Hey Polaris. Nice Ambassador, you've done a good job on her, but there are one or two things that niggle me about her.
On the texturing, I feel the light and dark areas contrast each other a bit too much, and I think the lines circling at the bottom of the saucer are a little too thick.
Now the trekkie inside me is also wondering about the variant. The Sensor dome, main shuttlebay and the deflector dish would indicate it would be an early version, however the capped bussard collectors appeared on the late version.
When I was making mine, I found this site very useful: Ambassador Class Varients.
As you said in your post:
I have modified my original mesh with the "refit" components of the Later Ambassador class vessels, and I have also given this version an appropriate Registry.
You'll need a lot more modifications to the mesh to make it a late variant; new deflector array, new sensor dome platform, elongated and widened main shuttlebay, new underslung shuttlebay 3, saucer section moved back a bit, raised impulse engine...
She is a very nice early version, if you were to keep it as.
Hey Polaris. Nice Ambassador, you've done a good job on her, but there are one or two things that niggle me about her.
On the texturing, I feel the light and dark areas contrast each other a bit too much, and I think the lines circling at the bottom of the saucer are a little too thick.
Now the trekkie inside me is also wondering about the variant. The Sensor dome, main shuttlebay and the deflector dish would indicate it would be an early version, however the capped bussard collectors appeared on the late version.
When I was making mine, I found this site very useful: Ambassador Class Varients.
As you said in your post:
You'll need a lot more modifications to the mesh to make it a late variant; new deflector array, new sensor dome platform, elongated and widened main shuttlebay, new underslung shuttlebay 3, saucer section moved back a bit, raised impulse engine...
She is a very nice early version, if you were to keep it as.
LOL. No, that's not niggling my friend, that is just paying attention. I should have typed that I've STARTED converting the mesh over. I do have most of the things you mentioned left. Although, I will not have to widen the main shuttle bay, because I never made it super narrow in the first place. I thought the wider version looked more pragmatic and harmonious, so I just made that way off the bat. I'm going to do the deflector dish, and the dome platform. I don't know about moving the Nacelles and the saucer, I doubt I will bother. I will probably change the under slung Shuttle bay some, because it does not make any sense to me the way it was designed. It looks like someone just glued a piece of Excelsior Model on and Ambassador kit.
I'm thinking of releasing this mesh for general fanboy use, and I want to make it so I can package both Versions of the mesh in one file. I will have the alternate parts on different layers, and the user can choose the version by selecting or deflecting the appropriate layers. But If I choose to change the placement of the Saucer and the nacelles, then that configuration doesn't really do much, and I should just make the two meshes two seperate files. See what I mean?
As far as the contrast in the textures, I find it's somewhat a matter of taste. Certainly my colors are less washed together than the footage we see in, say, Yesterday's Enterprise." But it's also much more "Greyed together" than the models we see in the computer games and such. I started out with vivid, bright colors so I could see what I was doing texture wise, but then greyed the materials closer together until I was happy with what I saw rendering. I think it's closer to the TNG footage than the other end of the spectrum, but I kept some of the contrast the texturing details could be seen a little better.
The lines on the bottom of the saucer are not precisely exact. It may be that some particular line is thicker or thinner that this or that other source. I put some of those lines where the mesh allowed me to instead of where the actual rings were. It's always close, but it's not always exact. I could have made it exact, but I sometimes was not interested in adding to the polycount of the mesh, and settled for close. Exact precision was not really my utmost priority, and anyway I don't think there's any guarantee that all the ships of a class were painted exactly alike. In fact I would find that unlikely on a class that has seen service for 30 or 40 years.
There are plenty of compromises if you look closely enough at the mesh. Most notably I never got the grid lines on the side of the Stardrive exactly right, either. So in short (yeah, right), I'm not exactly a stickler for accuracy per se. That's just not me. Just ask my wife.
Well, it is your model, you can make it how you want.
I threw those suggestions your way because I am a stickler for accuracy.
Speaking of which, I need to adjust my model. Looking up more photos of the early/late ambassador variants I just noticed a startling difference that I somehow missed before.
