I’ve been working on a model of the White Star from Babylon 5, and have gone down the rabbit hole of cataloging and recreating the sets (at least, the one that’s visible through the ship’s forward windows). I’ve already done a post on the celtic knot designs decorate the bridges of the White Stars in season 4 and 5, so this is an overview of the design variations on the bridge set overall.

I’ll be illustrating each variation with a cutaway CG model of the bridge. To be clear, this version of the bridge has been modified to fit within the exterior shape of the bridge module on the ship, so it isn’t intended to be a perfect match to the original sets. That’s another project.

White Star 1

Throughout season 3, we only see the bridge of the original prototype White Star.¹The White Star Fleet was introduced three episodes before the end of the season in 3×20 “And the Rock Cried Out, ‘No Hiding Place,'” but while we saw the other White Stars on the outside, there were still only scenes set on the original ship in the subsequent episodes. The bridge evolves over the course of the season, settling on its final form in 3×18 “Walkabout.” As it is a prototype that’s being tested in use, it does make sense in-universe for the bridge to be constantly modified.

3×01 “Matters of Honor”

The ship’s first appearance is very different from how it’ll develop. The free-standing consoles have bony railings attached to them. There’s no captain’s chair. A third control pod is tucked into the back corner.²This is almost certainly one of the two from the front of the bridge, duplicated by the magic of editing. Much of the detailing is incomplete, and the bridge is shorter in length compared to the majority of its appearances. For logistical reasons, I couldn’t reflect that in this model; on the the actual set, the nose section is against the first gray wall panel, rather than up against one of the stained glass panels, while the stained glass panel that will be there joins the front and back halves of the bridge. Since I needed to maintain the overall proportions of the bridge to keep it inside the exterior, I instead added a third pair of stained glass panels between the fore and aft sections of the bridge for the episodes where that was the case. Similarly, I use the same computer displays that are used in the rest of the season, even though the “lily pad” configurations aren’t used until the ship’s second appearance.

3×05 “Voices of Authority”

The bridge begins to take on its more familiar shape. Most notably, the captain’s chair has been added, and the freestanding consoles have had their bone-crests removed. Metal found-object radio panels have been added around the aft walls of the bridge. The control pods have been completely converted from their prior incarnations as motorcycle sidecars, with touchscreens added, and the aft consoles have been filled out with the “lily pad” graphics in addition to the simple blocks and circles and stubby White Star schematics that were present originally.

A shiny black floor is present in this episode. In all the ship’s other appearances in season 3, the floor of the bridge is dull gray, possibly the bare concrete floor of the soundstage.

3×08 “Messages From Earth”

With this episode, the bridge settles on to its main form. The bridge is elongated by moving one pair of the stained glass panels between the forward wall segments and the nose. The space between the mid wall segments and the aft section of the bridge is filled with a set of simple white light panels, replacing where the stained glass panels had been.

There’s also a moment in this episode where the control pods at the front of the bridge move themselves from the sides of the bridge to the center when the ship enters combat. While the pods frequently move around between episodes (or camera angles), this is the only time they’re seen moving diegetically on-camera. It’s also a bit of a mystery how they’re intended to be supported in-universe. In reality, they’re held up by a framework of metal rods, but those are usually kept in shadow or otherwise hidden. I assume they were meant to hover using Minbari anti-gravity technology. In the animated film The Road Home, they had a round base added to them.

The Road Home

This isn’t quite a version of the bridge from the series, but based on the details in this reimagined version of the White Star, it’s based on this era of the set,³Specific indications are the single captain’s chair and centerline main door, indicating it’s the season 3 version, and the plotting table has a lines-and-arcs graphical design rather than the image of the galaxy, showing it’s prior to the final revision in “Walkabout.” so I’ll throw in some screencaps and link to behind-the-scenes images.

While three White Stars are seen in the movie, circa “War Without End,” “Into the Fire,” and “Objects at Rest,” they only reimagined the season three version of the set, which makes sense as a matter of prioritization, since none of the scenes they recreated absolutely required the new features of the season 4/5 version.

