you or Norm to do a video on the TOMY+ 1:350 scale die-cast metal replica TOS USS Enterprise and TMP USS Enterprise Refit.
There is something amazing, when a good graphics design meets a good engineering. In my previous company, we made a warehouse automation from a scratch. And one of the amazing parts was control panels. It was as much "user friendly" as you can imagine. Even a non tech personel could find their way and see what is wrong in a system of hundreds of sensors. It is something incredible, when someone can make a control panel in a way, that even a lame person can at least get a hint why it is there, what it does and where the real device is located. But it takes time to create such beauty and for many people it is too easy to read - tech assistance is much less involved. So in the next company I worked for, I found out what it means a "bad design on purpose" - You have all the info you need to locate a fault on the screen, but it is put forth in so unpallatable way, that you need an hour, a manual and schematics to find out where that malfunctioning sensor or part of the equipment is localised... Even if you know those sitems like your backpocket. And it was all done on purpose.
I just watched this and as a guy who took Typography in college. I really appreciated this.
My PiHole ad blockers come with a star trek theme that looks 100x better than any other server product I've ever used 😂😂
I just realized that I had not subscribed to your channel yet! So many videos i've missed... 😢
Star Trek wouldn't be Star Trek without the Okudas
But.. it was before him, so not really.
@@morbidmanmusic It was, but the feel of Star Fleet's ships were partly set by him for many shows to come. Along with Richard Michael and many others.
They made computer displays beautiful to view
The Okudas were the computer design people for TNG onwards.
@@pauljensen5699 actually they did Star Trek IV before that, which is one of the many reasons it’s the best Star Trek film (take that, Star Trek II!).
The Okuda's are why I became a Graphic Designer. Okudagrams were my gateway drug, at age 6 I read in the Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual about what Adobe Illustrator was and who the Okudas were. As a 45yo Creative Director for a major company, I owe my career and a debt of thanks to the Okudas. I've had the pleasure of meeting them and conversing a handful of times in puerson and online, and am forever in their tutelage.
Same! I'm a 42 year old graphic designer, and having all those books of theirs was my first introduction to design as a career. Can't overstate their contribution to media enough!
Same here - I also have a copy of the technical manual since it came out. I am UX / UI developer for a non-profit creating immersive experiences and their work on Star Trek continues to inspire me with everything I do.
Okay I have a legit question and I hope you or someone else can help guide me on this. I regularly make projects at home, or program tools at work, but almost always my roadblock is making something that's aesthetic and user friendly. I just kind of blunt force it. I've always been massively interested in how Graphic Designers come up with their designs but I never could find the toe hold to start learning it. Do you or anyone else have any suggestions on books or resources on the conceptual ideas on how Graphic Designers design? Like everything says "You want there to be balance, and things to flow cleanly".. Like yes but HOW?? I'm sure those ideas don't just miraculously come to people.. They have a starting base of skills and concepts to work with... That's what I'm lacking.
@NickC84 see 2:05 think of organic shapes and flow charts. Would it make sense if "thruster control" was one or two (virtual) "buttons" or several in a line? Would you put directional controls with engine output or separate? I guess the best way to say it is that the graphic design has to make sense in it's own "universe".
@@NickC84 While I can't talk at length about aesthetic, I can do it about user friendliness.
"Intuitive" is a bit of a trick word in design, because intuition relies in "common sense", which might differ slightly based on experience. The concept of common sense depends on shared knowledge, so for something to be intuitive it has to rely on a set of expected knowledge. Some knowledge just comes from being human and you can rely on that, but for some specialist tools you might rely on knowledge that comes from the profession. It's very common to see different presentations or dashboards that convey the same information but arranged differently because they're for a different set of people with different backgrounds (and purposes).
What I do is answers these questions before designing:
- what are the people using this familiar with (not only other apps but OS, paperwork and physical tools)
- which processes surround this tool (so we can stay in context from before and after using this tool)
- what do people expect to get out of this tool
- reading direction (though almost everyone uses left-to-right, top-to-bottom in UI)
- expected physical screen size (not only for font and button sizes, but for line length and distance between elements. Can I see the whole screen at once or am I looking at portions?)
and while designing I keep these in mind:
- spatially group things that work together, respect conceptual ordering if there's any. Think of what's sequential and what's parallel or optional. Consider if collapsing often unused elements is better than having a separate view for them based on known usage patterns.
