Thanks, Aresius, Wiz, Starscream, and evil_genius_180!
Took two evenings to do it, but every single window I planned to put on the ship is now in place, complete with rooms!
The pattern mostly matches that of the studio model, with a few major deviations. Notably, I included portholes on a few decks that wouldn't otherwise have any windows, as well as a set of elongated windows inspired by the TMP-era ships.
I should probably look into turning the lights in those rooms off at some point...
Impressive job there. If I had one crit it would have to be that the window distribution across the hull looks perhaps a little too uniform. Though I guess if you plan to switch off the lights in a few of those rooms that should lessen that issue.
I would really like some tips on texturing as I need to learn it, especially in cycles.
The most "texturing" I've really done in Blender at this point has been to map set photographs onto those room proxies behind the windows. Most of the materials work is pretty basic so far, too. The hull materials are all just basic Diffuse BDSF with roughness of about 0.5. Eventually, my plan is to replace all of these with a single master hull material, which will have an actual texture to go with it.
Some of the goofier things, like the Bussard caps and the deflector dish, are mostly just playing around with other basic shaders. Each of these luminous elements is actually capped by an object that has a transparent but refractive material applied to it. Behind them are simple Emissive-materialed objects to give the impression of the equipment they conceal.
Once I actually start texture painting and material work, I'll be sure to post some info about the process! :thumb:
If I had one crit it would have to be that the window distribution across the hull looks perhaps a little too uniform. Though I guess if you plan to switch off the lights in a few of those rooms that should lessen that issue.
Yeah, I'm hoping that will help. I'm also planning to re-do all of the interior textures when I get done modeling. Right now, they're just the largest Trek set interior images I could find and not actually all that good for being mapped to the little room boxes. So between having more varied rooms (instead of "blue" or "red" or very occasionally "blue-green") and not all of the rooms having their lights on, and the hull having more detail and texture, the uniformity should be a little less obvious.
I'd probably get rid of the lower set of midline portholes - they make it look a bit messy what with the slightly taller row directly above.
Agreed and done!
Didn't get a whole lot done tonight. Removed the bottom row of portholes along the center-line and then started working on the front neck inset, making way for a torpedo launcher and extending the neck grilles into this section. Ignore the grilles extending onto the lighter hull section; that'll all look way better once I texture that area.
Now with 100% more fill light, too. I didn't like how dark my underside renders kept on turning out, so I went to investigate my fill light. Turns out, the fill light is on the other side of the ship! I duplicated it and flipped it to the port side, so that should help with visibility and cutting down on the grain/noise.
I'm thinking of going with a single TMP-style torpedo launcher in that recess. Thoughts?
Hooray! Thanks *takes a deep breath* TALON_UK, Judge Death., Aresius, Rekkert, vnm51, and Starscream!
The most "texturing" I've really done in Blender at this point has been to map set photographs onto those room proxies behind the windows. Most of the materials work is pretty basic so far, too. The hull materials are all just basic Diffuse BDSF with roughness of about 0.5. Eventually, my plan is to replace all of these with a single master hull material, which will have an actual texture to go with it.
Some of the goofier things, like the Bussard caps and the deflector dish, are mostly just playing around with other basic shaders. Each of these luminous elements is actually capped by an object that has a transparent but refractive material applied to it. Behind them are simple Emissive-materialed objects to give the impression of the equipment they conceal.
Once I actually start texture painting and material work, I'll be sure to post some info about the process! :thumb:
See this? This is how far I'm into texturing and materials in blender. So I'm quite envious of your work so far.
I'm also waiting eagerly to see your advice on texturing, lighting, etc. I have 3 light planes on thism the large yellowis one for a sun, the smaller weaker purplish one for a planet reflection and a smaller whit eon in front. Maybe I need to look into ambient lighting...
Hooray! Thanks *takes a deep breath* TALON_UK, Judge Death., Aresius, Rekkert, vnm51, and Starscream!
Thank you - I've always loved the Ent-C, and you're doing the design proud. Thanks for letting us ogle it!
Now with 100% more fill light, too. I didn't like how dark my underside renders kept on turning out, so I went to investigate my fill light. Turns out, the fill light is on the other side of the ship! I duplicated it and flipped it to the port side, so that should help with visibility and cutting down on the grain/noise.
It's great for the underside but the sides of the nacelles are looking a little washed out... not sure what to do to rectify that offhand (I'm sure someone here will chime in! )
I'm thinking of going with a single TMP-style torpedo launcher in that recess. Thoughts?
