So I took a step back, stripped most all of the textures from my model, and reverted to a "clay model", concentrating on modelling the rest of this beast. Some parts were more difficult to perfect than others, such as the window in the Chief Engineer's office, which took about 3 hours. I still have a long way to go but the CE's office area is shaping up much better now. I started to move into the core area, to at least finish off that part of the deck before adding the levels above and below before bringing in the core. She may not look like much right now, but at least I can sort out the modeling and the lighting, to at least get the lighting scheme set and then move on to bringing back the textures. It's a process, a little here, a little there.
Making some headway with the core, no new lighting yet in that area, since I have to figure out where the lighting should go...gonna need to refer to the episodes again.
Looking great! Love your attention to detail. Only thing that kinda stands out to me are the blue and green lit panels. They seem too cartoonish and distract from the realism of the rest of your work. I know you said textures aren't your strong suit, which I totally understand - I'm the same way. I'm dreading the texturing of my own work later on. Keep practicing it though, and I'm sure you'll get it perfect.
I love how the glass next to the warp core reflects the light on that lass render. Great modeling and material work!
Regarding the isolinear panels, I agree with ChiefBrex. Most of the iso panels on the show were actually a flat panel (as that was easier to produce, and it was understood that the chips were inside of the glass there):
If you prefer to make them actual 3D objects, I'd suggest putting them further inside the wall, so that a smaller bit is visible from the outside (thus making each chip visible as a single item, rather than giving the illusion of a long horizontal green line, as they look right now). Plus, maybe it'd be worth it to have more chips "off-line" or simply removed from the socket, as was the case during most of TNG for those panels that actually had chips in them:
For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
@ChiefBrex@Rekkert I realize that over the course of 7 seasons, the production crew could never make up their minds how they wanted things to look in Engineering, in fact I think Engineering was the most used part of the sets, with their constant moving of walls to accommodate different parts of the ship, as well as ever-changing "red stickers" on the panel walls to of course, the isolinear chip colors. With that said though, it's made things very difficult in capturing the detail as well as the attempt to make an accurate model. Initially, the chips were modeled and placed within their slots, and that still holds true, but as it goes, trying to get the right amount of light to emit from them and still have them look right, has been a real PITA. I could opt for a "flat" texture for the chips and call it good, but my OCD kicks in and I know it's not the way they should really look. @Rekkert , the chip depth is accurate, using the show references to get as accurate a depth as possible. In fact, I may still have to post my engineering station exploded model to show off everything that is contained in those things you see, just to prove there is more than what meets the eye.
Not to sound sarcastic, but the purpose of my previous two renders was to show off the progress of the modeling and while I opted to leave in any and all lightsources, I guess those isolinear chip banks are a bit distracting right now. With that said though and referencing @Rekkert above screenshots, you can clearly see these were from earlier episodes, but that doesn't matter a lot considering that at any given point, you could take screenshots from episode to episode, sit them side by side and play the game "what's wrong with this picture?" because even though the production crew put a lot of detail into the scenes, they tend to contradict themselves way too often. I believe I said before that the look or setup of my model will/is based on the last season of STNG, where all the "uprgades" are present. For example, the dark monitoring screen on the wall, in the background behind LaForge, actually got an extension (which is present in my model). Another, is the large glass window, in that it once had a black borderline running around it that eventually disappeared, so I don't show that either...and that's not even touching on the lighting schemes that changed so often! lol
For now, I have to move forward with the rest of the model, getting core and upper/lower decks in place, THEN I'll go back and touch up. As for the isolinear chips, I'll have to stew on that some more and figure out the best course of action.
Btw, off topic question, does anyone here get email notifications when replies are made to threads? I have that feature on in my profile settings, but never get notifications. I have to come here to the site to see when people reply.
Thanks for the constructive criticism though, it is appreciated.
Btw, off topic question, does anyone here get email notifications when replies are made to threads? I have that feature on in my profile settings, but never get notifications. I have to come here to the site to see when people reply.
Check your spam folder. They've been known to end up in there occasionally. Issue should get corrected, once you mark a couple of them safe.
If those aren't textures then it might be that they're emitting too much light and the render engine is just blurring that all together.
Lighting is a PITA. I do love all the detail you're putting into this set though. It's definitely one they kept tinkering with and could never settle on one look or configuration for long.
@Guerrilla , that was my first assumption after I started this thread and received feedback from the community, but alas, my junk mail folder has dust in it...no emails whatsoever from this site, which I find strange, but I manage. it just gives me a reason to visit frequently!
