What about the small detail markings on the escape pods? LOL I know thats a crap ton of them.. but it would add a bit more detail
That's a good thought and all you need to do is do one and clone it for the rest.
Two other things strike me.
1) The windows need something behind them to create realism
2) It's very sleek and smooth and I love how you surface texture, but I'm feeling like it could use some lines or gaps in strategic places to convey that the ship is assembled from pieces.
I really do appreciate the suggestions, but my desire to keep working on this model beyond doing a few more things that I already mentioned with it is really not high.
I might put some stripes on the escape pod hatches, but text is out of the question. The hatches are all positioned by hand, shrink wrapped to the hull, extruded and beveled. I also only did this for half of them and then mirrored them. To do text, I would have to line it all up by hand, shrink wrap it to the hull, extrude it and it couldn't be mirrored, for obvious reasons. So, I would have to do it for every single pod. There's no practical advantage to this, other than giving me more gray hair.
The ship has a large number of panel lines, they're just subtle and not as visible in direct lighting. They're easier to see in indirect lighting.
Putting more on there would "clutter" the hull more, and the TNG era was the era of smooth hulls. As I said in another thread, it was really in the time after the TNG era that the hull lines and paneling got more heavy handed. Though, the paneling on the four foot Galaxy model is also very heavy handed. I'm not sure why Greg Jein went that route when the ILM models were very smooth.
It's a fabulous Trek Worthy design though. Nice looking.
A third thought is that it is missing shuttle pod docking ports. They have the added beauty of giving it scale.
The docking ports are on the edge of the saucer. There's one to the port and one to starboard. Due to the hull contours, I had issues trying to get them on there without the cutouts for them looking like butt, so I went with those two. Both would work for docking with a space station or a shuttle. However, past the TMP era, there are only a few shuttles that even have those docking collars. (mostly because the writing of an episode or movie required them) Most shuttles just fly into the bay.
Oh I went back and looked and I now see the shuttle pod ports on the saucer's edge. There just didn't happen to be a render that made them obvious and so I missed them.
It's a really great model.
And yeah, the original series had a pretty smooth ship, TNG less so and the new streaming stuff has very scored hulls.
One thing I find interesting is the striking difference in the hull paneling just between the 6-foot Enterprise-D model and the 4-foot model.
The 6-footer (on the left) has hull paneling painted on and you can see it, but it's still a pretty smooth hull. Even details like the escape pod hatches aren't drastically raised from the hull. But then the 4-foot model has layered bumpy paneling and pronounced details like the escape pod hatches.
Aside from the slightly different shapes and the changed window details, the pronounced hull detailing is one sure way to tell you're looking at the 4-foot model in a shot. Because, it's not like they stopped using stock footage of the 6-foot model throughout the series, plus it had to be used whenever the ship separated because the 4-foot model couldn't separate. And, of course, for the big screen, it was the 6-footer all the way, just with a new more detailed (but still pretty flat) paint job.
Inconsistencies like this are what makes Star Trek such an interesting subject matter. Personally, I like a smoother hull on my Trek ships not only because it's used a lot in the older Trek, but also because it aligns with the wishes of original Enterprise designer Matt Jefferies. He thought the detailing on the ships should be simple and Gene Roddenberry had to help him win that argument with studio executives more than once.
I believe that in the CGI remastered STTNG the Enterprise is really NOT smooth and I'm with you. VERY weird and distracting. I definitely prefer a subtle touch. When I mentioned lines on yours, I meant subtle but have always had this question in my mind as to whether in the future their mastery over materials might even include the ability to make a completely seamless ship. The obvious advantage being less likelihood of atmospheric leaks.
I've seen pictures of the model where the escape pods are just stickers on the surface. I believe that''s true of the Nebula class and other STTNG era models.
I've seen pictures of the model where the escape pods are just stickers on the surface. I believe that''s true of the Nebula class and other STTNG era models.
Yes. They're decals. I've seen photos of the Ambassador class where they're actually peeling.
So are the transporter emitters. Obviously, Greg Jein knew this, but he still chose the bumpy route, for some reason.
Voyager seemed to have a mix of techniques. The escape pods are clearly modeled, as is the transporter emitter behind the bridge. The one to port looks like a decal, though.
