3DCheyenne Class Starship, Studio Style, in Blender

Polaris 004

Seeing Walkyrje's hero version of this class made me itchy to go back and finish an old mesh of mine. This is a relatively faithful rendition of the original studio kittbash which appeared for .0053 seconds in the Wolf 359 Graveyard Scene on TNG.

I didn't know if my two-year-old mesh would be slavagable after all this time, and it was pretty touch and go at times. There were things I had done which showed that I was still trying to find my legs. The neck and the connection of said neck to the saucer, though, was really, really good. So good I was astonished to realize I probably would have a very hard time reproducing the feat, so the neck and thus the saucer were worth saving.

I started in cutting new deflector grids, putting new materials and new aztec patterns on her, and now I'm a good way in on the conversion and am certain the result will be good enough to finish. I built new nacelles and new support struts.

Heading off some questions: The deflector dish will be concealed within the cone structure on the top and bottom of the struts. One Shuttle bay will be set into the back of that top structure. Yes, there is room, I tested it with a scaled type 6 shuttle model. Another larger shuttle bay will be inset into the saucer and accessible via a drop-down platform. The saucer and star drive will be able to separate and operate independently. There will be a small auxiliary deflector on the underside of the saucer, like the one on the Galaxy Class saucer. Window placement is still undecided; the windows you see are old window objects and they will be replaced with... something.

Those are my plans, anyway. Please feel free to comment or criticize...

shanksow

Your Cheyenne looks very good too. I'll be keeping an eye out on your thread here as well as Walkyrje's Cheyenne model.

colbmista

you need to rework the escape pods the generic block jsut looks lame give it the souverign style...

Polaris 004

colbmista wrote: »

you need to rework the escape pods the generic block jsut looks lame give it the souverign style...

Yeah, those are still the old pods, from the old mesh. I know a better way to do them now. But they are going to be the square ones; she's a member of the Galaxy family after all.

Freak

She looking good.

Jenny

I'm excited to see someone more experienced than I doing this ship, and I look forward to seeing where you go with it. :cool:

(Plus? I'm flattered that my work reignited your interest in the ship).

Stevie_D

She's pretty! I think there's lots of room to put in so many details that you could really make her come alive! The nacelles imo need the biggest rethink. Not the sovereign style colb suggested imo, but they just look a little too much "box with light at end" at the moment But thats the great thing about revisiting the model, you can improve that stuff

Its neat we've got two cheyennes on the go. It was always one of my favourites!

Dannage

I'll be interested to see where both of you stick your shuttle bays.

I recently read, when looking up the original, that the square ncelles were actually highlighter pens. To this end, do you want to make the bussard caps detachable and have the bulbous looking bussard domes underneath leave colour trails wherever she flies...

Jenny

I'll be taking a pointer from Don Shanks' operations manual and Erick Munoz's model, and putting them on the ventral side of the saucer. If the shooting model had them at all, I suspect they were on the aft side of the stardrive.

Polaris 004

Here's a status update on this project. I rebuilt the nacelles two more times. I wish I could take more credit for the final look, but truthfully I pretty much ripped the design off from VALKYRIE013's Springfield class thread.*

*(I procured the blessing of the original artist before utilizing the design for my model, but still... "Big Fat Copycatt...")

I couldn't help myself, I saw the design and I knew I must have them.

I'm almost at the point now where I can start the annoying finishing phases of the mesh. Lights and windows and banners and such.

Here's what she looks like without her saucer right now:







This is probably the last opportunity for someone to suggest any broad, sweeping design changes, as I feel she is rapidly becoming frozen into the design you see. Once I start cutting windows and finishing the regs I am not going to want to go back too far, so speak up now

Jenny

Nice job on the necks. That's probably the hardest part of Cheyennes, and yours looks sharp. I can't quite tell from the images you've posted... did you go with flat pylons, or rake them a little?

shanksow

Wow. If I ever redo my book, I want to use your stardrive section. Thats great.

Polaris 004

What book is that, Shanksow?

Walkyrje, my pylons are completely flat and level, but the nacelles do get a little boost by a short curve on the pylons' ends.



(I'm trying to stick pretty close to the studio model with this one.)

Jenny

Shanksow is Don Shanks, author of the USS Cheyenne Operations Manual, unfortunately long out of print.

Thanks for the information about your pylons. Looks good!

Polaris 004

shanksow wrote: »

Wow. If I ever redo my book, I want to use your stardrive section. Thats great.

Wow, Thanks. You would be more than welcome to use it, too.

Freak

Very Nice work

Mycroft Maxwell

If its still possible, i think the plating should be a little bit smaller. PArticularly on the necks

Polaris 004

Mycroft Maxwell wrote: »

If its still possible, i think the plating should be a little bit smaller. PArticularly on the necks

Yeah, you're right. I am going to tweak both the "plate size" and the aztec pattern on the neck. I think I can make it a little better.