You mean the forward launcher? Depends on the scale. I've seen it represented with two before, and I personally tend to go with that, but having never checked the actual size of this alcove versus the Ent-A launchers I could be totally wrong, and it needs to have just the one ala the Big D...
I'm also waiting eagerly to see your advice on texturing, lighting, etc. I have 3 light planes on thism the large yellowis one for a sun, the smaller weaker purplish one for a planet reflection and a smaller whit eon in front. Maybe I need to look into ambient lighting...
Something I've found in my experimenting with Cycles is that actual Lamps seem to give better lighting results than light planes. This scene, for instance, is lit by four spotlights - a bright Key light, a dimmer but still strong blue Kick/Rim light from behind, and two dull orange Fill lights from below. Very basic, but tried and tested, lighting setup. Each light has a different radius, with the Key light's radius set smallest (10m) to give it the sharpest shadows. The fill lights, by comparison, are the biggest (500m) and have the softest shadows. They're all set to very high strength values, too: 5 million for the Kick and Fill lights, 100 million for the Key. For a while, I also had an Environment color (near-black, but not quite) to boost the fill, but I've since done away with that.
Thank you - I've always loved the Ent-C, and you're doing the design proud. Thanks for letting us ogle it!
That is very kind of you to say! I hope I can continue to do justice by it.
It's great for the underside but the sides of the nacelles are looking a little washed out... not sure what to do to rectify that offhand (I'm sure someone here will chime in! )
That may just be a byproduct of how little surface detail there is on the nacelle right now. The entire thing, other than the warp grilles, is still an unfrozen subdivision object, so it's bound to lose some of its detail from that.
You mean the forward launcher? Depends on the scale. I've seen it represented with two before, and I personally tend to go with that, but having never checked the actual size of this alcove versus the Ent-A launchers I could be totally wrong, and it needs to have just the one ala the Big D...
I spent some time thinking about where the Ambassador-class sat in the Starfleet lineage and decided that it would probably have a single forward launcher, like the Galaxy-class, and perhaps even represent the initial implementation of the high-capacity torpedo tube used later. However, it would likely also employ some of the older technology alongside of the new implementation. I decided to use the external styling of the TMP-era torpedo launcher, with the assumption that the internal equipment was all new. Where before, two launchers were braces with a single central spar, this single launcher would be braced with support beams on either side, owing to the increased strain put on the older model launcher by the higher firing rate and launch capacity. Target acquisition and diagnostic sensors would be present in higher concentration, as well.
Thanks, BlueNeumann, Judge Death., and Starscream!
Something I've found in my experimenting with Cycles is that actual Lamps seem to give better lighting results than light planes. This scene, for instance, is lit by four spotlights - a bright Key light, a dimmer but still strong blue Kick/Rim light from behind, and two dull orange Fill lights from below. Very basic, but tried and tested, lighting setup. Each light has a different radius, with the Key light's radius set smallest (10m) to give it the sharpest shadows. The fill lights, by comparison, are the biggest (500m) and have the softest shadows. They're all set to very high strength values, too: 5 million for the Kick and Fill lights, 100 million for the Key. For a while, I also had an Environment color (near-black, but not quite) to boost the fill, but I've since done away with that.
I never even knew lamps in blender could go that high....:o
I never even knew lamps in blender could go that high....:o
Always push your 3D app to places it doesn't seem like it should go. Neat things usually result. At the very least, you usually learn something in the process!
Duplicated the torpedo tube and gave it a nice little home in the aft notch, with a position based on some vague shadowy shapes on one of my Enterprise-C reference images. The Yamaguchi variant doesn't have anything there, but I liked the placement. Also put in the stardrive escape pods.
There's a weird artifact where the Key light falls off very sharply along polygon lines, but it's not a smoothing error. I'm not quite sure what it is. I checked over the geometry in that area thoroughly and it's all smooth and welded. For whatever reason, though, the light is acting like it's lighting some polygons and not lighting others at all, with no smooth gradation. Going to have to spend some more time looking into that at some point, but since it's not an issue with the model, not going to worry about it while I'm still modeling
That looks good. It seems like a logical place for the launcher. I'm picturing the aft-facing surfaces on the model, and not much else has adequate space for a launcher. Plus, it's similar to the placement on the aft launchers on the Excelsior, which is good because this ship is supposed to be a step between the Excelsior and Galaxy classes.