- visually link groups that are related while keeping them separated from those that are unrelated (spatial hierarchy)
- important things are larger (just size) or heavier (contrast or thicker lines), but be subtle! don't have too many different levels or it'll be confusing (importance hierarchy)
- duplicate groups between views if it makes sense, label them clearly so people will know they're seeing the same in both views
- avoid clutter (small mental models mean less mistakes), guide the eye along the expected flow through alignment (if you put some element in a far disconnected corner, it will go mostly ignored, this is why usually search goes at the top of a stack of results). Add visual elements if alignment is not enough (don't make me follow a long invisible line!)
- Between views (or any view change, really), think of where the user's eyes are! if I click OK, my eyes are at the OK button when the shift happens. Will I see and understand the effect of clicking it? (say, clicking a button at the bottom takes me to a new view AND makes an icon at the top left change color.... I'll probably miss the icon color change).
- KEYBOARD FOCUS SHOULD MATCH READING ORDER, keyboard-only users are faster when the app allows them!
- Consider annoyances for repeated use. Dogfooding helps here, but it doesn't always make sense.
That was a lot! I should write this down.
The Okudas are heroes to any Trek fan. Great to see you interviewing them!
Its almost easy to forget how long the Okuda's have been involved in Star Trek and what they have contributed.
I've chatted with Mike online. He's a great guy. Super smart.
@@rensinclair4218 Right? He loves us fans!
Who, as a kid, had the Star Trek Technical Manual they wrote? It was amazing.
@@seth1422
On my bookshelf behind me. I don't remember when I bought it though. I even have the CD Interactive Tech Manual sitting on the shelf above my monitor.
The Okudas are not only legendary, they’re genuine and down to earth. I recall as an LCARS obsessed 14-year old, I stumbled upon Mike’s email address, and sent him a note never expecting a reply. He sent a delightful reply within 24 hours, offering some guidance on creating my own panels at home. Meant a lot to nerdy teenage me.
Do you have or remember what the advice was?
@@KiraSlith I don’t have it digitally anymore, but I’m almost certain I still have the email printed somewhere in a file. I’ll dig for it and let you know if I find it.
That's cool
To find “regular”, relatable people in Hollywood and Star Trek. It says a lot for taking the time to contact someone. It is rare and inspirational.
That Romulan Warbird also looks a lot like something out of Buck Rogers.
Wil Wheaton has said a few times that he took the Okuda's note to heart about it being designed for him. He had the layout of the buttons all worked out in his head, so setting courses and whatnot was always consistent
Yeah, I remember seeing his interviews about that. Making up your own sequence of stuff. A favorite example of this is in another show with Firefly, with Alan Tudyk's character Wash being the pilot of Serenity. Tudyk made it a point to always flip a trio of switches on the overhead controls before doing anything with the forward dash. On planes you often see the pilot flipping switches on an overhead panel and when the set designers gave him one too, he made sure to incorporate it in everything he did to make it look more like Wash knew what he was doing. He'd joke those three switches he hit were is "getting ready to do something" switches that he had to hit before doing anything else.
@@VegetaLF7 ... which also made it really poignant when Mal flipped them right at the end of 'Serenity'.
That sounds like exactly what a teenager would do. 😁 Wil Wheaton is the best.
to my knowledge, Wil Wheaton took inspiration from William Hartnell, the First Doctor from Doctor Who, where Hartnell would pencil in what each lever and button on the TARDIS console would do, so they were consistent throughout his tenure. Wheaton supposedly did similar when figuring out how to use the LCARs on the bridge.
"Hey, it's thingie!"
Michael and Denise Okuda managed to build a UI that is timeless and still looks modern today and will likely look modern for decades to come. Amazing job.
When I saw the thumbnail in RUclips for this video, my first though before I even clicked it was "I hope they can talk to the Okuda's someday."
We were SO excited.
@@tested Just how high *was* the level of squeeing? 😁
@@Korina42If it's was me I would have embarrass myself. 🖖🤓
@@VTX00128 You wouldn't be alone. XD
Which is extra funny when you see that the video's thumbnail on certain platforms (Discord, at least) features Adam and the Okudas together with arms crossed.
This is a beautiful example of "interested people are interesting"
yeah adam's enthusiasm in this video is so contagious
@@shieldgenerator7 But so is the Okudas'. Most of Tested's guests are enthusiastic about their subject matter, but the Okudas' enthusiasm is exceptional.
As an amateur geek and amateur trekie,
I clicked on this expecting to hear Adam geeking out on this topic.