Yeah, I've seen a lot of peeling escape pods but had forgotten till you reminded me.
Yeah, it was way worse on the Ambassador than I've seen on any other model. But then, that model was built very quickly and very cheaply. I've also seen it on the Enterprise-C in the photos from the private collector who owns that model. But, I think it's actually worse on the second Ambassador class model.
I'm playing around with compositing nodes, trying to add some glows and fun stuff. Ordinarily, I do this stuff in post but, if I get a bug up my butt and want to do animation, I need to be able to do this stuff in the rendering software, since I don't know much about using post processing software for animation. The top render is without the bloom, the bottom one is with. It adds a nice effect without having to composite it in afterwards.
Then I had a lot of fun messing with my 5-year-old Enterprise mesh. I built this in Lightwave and converted it to Blender. I was actually messing with the mesh in Lightwave yesterday, but I forgot that Lightwave 2018's Achilles heel is rendering light from emitting objects through transparent materials. It apparently just doesn't like to do it, even if you use a completely transparent material. That was the first version with node based materials, so I guess that mistakes were bound to happen. But, it's the newest version I have. So, my idea to mess with Lightwave died a quick death and I went back to Blender.
Blender has no issues with emission materials shining through transparent materials. However, I do find that the composite node to add glows apparently is less fond of glowing materials behind transparent materials. It's hit or miss on actually working. I even mixed in a bit of emission on both my bussards and blue bits and it still doesn't add the glow. It's irritating, but at least the other glows work well. On the other hand, that means that my windows also won't glow like light bulbs, so that's a good thing.
Edit: Also, I forgot how to add a starfield in Blender, so I had to open a file for one of my completed work scenes to figure out how to do it. It's just a color ramp with a Voronoi texture added to it and some settings tweaked, but it's a nice effect without having to make a starfield in Gimp and add it as a background.
Yeah, I saw the pricing. $620 if I want to just get the LW2024 upgrade. With LW2023 included too, it's $848. That's too much, so the 2024 upgrade would make more sense, but it's still expensive. So, I'll have to think about it. I mean, Blender is free. There are also a crazy amount of tutorials out there for it. I found out earlier how to add the glow effect using a YouTube video. Though, I did have to find one that specifically uses the Cycles render engine and not Eevee. That's the problem with having more than one render engine and people doing "1 minute tutorials." But, I found the information I needed with a quick search.
Rather than making new text, I just rearranged letters and numbers to make this happen. I couldn't remember where I got the name "Rycon" from, but then I went back a few pages and saw I got it from BSG, specifically the episode "Take the Celestra." The Rycon was the Battlestar that Commander Kronus had commanded before retiring. I'd probably watched the show recently when I picked that name. Since I didn't want to use the same class name, Charter class, that's something I'll save for later, I picked another Battlestar name and have it as "Triton Class." I also edited the launch stardate to be a few years before TNG.
For those who don't remember what the plaque looked like before, here it is:
It's a shame it has to be $620 but I understand if the guy that bought it has to keep it financially viable.
True, and it's not like it's anything I'm even mad about it. Lightwave has always cost money. The company that bought Newtek 5 years ago (their name eludes me) clearly had plans for some of the products, but it seemed like they never had any real plans for Lightwave. They never released any version after 2020 and it seemed like the software was dead. That would have been a bitter end for great software that's been used a lot over the years for some really big products. Then, we found out that their plan all along was apparently to sell Lightwave and they sold it to Andrew Bishop. The fact that he bought it and gave it a second life is great, and it stands to reason that he wants to sell licenses as a way to make money. It's just a bit out of my price range right now.
If I had purchased Lightwave 2023, the upgrade would be considerably less, $489. But, that also stands to reason, as they'll charge less for people who purchased LW2023 from them.
But, I'm a hobby user and, at the end of the day, purchasing a license for that much money doesn't make sense. Lightwave licenses are great for professionals, and they cost a lot less than subscription based software like 3DS Max and Maya.
Yeah that's why I chose Lightwave in the first place. It was way less expensive than other packages even though it had a track record of commercial use. At the time Blender wasn't as developed as it is now. Also I was really impressed with William Vaughn's tutorials.
