3DOlympic Class: U.S.S. Chicago (in Blender)

Polaris 004

Okay, if Chicago can't have the Olympics in six years, it can at least have naming honors now on this Olympic Class starship. (I'm consoled some, at least.)


I'm tired of trying to learn texturing, and I thought I would use this model to get some more modeling practice in. The shapes are simple enough. The brown part of the Stardrive section needs tweaking, especially the front. I may have to re-model it from the start. Everything else seems to be going okay...

If anyone knows where I can find more clear pics of the studio model, that would be helpful. I can only find good orthos of the side view, and few clear pics of the back, ventral, dorsal etc.

Freak

Looks like you got a great start there mate.

Rekkert

Great start!

Polaris 004

Taking a break from trying to learn compositing and texturing to do a little more work on this one. I will probably finish this one up, now, as it is going pretty well.

I'm working visually off of the studio model, which is why there are some weird things, like the light colored deflector grid. I added the grid up on the nacelles because the ship seemed to need it. But it just now occurred to me that I should put them on top of the nacelles rather than on the sides? I may narrow the windows a bit too.

Suggestions, by all means, please.

angussky

Nice work.

Aresius

Nice, lookd good so far.

Bmused55

That is an awesome job so far.

Freak

coming along very nicely.

Polaris 004

Thanks, guys. I'm continuing to plug along, and the general modeling is almost done. I just have some small detailing to try to work out.

Yesterday I was comparing my model to the studio model and I realized the shape of the nacelles were too square, so I fiddled with them some. The spine-like shapes on the back of the engineering hull are temporary. I'm looking for some better pictures.

Hmmmm. I just realized I forgot to smooth the nacelles before submitting the pics. Oh well, you'll see them after the texturing is done, I guess.

Schimpfy

That's great work, Polaris.

Starship

Very good!!

Polaris 004

Thanks again for all the encouragement. It really makes me want to keep posting here.

Well, I've been messing around with textures some more, and I think my abilities have "leveled up" again. (Only about 50 more levels to go:p) But I'm really happy with how this one is turning out. I learned a bunch of texturing basics that I cannot wait to apply to my older meshes, so it's been a huge success for me all around.

Here's the latest pics:



















Right now I'm using mostly the same texture everywhere, and so I will want to change that up some. I also am trying to decide how large to make the texture shapes on the stardrive. I may end up making them larger, to go visually with the sphere section...

I'm still taking any and all suggestions.

Trekologist

Good job with the texturing. What did you use to make the hull / window texturing?

Polaris 004

Trekologist wrote: »

Good job with the texturing. What did you use to make the hull / window texturing?

Thanks. The hull texturing is just a bump map of an Aztec pattern, done in different sizes. It's really large on the sphere and smaller everywhere else. I didn't need a color map, as the black of the bump map works just fine at slightly darkening a pattern onto the hull, if you turn the color render of the patter way down. I'm going to make a few more patterns, so that each color of hull has it's own distinct paneling.

The windows are actually cylindrical objects poking up just above the surface of the hull, so no texturing was used to make them at all.

All the other features of the hull are also hard modeled: the lifeboats, the Deflector grids, etc. I used texturing only to make the panel/ Aztec pattern on the hull of the ship.

Aresius

nice update, I like it.

Starship

Very, very good! Turn up the specullar maps a bit (if blender haves it), and youA’ll have a winner.

Polaris 004

Starship wrote: »

Very, very good! Turn up the specullar maps a bit (if blender haves it), and youA’ll have a winner.

Ummmmmm. How's this? Too much? Kinda looks like plastic to me... But I like what it does to the texture patterns...

BlueNeumann

"They put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue. That's the Chicago way!"

Cool work, the TNG Daed is a design I never get to see enough of.

Chris

Polaris 004

BlueNeumann wrote: »

"They put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue. That's the Chicago way!"

Cool work, the TNG Daed is a design I never get to see enough of.

Chris

Thanks. I think there is something very appropriate about the name. Chicago is a round, blunt sort of city, but sometimes with a surprising grace. If that makes any sense.