To instead find him doing an orchestral waltz with the Okudas,
is a marvel to witness ! B----)
This is a beautiful example of how subjective truth is portrayed as objective truth. While some may find it interesting, that perspective isn’t universal. It's important to recognize that what one person finds compelling might not resonate with everyone. I fell asleep after 2 minutes.
@@Pim3211 Good for you. I'm so glad you were able to wake up after the video and share this pessimism with the world. Bravo.
Oh my God
The Video I have been waiting for all my life. As a 45 year old Graphic Designer/ Animator - this is absolutely my favourite Graphic Design of all time. Michael and Denise are my heroes.
August 2024 - My jaw dropped as I watched this interview of the Okudas. Original Star Trek control panel design influenced me as an engineer. Any Human Factors or Ergonomics Lab would appreciate their flowing designs. They make sense. Please thank them for me as an inspired fan and engineer since 1967! 🟥🟧🟨🟨🟨🟩😊
I can't upvote this enough. The Okudas are royalty in the Star Trek firmament, and to have someone like Adam chat with them is just....
What's a firmament? It sounds like a euphemism for constipation.
as a vfx artist who worked on For All Mankind, seeing Adam chat with the people who likely created some of the interfaces we ended up compositing and seeing the actors using in our shots, is wildly cool to see that they put that amount of dedication to accuracy. as a space nerd myself i've thought that it was some of the most spot-on accurate and well-designed (when they were fictional) interfaces and displays i've seen in a scifi. and now i know why. this tickles me greatly.
I'd happily watch hours of Adam and the Okudas talking shop.
Right?!
Right! Producers, get on it!
100% I'm realizing I'm of the age where all of the reminiscing is familiar like talking to an old college friend
I cannot enumerate the hours of the 90s I spent looking at grainy stills and pixelated jpgs of the Okudas art. It's a core part of me almost down to my dna. (Sometimes you find out you're on the spectrum late in life but in hindsight it was not subtle.) I'm glad to see them doing well! This warmed my heart to see
I love the idea that whatever button you push, it is the right button. This is directly reflected in our smart phones today. The app locations are specific to the user and change over time. I just rearranged mine because I added an app that I use more frequently than others. I can easily believe that button on a display would relocate from time to time.
I keep the apps on my phone arranged specifically too with the most used in certain spots so I can just muscle memory my way to them time and time again. The idea that you could do that with an LCARS panel had never occurred to me and blows me away. The Okudas are either ahead of there time or from the future lol
It depends. Microsoft has done something similar from time to time, in the Start Menu and in Office applications. And for the most part is has been an infuriating experience. We can rearrange apps, sure. But when the system does it, stuff suddenly is not where we expect it to be.
@@kaasmeester5903 Honestly, you view it differently. A smartphone commonly only has the ability yo customize the position of apps on the Home screen, not in the menu. Window's Start Menu is a menu; you should be using the Desktop for that comparison, in which case I do the same; the Desktop (both Windows and Linux) is where I organize buttons/icons to match my usage style, not the drop-down menus.
Modern car seats also offer something alike with their memory feature so that each 'operator' has his personal settings optimized for his demands.
@@kaasmeester5903 They got it right on the Windows Phone, ironically. You could arrange apps like a heat map and change their sizes and shapes almost exactly like LCARS. Make the things you use more frequently bigger and nearest to where your fingers are on the phone.
As someone who uses dozens of custom macros in my job, the idea that the ship interface is customized for the user makes me salivate-like of COURSE each person would accumulate different shortcuts to make their workflow easier. It doesn’t even need to be fully consistent for the same person across the show, because they might have their own sub profiles for different tasks they can change between at will depending on the project they’re working on or as they decide to create new shortcuts.
Exactly
I can't express how much I love LCARS. They're incredibly clever. TOS had panels that were almost too 'alien', that looked like an arrangement of unlabelled gemstones on a table. LCARS are still mostly meaningless, but they look functional and made the show more believable. They also just look pleasing.
It's such a great design that people get sued when they copy it without permission!
Yeah, LCARS is one of the few fictional interfaces that look like they have a system and purpose behind them. In most SF shows of the time, the interfaces / controls look like so many random blinking lights and buttons. It also made sense to have them as touch panels.
I once designed an actual interface in LCARS form... I built a "holodeck" in Second Life for the company I worked for at the time, that allowed people to call up or collapse stored buildings and stages for various event. On a lark, I used LCARS to design the control panel and it came out surprisingly well, people had no issues using it with minimal instructions.