There's a weird artifact where the Key light falls off very sharply along polygon lines, but it's not a smoothing error. I'm not quite sure what it is. I checked over the geometry in that area thoroughly and it's all smooth and welded. For whatever reason, though, the light is acting like it's lighting some polygons and not lighting others at all, with no smooth gradation. Going to have to spend some more time looking into that at some point, but since it's not an issue with the model, not going to worry about it while I'm still modeling
I've had weird issues like that before too. Sometimes, I found a problem, other times I never did and just moved on with the project.
I wasn't originally going to post this until later, when I had more stuff to share, but since this thread is as much about sharing progress as it is sharing thought process, I decided it was worth it.
The idea for the placement of the aft torpedo launcher came from this image, where there's a vague shadow that hints at an alcove that might house such a torpedo launcher. This image also hinted at the presence of additional escape pods, all in a row along the deck above the arboretum deck. One thing I didn't see in this image, though, was the ventral phaser array present in every single blueprint image. I checked to see if perhaps this was simply something added to the Yamaguchi/Zhukov model when it was updated, but no -- there's no ventral phaser array on any of the studio models. What's more, many of the blueprint images indicate phaser arrays around the shuttlebay, similar to the small arrays the Galaxy class has astern. None of these are present on any of the studio models, either.
I thought about this, and decided to check the Constitution, the Constitution refit, and the Excelsior class for any ventral stardrive phaser arrays -- none. It seems as though the Galaxy class was the very first (depicted) class to exhibit "belly" phasers of any sort!
With the matter settled to my satisfaction and an item removed from my remaining to-do list, I decided to revisit those aft escape pods. In studying the previously linked image, I realized that I had omitted a few escape pods from the "belly" area. I cross-checked against the Yamaguchi variant and realized why: they aren't there! Only the earlier Enterprise-C variant has these extra escape pods. Since I didn't have plans to lay in a phaser array now, and room for them, I decided to put them back in. However, while examining the Yamaguchi variant revealed that what seemed like aft-facing escape pods on the Enterprise-C probably were indeed that, they were mounted in a different configuration on the Yamaguchi variant -- one pod per side across two decks, rather than five pods in a row on one deck. I decided that having escape pods on more decks made more sense, so for those I followed the Yamaguchi arrangement.
Thoughts in visual form (please forgive the NSFW language ):
I also knew I needed to add hatches to eject the main reactor and the antimatter fuel pods, as well as a port to refill said antimatter fuel pods when docked. Here's the end result of all of this:
A note about the upper stardrive pods. On the original model, they're all in a row along the exterior, but this would have escape pods crossing decks. Instead, I decided to put two of them on one deck and three on another, keeping them in a row. The escape pod access door could thus be on a proper deck, while the hatch (which is what those little beige squares actually are) could conform to the hull to some extent.
Simply the best Ambassador I've seen. The updates are fantastic and I love the logic you're putting behind this project. That logic's the same reason I never finish anything.
One of these days, I'll go back and redo the surfacing, which I last touched circa 2004...a while back. One of these, I'll redo the whole thing. It could use some work.
Always push your 3D app to places it doesn't seem like it should go. Neat things usually result. At the very least, you usually learn something in the process!
Duplicated the torpedo tube and gave it a nice little home in the aft notch, with a position based on some vague shadowy shapes on one of my Enterprise-C reference images. The Yamaguchi variant doesn't have anything there, but I liked the placement. Also put in the stardrive escape pods.
There's a weird artifact where the Key light falls off very sharply along polygon lines, but it's not a smoothing error. I'm not quite sure what it is. I checked over the geometry in that area thoroughly and it's all smooth and welded. For whatever reason, though, the light is acting like it's lighting some polygons and not lighting others at all, with no smooth gradation. Going to have to spend some more time looking into that at some point, but since it's not an issue with the model, not going to worry about it while I'm still modeling
Ok, I really need to politely and respectfully interrogate you here as you're doing some stuff I've been dreaming of being able to do for years.
Your geometry looks perfect even in closeup. I really want to know what you're doing. I mean, I try the things I'm told to do, like edge split, crease, etc. and get garbage along my edges. Do you use edge split or crease? If so what settings do you use?
Also, I'm assuming you're using subsurfing to get these smooth hulls. (If not how do you get them?) So do you apply the subsurf then detail the hull with your panels and lines or do you detail while the subsurf is on but unapplied?