The first image attached is the studio model as Enterprise-C, the second is the studio model as Yamaguchi at auction, complete with Excalibur markings. See the difference in the nacelle pylons? I can't believe I missed that! lol!
Anyways, I kinda like the underslung shuttlebay. I guess that's a detail of star trek ship design that you either love or hate :P
Heh. I missed that one too. And I have spent plenty of time pouring over those very same pics.
Have any pics of your models? Feel free to post them in here; lots of posters in this thread would like to see them.
How the heck would that underslung shuttle bay work, anyway? Just doesn't seem too functional to me.
Who says it's a shuttlebay?
It could be an additional cargo bay, to make more room in the secondary hull for more rooms, labs, workspaces, etc?
I drew an MSD for the Ambassador class and found that underslung feature to be too small for any shuttlecraft usage. You can view the msd on my blog for reference.
I simply turned it into a cargo bay, which freed up space in the hull for more mission specific rooms and work stations.
I'm looking forward to seeing your refits, if you need any reference on any parts, gimme a shout, I have loads of material.
EDIT= Bmused55, that is Awesome!!! Thank you so much for that, it will come in handy!
But then I'd say the same again about the Nacelle pylons, you've got yours high up on the MSD too.
I'm looking forward to seeing your refits, if you need any reference on any parts, gimme a shout, I have loads of material.
EDIT= Bmused55, that is Awesome!!! Thank you so much for that, it will come in handy!
But then I'd say the same again about the Nacelle pylons, you've got yours high up on the MSD too.
Yeah. I've not gotten round to sorting that out yet
Who says it's a shuttlebay?
It could be an additional cargo bay, to make more room in the secondary hull for more rooms, labs, workspaces, etc?
I drew an MSD for the Ambassador class and found that underslung feature to be too small for any shuttlecraft usage. You can view the msd on my blog for reference.
I simply turned it into a cargo bay, which freed up space in the hull for more mission specific rooms and work stations.
Heh. With all due respect to your considerable talent, (VERY considerable) I think you prove my point. I mean with all your imagination and ability to visualize you made it into a little storage cubby which is mostly structural supports. Not your fault, the attachment is just stupid. It's like they packed everything into the ship and realized they didn't have any room for the captain's egg nog, and so they had to bolt this extra little housing onto the bottom of the ship. Sigh.
I was thinking of making it a little hanger for a special type of large shuttle, a precursor to the captain's yacht, some sort of special function platform that docks latch up and is covered by the piece of hull in question. But it's not really big enough for the sort of vessel I would want it to be. Hmmmm.
I'm looking forward to seeing your refits, if you need any reference on any parts, gimme a shout, I have loads of material.
EDIT= Bmused55, that is Awesome!!! Thank you so much for that, it will come in handy!
But then I'd say the same again about the Nacelle pylons, you've got yours high up on the MSD too.
Oh, yeah I remember that mesh. It was the one that got me to wanting one of my own. Yeah, I really like that one. Glad to see you're working on it again.
You've got me leaning toward making two seprate meshes now. Maybe I will move the saucer and nacelles on my refit version after all. I didn't like the refit version at first, but it's growing on me. (Except for the underslung Shuttle bay-thingy.)
I was thinking of making it a little hanger for a special type of large shuttle, a precursor to the captain's yacht, some sort of special function platform that docks latch up and is covered by the piece of hull in question. But it's not really big enough for the sort of vessel I would want it to be. Hmmmm.
Maybe that's where the Ambassador class ships kept the captain's yacht? Remember they played a lot of official diplomatic functions, surely it had a classy runabout for such occasions, leaving the other two bays for regular service shuttles.
Well, I find I have to get back to this girl. I hoped to release her for general use here but, but first I needed to rebuild her secondary hull using techniques I have acquired since I left off. Her secondary hull was a huge mess of bad patch work and shoddy cover-ups. This time I was able to give her a nice, new secondary hull made from jusy a couple of pieces.
Now that that's out of the way, I want to go back and update her textures with my latest techniques. I'm cutting her some real deflector grids, and giving her a hard-textured aztec pattern. Here's a shot or two of her saucer so far and a look at her from behind. I should be able to finish this in just a few days.