@@kaasmeester5903 I love LCARS, but the only issue I had was when it came to shuttle crafts. With small ships, where the pilot is controlling everything, you'd think it make more sense to have a more tactile control interface. Instead, we have the pilot for example hitting a hundred buttons just to turn left at a steep angle.
Get a life
Yeah, the TOS panels looked about as user unfriendly as 1950's computer interfaces.
"these panels are software defined. so the button you hit is correct for your character" that just have been a huge help to the acting.
I was 15 when TNG finished. I was 100% obsessed with that show. I had the TNG Techincal Manual written by Michael Okuda. I took it to school with me, i read it at night. I loved that ship, and they did such an amazing job creating a believable lore and design. Fantastic video sir.
I was also 15 when TNG finished. I also had the brown technical manual. High five to a person I don't know!
I not only had the tech manual, I built and painted a model of the 1701-D to hang from "invisible" wire beside my bed. I had glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling so it was almost like the ship flying through space. Loved that show, loved the thought and attention to detail folks like these brought to it.
I loved the technical manual too but I was only 13 when All Good Things aired…. Can I be in the cool club too?
God I'm going to show my age here, but...
I had that book and used it so that a friend and myself could make a point and click game for ourselves in AMOS (if anyone remembers that programe language). I did the backgrounds in DPaint as well as the character animations whilst my mate programed away.
Was a fun little project that kept us busy for hours. I was about 27 at the time and still loved the Star Trek universe.
@@tarlonnielI had models of the D, A and a bird of prey. It was my start in to modeling actually. Which I still do to this day.
Michael and Denise are absolute legends! As a child, the LCARs and various interfaces across Star Trek absolutely gripped me. I am an interface designer today thanks to these two.
The "User profile" part comes up in the Parallels episode, in which Worf complains that the controls have been changed.
And again in DS9's "Starship Down," where he has to take command from Engineering and doesn't like how the engineering petty officers customized their displays when he needs to use them.
Maybe that's why Riker asked him if he remembers how to fire phasers in First Contact 😂
yeah that's what makes it kind of unrealistic. Modern militaries define standards for literally everything that soldiers touch, from the moisture content of their biscuits to the depth of their pockets. But it is a very good direction for actors
That almost every ship have a quite differing design seem to indicate Starfleet make a point of not doing standards though. ;)
I used to assume there were not all that many ships, due to the insane resources it would require, and thus the technology would also change so much between each design when they were built, maybe decades apart. But later shows (because of CGI I suppose) changed that perspective with almost Star Wars like armadas. This was of course also before Star Trek sadly leaned ever more into the militaristic undertones.
@@IlIlllIIIllIIlIIlII isn't the point that Starfleet is *not* a military? It's mission statement being to explore worlds and bring species together, it's prime directive being to not affect species that are not ready to join the Federation
Starfleet are floating stately homes, workboats, science vessels first and foremost. Things you live in, that you modify to do a specific task efficiently
Michael and Denise are such a treasure to watch, learn from, and hear their stories of how our favorite sci-fi shows/movies were brought to life.
LCARS is such a beautiful design language ❤
I always have lcars in my mind when I design UIs.
Same here, it just looks right.
I recently made a home screen background for my phone, using LCARS displays and steampunkish/rusted metal frames and panels.
The idea behind it was to make the phone a bit like a tricorder and phaser in one, even went a step further and also made it a pocket multi-scanner, it can track time in the current simulation (aka a clock), and i added some for show displays with graphs and numbers as well as detailed graphics, plus a big red phaser button.
I remember that the MP3 player program Winamp could be re-skinned, and someone made an LCARS skin for it.
Michael and Denise ARE the genius behind everything you see in Star Trek. Amazing couple.
As a designer and massive Star Trek fan, this was a real treat to watch.
I should add that these "old school" ways of doing things for TV and film are often so much nicer. Comparing the LCARS from legacy, classic Trek to those used on Picard for example, the older ones look so crisp with deep blacks and popping colors.
This is also why the segments from the miniseries Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy were so wonderful. It looks super crisp and "CG that's somehow better than CG" doing things like just putting text up on the screen. In reality, it was all preprinted text and the "scrolling" was accomplished by dragging a black matte along to expose new words to the backlight. No computer cycles at all were involved in any of those sequences.
This video was an absolute joy. I will probably never get to own an actual LCARS panel, but just to be near one would probably bring me to tears. What a wonderful conversation with two people that made a show that has brought me so much joy feel as real and authentic as it did. So, so grateful for all of their work. ❤
I remember Wil Wheaton, when touring the bridge for Picard, he sat down and still remembered what buttons he pushed!