Also how did you get the sharp edge along the edge of the fantail? Edge split or crease? I can't get an edge like that to save my life. Plus I'd love to know how you cut those razor shapr lines in the hull so perfectly. When I try to cut holes in my hulls, I get blurry messed up edges that just about make me scream and weep. I do wonder if it's due to having the subsurf on. I did see a neat tut about holes in curved surfaces but it didn't cover subsurfing too well.
I use edge loops out to .9 or -.9 to get most of my edges sharp, sends my vert and face count way up north too. I'd like to know some of your secrets on this. If I tried cutting the lines in the hull you have I;d have a blurred mess all over the place.
While I'll agree that the Enterprise-C doesn't have secondary hull ventral phasers, I have to disagree about the Enterprise-D being the first one to have them. The Enterprise refit/1701-A has them. There are 4 single emitters arranged in a square around a strobe light. You're probably not finding them in reference images because they're on a removable piece that covers the bottom wiring access. In my reference images, that piece is missing, which is probably the case with yours too.
Unfortunately, finding them on screen is difficult, as they're not seen very well. You can kind of see them as the ship leaves drydock in TMP/STII.
I think the Enterprise-B/Excelsior model has only saucer phasers, which is kind of odd. I wonder why they did that when the 1701 refit has plenty of secondary hull phasers.
Simply the best Ambassador I've seen. The updates are fantastic and I love the logic you're putting behind this project. That logic's the same reason I never finish anything.
Thank you very much! The truth is, I have historically been terrible about starting things and not finishing them. This project is something of a turning point for me in that regard. Instead, I've simply been using Trello to keep a list of things it occurs to me to model and ordering them by what I'm most-interested in at any given time. At the top of that list, there's this project, with its own attendant checklists and such. I've simply resolved to not start a new one until this one is finished. If I get tired of working on it, I tell my self I can stop and do something else that isn't modeling, or keep going on this. So far, being resolved in this has worked (going on six months working on this model...).
It does! I toyed with the idea of placing it here, too, but decided against it after looking over my references. That spinal ridge is pretty flat and while one could (and I will) make a case for it having a bit more detail than the studio model actually shows, there definitely doesn't seem to be anything large enough for a torpedo tube.
Not that I'm necessarily one to be a slave to the studio model, as many other posts show!
One of these days, I'll go back and redo the surfacing, which I last touched circa 2004...a while back. One of these, I'll redo the whole thing. It could use some work.
Ok, I really need to politely and respectfully interrogate you here as you're doing some stuff I've been dreaming of being able to do for years.
I am more than happy to be (politely and respectfully ) interrogated! However, it might be worth moving the discussion to another thread. Why don't you start up a thread in Questions & Answers called something like "Blender: Starship Modeling Techniques"? I'll keep an eye out for it and answer any questions I can once I see it.
While I'll agree that the Enterprise-C doesn't have secondary hull dorsal phasers, I have to disagree about the Enterprise-D being the first one to have them. The Enterprise refit/1701-A has them. There are 4 single emitters arranged in a square around a strobe light. You're probably not finding them in reference images because they're on a removable piece that covers the bottom wiring access. In my reference images, that piece is missing, which is probably the case with yours too.
Well I'll be damned, look at that! You are right on all counts -- that piece is indeed missing from all of the reference images of the refit that I have, which led to my erroneous assumption. Thanks for catching that!
Final update for the evening: airlock! The doors themselves are just a flat surface right now; I'll give that surface detail in the eventual bump/normal map. It seems a little silly to model it in when it's so shallow.
Let's talk a little about this airlock. Many Starfleet ships have this little circular airlock, presumably designed to accommodate the standard travel pod we see in TMP, et. al. With the Enterprise refit and Enterprise-D, they appear to be mounted into relatively flat areas of the hull (on the E-refit, the flat of the torpedo bay housing, or the relatively flat area of the stardrive's lateral bulge; on the E-D set back from the torpedo launcher a ways in the relatively flat vertical inset).
But not on the C, oh no. That would be much too easy! On the C, the airlock is set into the very much not flat neck. Since the travel pods have a very specific circular docking collar that's about half a meter deep, I couldn't just set it into the hull along a global axis and call it done. After thinking about it for a bit, I decided that there was no reason the travel pod couldn't dock at a slight angle -- this is space, after all. The debarking passenger might have a moment of weirdness as they passed from the "angled" (relative to the ship deck) gravity of the travel pod and into the ship, but not much. Problem solved!
