Went ahead and mirrored/cloned that plasma injector bit and put iton the back wall of the nacelle, with a plasma beam going between them. Right now, it's just a glowy cylinder. I might poke at making it more plasma-streamy once I get around to doing materials and such, or I might not. Haven't decided yet.
Closed the gaps between the warp grilles with some dark brown fogged glass, to give them a bit more rigidity. You can still see the structure behind it, but it doesn't look quite as flimsy now.
Fixed a few small detail bits on B deck.
Created detail objects for the RCS thruster vents.
Knocked together a conference room today. Materials are all highly temporary (as with the rest of the model); just there for a bit of visual distinction.
Guess I can't put off starting on the shuttlebays anymore...
Took inspiration from all sorts of sources. Primary one was the bay from ST5 (a lot of the detailing on this ship draws inspiration from ST5, come to think of it...), with some bits from TNG (the floor and ceiling-mounted tractor beam emitters) and even ST '09 with the support ribbing. I grabbed a model of the Type 6 shuttle to figure out how big I wanted the bay to be and ultimately decided on two landing strips rather than three. While the bay could accommodate three, I think two makes more sense in terms of giving the shuttles ample clearance. Since the ship has two very large, roughly equal-sized bays, massive throughput in any one bay isn't really necessary, like it would be on the Enterprise refit or Galaxy.
I'll likely copy and tweak this bay for the stardrive bay...and then I'm done modeling! And on to UVing. :argh:
I like everything but the ribs - they seem a bit superfluous here, especially in terms of their curvature versus the flat sides of this upper shuttlebay (plus in Trek'09 I think they served as sort of shuttle storage bay dividers?) Also because they block the view of the corner windows it makes it look a bit of a cludge.
Have you considered going the Whole Hog and sticking in some side maintenance bays ala STV instead, and maybe populating with TNG consoles and cargo stuffs?
The ribbing actually goes all the way back to Andrew Probert's design from TMP. It has ribbing like that near the doors.
Looking great, I really like that a lot. Being a big dork and having every single episode and movie on DVD, I immediately started noticing where you got the different bits from.
The ribbing actually goes all the way back to Andrew Probert's design from TMP. It has ribbing like that near the doors.
I'm aware of their origins, but in TMP they were present clearly as structural reinforcement, and did not intrude into the hangar footspace as much as the elements used here (or in ST'09, which in this instance McC indicates his are derived from). Those supports were also designed for a ship decades older, and for a secondary hull hangar - hence why to me at least the curvature is very much out of place.
How do shuttles get into the bay from inside? There doesn't seem to be room for parking or any elevators down. With the saucer bay there's plenty of room beneath to store some shuttles. The engineering bay may have a little room too for a bay that isn't more than a deck high.
I'm aware of their origins, but in TMP they were present clearly as structural reinforcement, and did not intrude into the hangar footspace as much as the elements used here (or in ST'09, which in this instance McC indicates his are derived from). Those supports were also designed for a ship decades older, and for a secondary hull hangar - hence why to me at least the curvature is very much out of place.
Sorry, my remark about the ribbing's origin was actually directed at McC. (he said it went back to Trek 2009) I probably should have been more specific, quoted him or something.
How do shuttles get into the bay from inside? There doesn't seem to be room for parking or any elevators down. With the saucer bay there's plenty of room beneath to store some shuttles. The engineering bay may have a little room too for a bay that isn't more than a deck high.
Good point - maybe some elevator platforms on the saucer bay, and then roll-up doors at the forward bulkhead in the engineering shuttlebay, ala the STV hangar? Would also give some further differentiation between them too (not that they really need any, lol)
I like everything but the ribs - they seem a bit superfluous here, especially in terms of their curvature versus the flat sides of this upper shuttlebay (plus in Trek'09 I think they served as sort of shuttle storage bay dividers?) Also because they block the view of the corner windows it makes it look a bit of a cludge.
I'm aware of their origins, but in TMP they were present clearly as structural reinforcement, and did not intrude into the hangar footspace as much as the elements used here (or in ST'09, which in this instance McC indicates his are derived from). Those supports were also designed for a ship decades older, and for a secondary hull hangar - hence why to me at least the curvature is very much out of place.
Okay, so I kind of cheated here. Since I plan to largely copy elements of this bay to make the rear bay, I made these support beams curved, which would make more sense given the curvature of the secondary hull and figured it'd be okay as-is here. Obviously, not so much. Rather than take them out, though, I think I'll just straighten them so that they look like proper structural elements of this bay, and used the curved supports for the secondary bay.