Yeah, he had mentioned that when working on TNG, he had made up his own sequences for what things did using the LCARS display at his station. Hit this sequence to lay in a course, hit these ones to enter the numbers the captain says, hit these ones to engage the system to do the thing he just entered, etc. Not surprising it came back to him years later when he sat at his old seat.
I so miss optimistic Star Trek. This video brings me back and I love it. Thank you for this journey!
That Bird of Prey concept model is awesome. Great retro styling - it looks like it could come straight out of an old Flash Gordon serial, and yet you can still see the Romulan design lineage in there.
You're not the only one who sees that either. It fits in so well in both universes and especially well in the Flash Gordon animated series.
I can even see the Parrot of Death in that model. There's a definite influence.
I can see that. It me it looks like post adoption of the Klingon D7 on the way to becoming the TNG Warbird with hints of the Balance of Terror (66) Warbird. Throw on some green highlights in post and that is the ship 1701-C was fighting!
I was thinking it has a certain, what's the term? _streamline moderne_ aesthetic.
I love how this stuff was just in their garage (at least according to their Facebook group). Imagine being that deep into Star Trek that you just have all this unique, amazing stuff....in your garage.
Painting it purple, what a great term. I did this in the US Army in the early 80s. When we had inspections, I would leave a small deficiency for the Sgt to find. Once he found something, he would move on. My roommate spent hours making things perfect. The Sgt would take it a a challenge to find an issue. Thus things like a speck of dust in an air vent became a big issue to them. For me it would be, dirt on the bottom of a shoe and move on.
In video game development it's called a "duck".
The story goes: During the development of the original Battle Chess game, the designers had a particularly controlling PM who just *had* to change something, anything, on their output even if it was perfect just to leave a mark. The designers didn't want to compromise on their original designs so they decided to give the queen a pet duck. They were careful about how they animated it, so it wouldn't intersect with the queen's sprite and would be easy to remove. The PM then predictably said "Everything is great... but get rid of the damn duck!"
I purposely add misspellings to any slides I'm gonna present so my boss can feel like he contributed 😆
It's also how OSHA Safety Inspections and Board of Health restaurant inspections are handled. It's better to have them find a couple minor issues instead of having them tear apart walls and find some "problem" that wasn't one. Extension cords were a good OSHA write-up, or leaving a knife out on the counter for Health Inspector to find.
Yep, did that in the late 1990's/early 2000's for exactly the same reason (slightly cloudy spit shined boots). Unfortunate side effect was that squad/team leaders would think I was the screw up and would scrutinize everything I did to the point where I had to be perfect every day. Those were the 2 most stressful years of my 8 year career.
A tried and true technique. My former boss always had to proof my work to contribute something. I always left something obvious to find and easy to fix. Never failed.
I want to be like Michael. Such a nice man. No arrogance. Humbly telling the things we love to hear.
The thing that makes the Okudas such great Trek Designers is that they are SUPER FANS
More than super fans, they’re ultimate Trekkies. My mother went to high school with him and said he used to carry a briefcase around campus with the Enterprise blueprints in it!
That's exactly the kind of people you need to have working on modern interpretations of a property with a pre-existing fanbase, ESPECIALLY if that fanbase is absolutely obsessed with it.
For a recent example, there is the manga/anime One Piece which released its live action last year, and so many of the people involved are superfans that the live action adaptation hit it out of the park on all sorts of little details. And just yesterday, a behind the scenes was offered for a new anime reboot of the show that is still in production, and half of it was just the (starstudded) animation cast geeking out about how they grew up with One Piece, how they spent time modeling towns in 3D and so on just to get an idea of the best way to visualize things.
People who love something will do so much better than those who are just doing their job. It's amazing.
I recall Wil Wheaton telling a story of when he was at the helm station and having to mime putting in commands. He made up what buttons did what (initiating thrusters, impulse, warp, setting a course, etc) and he would try to be consistent every time they filmed to sell the believable of it being a real computer on a real ship.
Thinking about it it even fits Wil/Wesleys character in becoming better at controlling the ship.
I will forever be grateful to the Okudas for their work on the TNG Blu-rays.
Please say more! Menus? Something else?
Humble people. The ships dedication plaque has their names on it and still use the breif opportunity when talking about it to highlight other members of the team and credit them. Pure class.
I see Adam and Star Trek, I get excited.
I see Adam and Star Trek AND the Okudas, I'm fucking ecstatic.
I see Adam and i miss Jamie.
I've got literal chills of excitement and I haven't even pressed play!
