3DFreedom Class Trek Starship in Blender

Polaris 004

Here's another candidate for my next mesh to work on. I'm rather partial to the whole Galaxy family, so I thought it might be fun to whip this little class out. She's sorta the ugly duckling of the family, but doing this quick start on the mesh makes me appreciate her a little more. So far, I'm thinking my next project will be either this class or the Renaissance class, which I have started in another thread.

LockeFP

I've always been a bit concerned about these ships that don't have an engineering hull. The location of the main deflector, along with other strange thoughts, pop up repeatedly when I look at these "truncated" craft. But you're off to a good start, nonetheless.

Polaris 004

LockeFP wrote: »

I've always been a bit concerned about these ships that don't have an engineering hull. The location of the main deflector, along with other strange thoughts, pop up repeatedly when I look at these "truncated" craft. But you're off to a good start, nonetheless.

I know. There doesn't seem to be enough room for... well anything. She must be a very short range scout, like a work platform with a warp drive.

I'm of the opinion that no hull needs to have a visible deflector dish. Ironically, however, I tend to construct visible deflectors on all my meshes, because they perform the important task of "deflecting" the questions about where the deflector is located. So I'll probably put one under the Saucer, where the nav dome would normally go...

Jenny

I've long been a fan of this basic design. When I first got the FJ tech manual as a child, I latched onto the scout / destroyer design as the kind of ship I wanted to serve on. I think it had some effect on my thinking when it came time for me to join the Navy. :cool:

If only you used LightWave.

Schimpfy

The Galaxy-class family have deflectors built into the underside of the saucer to serve the saucer after separation. It's the four blue squares that look like windows. If you model those in then problem solved.

Martok2112

Yeah, the single engine design (at least according to the old Franz Joseph Tech Manuals) were either scouts or destroyers. In the old designs, the nav deflector was mounted below the saucer where the lower sensor array would be normally. It hung down from a support, and pointed toward the front.
But that's a cool start there to a next gen uprate of a scout...or destroyer.

Polaris 004

The Galaxy-class family have deflectors built into the underside of the saucer to serve the saucer after separation. It's the four blue squares that look like windows. If you model those in then problem solved.

Yup. I was thinking that too, although I think I might model them a little bigger. I always imagined that those deflectors on the Galaxy saucer were for the saucer when it separated from the drive and was at warp or near-warp velocities (Ecounter at Farpoint, for example.)

Polaris 004

Yeah, the single engine design (at least according to the old Franz Joseph Tech Manuals) were either scouts or destroyers. In the old designs, the nav deflector was mounted below the saucer where the lower sensor array would be normally. It hung down from a support, and pointed toward the front.
But that's a cool start there to a next gen uprate of a scout...or destroyer.

I think these Freedom classes might have been deployed as both scouts and destroyers. It would explain why there were some at Wolf 359. I'm modeling different options for a deflector now.... maybe in a couple of days I'll have something to show.

Polaris 004

Walkyrje wrote: »

I've long been a fan of this basic design. When I first got the FJ tech manual as a child, I latched onto the scout / destroyer design as the kind of ship I wanted to serve on. I think it had some effect on my thinking when it came time for me to join the Navy. :cool:

If only you used LightWave.

Yeah, I kinda like the idea of serving of a ship with some of the Galaxy's lines, but without the enormous baggage of 1000 meters and 1000 people on board. For me, I sorta latched onto the Challenger class, but the New Orleans and this Freedom Class have also endeared themselves to me.


Um by the by, there are two length numbers floating around for this girl. 430 meters and 262 meters. It seems like more sources say 430, and that would make her nacelle about the same length of a New Orleans or a Challenger. That size seems to make more sense for the lay out, so I was thinking of going with that scale. Does anyone know where these numbers come from, or how I might best determine which is more "correct?"

Polaris 004

Well... been fiddling around a bit, trying to settle on a deflector dish strategy. I would like some input about what people like best and why. Here are my leading strategies right now:



Built into sensor dome platform:
Kinda makes sense that the Def dish would be so close to the sensor dome.









Cut into under-sphere of saucer:
This is just a generic representation of what I am thinking here... I'm sure I would add a lip around the edge of the inset, at the very least.