As to their depth, they actually only protrude into the bay as far as the doors pull back, so you can draw a straight line from the widest opening of the doors to the back wall of the bay without those supports interfering with it at all. I may remove the side windows (or at least the rear one) on the side observation rooms, though, since you're quite right about the view from them.
With the secondary bay, I actually do plan to ape the shuttle storage racks seen in ST'09 if I can make it work. There may not be enough space for it, since Enterprise is a lot bigger in ST'09 than even an Ambassador. If it doesn't, they'll just revert to being structural elements.
Also, it's not really easy to see with the bright lights in the ceiling, but there are blue glowy bits along the inner edges of the ribs that are meant to provide ancillary illumination (and maybe represent forcefield emitters to hold in atmosphere?).
Have you considered going the Whole Hog and sticking in some side maintenance bays ala STV instead, and maybe populating with TNG consoles and cargo stuffs?
I thought about it, but every time I tried to visualize how I wanted to do it, it didn't come together in my head, so I abandoned it. The side maintenance bays from ST5 never quite made sense to me, either, since they were too small to accommodate an entire shuttle and the roll-up doors at the end of the bay seemed intended to serve the maintenance bay purpose. Went instead with the multi-paneled TNG look for the walls.
How do shuttles get into the bay from inside? There doesn't seem to be room for parking or any elevators down. With the saucer bay there's plenty of room beneath to store some shuttles. The engineering bay may have a little room too for a bay that isn't more than a deck high.
Good point - maybe some elevator platforms on the saucer bay, and then roll-up doors at the forward bulkhead in the engineering shuttlebay, ala the STV hangar? Would also give some further differentiation between them too (not that they really need any, lol)
I'll probably imply the presence of elevators in the texture map for the upper bay. The lower bay has a lot more linear space than the upper bay does, so I was indeed planning to include the roll-up doors seen in ST5.
Straightened the support struts in the upper bay to better match the actual hull geometry. Retained the curved supports for the lower bay, but also made them more lattice-like. The spaces between the supports are intended as shuttle maintenance alcoves and Type 6 shuttles fit handily in them, with room to spare for the incoming/outgoing traffic along the landing strips. Optionally, shuttles can also head into a full-on maintenance facility through one of two "garage doors" at the end of the bay.
Straight supports in the upper bay
Lower bay. Accidentally placed the ceiling-mounted tractor beam emitters in the inner-most light panels. Have corrected this already, but it seems silly to re-render for just that.
And with that and excluding any potential fixes, after over six months, I believe I'm done with the modeling. :cool: Time to start UVs! :argh:
Lower bay: I'm umming and ahhing about those struts (they'd look better with the spaces filled with a deeper layer, I reckon) but otherwise it's gorgeous. Are workbees or shuttlepods going to sit in between them? The spaces don't look big enough for full-sized shuttlecraft...
I especially like the access door placed to the starboard side; is there a portside equivalent or are you going for some asymmetry there?
I'm willingly suspending my disbelief as far as those emitters are concerned
Lower bay: I'm umming and ahhing about those struts (they'd look better with the spaces filled with a deeper layer, I reckon) but otherwise it's gorgeous. Are workbees or shuttlepods going to sit in between them? The spaces don't look big enough for full-sized shuttlecraft...
I think the true scale of the bay and the super-wide-angle lens used on the interior render is actually distorting the sense of scale somewhat. Those girders are pretty thick as they are (the same ~30cm as the outer hull, which is consistent with the hull layering described in the TNG Tech Manual), and I think the impression of their purpose as solid structural elements will improve once they have a darker, more I-beam metallic material on them rather than the bland gray that's on pretty much everything right now.
As for the size, the gap between each girder gives a Type 6 shuttle (parked perpendicular to the long axis of the ship's hull, so that its nose faces the landing strips) a one-meter clearance on each side, and about a 2 meter clearance from the nose to the bounding box of a Type 6 shuttle sitting on the landing strip. I have wireframe stand-ins sitting in place to ensure that the scale all works correctly. I haven't included them in the render because the model isn't mine and I may a low-res one of my own at some point in the process.
I especially like the access door placed to the starboard side; is there a portside equivalent or are you going for some asymmetry there?