Weird...
@@Locutus shouldn't you be assimilating something?
@@Dargonhuman Yes, I should be assimilating the OP. Resistance is FUTILE! 🤖⬛️💉
I love this approach and I feel like it's a great idea for real systems to be built to be easy to grasp
Love the Okudas! Thank you for the great interview! I had to share a bit of trivia. If you pause at 2:23 and check out the LCARS, the abbreviations are cast and crew names. AV BRK: Avery Brooks, TE FAR: Terry Farrell, AR SHIM: Armin Shimerman, RE AUB: Rene Auberjonois, SU SHI: Suzie Shimizu, DI OVE: Diane Overdiek, JE FLE: Jerry Flek, AR FUK: Arlene Fukai, DA TRO: David Trotti, CO GEN: Cosmo Genovese. I'm glad to see these great old pieces of the sets being preserved. Awesome!
And 4077. Not the only nod to MASH to ever make it into the show.
I saw AR SHIM and came here looking for the others. Thank you
...Today I learned...
Adam - Thank you for this. Everyone knows his name and his work, but it so heartwarming to see him talk about his work in an informal setting.
"... They're based on YOUR user profile, so the button you hit is correct."
Shades of Galaxy Quest: "They designed those controls after watching YOU. Take her out."
The most utopian feature of the wildly utopian _Star Trek_ universe: the Federation has a working Do What I Meant interface.
I need to watch it again
@@ZGryphonhonestly I hope someday to have AI generated UI that adapts to how I operate.
@@ZGryphon life would be so much easier if stuff just did what I meant and stopped trying to second guess me! lolz
@@TonyTylerDrawsit doesn't require AI for that and it is already happening by monitoring frequency of usage of programs
I love how humble Adam is, even when they said they were a fan of his work, he didn't make it about him, he made it about them. I will always be a fan of Adam, i am 35 now, and I have been since I was a young teenager watching his shows with my dad.
The Okudas are legends in my opinion
LCARS is such a beautiful & timeless design creation. Thanks for giving us the Okudagram🧡
I've known since I was a little kid in the 80s that if I ever won the lottery, I'd have a movie theater in my house that was designed like the Enterprise D bridge....those hallways, console panels, the overall design...my childhood lol
I don't rate the Ent-D bridge too highly (or the Ent-D itself) but the faults I have with it would make for a great home cinema. Those faults being that it's too large and open (ideal for more seating), it's bland (which doesn't matter in the dark) and most relevantly the carpets always reminded me of cinema carpets. 🙂
honestly designing a whole house interior to look like a starship interior would be cool...
Ahhhh, we have the same dream!!
@@Elwaves2925 bad take
So, you have the Bridge and the Ready Room, but INSIDE the Ready Room, you put the Holodeck doors... so when the movie is over, you walk off the Bridge, into the Ready Room, and then out of the Holodeck Doors into a hallway of your regular house!
I don't even watch Star Trek, but I found this so interesting to watch. People that clearly love their craft
The Okudas are legends. I have several LCARS pieces of theirs in my collection (I'm currently in the process of building custom backlit frames for them), and they are stunning.
LCARS panels are somewhere in between a movie prop and a beautiful artwork.
I love these two and their dedication, if only more people were like this in the business.
So diplomatic, editors will muck it up. They will do what's right for the story
This was amazing to watch. Star trek, and The Next Generation especially, affected me in a way I cannot fully put into words. I'm eternally grateful to all the people who put so much of themselves into its creation. Thank you both, Adam and the Okudas, for taking time to share this slice of its history with us.
Adam would be so perfect to go over all of their Star Trek work! And we would love to watch it!!
As a life long Trek fan I appreciate the love for the franchise the Okuda's have and it shows in their work.
I've had the pleasure of talking with Michael a few times and he is absolutely a kind, sweet, and amazing human being. If you'd told young me I'd have the chance to meet and even befriend a few of the folks who've helped create this franchise I wouldn't have believed you. Star Trek has changed my life in so many significant ways. Thank you, Michael and Denise, and thank you, Adam for all the inspiration.
I just LoVe this couple has made such a passion out of their art. This isn't a 'job' it is art and passion and it is obvious!
One great example of "Painting it Purple" from animation is in the Merrie Melodies cartoon "An Itch in Time". They had a gag of the dog getting bitten by a flea, and dragging his backside around the house while yelping -- but they thought the censors might cut it. So they added an extra gag: in the middle of racing around the house, the dog stops dead, turns to camera, and says, "Hey, I'd better stop this -- I might get to like it!", then resumes the dragging. It was designed specifically so it could be cut out entirely without missing a frame of the intended animation.