Except...the lights around the docking port are almost certainly alignment lights, placed specifically so the travel pod can dock properly. If the docking port is at an angle, these are going to be even more important than normal. Cue a number of hours spent straightening the section of hull, putting in all the various things I wanted to put in (the four docking lots, the six spacewalk tether anchors), and then de-straightening the whole thing so that it fit back where it came from.
Those travel pods won't have any trouble docking up with the ship now!
The airlock is about 2.4m across, which is the size I calculated for the TMP travel pod's docking collar. I based this on the image of the Kirk, Spock, and company in the travel pod as it flew by the camera at the end of ST4. Nimoy's about 1.85m tall, and standing very near the front window. He comes about 75% the way up the window, and the deck of the travel pod is pretty clearly indicated by the flat area of the door. Long story short, 2.4m.
I think the Enterprise-B/Excelsior model has only saucer phasers, which is kind of odd. I wonder why they did that when the 1701 refit has plenty of secondary hull phasers.
Nope, it does have them. It's the bottom removable hatch on the model for mounting purposes. So you don't see it in many shots.
Posts
Took two evenings to do it, but every single window I planned to put on the ship is now in place, complete with rooms!
The pattern mostly matches that of the studio model, with a few major deviations. Notably, I included portholes on a few decks that wouldn't otherwise have any windows, as well as a set of elongated windows inspired by the TMP-era ships.
I should probably look into turning the lights in those rooms off at some point...
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
BTW, there's a small ambassador class model at walmart, DON'T GET IT! IT'S GHAWDAWFUL!
Otherwise it looks wonderful!
The most "texturing" I've really done in Blender at this point has been to map set photographs onto those room proxies behind the windows. Most of the materials work is pretty basic so far, too. The hull materials are all just basic Diffuse BDSF with roughness of about 0.5. Eventually, my plan is to replace all of these with a single master hull material, which will have an actual texture to go with it.
Some of the goofier things, like the Bussard caps and the deflector dish, are mostly just playing around with other basic shaders. Each of these luminous elements is actually capped by an object that has a transparent but refractive material applied to it. Behind them are simple Emissive-materialed objects to give the impression of the equipment they conceal.
Once I actually start texture painting and material work, I'll be sure to post some info about the process! :thumb:
Yeah, I'm hoping that will help. I'm also planning to re-do all of the interior textures when I get done modeling. Right now, they're just the largest Trek set interior images I could find and not actually all that good for being mapped to the little room boxes. So between having more varied rooms (instead of "blue" or "red" or very occasionally "blue-green") and not all of the rooms having their lights on, and the hull having more detail and texture, the uniformity should be a little less obvious.
Also, see the next comment below.
Agreed and done!
Didn't get a whole lot done tonight. Removed the bottom row of portholes along the center-line and then started working on the front neck inset, making way for a torpedo launcher and extending the neck grilles into this section. Ignore the grilles extending onto the lighter hull section; that'll all look way better once I texture that area.
Now with 100% more fill light, too. I didn't like how dark my underside renders kept on turning out, so I went to investigate my fill light. Turns out, the fill light is on the other side of the ship! I duplicated it and flipped it to the port side, so that should help with visibility and cutting down on the grain/noise.
I'm thinking of going with a single TMP-style torpedo launcher in that recess. Thoughts?
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
See this? This is how far I'm into texturing and materials in blender. So I'm quite envious of your work so far.
prevurend_zps3f49139f.png
I'm also waiting eagerly to see your advice on texturing, lighting, etc. I have 3 light planes on thism the large yellowis one for a sun, the smaller weaker purplish one for a planet reflection and a smaller whit eon in front. Maybe I need to look into ambient lighting...
Thank you - I've always loved the Ent-C, and you're doing the design proud. Thanks for letting us ogle it!
It's great for the underside but the sides of the nacelles are looking a little washed out... not sure what to do to rectify that offhand (I'm sure someone here will chime in!
You mean the forward launcher? Depends on the scale. I've seen it represented with two before, and I personally tend to go with that, but having never checked the actual size of this alcove versus the Ent-A launchers I could be totally wrong, and it needs to have just the one ala the Big D...
