It reminds me a lot of that fan ship the Aurora. Like a TNG update to the design. Love it.
Thanks a lot. The original idea actually traces back to a ship I first did about 18 years ago. That was when I first decided to do the whole saucer/hull combo thing with the upswept pylons that connect and wrap around the nacelles and the deflector cut into the front of the saucer. Though, suffice to say, that version no doubt looked like crap by comparison.
This is another model I did based on that design about 14 years ago:
After doing a Constitution class based on notoriously incorrect blueprints and doing whatever that thing was that I was doing in that other thread, I'm doing a "proper" Constitution. I'm basing it on Alan Sinclair's blueprints because they're my favorite. Accuracy wise, I'd say they're close enough. There were no less than 7 models used in TOS alone to represent the Constitution class. There was the 33" model, the 11' model, two tiny models (2-3 inches) and two model kits used in the original effects. Then there was the CGI model used for the remastered episodes. Also in canon, there was a CGI model used for Enterprise. The point is, there's no "one" look for the Constitution class.
Anyway, I started yesterday and I almost have the saucer done:
Incidentally, this is designed to go with the one I did based on Franz Joseph's blueprints, not to be a replacement. I dropped the Heracles into the file, and they work well together:
My thought process is that not every ship of the same class is built to the exact same specs. After all, this is true of real world ships.
Also, I was playing some Star Trek Online yesterday, and the Heracles is my character's ship:
Haven't played ST:O in years. Might try and get back into it over winter.
You could consider each deviation in the blueprints as adjustments to different production batches on the in universe ships based on service feedback from already in service ships.
Haven't played ST:O in years. Might try and get back into it over winter.
It's been a while for me. Not years. Though, it's definitely been a hot minute. I have a lifetime subscription, so I have a lot of Zen to use in their store.
You could consider each deviation in the blueprints as adjustments to different production batches on the in universe ships based on service feedback from already in service ships.
That sounds perfect, so we'll definitely go with that as an official explanation.
Hell you can use cruise ships for that too. Even among the different lines, each 'Class' will have slightly different amenities, a slightly different layout, etc. We were on one that was the longest of its class a few years back because it was first built, they realized there was a structure and space issue after, lengthened the others while they were being built, brought that one back in, cut it in half and dropped in another section to make it the longest of the class.
Unless I missed anything, this should do it for the saucer section:
I had fun with the text. Blender does great with text. You can load any font from any folder. Yet, I couldn't find where my fonts that I installed were. It turns out that Windows being Windows was the problem. When you install a font, Windows 10 and 11 don't put them in the C:/Windows/Fonts folder, as would make sense. They put them in a hidden folder under your profile. I even tried copying them to C:/Windows/Fonts with no luck. So, I finally just copied my font folder off of my flash drive into my main Blender directory. That way, I can just load the font from there instead of remembering where that hidden folder is.
I didn't have this issue with other ships that I've built in Blender because I built them in Linux.
Also, I haven't decided if I'm going to do the text on the little signs. It's a tiny detail that won't be seen in most instances.
Hell you can use cruise ships for that too. Even among the different lines, each 'Class' will have slightly different amenities, a slightly different layout, etc. We were on one that was the longest of its class a few years back because it was first built, they realized there was a structure and space issue after, lengthened the others while they were being built, brought that one back in, cut it in half and dropped in another section to make it the longest of the class.
Sister ships never means 'identical'
Yeah, it's all relative. There is a "class ship" for which the whole line is named, but then there are variants. That goes for civilian and military ships. Both of my Constitution class models will be the same size, just the shapes and details will be different. So, they're class variants. This is even covered in the Star Fleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph. He listed different heavy cruiser ships under MK-IX, MK-IXA and MK-IXB. Though, he gave each one a different class ship. I don't feel that's necessary. They can all be Constitution class. Then the TMP refit is yet another class variant.
I created a fairly basic 6 color paneling pattern in Inkscape. From there, I took that to GIMP and copied it a bunch of times, moving them around and rotating them until I had a fairly regular but not totally repeating pattern. Then, for the saucer, I used Polar Coordinates to make it a circular map. It was huge at that point, so I resized it to 4000 pixels wide and saved that as a map. I used UV unwrapping from a top view to create my UV map, then I applied the map to my saucer. I had it fully in the specular channel, but it was too much, so I did a mix shader to cut down the strength of the map. I used another mix shader to apply some very light paneling into the color channel. I'm fairly pleased with the results, but I can always tweak it later.
That is absolutely BEAUTIFUL work! The paneling is subtle enough that it doesn't look out of place on the original ship, but it IS there and helps with scale.
Posts
Thanks a lot. The original idea actually traces back to a ship I first did about 18 years ago. That was when I first decided to do the whole saucer/hull combo thing with the upswept pylons that connect and wrap around the nacelles and the deflector cut into the front of the saucer. Though, suffice to say, that version no doubt looked like crap by comparison.
This is another model I did based on that design about 14 years ago:
Why do you think that?
Thanks a lot.
Just used to dishes
Anyway, I started yesterday and I almost have the saucer done:
Incidentally, this is designed to go with the one I did based on Franz Joseph's blueprints, not to be a replacement. I dropped the Heracles into the file, and they work well together:
My thought process is that not every ship of the same class is built to the exact same specs. After all, this is true of real world ships.
Also, I was playing some Star Trek Online yesterday, and the Heracles is my character's ship:
You could consider each deviation in the blueprints as adjustments to different production batches on the in universe ships based on service feedback from already in service ships.
It's been a while for me. Not years. Though, it's definitely been a hot minute. I have a lifetime subscription, so I have a lot of Zen to use in their store.
That sounds perfect, so we'll definitely go with that as an official explanation.
Sister ships never means 'identical'
I had fun with the text. Blender does great with text. You can load any font from any folder. Yet, I couldn't find where my fonts that I installed were. It turns out that Windows being Windows was the problem. When you install a font, Windows 10 and 11 don't put them in the C:/Windows/Fonts folder, as would make sense. They put them in a hidden folder under your profile.
I didn't have this issue with other ships that I've built in Blender because I built them in Linux.
Also, I haven't decided if I'm going to do the text on the little signs. It's a tiny detail that won't be seen in most instances.
Yeah, it's all relative. There is a "class ship" for which the whole line is named, but then there are variants. That goes for civilian and military ships. Both of my Constitution class models will be the same size, just the shapes and details will be different. So, they're class variants. This is even covered in the Star Fleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph. He listed different heavy cruiser ships under MK-IX, MK-IXA and MK-IXB. Though, he gave each one a different class ship. I don't feel that's necessary. They can all be Constitution class. Then the TMP refit is yet another class variant.
Thanks a lot.
I created a fairly basic 6 color paneling pattern in Inkscape. From there, I took that to GIMP and copied it a bunch of times, moving them around and rotating them until I had a fairly regular but not totally repeating pattern. Then, for the saucer, I used Polar Coordinates to make it a circular map. It was huge at that point, so I resized it to 4000 pixels wide and saved that as a map. I used UV unwrapping from a top view to create my UV map, then I applied the map to my saucer. I had it fully in the specular channel, but it was too much, so I did a mix shader to cut down the strength of the map. I used another mix shader to apply some very light paneling into the color channel. I'm fairly pleased with the results, but I can always tweak it later.
Excellent work!