Finished the underside of her saucer. It was a rather complex job, with 12 distinct materails just for the main colors. But I think I'm happy with it. Now I just have to finish the decals, add a few windows, and clean her up.
how did you avoid boolean-hell? mind posting some wires? (oh yeah. SWEEEEEEEEEET!!! :o:o)
Thanks. I don't Boolean. Unless I really, really can't help it. There are exactly two boolean cuts on this whole mesh, and that's just because I had already applied the subsurf to the nacelles before I put those two oval indentations on the top of each one. Everything else is 100% boolean free. I can cut rectangle windows, but for oval ones like these, I just make the windows objects, which stick up just a hair above the hull. It's cheap, but in my expierience, trying to cut a zillion lozenge shaped windows into numerous curved surfaces is just asking for headaches. Either I do it wrong, or Blender doesn't like it, I don't know which.
Sure, now that the secondary hill isn't an embarrassment of patches, I would be happy to show a wire frame or two. What did you want to see?
Thanks. I don't Boolean. Unless I really, really can't help it. There are exactly two boolean cuts on this whole mesh, and that's just because I had already applied the subsurf to the nacelles before I put those two oval indentations on the top of each one. Everything else is 100% boolean free. I can cut rectangle windows, but for oval ones like these, I just make the windows objects, which stick up just a hair above the hull. It's cheap, but in my expierience, trying to cut a zillion lozenge shaped windows into numerous curved surfaces is just asking for headaches. Either I do it wrong, or Blender doesn't like it, I don't know which.
Sure, now that the secondary hill isn't an embarrassment of patches, I would be happy to show a wire frame or two. What did you want to see?
That sounds genius, and its probably what they did with the physical models.
Just a regular beauty pass (lighting, surfaces, the works, if you have time ) and a matching wire-shot. nothing fancy
... using techniques I have acquired since I left off. Her secondary hull was a huge mess of bad patch work and shoddy cover-ups. This time I was able to give her a nice, new secondary hull made from jusy a couple of pieces.
Care to elaborate? Or were you just talking about the windows?
Care to elaborate? Or were you just talking about the windows?
No, the window trick I already knew. But I DID figure out how to give her saucer a real Aztec pattern. I learned how to do that with my Constellation class and New Orleans Class meshes, and now I will have to go back and apply the trick to three or four more meshes.
I also wanted to texture her using slight material variations, which I tend to use instead of UV mapping. And finally, I just got a lot better with basic modeling, and I knew I could re-do the secondary hull so I wouldn't be embarrassed to release the mesh. It was a real mess. Oh, and I also wanted to cut real deflector grids into her saucer.
If I do say so myself, I was smart to put this mesh aside a year ago and come back to it when I knew more. I just had to get a little more experience so I could come back and do the job the way I wanted...
No, the window trick I already knew. But I DID figure out how to give her saucer a real Aztec pattern. I learned how to do that with my Constellation class and New Orleans Class meshes, and now I will have to go back and apply the trick to three or four more meshes.
I also wanted to texture her using slight material variations, which I tend to use instead of UV mapping. And finally, I just got a lot better with basic modeling, and I knew I could re-do the secondary hull so I wouldn't be embarrassed to release the mesh. It was a real mess. Oh, and I also wanted to cut real deflector grids into her saucer.
If I do say so myself, I was smart to put this mesh aside a year ago and come back to it when I knew more. I just had to get a little more experience so I could come back and do the job the way I wanted...
Do i need to beg for you to post a tut? seriously, i want to know how to do this!
If I do say so myself, I was smart to put this mesh aside a year ago and come back to it when I knew more. I just had to get a little more experience so I could come back and do the job the way I wanted...
In my case that tends to lead to starting over rather than cleaning up. Terrible habit.
Do i need to beg for you to post a tut? seriously, i want to know how to do this!
Well, okay, I started putting one together. Problem is, if I'm writing a tutorial, then I'm not building starships I'll just have to power my way through it
Interesting, Tallguy. That may open up all sorts of possibilities. It may be the tool I've been looking for. Does it work prtetty well?
