3DImmense Class Starbase WIP - Revisit

Don't Shoot

20 years ago, at the predecessor of these very forums, I posted my model of the "Immense Class Starbase" concept for the updated version of Earth's aging 23rd century Spacedock.
Back then the 3D software and the rendering engines were very simple and didn't have many capabilities, especially when working with the home computer of the time.
Over the many years that have passed since then I got a lot of requests to update and renew the model to a more current and updated state.

I wanted to do that for a long time but never really managed to find the spare time for it.
All that has changed after watching the "Picard" Season 3 trailer and seeing how they "borrowed" from my design and made it as their own.
This was very frustrating to me for a couple of reasons.
But mainly that has fueled my inspiration again to try and revisit that old design and update it to a more current and more exciting way.

So, with that in mind I decided to give the old goat a second chance and try to bring it up to date with today's standards.
It's still WIP and many of the original shapes are still there so it's very crude right now and I intend to add a lot more details to it. But I am bent on updating it and making it worthy of its 20 years legacy, before "Picard" season 3 comes to air.

The first 2 pictures are rendered at 8K resolution, so you'll be able to spot all of the little details on it since it's so big - so sorry about the large files and loading times.
In the other pictures I wanted to show a little close up of the features of the station including one extremely close up render of the hull to show how high resolution those 50K windows textures are.
I am using really high-res textures to be able to show it up close because of its massive size compared to the starships that will orbit or dock with it.

Anyway, feel free to comment - Hope you'll like it.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W5mql0lZf6IAmYyX8MCcZxW_EAf2BaBS/view?usp=share_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KQgbihQUBgfkY7attmjLFvFuBALfOcvU/view?usp=share_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vwz7iZyN2o2SIxjxDdOd0PeOpDZmoa7r/view?usp=share_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DK4fRq3HwGfqS158uAgoSzahMWmgTRXI/view?usp=share_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-6b4Y5EZvcCMUKuzQ-wtQuvj1RNvojL6/view?usp=share_link

commandersozo

Incredible work. that's gorgous, Don'tShoot!

trekki

Great work

evil_genius_180

That looks great. I've heard of official Star Trek projects "borrowing" from fan content creators before. On one hand, it seems like it's a slap in the face but, on the other hand, at least they like your work.

Aresius

Nice work. I remember the Immens from way back then.
I admit I'm a bit out of the loop on Picard... What did they rip off your station?

Don't Shoot

Aresius wrote: »

Nice work. I remember the Immens from way back then.
I admit I'm a bit out of the loop on Picard... What did they rip off your station?

The main concept of a central hub with the docking "mushrooms" extended to the sides - In itself it is not very new in the startrek universe (for example K-7 had also extending sections around the main hub) but to take that for the upgraded version of Earth's spacedock it's a bit of a stretch and too obvious
as you can see, the similarities are too obvious to ignore and state as coincidence:

Starship

Welcome back!! "Don´t shoot, cause we come in peace"
I still have your old mesh. It´s good to see the updated version coming to life.

Don't Shoot

Hey Starship! glad to see you're still around these forums

Just a minor update: I added the arboretum ring on the main city structure. Still needs a lot of vegetation but I guess that will take some doing so for the meantime just the overall shape of it.
Click here to view image

trekki

Nice work!

Brandenberg

Let me understand for sure. YOU are the original designer of the "Immense Class" starbase? I have always wondered where that came from. It was great but your update is even better. It looks like you're including the updated space dock for the Enterprise E from the film? Nice touch.

Man that looks like a lot of work.

Don't Shoot

Yeah, that is a lot of work, the scale means you have to concentrate on a lot of little details... When I first created the original one back on scifi-art.com (the predecessor for these forums) I was just a newbie and had little experience and also all the materials and software were very basic - I used 3ds max 3.0 for modeling and mental ray renderer for materials...
Now we have so much better tools and capacity to make huge stuff like this.
For example, the textures I use for the windows on this thing are 100K resolution - Back then I couldn't even render something that is 4k.

Aresius

Yes, the similarities are there. But doing outwards is a logical step. Assuming you cannot built upwards or downwards (which, with the Ournall-class would be a hassle), building sideways extending booms is feasible.
But nonetheless, the inspiration is visible.

tnpir4002

@Don't Shoot are you going to release this mesh? It looks phenomenal and, as it happens, I'm producing something as we speak that this would be perfect for. The latest scene:

The first couple of scenes of this take place at Utopia Planitia but so far all I've had to show are spacedocks. Mark Kingsnorth had the background stations on his website back in the day, but now that site seems to have gone the way of Foundation3D and all his stuff is gone, but this would be perfect as the command hub for the shipyards. I could easily see doing a flyby of this during the upcoming launch sequence.

Don't Shoot

Well, I'm not sure yet... Since I have very little spare time to work on the modeling of fun stuff like this the modeling takes a long time so I can't be sure when I will be satisfied with it for a released version.

Don't Shoot

Now that ST:Picard S3 is over I am satisfied that the model that they've used is less impressive and not at all a threat to my design...
So, with that in mind, I can continue the work (slowly, but surely).

This time I added some more complexity to the textures and lighting all around the station and also continued the work on the arboretums.

evil_genius_180

Yours looks great.

Honestly, the one from Picard looks like the same Earth Spacedock design with a bunch of stuff added to it.

Aresius

evil_genius_180 wrote: »

Yours looks great.

Honestly, the one from Picard looks like the same Earth Spacedock design with a bunch of stuff added to it.

I think that was basically their goal anyways. Look as close to the original mushroomhead design as possible while "improving" it. In germany we call that verschlimmbessern, to make something worse by making it better.