VALKYRIE013

loving that seperation.. seen someone... somewhere do something simalar and liked it!

well .. looking great! love the nacelles! hehe

Jenny

I think the film you've seen of that is on YouTube, and it's Polaris' earlier version of his model. :cool:

Stevie_D

It's looking great Polaris, i really love the impulse red strip at the back of the stardrive. It looks sleek and gives it a greater sense of size.

She's really coming along from the original model!

Polaris 004

VALKYRIE013 wrote: »

loving that seperation.. seen someone... somewhere do something simalar and liked it!

well .. looking great! love the nacelles! hehe

Walkyrje was correct; here is the link if you are interested in finding it again.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHujJccNIKI



I am planning to do a similar clip with this ship soon.

Mycroft Maxwell

Hey Polaris, Im getting a new Pc friday. 380 mb shared VRAM (apposed to the 11mb shared im using right now) and a 3.2ghz Pentium Duo core processor (opposed to my 1.2 ghz Celeron im using now) and 3GB DDR3 ram (apposed to the 512mb SDRAM im using right now) . So hopefully i can send you more renders, and show off your meshes here at Scifi-meshes. (::Prays Best buy still has it by Friday::) One of the reasons i dont do many renders is setting up the render is a pain when Blender randomly locks up and crashes, and has slow response time. Keep up the good work man!!

Polaris 004

I think IA’m close to finishing this model up. IA’m really just adding touches and refinements here and there. Now seems like a good time to show her from every angle so you, the critics I have come to rely on, can tell me which dumb-ass things I have done that need fixing.

Here she is with her saucer docked in standard cruise mode.













HereA’s an upclose of the bridgeA… window textures still need to be done properly.





Here I rendered a couple shots to cut off all questions as to where the deflector bay is located. ItA’s right under that pointed hull atop either pylon. HereA…



I will remove the cover so you can see it clearly. Happy now?



Here is a close up of the small shuttle bay atop her upper pylon. (No actual bay in there yetA… maybe someday.)





There is another larger shuttle bay built into the bottom decks of the saucer. It is accessed by drop-down platforms. Here, I will pull one down for you to see.






That blue area would be a translucent A“force fieldA” if I enabled transparency. But I donA’t have anything actually built in there, so I have left transparency off.

Here are some shots of the stardrive separated from the saucer. I envision this ship as a surveyor, and unlike the Galaxy class, separation is part of its usual operational profile. The Saucer is designed to operate as an autonomous research platform, while the Stardrive section performs nearby operations and provides mobile security.











That's about the state of things: Still some finishing to do, but you should be able to see where everything is supposed to go at least...

Hmmph. I just now realized I still don't have maneuvering thrusters on the "saucer" of the star-drive section, and I also need to model some aft-facing torpedo launchers. Anyone see any other problems, or have any suggestions? Speak now, because she's almost done.

Jenny

Remember that the turbolifts and hallways between the saucer and the stardrive need to connect... and seal. Otherwise... fabu! Two snaps up!

Polaris 004

Walkyrje wrote: »

Remember that the turbolifts and hallways between the saucer and the stardrive need to connect... and seal. Otherwise... fabu! Two snaps up!

Oh yeah, I still have all the connections to model on the connecting surfaces between the saucer and the Stardrive. That kind of thing is very difficult for me... I'll have to pick at it from time to time and hopefully it will be done when it is time to animate a detailed separation of the class. If anyone knows where I can find some super-close-up pictures of the Galaxy Class Star Drive "Saucer" let me know. That might help my feeble imagination finish this up.

Aresius

Wow, that looks pretty good. Has a slightly STO-ish feel to it though...

Stevie_D

I think you've put a lot of polish on her, Polaris. Are you going to be releasing it?

Polaris 004 wrote: »

If anyone knows where I can find some super-close-up pictures of the Galaxy Class Star Drive "Saucer" let me know. That might help my feeble imagination finish this up.

Dunno if this is exactly what you mean. But this is one of the best reference...er... references i know of for the Ent-D

http://www.mutara.net/Christies/EnterpriseD.html

Polaris 004

Stevie_D wrote: »

I think you've put a lot of polish on her, Polaris. Are you going to be releasing it?



Dunno if this is exactly what you mean. But this is one of the best reference...er... references i know of for the Ent-D

http://www.mutara.net/Christies/EnterpriseD.html

That's the sort of thing I need, except I need pics without the saucer in place, a close up of the connection surface between the Star Drive and the Saucer. I have found almost nothing helpful. I'm going to have to pull out one of my ertl models from storage...

Freak

Nice!

Polaris 004

Spent the weekend calibrating the targeting scanners and integrating the firing arc sub-routines. Tedious work, but worth it, as she performed well on the weapons test:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCoPJM5MqEU