Here are some looks at my mesh work, such as it is. I hope this is what you wanted, Homerpalooza67, but if there's something else you want to see, in more detail, let me know.
Posts
On the texturing, I feel the light and dark areas contrast each other a bit too much, and I think the lines circling at the bottom of the saucer are a little too thick.
Now the trekkie inside me is also wondering about the variant. The Sensor dome, main shuttlebay and the deflector dish would indicate it would be an early version, however the capped bussard collectors appeared on the late version.
When I was making mine, I found this site very useful: Ambassador Class Varients.
As you said in your post: You'll need a lot more modifications to the mesh to make it a late variant; new deflector array, new sensor dome platform, elongated and widened main shuttlebay, new underslung shuttlebay 3, saucer section moved back a bit, raised impulse engine...
She is a very nice early version, if you were to keep it as.
LOL. No, that's not niggling my friend, that is just paying attention. I should have typed that I've STARTED converting the mesh over. I do have most of the things you mentioned left. Although, I will not have to widen the main shuttle bay, because I never made it super narrow in the first place. I thought the wider version looked more pragmatic and harmonious, so I just made that way off the bat. I'm going to do the deflector dish, and the dome platform. I don't know about moving the Nacelles and the saucer, I doubt I will bother. I will probably change the under slung Shuttle bay some, because it does not make any sense to me the way it was designed. It looks like someone just glued a piece of Excelsior Model on and Ambassador kit.
I'm thinking of releasing this mesh for general fanboy use, and I want to make it so I can package both Versions of the mesh in one file. I will have the alternate parts on different layers, and the user can choose the version by selecting or deflecting the appropriate layers. But If I choose to change the placement of the Saucer and the nacelles, then that configuration doesn't really do much, and I should just make the two meshes two seperate files. See what I mean?
As far as the contrast in the textures, I find it's somewhat a matter of taste. Certainly my colors are less washed together than the footage we see in, say, Yesterday's Enterprise." But it's also much more "Greyed together" than the models we see in the computer games and such. I started out with vivid, bright colors so I could see what I was doing texture wise, but then greyed the materials closer together until I was happy with what I saw rendering. I think it's closer to the TNG footage than the other end of the spectrum, but I kept some of the contrast the texturing details could be seen a little better.
The lines on the bottom of the saucer are not precisely exact. It may be that some particular line is thicker or thinner that this or that other source. I put some of those lines where the mesh allowed me to instead of where the actual rings were. It's always close, but it's not always exact. I could have made it exact, but I sometimes was not interested in adding to the polycount of the mesh, and settled for close. Exact precision was not really my utmost priority, and anyway I don't think there's any guarantee that all the ships of a class were painted exactly alike. In fact I would find that unlikely on a class that has seen service for 30 or 40 years.
There are plenty of compromises if you look closely enough at the mesh. Most notably I never got the grid lines on the side of the Stardrive exactly right, either. So in short (yeah, right), I'm not exactly a stickler for accuracy per se. That's just not me. Just ask my wife.
I threw those suggestions your way because I am a stickler for accuracy.
Speaking of which, I need to adjust my model. Looking up more photos of the early/late ambassador variants I just noticed a startling difference that I somehow missed before.
The first image attached is the studio model as Enterprise-C, the second is the studio model as Yamaguchi at auction, complete with Excalibur markings. See the difference in the nacelle pylons? I can't believe I missed that! lol!
Anyways, I kinda like the underslung shuttlebay. I guess that's a detail of star trek ship design that you either love or hate :P
Have any pics of your models? Feel free to post them in here; lots of posters in this thread would like to see them.
How the heck would that underslung shuttle bay work, anyway? Just doesn't seem too functional to me.
It could be an additional cargo bay, to make more room in the secondary hull for more rooms, labs, workspaces, etc?
I drew an MSD for the Ambassador class and found that underslung feature to be too small for any shuttlecraft usage. You can view the msd on my blog for reference.
I simply turned it into a cargo bay, which freed up space in the hull for more mission specific rooms and work stations.