Something I've found in my experimenting with Cycles is that actual Lamps seem to give better lighting results than light planes. This scene, for instance, is lit by four spotlights - a bright Key light, a dimmer but still strong blue Kick/Rim light from behind, and two dull orange Fill lights from below. Very basic, but tried and tested, lighting setup. Each light has a different radius, with the Key light's radius set smallest (10m) to give it the sharpest shadows. The fill lights, by comparison, are the biggest (500m) and have the softest shadows. They're all set to very high strength values, too: 5 million for the Kick and Fill lights, 100 million for the Key. For a while, I also had an Environment color (near-black, but not quite) to boost the fill, but I've since done away with that.
That is very kind of you to say! I hope I can continue to do justice by it.
That may just be a byproduct of how little surface detail there is on the nacelle right now. The entire thing, other than the warp grilles, is still an unfrozen subdivision object, so it's bound to lose some of its detail from that.
I spent some time thinking about where the Ambassador-class sat in the Starfleet lineage and decided that it would probably have a single forward launcher, like the Galaxy-class, and perhaps even represent the initial implementation of the high-capacity torpedo tube used later. However, it would likely also employ some of the older technology alongside of the new implementation. I decided to use the external styling of the TMP-era torpedo launcher, with the assumption that the internal equipment was all new. Where before, two launchers were braces with a single central spar, this single launcher would be braced with support beams on either side, owing to the increased strain put on the older model launcher by the higher firing rate and launch capacity. Target acquisition and diagnostic sensors would be present in higher concentration, as well.
Came up with this:
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
I never even knew lamps in blender could go that high....:o
Always push your 3D app to places it doesn't seem like it should go. Neat things usually result.
Duplicated the torpedo tube and gave it a nice little home in the aft notch, with a position based on some vague shadowy shapes on one of my Enterprise-C reference images. The Yamaguchi variant doesn't have anything there, but I liked the placement. Also put in the stardrive escape pods.
There's a weird artifact where the Key light falls off very sharply along polygon lines, but it's not a smoothing error. I'm not quite sure what it is. I checked over the geometry in that area thoroughly and it's all smooth and welded. For whatever reason, though, the light is acting like it's lighting some polygons and not lighting others at all, with no smooth gradation. Going to have to spend some more time looking into that at some point, but since it's not an issue with the model, not going to worry about it while I'm still modeling
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
I've had weird issues like that before too. Sometimes, I found a problem, other times I never did and just moved on with the project.
I wasn't originally going to post this until later, when I had more stuff to share, but since this thread is as much about sharing progress as it is sharing thought process, I decided it was worth it.
The idea for the placement of the aft torpedo launcher came from this image, where there's a vague shadow that hints at an alcove that might house such a torpedo launcher. This image also hinted at the presence of additional escape pods, all in a row along the deck above the arboretum deck. One thing I didn't see in this image, though, was the ventral phaser array present in every single blueprint image. I checked to see if perhaps this was simply something added to the Yamaguchi/Zhukov model when it was updated, but no -- there's no ventral phaser array on any of the studio models. What's more, many of the blueprint images indicate phaser arrays around the shuttlebay, similar to the small arrays the Galaxy class has astern. None of these are present on any of the studio models, either.
I thought about this, and decided to check the Constitution, the Constitution refit, and the Excelsior class for any ventral stardrive phaser arrays -- none. It seems as though the Galaxy class was the very first (depicted) class to exhibit "belly" phasers of any sort!
With the matter settled to my satisfaction and an item removed from my remaining to-do list, I decided to revisit those aft escape pods. In studying the previously linked image, I realized that I had omitted a few escape pods from the "belly" area. I cross-checked against the Yamaguchi variant and realized why: they aren't there! Only the earlier Enterprise-C variant has these extra escape pods. Since I didn't have plans to lay in a phaser array now, and room for them, I decided to put them back in. However, while examining the Yamaguchi variant revealed that what seemed like aft-facing escape pods on the Enterprise-C probably were indeed that, they were mounted in a different configuration on the Yamaguchi variant -- one pod per side across two decks, rather than five pods in a row on one deck. I decided that having escape pods on more decks made more sense, so for those I followed the Yamaguchi arrangement.
Thoughts in visual form (please forgive the NSFW language
I also knew I needed to add hatches to eject the main reactor and the antimatter fuel pods, as well as a port to refill said antimatter fuel pods when docked. Here's the end result of all of this:
A note about the upper stardrive pods. On the original model, they're all in a row along the exterior, but this would have escape pods crossing decks. Instead, I decided to put two of them on one deck and three on another, keeping them in a row. The escape pod access door could thus be on a proper deck, while the hatch (which is what those little beige squares actually are) could conform to the hull to some extent.