Inset into the leading edge of the saucer:

I Did this for my Challenger Class, and it seemed to work out okay. But I don't know if I want to repeat myself. And it does break up the saucer lines some.




Please let me know what do you guys think. I'll be making a final decision in the next couple of days...

Jenny

Of the three options you present, I like one and two the best. I've also seen a variation on two where the hull bulges out to provide a more rounded area for the deflector.

Aresius

I like the first (next to the sensory stuff) and the third (on the rim) version. I remember that the deflector is usually cobined with sensory stuff because the sensors tap into the deflector beams and use them as carrier waves of some sort. So that's why they are so close together. But a small destroyer like the Freedom is unlikely to go deep space explorong to need such things.

Schimpfy

Definitely no on #2 IMO. It just doesn't look right. #1 has potential if you change the shape. Right now it's too boxy to fit with the lines of the saucer and nacelle. As is at this moment, I think #3 is the best. It doesn't require as much thought to engineer and that's a perfectly logical place for a deflector.

Polaris 004

I have not been idle. No.

Progress continues, but not as quickly as I would like. It's hard to get the solid computer time I need to really make mileage. Nonetheless, I have much of the furniture arranged on the saucer, the basic Aztec layout, deflector grid, lifeboats.




I'm really beginning to take to this class. Every time I model a class from the Galaxy family, I end up falling in luv...





I went with the sensor dome deflector. I think it breaks up the lines of the hull the least, and many orths out there have a really built up area there anyway, so I figured it would be a good place for it. The aztec detail on the underside of the saucer needs some work in the middle where it starts to get small. I'm going to change it so it looks more consistant with the outside aztec pattern which looks so much larger right now.



The deflector layout on the top is a little non-conventional in that it does not go all the way around. I think I'm keeping it that way, because so far I like it.

VALKYRIE013

Nice! always been one i've wanted to build

hmm i added the deflector to the front edge of my chyenne (4 big white windows) taking the cue off of the galaxey class's saucer mounted deflector on the bottom section. ( again 4 big windows). the sensor mounted one looks great as well!

Looking good!

Jenny

I would tone down the difference in color in the Aztec pattern.

Polaris 004

Walkyrje wrote: »

I would tone down the difference in color in the Aztec pattern.

Yeah, it's just exaggerated right now, so I can see what I'm doing. I will eventually move the contrast of the two hull colors closer together.

Jenny

Have you seen Mr. Probert's description of the initial Enterprise D hull colors? I didn't use them all myself, but I used some of them... and I found that making my Bussard collectors that color really made 'em pop!

Polaris 004

Have you seen Mr. Probert's description of the initial Enterprise D hull colors? I didn't use them all myself, but I used some of them... and I found that making my Bussard collectors that color really made 'em pop!

Oh, that is just spiffy-neat-o. Thanks, I will definitely try to use these exact colors...

Bell'Orso

Great looking so far!

Only thing that bugs me, same thing with all ships of this configuration, is the impulse engine - only you've reversed the problem from how it normally looks. Normally the impulse engine would be at the back of the saucer, above the center of mass, but here it's below it, right above the nacelle. In my eyes it would look much more plausible to have it higher up on the neck, almost halfway between the two most massive parts of the ship.

Btw, I rather like your solution to the deflector dish problem. Keep it up!

Polaris 004

Bell'Orso wrote: »

Great looking so far!

Only thing that bugs me, same thing with all ships of this configuration, is the impulse engine - only you've reversed the problem from how it normally looks. Normally the impulse engine would be at the back of the saucer, above the center of mass, but here it's below it, right above the nacelle. In my eyes it would look much more plausible to have it higher up on the neck, almost halfway between the two most massive parts of the ship.

Btw, I rather like your solution to the deflector dish problem. Keep it up!

Yeah, I see what you're saying, and I must admit the thought had occurred to me as well. I'm torn, because I think it looks best where it is, but my sense of physics wants to put it higher. I actually think it would be just fine to tuck it under the saucer, I think that would be close enough to the center of mass for me, anyway. We don't really know the mass of the nacelle vs the mass of the saucer anyway, and realistically I think the center of mass could be anywhere from right behind the saucer to about a third of the way down the neck.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do. I really may leave it where it is, because the impulse engines on these Starships are so apparently small compared to the mass of the ships anyway, that it seems to me quite clear that they must work on some super-advanced principals of physics never touched on. They must somehow negate mass or fold space or something to accelerate these ships up to relativistic speeds. They certainly aren't accomplishing that by just throwing particles out the vents and transmitting the equal and opposite force of the particles to ship via the structural members of the superstructure.