@ashleytinger you don't have to tell me twice, lighting is what I find tweaking the most, but VRay has come a long way in that, you can get previews of the settings you make with lights before you render, which does help a bit. Yes, I won't disagree that the light emission from the chips may be a cause...I'll investigate later, and I might also forego having them in 3D, it's honestly at the bottom of my honey-do list. . As I've said before, I'm in the process of watching the STNG Blu-Ray set currently, and I see it almost every episode, where they change something, it's quite annoying. lol
@Guerrilla , that was my first assumption after I started this thread and received feedback from the community, but alas, my junk mail folder has dust in it...no emails whatsoever from this site, which I find strange, but I manage. it just gives me a reason to visit frequently!
@ashleytinger you don't have to tell me twice, lighting is what I find tweaking the most, but VRay has come a long way in that, you can get previews of the settings you make with lights before you render, which does help a bit. Yes, I won't disagree that the light emission from the chips may be a cause...I'll investigate later, and I might also forego having them in 3D, it's honestly at the bottom of my honey-do list. . As I've said before, I'm in the process of watching the STNG Blu-Ray set currently, and I see it almost every episode, where they change something, it's quite annoying. lol
Yeah that's the problem when you have a corridor set that doubles for half of your Engineering set, or when you need something in a cabinet that didn't exist the year or even week before. LOL
Dude, regardless of the issues with the lighting of the isolinear chips, your work is truly amazing. Your attention to detail is commendable. Your efforts are inspiring. Makes me want to do my best efforts so I can be up to scratch like everyone else!
@Brandenberg Thank you Sir, I do try. To be honest, I was getting tired of seeing so many people slap together scenes like this without taking the time to put a little more effort into it (present company excluded). Personally, this is a challenge of mine, which has helped me understand modeling a bit more, all the while having fun doing it. I am a designer by trade, and oddly enough, I work with Sketchup at work and at home (the later started first and after putting some teaser work together at my company, one of my bosses loved it and commissioned me to do more). I became more and more passionate about using these tools of the trade that I invested my own money for my own licenses, so now I have a heavily vested interest in doing this stuff more and more. Transitioning from 2D to 3D really wasn't that hard, and for the most part, even the most complex of geometry can be had with a little thought and hard work.
@ChiefBrex Thanks to you too Sir! My attention to detail is due in part to the passion I have for Star Trek. Ever since my early days of drawings starships by hand on a drafting board, I slowly transitioned from one medium to another. The attention to detail comes with experience, primarily gained through the vast engineering work I've done as my job over the years, which translated to my hobby rather easily.
From the bottom of my heart, I thank you all for your kind words of encouragement and praise. I'm no where near professional quality, but I do try and there isn't any harm in that.
@shaved_ape You, sir, are extremely talented. I hope to become as good as you and so many others on these forums. My love of Star Trek has been rekindled!!!
I'm no where near professional quality, but I do try and there isn't any harm in that.
I dunno. You're doing just fine and belong here just like the rest of us. I just learned something new the other day about Lightwave (my 3D software) that I used to do the hard way. When I think of the time I spent on modeling that was unnecessary because of this function...
Big thanks to @Rekkert and @evil_genius_180 . Once again, I'm at odds (and tearing out what little of hair I have on my head, with getting the coloring right. I poured over a lot of screenshots (not to mention referencing directly from the STNG blu-Rays, which frustrates the heck out of my wife as we watch episodes) and I see the wall colors within the core area as a bit of a deep red, but that's with the core lighting, but then if I look at screenshots and the aforementioned blu-Rays, if there is a scene with the core shutdown, overhead lighting takes over and I get a bright orangish color, so I'm at wits end with that.
From a modeling standpoint, it's progress, but texturing is another matter. I may spend the next few days gathering my screen textures and start really adding some life to this lifeless model.
Hey there. This project is really inspiring to me. As someone who does (real world) architectural renderings I love seeing this come together. I especially like your "cold-start" condition idea. A huge part of the fun of being a Star Trek fan is imagining things like this.
Concerning the isolinear chips, in real life they are plexiglass rectangles that are back lit; they did not emit light themselves. Setting up your panels like this may make it look more realistic. I created a render to illustrate the idea:
The white plane behind the panel is emitting light. You may also want to experiment with the translucency of the chip material to be truer to the show. Please keep up the great work
Edit: I did some experimenting on my own and found that lowering the surface glossiness while keeping the refraction glossiness high created a more pleasing result.