3×16/17 “War Without End”

The plotting table at the front of the bridge is raised up to waist level.

3×18 “Walkabout”

The plotting table is returned to its prior height, and the graphic is changed from a pattern of arcs and lines to an image of the galaxy. There are no further revisions for the rest of the season.

The White Star Fleet

The bridge set was revamped for season 4. A new main door was built, and it was repositioned to be off-center. The wall panels of the aft section were reordered, and new graphics were made for the wall displays (the existing control consoles continue to use the original graphics). The forward half of the bridge was widened. A gap was opened between the fore and aft segments of the bridge, leading to two additional side-passages flanking the bridge. Ahead of those doors, two corner consoles were added. The captain’s chair was replaced with an elevated platform running the width of the bridge and all the way back, flanked by a second seated console to the captain’s left, and a standing console to the right. A sitting area was also added under the viewports in the bridge’s nose.

In addition to these design changes, the bridge incorporated several details that could be quickly altered in order to distinguish different ships, especially important in episodes where multiple different White Stars are seen. The insignia above the main hatch could be swapped out. Rarely, the details around the door itself were repainted. The large light panels on the aft wall could be recolored, as could the lights in the posts holding up the railings around the command platform. Three wall monitors at the very rear of the bridge were swapped out, in three specific sets, never mixed. Set A consists of a side view of the ship, a top view, and a star map. Set B is a top view of the ship, a map, and another top view of the ship. Set C consists of what appears to be a map of several stars, a single star or planet system, and a set of arced lines.

I’m going to organize this next section by ship instead of episode. I’m going to be parsimonious in identifying separate ships, and won’t assume minor variations in color or lighting (which may be a result of differences in the color timing of the episode itself and not changes in the set) must mean a ship is unique, but I will mention when it’s arguable.

White Star 2

This was the ship used most often throughout season 4 as Sheridan’s (and, occasionally, Delenn’s) personal flagship. It was first seen at the end of 4×05 “The Long Night,”⁴More on that later. The ship’s knot is a white diamond, the back wall lights are white with a slight purple tint, the railing posts are orange, and the monitors are set B. Additionally, it had a unique touch in that the columns and keystone flanking the main hatch were painted with bronze accents.

The ship subsequently appeared in the 4×06 “Into the Fire,” 4×07 “Epiphanies,” 4×11 “Lines of Communication,” and 4×13 “Rumors, Bargains, and Lies.” It also appeared in the comic book miniseries In Valen’s Name, taking place between “Into the Fire” and “Epiphanies” (or between the teaser and first act of “Epiphanies”). The ship appeared to be destroyed in that comic, but apparently was merely disabled and was recovered and repaired, since it was fine immediately afterward. It probably also appeared at the beginning of the telemovie Thirdspace (taking place between 4×08 “The Illusion of Truth” and 4×09 “Atonement). The bridge of Sheridan’s White Star is only seen briefly in close-up, but the aft wall light panels match, as do the computer screens. The railing posts are blue instead of orange, but they’re only barely visible at the bottom of the frame, so it’s possible they were intended to be out of sight to save time redressing the set, but weren’t cropped out in the widescreen transfer as intended.

White Star 2 (Civil War Livery)

Beginning in 4×15, “No Surrender, No Retreat,” the exterior of the ship had several Babylon 5 sword-and-shield insignia mounted to it, to identify it as Sheridan’s ship to the enemy (and the audience).⁵From this episode forward, the frame of the forward plotting table was repainted from gloss black to flat gray on all White Stars. As part of this, the diamond knot above the bridge hatch was replaced with a B5 sword-and-shield plaque. In this form, White Star 2 further appeared in 4×16 “The Exercise of Vital Powers,” 4×17 “The Face of the Enemy,” and 4×19 “Between the Darkness and the Light,” where the ship was destroyed.

White Star Prime

This ship was identified by the callsign “White Star Prime” in 4×15 “No Surrender, No Retreat,” and was never referred to by another name. This was the ship that Ivanova (and, once, Marcus) preferred to command. The ship’s knot was an irregular gold circular knot, the back wall lights were purple (similar to the original White Star), and the railing posts were initially blue in their first appearance, and purple subsequently. The monitors are set A.