I also like the other forgotten TNG hulls. I may do many more before I'm done...

Polaris 004

Starship wrote: »

Very, very good! Turn up the specullar maps a bit (if blender haves it), and youA’ll have a winner.

These spec settings look about right to me... what do you think? (I have not worked much with spec yet, but this sort of matches what I see in my captured starship clips.)

Schimpfy

I think your texture work has improved quite a bit from the beginning of this project. Great work so far. Looking at your specular I keep thinking that there isn't enough differentiation across panels. They all look like they're the same, but it would look better IMO if alternating panels were more of a dull texture. This is all just my personal opinion of course. Take it or leave it.

Starship

Polaris 004 wrote: »

These spec settings look about right to me... what do you think? (I have not worked much with spec yet, but this sort of matches what I see in my captured starship clips.)

Looks fine to me! Now you need to improve the bussard textures.

I believe that Lightwave and Blender has a lot of common things, IA’m right? If so, the Aztec Patterns tutorial wrote by Fabio can help you a little more in doing what Juvat is saying: Meshweaver Index.
About the bussards, you can start with the template posted by Prologic9 at Foundation3D: Foundation 3D Forums - View Single Post - Prologic9's U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D
Hope that helps!

Polaris 004

Juvat wrote: »

I think your texture work has improved quite a bit from the beginning of this project. Great work so far. Looking at your specular I keep thinking that there isn't enough differentiation across panels. They all look like they're the same, but it would look better IMO if alternating panels were more of a dull texture. This is all just my personal opinion of course. Take it or leave it.

I'll definitely take it. Great suggestion; I think that's exactly the next step for these textures. I may layer another texture into the mix too. I must admit I'm much more enthusiastic about texturing than I used to be.

Starship:

Thanks for giving me the main link to that tutorial. I had seen it a few times before, but I hsdn't realized all the other tutorials that went withit. I will study the aztec tutorial in more depth. I couldn't use it very much before, because I had no way of making Cartesian Coordinates into polar ones. But I just discovered Gimp can do that, which opens up tons of possibilities.

I'm sure the Bussard tutorial will help too. I really weant to jazz m ine up some. Man, there's still a LOT to learn about all this. And there's still a LOT of stuff to finish on this mesh...I guess meshes are never really "finished" so much as abandoned...

XRaiderV1.7

one minor crit, the registry seems a tad transparent, but the mesh otherwise looks good.

Sastrei

For the material map to setting, instead of "spec" try using "ref" instead. It's not what it's meant to be used for, but it seems to produce nice results.

-Stefan-

Polaris 004

Well, I'm dusting this one off, and reworking the textures in my now traditional style.

It's going pretty well. I've laid out the aztec for the sphere, given most of the ship the panel spec differentiation, and cut real grid lines for the deflectors. Still a great deal of work to go, but I think one can see where I'm going with it all. I might cut actual rectangle windows into the mesh... not sure yet.

This will be my next mesh for me to release, and if all goes well I should have it done in a few weeks.

VALKYRIE013

oh cool! love the hope class... Too many darn windows.. but nice!

Polaris 004

VALKYRIE013 wrote: »

oh cool! love the hope class... Too many darn windows.. but nice!

You bet. And I had to cut every one of them.

Well, It's coming along. I think the hard work is all done and I just have some tweaking here and there. I don't have the window textures quite where I want them yet, but it's close. Still have some adjustments to make on the glowy elements. Some clean up, some additional registries, and this girl is ready for the dance.

If you have any suggestions to make, now is the time. The next time I show her, It'll will probably be as a completed model.:cool:

Aresius

looks very realistic.

Rycon

very nice

Polaris 004

I Changed the main hull materials, and added a little more aztec detail to the primary hull and the nacelles. I'm trying to make the hull spec look a little less plastic, and nudge up the detail level on some of the plain regions. I think this is better than my last update...

I don't know they those apparent spec ridges are showing up on my sphere hull. I have it all smoothed out, and it wasn't doing that until I varied the hull materials. Does anyone know if I can fix that?