Hey there. This project is really inspiring to me. As someone who does (real world) architectural renderings I love seeing this come together. I especially like your "cold-start" condition idea. A huge part of the fun of being a Star Trek fan is imagining things like this.
Concerning the isolinear chips, in real life they are plexiglass rectangles that are back lit; they did not emit light themselves. Setting up your panels like this may make it look more realistic. I created a render to illustrate the idea:
The white plane behind the panel is emitting light. You may also want to experiment with the translucency of the chip material to be truer to the show. Please keep up the great work
Thanks for the input but back in the early days of this model (several moons ago), I started the modeling of the isolinear chips and the places they sat into by doing the very same thing as you have. The problem was that you would have to set up a scene at just the right angle to see any light coming from the chips regardless of whatever brightness I applied to the plane behind the chips. I tried out mesh lights too and got the same result, and then I played around with transparency of the chips, practically making them into glass). VRay does an exceptional job of light emitting objects, especially lights, as long as they are solids, instead of surfaces). So I shifted gears and applied an emissive texture to the chips to get them to light up better, but as it got point out up above, they looked "cartoonish" when viewing from a distance, as all the chips light blended together. Currently, I scrapped the inclusion of individually modeled ships for something a bit more middle of the road, which by some recent test renders on my end, looked the best at a distance, but preserved some of the three-dimensional look to those modules. For now, the chip issue is still on the back burner and I'll revisit when the time comes. Right now, I have bigger fish to fry.
Watching episodes are always a good way to get references. Your wife will just have to understand that. Though, another good resource is TrekCore's screencap library. I often find references I'm looking for there, especially in the HD caps. Unfortunately, they've only done up to part of season 6, but there's still a lot there.
If there's such a thing as a "happy accident", this is it...at least in my opinion. So, I had a catastrophic event occur a few days ago, and my only backup set me back quite a bit. Since then, I've been working to rebuild everything, but for some reason, it's turning out better than before. This render, during a lighting test (and taking consideration to feedback about my "cartoonish" isolinear chips), I forgot to turn on the ceiling lights and this is what I got: a happy accident.
Anywho, I'm forging on. On one hand, it sucks, but on the other, it's going a bit easier and much more efficient.
Yeah, I also made sure the backups are occurring as scheduled.
Wow. That seriously looks like it could be from the show. I've had similar "forest fires" with my work and it always seemed to work out for the better.
Wow. That seriously looks like it could be from the show. I've had similar "forest fires" with my work and it always seemed to work out for the better.
Shhh, don't tell anyone, but this image IS from the set. lol
I don't know about you or anyone else, but I find that one of the hardest things about modeling in 3D, is that you can get carried away with placing objects and textures and lighting, without taking precautions along the way, like every good modeller should, and it's usually at that time that fate deals you an ugly hand. In redoing this engine room (again), I did find a few mistakes along the way, which I corrected, such as not everything being solid (I'm a huge proponent of solids modeling in SU) and the lighting objects were getting out of hand, so I rectified that as well, though not evident with the above image. I do however, feel a bit better about the isolinear chips and how they cast just the right amount of light. In any case, this is shaping up better than I anticipated.
Posts
Regarding the isolinear panels, I agree with ChiefBrex. Most of the iso panels on the show were actually a flat panel (as that was easier to produce, and it was understood that the chips were inside of the glass there):
If you prefer to make them actual 3D objects, I'd suggest putting them further inside the wall, so that a smaller bit is visible from the outside (thus making each chip visible as a single item, rather than giving the illusion of a long horizontal green line, as they look right now). Plus, maybe it'd be worth it to have more chips "off-line" or simply removed from the socket, as was the case during most of TNG for those panels that actually had chips in them:
Not to sound sarcastic, but the purpose of my previous two renders was to show off the progress of the modeling and while I opted to leave in any and all lightsources, I guess those isolinear chip banks are a bit distracting right now. With that said though and referencing @Rekkert above screenshots, you can clearly see these were from earlier episodes, but that doesn't matter a lot considering that at any given point, you could take screenshots from episode to episode, sit them side by side and play the game "what's wrong with this picture?" because even though the production crew put a lot of detail into the scenes, they tend to contradict themselves way too often. I believe I said before that the look or setup of my model will/is based on the last season of STNG, where all the "uprgades" are present. For example, the dark monitoring screen on the wall, in the background behind LaForge, actually got an extension (which is present in my model). Another, is the large glass window, in that it once had a black borderline running around it that eventually disappeared, so I don't show that either...and that's not even touching on the lighting schemes that changed so often! lol
For now, I have to move forward with the rest of the model, getting core and upper/lower decks in place, THEN I'll go back and touch up. As for the isolinear chips, I'll have to stew on that some more and figure out the best course of action.