Anyway. my leading solution it to move the impulse housings up underneath the saucer, and then move it back to where it was for a particular Variant of the hull I have been thinking of...

Polaris 004

Okay, I wanted to stop and show my progress on my textures and window cutting. The best way to do this was to directly upload some largish pics.

The texture is hard modeled onto the polygons themselves, no mapping at all. The windows have actually been cut into the hull on the saucer. I have not tried to cut windows in a while, due to the frustrations involved. But Freak's Akira Class model has shamed me into trying a little harder. He did this by 1) showing me it could be done well in Blender, and 2) Showing how great it can make close-up shots. So I went back and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it...

Walkyrje, I haven't had a chance to play with the colors too much, but I did tone the contrast down some. I still want to see what she looks like in official Galaxy-class colors...

Aresius

Well, right now it looks a bit odd, but I guess that's due to the fact that all windows are lit ATM, which never happened before. Aztec looks good, but is quite prominent now...

Jenny

You are making progress! Excelsior!

(Aw, you mentioned me by name! I feel all warm and fuzzy! :cool: )

Polaris 004

Finished the windows, did a few detail odds and ends, and now I really only have the registries to do, and maybe a few minor changes I have been thinking about. But the big news is my texture colors. I used the reference page Walkyrje clued me in on to change the colors of my materials into "official" colors from the actual production model of the Enterprise D.

I was fairly faithful, in most cases I used the exact PMS number given on the page. In a couple of cases, I used a darker hue of the same color. Also, one of the blue base colors was too green for my taste. It just looked sickly or vaguely Romulan to me:











So I swapped that color with the specified "sensor strip" color. I really, really like the end result:














I think these are going to be my Official Colors for all my meshes in the Galaxy family. So I will apply these colors to my New Orleans class Mesh, my Challenger Class and Cheyenne Class meshes and so on. I realized while converting this mesh over, that I am not very perceptive when it comes to color. Now I think the mesh looks much more varied in hue and interesting. Much thanks to Walkyrje.

I probably will only have another few days of work before I will be able to post the final result. So far, I am pleased with how it's going. Please feel free to make any comments or criticisms. I'm pretty close to this one, and there may be some things I'm just not seeing...

Jenny

That's a fine looking ship you've got there, and the right colors really do make a difference!

Schimpfy

I've never been a fan of the Freedom, but your work has revitalized her to the point I'm reconsidering my attitude about it. Of course, you did the same thing with the Cheyenne, too. Damn you for making me like what I despised before.

Great work on the colors. :thumb: It's very subtle and adds a great depth to the model.

anthsco

Beautiful work, another excellent addition to the growing Blender Trek collection. Have you abandoned the other TNG ship you were working on?

Polaris 004

anthsco wrote: »

Beautiful work, another excellent addition to the growing Blender Trek collection. Have you abandoned the other TNG ship you were working on?

No, there's no mesh that I have abandoned, except the two very first ones I did, a couple years ago. Everything else is either completed, or will be very soon, barring unseen freak accidents which maim or kill me, or cause me to lose my memory and wander downtown Chicago, homeless and confused.

Polaris 004

Juvat wrote: »

I've never been a fan of the Freedom, but your work has revitalized her to the point I'm reconsidering my attitude about it. Of course, you did the same thing with the Cheyenne, too. Damn you for making me like what I despised before.

Great work on the colors. :thumb: It's very subtle and adds a great depth to the model.

Yeah, I gotta say she grew on me a LOT. When I started this mesh, I wasn't even sure why I was doing this particular class, as it had never been one of my favorites. But in the meantime I have grown very fond of her.

The new palette of colors adding so much depth to the mesh was unexpected. I just thought it would be a fun experiment. I didn't really realize just how subtle the colors on these ships are, or how much we pick up on that fact unconsciously, even when they are usually washed out by the filming lighting.

It's also sorta neat that I will be able to tranfer these colors to my other models, and attain a unified look for my TNG era fleet.

Aresius

Nice work, that looks really sweet.