The censors didn't mention it at all.
I think that is slightly different but still in the same spirit. If you think someone is looking for stuff you don't want them to find, you put a decoy in their path, so they're likely to think they found the thing they want and stop looking further.
@@TheMAZZTer Yes, until they incompetently wants to keep the decoy and removes the other part you wanted to keep :D
I had to learn to do this in my home remodeling job. The customers will go over the finished job with a fine tooth comb to find something no matter how good the job is so I will purposely leave a little paint smudge that can easily be seen and they will point it out then I can run to the van, grab the paint and a brush then 'fix' it right in front of them. The vast majority of the time the customers will be satisfied and stop looking for other, tiny imperfections.
@@TheMAZZTer Yeah, it's not *quite* the same, but it's the same basic concept: putting out bait for the outsiders who want to make changes.
In my previous role we called it "the Duck Theroy" - we would add a duck to our UI Design. Someone higher up would of course ask about the duck and we would say we don't need it and remove it - everyone was happy and felt like they impacted the project.
As a Graphic Designer who learned their craft in the digital age of design, watching Okuda and Adam talk about our craft kinda feels like if I had a RUclips video of Picasso and DaVinci just hangin’ out talking about their process. Thank you both for being pioneers and inspirations to younger designers like me!
This is one of my favorite episodes, three finest creators from our world, coming together to nerddom!
Wonderful. Can’t tell you how those panels stuck with me for all these years and inspired a lot of what I ended up doing as my vocation.
@15:11 "Oh I spent so many weeks in that tiny room smelling those chemical" - Adam
"Oh, we can tell" - Hyneman
I'd like to think, somewhere, Jamie uttered exactly that retort at that exact moment, and had no idea why.
These two are absolute treasures, and we fans can never repay what they brought to us in Star Trek and beyond. And what kind, wonderful, gentle human beings they are on top of everything. I am always in awe of them, and can listen to their stories for days.
I remember Mike told a story in an interview one time about a reporter that phones him up and asks "how does the Heisenberg Compensators work"?
To which he replied "they work very well thankyou" and hung up 😂😂
I thought they asked Scotty that
@@nyetloki en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Okuda
Q. "how does the Heisenberg Compensators work"
A. "Uncertainly."
What a great episode. You can just tell that they are true geeks who are experts in their field. Just listening to Adam and the Okudas speak made me smile the whole episode.
The Okudas ARE Starfleet and everything Star Trek. Such a legacy they built
They are so engaging that it almost slips notice that they are holding museum quality science fiction artifacts. Just amazing details and fascinating stories. I could listen to them chat for hours. Thank you for sharing this.
Love the Okuda's! They do some amazing work!
That Bird of Prey is gorgeous. Like, legitimately stunning. I can't stop looking at it.
What a treat!! I grew up with TNG, and even found a way to make my old PC look like LCARS back then. I felt soooo cooool! Thanks to both Okudas, and you for finally making a video dedicated to their outstanding work. It may sound silly, but these two people had quite an influence on this nerd's life.
As an early 80s born German, I wasn't proficient enough in English in the 80/90s, and our boradcasters rarely aired anything beyond the actual episodes. I've caught up quite a bit since then, but never seen more than pictures of these two amazing people and the odd quote. Seeing them talking about their work and passion finally, has been a great delight. Thank all three of you!!!
The world is a better place because of the Okudas.
What these designs brought to the franchise is just amazing, they are as much part of the magic as everything else.
This show was definitely a hug to me as a kid too. This is a great video, thanks Adam!
Most of those letters on the LCARS are shortened names of actors and crew. Such a nice easter egg :)
Michael and Denise Okuda are Star Trek royalty. Thank you for the interview.
WOW. A video with the Okudas: legends in bringing Star Trek to life and making it real and tangible for all of us. This is my favorite Tested video of all time.
The Okudas are legendary. The sheer passion radiating off every word they speak 😍
Wow! This was an amazing treat! I could sit all day listening to these two talk Trek and all the other projects they have worked on! They really made me believe I could I fly a Starship!
My Android phone uses a LCARS themed OS and I love it. Michael and Denise, you two rock!
0:34 - You know, I never realised that Star Trek had an "Ar fuk" button but it makes total sense that they would with how often things go wrong.