This ship appeared in 4×03 “The Summoning,” 4×06 “Into the Fire,” and 4×15 “No Surrender, No Retreat.”⁶There are minor color differences in NSNR, so it’s possible it wasn’t intended to be the same ship, but the colors are close enough it could be the result of lighting or color timing variations between the different episodes, and the monitors and knot design match. Additionally, it probably was the ship used by Ivanova, Delenn, and Lyta in 4×01 “The Hour of the Wolf.” The new set wasn’t complete at that point, so the only tell-tales present are the aft wall lights and monitors, and while the script identifies it as White Star 2 in stage directions, it’s never called that in dialog.⁷It’s likely this was a logistical mix-up; the identifying features were kept consistent for Ivanova’s ship in the next few episodes, but when Sheridan needed a White Star, which was explicitly going to be White Star 2, and Ivanova was currently on the ship using the bridge configuration that had been intended for White Star 2, White Star 2 had a different set of distinguishing features when it was first identified in dialog. It’s also probable this was the ship Ivanova commanded at the end of Thirdspace. The monitors and railing posts are correct, but the wall light panels are white instead of purple. This may have been for logistical reasons; the wall panels are kept white on all four ships seen in season 5, so perhaps it was more inconvenient to recolor them than it was to alter other aspects of the set.

White Star 14

This ship’s bridge appeared in 4×05 “The Long Night.” The ship was destroyed at the end of the episode, though apparently the wreck was salvaged and returned to service eventually, as White Star 14 was referenced in dialog in 4×15 “No Surrender, No Retreat.” The ship’s knot was a white semi-circle with two quadrant-shaped segments. The railing posts were blue. The aft wall lights were blue. The monitors are not visible in the episode, so I made a guess. Additionally, a rarely-used smaller freestanding console is positioned in front of the captain’s chair, and the ship doesn’t have the typical pair of control pods at the front of the bridge.

Marcus’s “Endgame” ship

Following the destruction of White Star 2, Marcus took command of this ship in 4×20 “Endgame,” identified as White Star 3 in the script. The ship’s knot is not visible,⁸I used the recolored version of the White Star Prime knot which was used for Sheridan’s ship in “Sleeping in Light,” since it was available and hadn’t technically been used on another White Star. the aft wall lights were white, the railing posts were pink, and the monitors were set C.

Sheridan and Franklin’s Fast White Star

At the end of 4×20 “Endgame” and the beginning of 4×21 “Rising Star,” Franklin and Lennier return to Babylon 5 in this White Star. The knot isn’t visible, the railing posts are blue, the aft walls are white, and the monitors are set A.

In 5×17 “Movements of Fire and Shadow,” and 5×18 “The Fall of Centauri Prime,” Sheridan takes command of a White Star which matches all the visible identifying features of Franklin’s ship. Additionally, the knot is visible, a downward-pointing white triangle. Sheridan specifically requests a “fast” White Star, and given Franklin needed to get to Babylon 5 as quickly as possible in “Endgame,” it seems as sensible as not that these might both be the same speedy-even-for-a-White Star vessel.

White Star 27 a.k.a. Maria

White Star 27 appeared in 5×14 “Meditations on the Abyss” and 5×15 “Darkness Ascending,” though the bridge was only seen in the former. The knot is a gold four-lobed loop, the railing posts are blue, the aft wall lights are white, and the monitors are set A. Beginning in this episode and continuing to the end of season 5, the third, smaller free-standing console is regularly used in the aft half of the bridge. Additionally, the ship’s unofficial name, Maria, is stenciled on the fuselage in red paint, just behind the “head.”

Delenn’s Minbar Ship

This ship appeared in 5×17 “Movements of Fire and Shadow,” and 5×18 “The Fall of Centauri Prime,” where Delenn and Lennier attempted to fly it to Minbar, but were attacked en route and the ship was wrecked. The knot is a white circle with a quadrant weave. The aft wall lights are white, the monitors are set C, and the railing posts are orange.