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
image001_002.jpg
One of these days, I'll go back and redo the surfacing, which I last touched circa 2004...a while back. One of these, I'll redo the whole thing. It could use some work.
Ok, I really need to politely and respectfully interrogate you here as you're doing some stuff I've been dreaming of being able to do for years.
Your geometry looks perfect even in closeup. I really want to know what you're doing. I mean, I try the things I'm told to do, like edge split, crease, etc. and get garbage along my edges. Do you use edge split or crease? If so what settings do you use?
Also, I'm assuming you're using subsurfing to get these smooth hulls. (If not how do you get them?) So do you apply the subsurf then detail the hull with your panels and lines or do you detail while the subsurf is on but unapplied?
Also how did you get the sharp edge along the edge of the fantail? Edge split or crease? I can't get an edge like that to save my life. Plus I'd love to know how you cut those razor shapr lines in the hull so perfectly. When I try to cut holes in my hulls, I get blurry messed up edges that just about make me scream and weep. I do wonder if it's due to having the subsurf on. I did see a neat tut about holes in curved surfaces but it didn't cover subsurfing too well.
This is about as good as my edging gets:
rearquarter_zps0d265a0b.png
I use edge loops out to .9 or -.9 to get most of my edges sharp, sends my vert and face count way up north too. I'd like to know some of your secrets on this. If I tried cutting the lines in the hull you have I;d have a blurred mess all over the place.
Unfortunately, finding them on screen is difficult, as they're not seen very well. You can kind of see them as the ship leaves drydock in TMP/STII.
Phasers.jpg
An accurate CGI model was built for the extra shots done for the Director's Edition DVD of TMP, you can clearly see them in this render:
enterprise_tmp_bottom.jpg
I think the Enterprise-B/Excelsior model has only saucer phasers, which is kind of odd. I wonder why they did that when the 1701 refit has plenty of secondary hull phasers.
It does! I toyed with the idea of placing it here, too, but decided against it after looking over my references. That spinal ridge is pretty flat and while one could (and I will
Not that I'm necessarily one to be a slave to the studio model, as many other posts show!
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Well I'll be damned, look at that! You are right on all counts -- that piece is indeed missing from all of the reference images of the refit that I have, which led to my erroneous assumption. Thanks for catching that!
Final update for the evening: airlock! The doors themselves are just a flat surface right now; I'll give that surface detail in the eventual bump/normal map. It seems a little silly to model it in when it's so shallow.
Let's talk a little about this airlock. Many Starfleet ships have this little circular airlock, presumably designed to accommodate the standard travel pod we see in TMP, et. al. With the Enterprise refit and Enterprise-D, they appear to be mounted into relatively flat areas of the hull (on the E-refit, the flat of the torpedo bay housing, or the relatively flat area of the stardrive's lateral bulge; on the E-D set back from the torpedo launcher a ways in the relatively flat vertical inset).
But not on the C, oh no. That would be much too easy! On the C, the airlock is set into the very much not flat neck. Since the travel pods have a very specific circular docking collar that's about half a meter deep, I couldn't just set it into the hull along a global axis and call it done. After thinking about it for a bit, I decided that there was no reason the travel pod couldn't dock at a slight angle -- this is space, after all. The debarking passenger might have a moment of weirdness as they passed from the "angled" (relative to the ship deck) gravity of the travel pod and into the ship, but not much. Problem solved!
Except...the lights around the docking port are almost certainly alignment lights, placed specifically so the travel pod can dock properly. If the docking port is at an angle, these are going to be even more important than normal. Cue a number of hours spent straightening the section of hull, putting in all the various things I wanted to put in (the four docking lots, the six spacewalk tether anchors), and then de-straightening the whole thing so that it fit back where it came from.
Those travel pods won't have any trouble docking up with the ship now!
The airlock is about 2.4m across, which is the size I calculated for the TMP travel pod's docking collar. I based this on the image of the Kirk, Spock, and company in the travel pod as it flew by the camera at the end of ST4. Nimoy's about 1.85m tall, and standing very near the front window. He comes about 75% the way up the window, and the deck of the travel pod is pretty clearly indicated by the flat area of the door. Long story short, 2.4m.
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Nope, it does have them. It's the bottom removable hatch on the model for mounting purposes. So you don't see it in many shots.