Might as well also press the "Su Shi" button
I can imagine Worf using that alot when Picard denies him the opportunity to fire
The Okudas are absolute legends in their field. I was really pleased when Denise Okuda spoke up, as she was very quiet to start with.
The Okudas are so precious to me, and to every 'Star Trek' fan. I was seven years old when TNG premiered. While I love the Trek that came before, and I love the Trek that came after, it was that late-1980s and 1990s era - TNG, DS9, VOY - that was so foundational for me as a kid and adolescent. The design language that Michael and Denise helped to shape feels like home to me. I'm so glad they continued to work with Ron Moore on 'For All Mankind', which I think is honestly the best current sci-fi show.
Most movies that i watch, most TV shows - I find behind the scenes just so much more interesting than the movie itself
The work, ideas, the sheer creativity that goes into things, often even minute things that movie goers dont often get to see is simply amazing!
Thank you Adam for this interview!!
When I learned software application development back in the day, I did several class assignment apps using LCARS inspired design.
I love how passionate the Okudas are, their enthusiasm is so infectious! Adam too!!
The Okudas are awesome, please have them on the show again (and make it a really long episode).
Bro!!! by far one of the best episodes I've ever watched!!! I could absolutely watch hours of them talking Star Trek easily!
Perfect timing, a new Tested Video to watch with my Saturday morning coffee
The passion and creativity in older film&tv productions is truly heart warming and if you don't think so I can only ask you to visit any film history museum
Now I love For All Mankind even more than I did. I knew there were a lot of Star Trek alums in that production but was unaware the Okudas were involved
It's fun, but it's no Star Trek. Though, few things are.
I grew up with TNG and as a result 'my ship' was always the Enterprise-D. I had no idea how emotionally linked I was to that ship until the last series of Picard where I just burst out in tears on seeing it and the bridge in all it's HD glory, along with the actors at their posts all these years later.
Star Trek as a franchise is so, so special.
Seeing the Enterprise weaving between the Borg cube's protrusions and firing _all_ of the phasers was fun. This is a starship that can go faster than light and has a dozen phaser banks. This ship isn't some sluggish pushover; she's the pride of Starfleet, nimble and powerful! The original show couldn't do her justice, but modern CGI can.
@@argvminusone I'm rewatching TNG at the mo for the first time since watching the modern series. It definitely still holds up, no doubt however modern CGI just brings the ships to life and the possibilities now of what they can show are endless. It really makes me excited to think about what battles they can come up with in the future.
I've always had a headcanon that the transparent film with light bulbs behind it was canon.
See, screens made of pixels are designed to work with human eyeballs. Our pixels are RGB because our cone cells are RGB. Other races would have evolved different cone cells, and would have a hard time making out what's on human screens.
The obvious solution is to avoid pixels entirely.
Or how about more advanced pixels that can accurately emit all wavelengths instead of RGB. Or for aliens with different resolution get rid of pixels and have one single crystaline screen that can display images even on the molekular level. Of course with dynamic fps so that all species see moving pictures instead of sequencial ones.
Love the explanation they gave to Sirtis and the other actors. It's both a great way of helping an actor and a glimpse of where technology would go.
I absolutely adore the Okudas. I swear I read the St:TNG Technical Manual once every few years and swear it is real. I wish Ford or one of the other auto makers would hire them to build their infotainment UI. 😁
I've had the Star Trek Encyclopedia and Chronology on my shelf since I was about 5 years old and they've been read cover to cover so many times, both written by the Okuda's. Hearing them talk Star Trek is amazing, could listen all day
that episode felt like a warm hug. thanks for the great interview! :)
"...people in the loop they just want to make a change so they can feel important" So true!!!!
Star Trek lives in my heart like it’s a piece of me (and surprisingly, I hadn’t even seen any of it until I began watching TNG a few years after college (30 or so years after it originally began airing apparently, yet it instantly became the best show I had ever seen).
I got too excited the second he mentioned they now work for the show For All Mankind (on Apple TV+), which happens to be the best space themed show (both an alternative history show and science fictions show) I’ve seen in a long time.
It makes a lot of sense they’d be working on that incredible masterpiece of a show currently. It is absolutely worth subscribing to Apple TV+ just to watch For All Mankind.
The first season (TNG) transporter panel actually had little metal touch pads on the panel for the actor to use.
They removed them by season 2 as the actors kept missing the pads and they weren't very responsive.
Mike and Denise Okuda should be given an award for the best people in the industry. For reals
I love these two, such awesome folks.
What a treat to be able to speak with people whose careers spanned both the old and new ways of production, and who were so influential in both.