Sheridan and Delenn’s Minbar Ship

In 5×21 “Objects at Rest,” Sheridan and Delenn took this White Star from Babylon 5 to their new home on Minbar. The knot is the downward-pointing triangle from Sheridan’s fast ship, above, though recolored gold. The railing posts are blue, the aft wall lights are white, and the monitors are set B.

It’s possible this is the same ship that conveyed the various Ambassadors from Babylon 5 to Earth and back in “Rising Star,” which was identified as White Star 9 in the script. The bridge of the “Rising Star” ship was not seen, but it’s possible the private quarters Delenn and Sheridan stayed in in both episodes was not a standard compartment but some sort of modification for VIP duties, and there would be a symbolic element to choosing the same ship both times.

White Star 90

In A Call to Arms, we see White Star 90 under the command of Garibaldi in his capacity heading up construction for the Interstellar Alliance’s new prototype capital ships. White Star 90 also appeared (without any scene set aboard) in 5×03 “The Paragon of Animals,” where it was severely damaged with the entire crew being killed or fatally injured in battle. The circular quadrant knot from Delenn’s Minbar ship is reused. The railing posts are blue, the aft wall lights are red, the monitors are set B, and the ship is back to only using the two larger free-standing consoles. Additionally, the columns (but not the keystone) around the main hatch are accented in blue, and the lights above the forward viewports are blue instead of white.

(Technically, the HW3 Motherships are upside-down compared to how they orient vertically in-game, but the top is their “hero” angle, and starboard is the usual perspective on the first two Motherships, so I had to compromise.)

However, I’m not entirely trusting of the in-game scale. After all, the original Homeworld’s manual says the first Morthership is “really” ten or twenty times larger than it is in-game. I made a second image, this time scaling the HW3 Motherships up so the size of their Hyperspace Core modules matched the similar feature on Sajuuk (the main cannon on the Khar-Sajuuk is clearly derived from Sajuuk, but the shape is different enough that there was nothing to scale-match), assuming since the ships from HW1 and 2 can all interact with each other in campaign and skirmish and are all Mothership-class, they’re all correctly sized relative to each other. There’s a little leeway involved, the two Hyperspace Core housings aren’t exactly the same shape, but this method makes the HW3 Motherships about 1.6 times longer than they are based on the in-game scale. The vertical edge of this image is 4650 meters tall, assuming the in-game scale for the HW1 and 2 ships is correct and they aren’t actually supposed to be twenty times larger.

I like this alternate scaling better, myself. Given how massive Sajuuk was compared to the Pride of Hiigara, I think it makes sense that a Mothership that was more-or-less built around it should be a similar leap in scale, revolutionary rather than the evolutionary change from HW1 to HW2. You can’t see it from this angle, but it also makes the Frigate launch bay and the fighter bays at the wingtips close to the same size as the prior Motherships’, rather than noticeably smaller, which is enough to make me wonder if the ship was scaled down after it had been designed for some reason. I did compare some of the other Homeworld 3 ships with their Homeworld 2 equivalents, and it appears if there was a post-design scale-change, the Motherships were the only vessels affected. Additionally, checking against the Hyperspace Core model (reused in Homeworld 3 from Homeworld 2 Remastered directly), there’s excessive amounts of room under the shaded circles on the Sajuuk’s module, the ends only barely exceed the circles of the Khar-Sajuuk’s module at the in-game size, and they’ll even fit centered under the domes of the Khar-Kushan’s module, properly rotated so they don’t collide (and the Khar-Kushan’s cores may not be the same shape or size as the three used in the Sajuuk and Khar-Sajuuk). So the smaller in-game scale for the ships is possible, even if I don’t personally like the idea of the ships echoing features of Sajuuk so closely but at a different size.