Mine's here: http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/3d-wips/46128-uss-yamaguci-ncc-26517-a.html
Not intending to hijack your thread though... :P Am working on improvements to mine after a while of in-activity due to contract work so will post updates later.
/hijack
I'm looking forward to seeing your refits, if you need any reference on any parts, gimme a shout, I have loads of material.
EDIT= Bmused55, that is Awesome!!! Thank you so much for that, it will come in handy!
But then I'd say the same again about the Nacelle pylons, you've got yours high up on the MSD too.
Heh. With all due respect to your considerable talent, (VERY considerable) I think you prove my point. I mean with all your imagination and ability to visualize you made it into a little storage cubby which is mostly structural supports. Not your fault, the attachment is just stupid. It's like they packed everything into the ship and realized they didn't have any room for the captain's egg nog, and so they had to bolt this extra little housing onto the bottom of the ship. Sigh.
I was thinking of making it a little hanger for a special type of large shuttle, a precursor to the captain's yacht, some sort of special function platform that docks latch up and is covered by the piece of hull in question. But it's not really big enough for the sort of vessel I would want it to be. Hmmmm.
Oh, yeah I remember that mesh. It was the one that got me to wanting one of my own. Yeah, I really like that one. Glad to see you're working on it again.
You've got me leaning toward making two seprate meshes now. Maybe I will move the saucer and nacelles on my refit version after all. I didn't like the refit version at first, but it's growing on me. (Except for the underslung Shuttle bay-thingy.)
Maybe that's where the Ambassador class ships kept the captain's yacht? Remember they played a lot of official diplomatic functions, surely it had a classy runabout for such occasions, leaving the other two bays for regular service shuttles.
Now that that's out of the way, I want to go back and update her textures with my latest techniques. I'm cutting her some real deflector grids, and giving her a hard-textured aztec pattern. Here's a shot or two of her saucer so far and a look at her from behind. I should be able to finish this in just a few days.
Thanks. I don't Boolean. Unless I really, really can't help it. There are exactly two boolean cuts on this whole mesh, and that's just because I had already applied the subsurf to the nacelles before I put those two oval indentations on the top of each one. Everything else is 100% boolean free. I can cut rectangle windows, but for oval ones like these, I just make the windows objects, which stick up just a hair above the hull. It's cheap, but in my expierience, trying to cut a zillion lozenge shaped windows into numerous curved surfaces is just asking for headaches. Either I do it wrong, or Blender doesn't like it, I don't know which.
Sure, now that the secondary hill isn't an embarrassment of patches, I would be happy to show a wire frame or two. What did you want to see?
That sounds genius, and its probably what they did with the physical models.
Just a regular beauty pass (lighting, surfaces, the works, if you have time
Various Work: U.S.S. Constellation - Matt Jefferies Concept Shuttle
No, the window trick I already knew. But I DID figure out how to give her saucer a real Aztec pattern. I learned how to do that with my Constellation class and New Orleans Class meshes, and now I will have to go back and apply the trick to three or four more meshes.
I also wanted to texture her using slight material variations, which I tend to use instead of UV mapping. And finally, I just got a lot better with basic modeling, and I knew I could re-do the secondary hull so I wouldn't be embarrassed to release the mesh. It was a real mess. Oh, and I also wanted to cut real deflector grids into her saucer.
If I do say so myself, I was smart to put this mesh aside a year ago and come back to it when I knew more. I just had to get a little more experience so I could come back and do the job the way I wanted...
Various Work: U.S.S. Constellation - Matt Jefferies Concept Shuttle
Various Work: U.S.S. Constellation - Matt Jefferies Concept Shuttle
Me, too.
Various Work: U.S.S. Constellation - Matt Jefferies Concept Shuttle
Well, okay, I started putting one together. Problem is, if I'm writing a tutorial, then I'm not building starships
Is that a feature in Blender? Doesn't sound familiar.
Various Work: U.S.S. Constellation - Matt Jefferies Concept Shuttle
Here are some looks at my mesh work, such as it is. I hope this is what you wanted, Homerpalooza67, but if there's something else you want to see, in more detail, let me know.
*waits for beauty pass to magically appear on screen*