Yeah that's why I chose Lightwave in the first place. It was way less expensive than other packages even though it had a track record of commercial use. At the time Blender wasn't as developed as it is now. Also I was really impressed with William Vaughn's tutorials.
It took me several serious tries to like Blender. It's definitely come a long way over the years.
I seem to have a renewed interest in working on this ship. That's a good thing, I guess, since there are a bunch of tiny details that I can add to the ship that will add to the realism. Things like small hatches and wahtnot that would obviously be needed for ingress and egress. The Enterprise-D was way too large to make it worthwhile to add a lot of small details, but they added all kinds of small bits to Voyager.
Anyway, onto what I've done so far today. I added some indents all along the phaser strips. I've noticed a lot of Trek ships with phaser strips have some kind of detailing on the strips themselves. But, I didn't want to go hog wild with a bunch of stuff that won't really be seen. I figure this is a nice happy medium between the bare strips and the tight series of indents that Voyager has that really aren't seen, especially since the show has never been done in HD. I also added a paneling pattern to the B deck structure beneath the bridge. I don't know why I didn't panel that before, but I did it now. And, I added some line work detail to the pylons holding up the pod.
Working on the interior. I started by trying to do simple stuff with procedurals only, but I find the size of the windows makes that look less realistic than it does on the TOS ships. So, I did separate floor, wall and ceiling materials and I have it lit by emission shaders in the ceiling for added realism. Then it looked a little bare, so I added some tables and chairs. Very low poly, but you get the idea.
I noticed that Blender adds a distortion effect behind the curved glass with the default glass settings, which I wasn't fond of. I played with settings and got rid of it.
That's really exciting Chris. I'm such a lazy fella. I'm going to have to do a real interior on the Titan. Your work is magnificent and I'm feeling inspired.
I got the rest of the interior added. I added in some beds to break up the tables and chairs. I figure some of these would be quarters anyway, while others might be lounges or labs. I figure there's no point in going all out when this stuff won't be seen clearly at any time due to the windows not being huge. I did renders from multiple angles so you can see how the windows look different at different angles, proving why it's worth it to model interiors. It adds a bit of realism.
I didn't bother with furniture on the bottom rooms since it won't be visible. Besides, those windows are kind of ludicrous anyway. I only included windows on the bottom for visual interest and because the Enterprise-D and other ships have windows on the bottom of the saucers at crazy angles like that.
Edit: Also, I left a few rooms dark because people might be off shift and sleeping in them. But, rest assured, they do have modeled interiors as well.
That's really exciting Chris. I'm such a lazy fella. I'm going to have to do a real interior on the Titan. Your work is magnificent and I'm feeling inspired.
I wouldn't go that far, but thanks. I really only did the furniture because it was going to be obvious that you were staring at empty rooms if I didn't. A procedural on the walls, ceilings and floors would look flat. But, for ships where I can get by with that, I do.
I got obsessed with trying to see the beds. I didn't exactly work that hard on them, but they're the proper size and I even made folds for the sheets over the blankets and pillows. So, I figured out you can actually make them out at the right angles.
I'm sure someone has said this or maybe everyone knew but me, but it occurred to me one day that the term Gravity plating isn't necessarily something that is part of each floor deck. Maybe it's strategically placed in the ship where needed. The windows on the bottom of the saucer can still be ceiling skylights. This is simply because there could be Gravity Plating in the middle of the saucer (like cheese between to hamburger buns). The turbo-lifts simply invert when they go to the bottom side of the saucer. Everyone on the bottom half of the saucer is standing upside down compared to everyone on the top half of the saucer but no one feels it. The entire ship's complement of people are just drawn to the central gravity tech. Since there is no up and down in space it doesn't matter.
I'm sure someone has said this or maybe everyone knew but me, but it occurred to me one day that the term Gravity plating isn't necessarily something that is part of each floor deck. Maybe it's strategically placed in the ship where needed. The windows on the bottom of the saucer can still be ceiling skylights. This is simply because there could be Gravity Plating in the middle of the saucer (like cheese between to hamburger buns). The turbo-lifts simply invert when they go to the bottom side of the saucer. Everyone on the bottom half of the saucer is standing upside down compared to everyone on the top half of the saucer but no one feels it. The entire ship's complement of people are just drawn to the central gravity tech. Since there is no up and down in space it doesn't matter.