Acknowledgement to the original concept and 3D artists and developers of Homeworld, Homeworld: Cataclysm/Emergence, Homeworld 2, Homeworld Remastered, and Homeworld 3. Thanks to ArkFlash for the Cataclysm/Emergence models. Homeworld 1 and 2 Remastered models were extracted with CFHodEd and Gearbox’s Modding Tools. Homeworld 3 models were extracted with UE Viewer and converted using Blender using this plug-in. All models were resurfaced and rendered in Lightwave.

“Stargate Accessory Pack 1” for Lightwave 2020 (FBX & OBJ Included), Released November 3, 2023—17 MB

Here are three platforms designed for use with the 2020 versions of my film, SG-1, and Atlantis Stargate models.

The Circular Platform was built for the version 2 Stargate, but has been modified to fit the current version, and was inspired by an aftermarket Stargate model kit.

The “Grace of God” version based on a platform seen several times during the show (built for the episode “There For But the Grace of God,” but actually debuting in an earlier episode), frequently on planets with advanced technology or direct connections with the Ancients, though the proportions have been adjusted. The Lightwave version of the model is set up so you can place lights within the four bollards on the corner for a glowing effect, but that’s entirely optional.

The Curved Platform is based on concept art for SG-1, but it doesn’t seem to have actually been built. There are two variants. The Milky Way version has a cutout for the Stargate, so the inner ring on the Milky Way (or film) version can rotate freely without clipping through the platform. The Pegasus version is a solid piece, since that Stargate doesn’t move so the platform can be assumed to be flush with it.

No image maps are included with the model. You can texture the models procedurally, or use any appropriate image maps. The variations for the Curved Platform seen on this page were made using images from Textures.com. Poly Haven is another a good source for versatile PBR image sets, and is also the source for the HDRI backgrounds used in the above images.

I’m not including the puddle effect, since it required considerable pre-rendering the way I did it, and I’m not sure it would look good if I compressed the resulting image sequences to a small enough size to put up for download.

I recently started rebuilding a new, PBR-based set of models in Lightwave 2020, mostly thanks to the models of Chris Kuhn, Marc Bell, and Alexander Klemm, but I hadn’t really done anything with them yet. This new model was a good chance to, and since it hadn’t been officially converted into Lightwave, I got to dip back into my roots a little when I had to convert anything I wanted to use. Downloading a cool new model that was just mesh and textures, and really digging into it to get it to look right. I spent the weekend building out the lighting rig and doing various minor modifications and tweaks, like breaking out the formation lights and impulse glows so they could be animated, and found picked an angle to run a test render (a good thing, too, I found a tiny sliver of window-box sticking out of the hull). I thought it looked pretty good, so I did a final version adding a basic Sun/Earth/Moon three-point light setup, and that was that.

I tried to think of something more dramatic, and thought up a concept for another image, with the Enterprise-G over the Founder’s Homeworld seen in Deep Space Nine, returning the renegade Changelings who’d infiltrated Starfleet to their own people. Luckily, my prep came in handy, and I already had a Jem’Hadar fighter and a Defiant ready to go for a suitable escort. I spent a bit of time making new decals for the Defiant-A (I know in-canon the second Defiant had the same markings as the first one, but Ron Moore wanted it to be the Defiant-A, I wanted it to be the Defiant-A, so I made it that way). I was pretty far along before I remembered the Defiant was a museum exhibit now, so I just went with it, not having any better idea what ship Deep Space Nine might have assigned to it in the PIC era (or if there’s even still a DS9 at all). Maybe they flew it out as a goodwill historical thing.

Enterprise-G by Marc Bell, Jem’Hadar Fighter by Chris Kuhn, Defiant mesh by Chris Kuhn, textures by Marc Bell, and Lightwave conversion by Matt Christou.

Star backgrounds in both images are NASA’s Deep Star Map (though I should’ve been used the fictionalized version without recognizable constellations for the second render). The Founder homeworld is NASA photo ISS048-E-010018, recolored in Photoshop to match the planet as seen on the show. Both images had compositing and post work done in After Effects.

Edited 2024-10-08

Recently I learned of JPEG XL, the little image format that’s going to solve all of my problems (and by “all” I mean “delivering HDR content via the web”). I’ve been post-processing my images in full HDR for a while, but I never had a good way of distributing them.