Btw, off topic question, does anyone here get email notifications when replies are made to threads? I have that feature on in my profile settings, but never get notifications. I have to come here to the site to see when people reply.
Thanks for the constructive criticism though, it is appreciated.
Check your spam folder. They've been known to end up in there occasionally. Issue should get corrected, once you mark a couple of them safe.
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Lighting is a PITA. I do love all the detail you're putting into this set though. It's definitely one they kept tinkering with and could never settle on one look or configuration for long.
@ashleytinger you don't have to tell me twice, lighting is what I find tweaking the most, but VRay has come a long way in that, you can get previews of the settings you make with lights before you render, which does help a bit. Yes, I won't disagree that the light emission from the chips may be a cause...I'll investigate later, and I might also forego having them in 3D, it's honestly at the bottom of my honey-do list.
Yeah that's the problem when you have a corridor set that doubles for half of your Engineering set, or when you need something in a cabinet that didn't exist the year or even week before. LOL
@ChiefBrex Thanks to you too Sir! My attention to detail is due in part to the passion I have for Star Trek. Ever since my early days of drawings starships by hand on a drafting board, I slowly transitioned from one medium to another. The attention to detail comes with experience, primarily gained through the vast engineering work I've done as my job over the years, which translated to my hobby rather easily.
From the bottom of my heart, I thank you all for your kind words of encouragement and praise. I'm no where near professional quality, but I do try and there isn't any harm in that.
I dunno. You're doing just fine and belong here just like the rest of us. I just learned something new the other day about Lightwave (my 3D software) that I used to do the hard way. When I think of the time I spent on modeling that was unnecessary because of this function...
From a modeling standpoint, it's progress, but texturing is another matter. I may spend the next few days gathering my screen textures and start really adding some life to this lifeless model.
Concerning the isolinear chips, in real life they are plexiglass rectangles that are back lit; they did not emit light themselves. Setting up your panels like this may make it look more realistic. I created a render to illustrate the idea:
The white plane behind the panel is emitting light. You may also want to experiment with the translucency of the chip material to be truer to the show. Please keep up the great work
Edit: I did some experimenting on my own and found that lowering the surface glossiness while keeping the refraction glossiness high created a more pleasing result.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqRhLEHgwgTKxsalM5YznYQ
Formerly furswift
Thanks for the input but back in the early days of this model (several moons ago), I started the modeling of the isolinear chips and the places they sat into by doing the very same thing as you have. The problem was that you would have to set up a scene at just the right angle to see any light coming from the chips regardless of whatever brightness I applied to the plane behind the chips. I tried out mesh lights too and got the same result, and then I played around with transparency of the chips, practically making them into glass). VRay does an exceptional job of light emitting objects, especially lights, as long as they are solids, instead of surfaces). So I shifted gears and applied an emissive texture to the chips to get them to light up better, but as it got point out up above, they looked "cartoonish" when viewing from a distance, as all the chips light blended together. Currently, I scrapped the inclusion of individually modeled ships for something a bit more middle of the road, which by some recent test renders on my end, looked the best at a distance, but preserved some of the three-dimensional look to those modules. For now, the chip issue is still on the back burner and I'll revisit when the time comes. Right now, I have bigger fish to fry.
Agreed
Anywho, I'm forging on. On one hand, it sucks, but on the other, it's going a bit easier and much more efficient.
Yeah, I also made sure the backups are occurring as scheduled.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqRhLEHgwgTKxsalM5YznYQ
Formerly furswift
Shhh, don't tell anyone, but this image IS from the set. lol
I don't know about you or anyone else, but I find that one of the hardest things about modeling in 3D, is that you can get carried away with placing objects and textures and lighting, without taking precautions along the way, like every good modeller should, and it's usually at that time that fate deals you an ugly hand. In redoing this engine room (again), I did find a few mistakes along the way, which I corrected, such as not everything being solid (I'm a huge proponent of solids modeling in SU) and the lighting objects were getting out of hand, so I rectified that as well, though not evident with the above image. I do however, feel a bit better about the isolinear chips and how they cast just the right amount of light. In any case, this is shaping up better than I anticipated.