The problem is, Star Trek has never gone to any great lengths to pretend like they're in a space environment where gravity is a problem. You'll occasionally see "Variable gravity area" stenciled on a wall just as a reminder that the ship is in space and they are using artificial gravity, but in all of Star Trek, it works almost all of the time. I can only think of a few times in all of Star Trek where the AG has even failed. And, in Star Trek, all decks of the ship face the same way. A lot of ships have windows that are low to the floor like that, but the MSD on every ship seen on screen shows the decks all going the same way, with the top of the ship being up.
Posts
Two other things strike me.
1) The windows need something behind them to create realism
2) It's very sleek and smooth and I love how you surface texture, but I'm feeling like it could use some lines or gaps in strategic places to convey that the ship is assembled from pieces.
A third thought is that it is missing shuttle pod docking ports. They have the added beauty of giving it scale.
I might put some stripes on the escape pod hatches, but text is out of the question. The hatches are all positioned by hand, shrink wrapped to the hull, extruded and beveled. I also only did this for half of them and then mirrored them. To do text, I would have to line it all up by hand, shrink wrap it to the hull, extrude it and it couldn't be mirrored, for obvious reasons. So, I would have to do it for every single pod. There's no practical advantage to this, other than giving me more gray hair.
The ship has a large number of panel lines, they're just subtle and not as visible in direct lighting. They're easier to see in indirect lighting.
Putting more on there would "clutter" the hull more, and the TNG era was the era of smooth hulls. As I said in another thread, it was really in the time after the TNG era that the hull lines and paneling got more heavy handed. Though, the paneling on the four foot Galaxy model is also very heavy handed. I'm not sure why Greg Jein went that route when the ILM models were very smooth.
I already said I was planning to do that.
The docking ports are on the edge of the saucer. There's one to the port and one to starboard. Due to the hull contours, I had issues trying to get them on there without the cutouts for them looking like butt, so I went with those two. Both would work for docking with a space station or a shuttle. However, past the TMP era, there are only a few shuttles that even have those docking collars. (mostly because the writing of an episode or movie required them) Most shuttles just fly into the bay.
It's a really great model.
And yeah, the original series had a pretty smooth ship, TNG less so and the new streaming stuff has very scored hulls.
The 6-footer (on the left) has hull paneling painted on and you can see it, but it's still a pretty smooth hull. Even details like the escape pod hatches aren't drastically raised from the hull. But then the 4-foot model has layered bumpy paneling and pronounced details like the escape pod hatches.
Aside from the slightly different shapes and the changed window details, the pronounced hull detailing is one sure way to tell you're looking at the 4-foot model in a shot. Because, it's not like they stopped using stock footage of the 6-foot model throughout the series, plus it had to be used whenever the ship separated because the 4-foot model couldn't separate. And, of course, for the big screen, it was the 6-footer all the way, just with a new more detailed (but still pretty flat) paint job.
Inconsistencies like this are what makes Star Trek such an interesting subject matter. Personally, I like a smoother hull on my Trek ships not only because it's used a lot in the older Trek, but also because it aligns with the wishes of original Enterprise designer Matt Jefferies. He thought the detailing on the ships should be simple and Gene Roddenberry had to help him win that argument with studio executives more than once.
I've seen pictures of the model where the escape pods are just stickers on the surface. I believe that''s true of the Nebula class and other STTNG era models.
Yes. They're decals. I've seen photos of the Ambassador class where they're actually peeling.
So are the transporter emitters. Obviously, Greg Jein knew this, but he still chose the bumpy route, for some reason.
Voyager seemed to have a mix of techniques. The escape pods are clearly modeled, as is the transporter emitter behind the bridge. The one to port looks like a decal, though.
Yeah, it was way worse on the Ambassador than I've seen on any other model. But then, that model was built very quickly and very cheaply. I've also seen it on the Enterprise-C in the photos from the private collector who owns that model. But, I think it's actually worse on the second Ambassador class model.