As a test, I’ve exported the full version of “Repatriation” in HDR JXL, just to see if it would work, and I’m tucking it away in this old post behind a read-more banner so I can check it on different devices and see what happens.

Stargate SG-1 had four basic opening title sequences over the course of its ten-year run. The first, used for the initial airings of the first five seasons on Showtime was reused footage from the original film’s opening titles, a slow orbit around a bust of Ra. The next sequence was apparently created early in production of season two, using clips from the first season (and one shot from season two) and was used for syndication re-run airings of the first five seasons, except for the pilot episode, which used the original opening probably for spoiler reasons.

On home video, the first sequence with Ra’s bust is used for the pilot, then the syndication credits are used for all normal episodes up to the season three finale, which switches back to the Ra sequence, which is then used for all of seasons 4 and 5. When the show switched to the Sci-Fi Channel in season 6, a new title sequence was made, and they stopped using a separate version for reruns. It was once again clips from the show, intercut with close-ups of the stargate. This basic style persisted through season eight, with different clips swapped in and out because of cast changes. Season 9 switched to a new, flashier format filled with overlays and stylish transitions, and instead of footage of the real stargate setpiece used a pretty rough CG model that I don’t think appeared in any actual episodes.¹I’m considering rendering out replacement elements using my Stargate model, but I really don’t want to try and recreate the motion graphics needed to integrate it into the actual sequence. I might just put the raw renders up for download and let someone else try to finish it off. Again, the same basic style was used in season 10, with some minor swaps to reflect cast changes.

In addition to having the “wrong” titles on DVD, there’s another thing that makes seasons 4 and 5 of SG-1 unique compared to the other eight, which is that the characters use a different stargate to get around. You may have noticed that despite the series never really showing it, I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about the idea that every stargate has one unique symbol on it representing its own location. One of the first things I learned when I first got into the show was that there were two stargates on Earth, one found in Giza, and the other in Antarctica, and that while the SGC used the Antarctic (or “Beta”) stargate for two seasons, they didn’t modify the setpiece to change the “point of origin” symbol, nor did they ever do it to the stargate setpieces on other planets, and only vanishingly rarely did they make a new symbol at all, and all us fans just had to live with that.

That’s always something I wanted to correct using high-tech computer graphics techniques. So, as a fun proof-of-concept exercise, I edited together a hypothetical opening title sequence for the fourth and fifth seasons of SG-1, a stylistic mix of the sequences before and after those years, replacing the Giza origin symbol with the Antarctic one, and using clips from, mostly, the third season of the show, as if it were created back in 2000. Here’s a walkthrough of my edit.

00:00—The syndication credits for the first five seasons began with a series of slow pans over a model stargate. I recreated those movements and rendered them out with my CG stargate, with the Antarctic symbol in place of the Giza one. Additionally, my read of that montage was that it was supposed to be the stargate in its prime, when it was being used by the Goa’uld in ancient Egypt, so I wanted to show the Antarctic stargate where it would’ve been used when it was first built, before it was buried in the ice. It’s very subtle, but if you look closely, you might recognize that it’s in the Atlantis Gateroom, as it would’ve been before the city left Earth. In the last shot, as in the original, a ray of light passes over the ‘gate. I don’t know what the original intent was, if any, but in mine, it’s being cast from a Ring Transporter.

00:06—Instead of showing the stargate spinning in the SGC as in the original sequence, I decided to stick with the idea that this is the introduction of a different stargate, with a different history, so the next show is the Antarctic gate when it was rediscovered, from the season 1 episode “Solitudes.”

00:08—And the big musical sting that was accompanied by a quick cut of a chevron locking and the stargate opening in the SGC is replaced with the next part of the Beta Gate’s story, when it was stolen by a renegade agency and used for raids to acquire alien technology, so we get the shot of it opening while in a large crate.

00:10—O’Neill meeting the Asgard in season 2’s “The Fifth Race,” by way of season 8’s “Citizen Joe” for quality reasons. That episode is a pretty fundamental one in the show growing beyond “Army guys versus ancient Egyptian aliens.”

