Greetings!
Welcome to Scifi-Meshes.com! Click one of these buttons to join in on the fun.
Quick Links
3DUSS Enterprise NCC-1701D Engineering Interior
shaved_ape
433
USAPosts: 158Member
Greetings, I am a new member here and by recommendation of a friend who pointed this site out to me, I was encouraged to share my work so far on this project. As the title shows, I am in the process of creating the most accurate representation of the Enterprise D's Engineering roomspace. I realize this can get rather large, so I'm taking my time, using as many resources I can to build it up right. For now, this is what I have so far. I should also add that this is all being done in Sketchup and Vray, so go easy on me as far as accurate lighting and such. Everything seen here is modeled (including the labels and the door control panels). For the displays (when the time comes), I'll place textures, but for now, those are just blank screens.
Post edited by shaved_ape on
and 2 others.Additional credits
- Icons from Font-Awesome
- Additional icons by Mickael Bonfill
- Banner background from Toptal Subtle Patterns
© Scifi-Meshes.com 2001-2024
Posts
Love everything I'm seeing. Modeling looks clean, love the lighting and reflections on the screens, and even the carpet looks good. I'm no expert but the proportions seem correct. Can't wait to see it with all the screen textures in. Great job!
Great start, looking forward to seeing more of it.
Everything with SketchUp, very good. I take off my hat.
Isolinear chips are modeled at proper scale, and even use an emmissive texture, but the higher the brightness, the more they meld together, so i am still trying to get the right brightness. I created a back panel inside to house them, as well as the glass panel in front, to bring out the reflections and make it more accurate. When I get to Geordie's Office, the workstations on the back wall will house the same "chip banks" and should cast some good light in the slightly darker area. I have a separate model file for just those workstations that I may post here, to show off an "exploded" view of how the workstations are put together, complete with an open back wall, that shows conduit routing, structural members and how everything ties in.
In general, this roomspace is the most difficult to model, due to the many changes that occurred on the show. My wife and I are currently watching the Blu-Ray version of the series and I have noticed that, as an example, the two doors flanking the pool table area, were designated turbolifts (and used in the earlier episodes), but later on, they became Jefferies Tube access entries, so this model will be of the latest, or even last version of the Engine Room, from the series.
@BolianAdmiral SU has come a long way, with a lot of plugins that help achieve a lot of complicated geometry, but this is not to say it still isn't without some frustration too. That MSD took me the better part of 4 hours to get it right...still not perfect, but passes the muster.
If I recall correctly the last change on the set was for 'Phantasms', so I'd suggest sticking to the very last episodes of the season if you want to go for that look and be accurate.
That is some impressive work you got there.
A STUNNING START
Looking forward to seeing more of your art.
Yeah, there is something different about them. It looks like pictures from the series.
As I adjust texture properties, like reflection, refraction and bumps, the lighting will change overall, due to the raytrace bounces and the reflective and refractive qualities of the materials. Looking at the screenshots I have, it's also hard to tell what surfaces reflect what, so i have to go on the assumption that all touch panels, including the MSD, have a shiny, 100% reflective surface. In the show, they may have toned that down, in order to reduce the chance of seeing camera reflection in the shots. The same may hold true for the isolinear chip banks, as those are mainly plexi or mylar sheets with the rectangles printed on them, to give the illusion of actual chips being present. If you notice on the show, many times, you will see how poor the backlighting gets sometimes on those surfaces (unless the scene calls for attention to the actual chips), whereas my shots show how they should be lit.
I spent a couple of hours yesterday, scouring through the 7th season (per @Rekkert suggestion), looking for shots that would help me with modeling more detail, which I did accomplish yesterday, but haven't got around to new renders yet...probably this evening.
A big thanks and appreciation goes out to you all for the comments...I guess I found the right place for good feedback.
Let me put this out there first: I am horrible at creating textures, and equally horrible at creating Star Trek textures. With that said, the fix I made was more of a structural issue, rather than the textures, but you are not too far off the mark. I once had the two duplicated (because I was lazy), but last night, after the fix, I decided to try and create an alternate texture for the right-hand side of the console, via using Affinity Photo, which seemed to work out pretty well (anyone looking for the perfect and cheaper alternative to Photoshop, I highly recommend it). The right-hand texture is a variation of the left, mirrored, but also not exactly. Btw, I also noticed that for some odd reason, my pool table texture came out pixelated, for some odd reason, so I have to revisit my render settings again.
I'll give it another day or so and see if anyone else can see the difference in the MSD.
Regarding software to make LCARS, I highly suggest Inkscape, it's very easy to learn and I've been creating all my 2D graphics with it for years. Being vector-based rather than raster, it enables you to export higher resolution images without pixelation, making it easier to re-scale stuff as needed. Plus, it's FOSS, always a benefit.
EDIT: btw, looking fantastic! : )
You made me laugh.
Since no one noticed, and I'm not surprised, and it's a fix that people's eyes wouldn't catch, due to the "pretty" textures, it's the geometry of the MSD display itself, that was incorrect. The upper part of the display has a distinct slope, which was missing before, and that's what was fixed. Achieving the general shape of the MSD wasn't easy as it was, and that fix was pretty risky, potentially busting the geometry, but it works now.
I suppose I should tell everyone, that this project of mine, is more to do with accuracy of structure and design, rather than accuracy of LCARS displays and "what button shows up where", sort of things. Believe it or not, I once had this whole compartment done, but did a lousy job finishing it up at the end, so after putting it aside for a little while, I clamped down and started over, spending time correcting mistakes and such. This version is turning out much better than before, probably due to more experience with SU and VRay now. I'm still a novice with much to learn.
If the display textures is a task that I am in over my head on, I might just release this as a "blank" model and let everyone else put in what they feel like. As I said previous about modeling textures, instead of doing outside design in a third party program, it comes easier to me, allows me to be able to work with scale much better. The red labels, the door controls, albeit an experiment, might still be my best bet. This is a real challenge for me, since I'm used to doing houses and mechanical models in SU. A lot of the geometry is a bit "non-standard" for SU, but I have a decent set of plugins to help achieve what I want.
So I guess for now, the bananas will get shipped to the zoo.
I made some pretty decent textures from what I had before, to reflect how cold start sequences happen, so a lot of displays aren't fully functioning yet, or going through diagnostics, performing startup sequences, etc. I also brought in my jefferies tube model (puts a bit of a strain on SU, due to the detail), but anyways, this is very much a WIP.