Then I had a lot of fun messing with my 5-year-old Enterprise mesh. I built this in Lightwave and converted it to Blender. I was actually messing with the mesh in Lightwave yesterday, but I forgot that Lightwave 2018's Achilles heel is rendering light from emitting objects through transparent materials. It apparently just doesn't like to do it, even if you use a completely transparent material. That was the first version with node based materials, so I guess that mistakes were bound to happen. But, it's the newest version I have. So, my idea to mess with Lightwave died a quick death and I went back to Blender.
Blender has no issues with emission materials shining through transparent materials. However, I do find that the composite node to add glows apparently is less fond of glowing materials behind transparent materials. It's hit or miss on actually working. I even mixed in a bit of emission on both my bussards and blue bits and it still doesn't add the glow. It's irritating, but at least the other glows work well. On the other hand, that means that my windows also won't glow like light bulbs, so that's a good thing.
Edit: Also, I forgot how to add a starfield in Blender, so I had to open a file for one of my completed work scenes to figure out how to do it.
Thanks a lot!
On Lightwave, I don't think I mentioned that I upgraded to Lightwave 2023. There is now a 2024 but I'm not sure I'm going for it.
Rather than making new text, I just rearranged letters and numbers to make this happen. I couldn't remember where I got the name "Rycon" from, but then I went back a few pages and saw I got it from BSG, specifically the episode "Take the Celestra." The Rycon was the Battlestar that Commander Kronus had commanded before retiring. I'd probably watched the show recently when I picked that name. Since I didn't want to use the same class name, Charter class, that's something I'll save for later, I picked another Battlestar name and have it as "Triton Class." I also edited the launch stardate to be a few years before TNG.
For those who don't remember what the plaque looked like before, here it is:
True, and it's not like it's anything I'm even mad about it. Lightwave has always cost money. The company that bought Newtek 5 years ago (their name eludes me) clearly had plans for some of the products, but it seemed like they never had any real plans for Lightwave. They never released any version after 2020 and it seemed like the software was dead. That would have been a bitter end for great software that's been used a lot over the years for some really big products. Then, we found out that their plan all along was apparently to sell Lightwave and they sold it to Andrew Bishop. The fact that he bought it and gave it a second life is great, and it stands to reason that he wants to sell licenses as a way to make money. It's just a bit out of my price range right now.
If I had purchased Lightwave 2023, the upgrade would be considerably less, $489. But, that also stands to reason, as they'll charge less for people who purchased LW2023 from them.
But, I'm a hobby user and, at the end of the day, purchasing a license for that much money doesn't make sense. Lightwave licenses are great for professionals, and they cost a lot less than subscription based software like 3DS Max and Maya.
It took me several serious tries to like Blender. It's definitely come a long way over the years.
Anyway, onto what I've done so far today. I added some indents all along the phaser strips. I've noticed a lot of Trek ships with phaser strips have some kind of detailing on the strips themselves. But, I didn't want to go hog wild with a bunch of stuff that won't really be seen. I figure this is a nice happy medium between the bare strips and the tight series of indents that Voyager has that really aren't seen, especially since the show has never been done in HD. I also added a paneling pattern to the B deck structure beneath the bridge. I don't know why I didn't panel that before, but I did it now. And, I added some line work detail to the pylons holding up the pod.
I noticed that Blender adds a distortion effect behind the curved glass with the default glass settings, which I wasn't fond of. I played with settings and got rid of it.
This looks more like normal window glass.
I didn't bother with furniture on the bottom rooms since it won't be visible. Besides, those windows are kind of ludicrous anyway. I only included windows on the bottom for visual interest and because the Enterprise-D and other ships have windows on the bottom of the saucers at crazy angles like that.
Edit: Also, I left a few rooms dark because people might be off shift and sleeping in them. But, rest assured, they do have modeled interiors as well.
Thanks! That's what I'm hoping for.
I wouldn't go that far, but thanks.
The problem is, Star Trek has never gone to any great lengths to pretend like they're in a space environment where gravity is a problem. You'll occasionally see "Variable gravity area" stenciled on a wall just as a reminder that the ship is in space and they are using artificial gravity, but in all of Star Trek, it works almost all of the time. I can only think of a few times in all of Star Trek where the AG has even failed. And, in Star Trek, all decks of the ship face the same way. A lot of ships have windows that are low to the floor like that, but the MSD on every ship seen on screen shows the decks all going the same way, with the top of the ship being up.