00:13—Richard Dean Anderson’s credit shots are from “Shades of Gray,” “Forever in a Day,” and “Shades of Gray” again. The final shot is a proof-of-concept for painting the incorrect Giza symbol off of an alien stargate and replacing it with a new one.

00:18—My CG stargate again. This is a direct recreation of a stock shot used in the syndication opening titles as well as several episodes. The background is from the original shot, however, I was afraid of how hard it would be to paint out the Giza symbol in a moving shot, and it’s going to cut directly to my CG stargate again, so I decided to use the whole thing for consistency.

00:19—As in the original syndication titles, a cross-fade to a close-up of the origin symbol. Where in the original, the Giza symbol turned into the A’s in “Stargate,” and then faded to a first-person shot of walking through the stargate’s “puddle,” that obviously wouldn’t work here. Instead, I had faded to a front view of a stargate opening superimposed over the large circle in the Antarctic symbol, which the camera then flies into. This was inspired by the third-and-a-half SG-1 title sequence which I didn’t mention before. In season 9 of SG-1 and season 2 of Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica, a shortened title-only sequence was requested by the Sci-Fi Channel, as was the style at the time. Fan reaction was negative, and the full-length sequences returned after the midseason breaks for all three shows. I did think the SG-1 short title was pretty cool, though, and now it lives again, sort of.

(If anyone’s wondering, the puddle and “foam” behind the kawoosh are my work, the Kawoosh itself, the “fog” before entering the wormhole and the initial flare as the stargate forms were extracted from episodes of the show. The wormhole PoV is from the original film for quality reasons, I thought about using Robert Wilde’s version of the wormhole sequence from Stargate: Origins but the show used the movie wormhole up until season 9 and I wanted to be consistent).

00:28—Michael Shank’s clips are from “Small Victories,” “Learning Curve,” and “Maternal Instinct.” The use of the a clip from the season 4 premiere is an intentional reference to Carter’s close-up from “In the Line of Duty,” the only season 2 shot in the syndication credits.

00:32—Death Gliders attack Tollana from “Pretense.”

00:34— Amanda Tapping’s clips are from “A Hundred Days,” “Nemesis,” and “Foothold.”

00:37—SG-1 holding off the Replicators right before using the Giza stargate to escape Thor’s ship in “Nemesis.” Like the clips I picked early on, I wanted to be sure to include this one to remind everybody why the stargate with the pyramid-and-sun symbol is gone, and because the Replicators are an important enemy in the show now.

00:40—Christopher Judge’s clips are from “Into the Fire” and “The Devil You Know.”

00:44—Sokar’s torture-moon exploding in “The Devil You Know.” I wanted to include a spaceship shot, since SG-1 had started spending a good amount of time in space by this point.

00:46—Don S. Davis’s shots are both from “Into the Fire.” General Hammond taking off the monk hood disguise was another early pick, it just feels like such an opening-title shot.

00:50—The shot of the stargate opening from the side is probably the most used stock-shot in the show, and also my least favorite. Most of the shots of the SGC stargate opening and closing look pretty weak because they were done for the pilot episode and never revisited as the visual effect settled into a more polished style. I’d wanted to try and cut this shot up and rebuild it to match kawoosh shots made later in the run of the show, but I haven’t had any success extracting side-angle kawooshes from various episodes, nor with recreating it in 3D. Maybe I will in the future. Other aspects of the shot that could be improved are that the lights on the ramp are tuned off, and you can see the rafters and stage lights where the ceiling of the room should be.

00:52—SG-1 walking through the stargate was shot for season 7, but is taken from a season 8 episode for quality reasons. Everyone looks more or less the way they should despite being three years older. I also painted out and replaced the origin symbol on the stargate in this shot, though a bit less successfully, since there’s a jet of steam pointed directly at it.

Finally, here are the raw renders of the open montage shots, without color-correction, grain, or bloom. Feel free to use them in your own editing projects, standard disclaimers about fan-work apply.