There is indeed a port-side equivalent, and it's roughly where I positioned the camera for the interior render of the bay. That's more or less the view you'd get as you walked into the bay from the ship.
I love that the shuttles can fit in between the girders - its very practical, especially for that bay where there's not really room underneath for storage, and it reminds me of both the TMP workbee storage and the JJprise shuttlebay. One suggestion - those on-the-floor tractor beams seem like they'd be in the way while moving shuttles around. I know that they do show up in TNG, but they're often not visible. When you do the textures, you might consider showing that they can be retracted and stored while not actually being used.
One suggestion - those on-the-floor tractor beams seem like they'd be in the way while moving shuttles around. I know that they do show up in TNG, but they're often not visible. When you do the textures, you might consider showing that they can be retracted and stored while not actually being used.
Great idea! I will definitely do this.
I started UVing the saucer, which reminded me how much I hate UVing. One specific thing I've run into, though, is not having any idea how to properly unwrap a flat "fan" of polygons (as you might get when you take the top of a cylinder and then extrude it inward). I'd like to unwrap it such that it becomes a linear span of equally-sized rectangular UVs for each polygon in the "fan." I could "cheat" it and drag the verts down a bit, do a cylindrical unwrap, and then fix the geometry in world space once the unwrap was done, but I feel like there must be a better way to do it.
I started UVing the saucer, which reminded me how much I hate UVing. One specific thing I've run into, though, is not having any idea how to properly unwrap a flat "fan" of polygons (as you might get when you take the top of a cylinder and then extrude it inward). I'd like to unwrap it such that it becomes a linear span of equally-sized rectangular UVs for each polygon in the "fan." I could "cheat" it and drag the verts down a bit, do a cylindrical unwrap, and then fix the geometry in world space once the unwrap was done, but I feel like there must be a better way to do it.
Anyone have any suggestions?
Spherical mapping for the UVs. There's details somewhere round on here. Tobias posted them. Just have to remember to create an equal number of UV segments however you want to organise it.
Nice! I've been working on a Sovereign. For the main shuttle bay, I've decided on a very similar configuration, two doors on the forward bulkhead to maintenance and storage. That configuration avoids the need for pass-through elevators into the star-drive. It's simpler and more space efficient. I'm trying to accommodate runabouts and delta-flyers, surprisingly are comparable in size. Very nice work.
Story time! As detailed a few pages back, my wife graciously loaned me her nVidia video card to see if I could coax better rendering speeds out of Blender. The improvement was dramatic.
However, my video card wasn't cutting it for her and new games were coming out that she wanted to play. Reluctantly, I surrendered the nVidia card back to her. At that point, with everything slowed down so substantially using my AMD card, I kind of lost the motivation to keep working on the model. It didn't help that I was trying to tackle UVing, which I have never much cared for. It didn't help that I had returned to playing Star Trek Online, which started eating into a lot of the leisure time I had been devoting to Blender. It didn't help that I started writing my next book.
A few moments ago, I just ordered myself a 3GB GTX 660 Ti. The 660 Ti boasts 1440 CUDA cores, compared to the 480 in my wife's GTX 570, which should provide an even more dramatic improvement in render speed (and, hopefully, overall Blendering performance).
So, while I don't have a meaningful visual update to post today, when the card arrives in a couple of days, I will return to working on this with renewed vim and vigor!
The Wall Member needs to be Thicker or solid. A shuttle craft could literally tear through all 5 of them on landing (probably needs more of them too just because this ship is so big.)
Edit: wait...I'm confused...are we looking at two different versions?
Posts
Now, bed. Then, time to start on those interiors!
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Knocked together a conference room today. Materials are all highly temporary (as with the rest of the model); just there for a bit of visual distinction.
Guess I can't put off starting on the shuttlebays anymore...
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Here, have a shuttlebay!
Took inspiration from all sorts of sources. Primary one was the bay from ST5 (a lot of the detailing on this ship draws inspiration from ST5, come to think of it...), with some bits from TNG (the floor and ceiling-mounted tractor beam emitters) and even ST '09 with the support ribbing. I grabbed a model of the Type 6 shuttle to figure out how big I wanted the bay to be and ultimately decided on two landing strips rather than three. While the bay could accommodate three, I think two makes more sense in terms of giving the shuttles ample clearance. Since the ship has two very large, roughly equal-sized bays, massive throughput in any one bay isn't really necessary, like it would be on the Enterprise refit or Galaxy.
I'll likely copy and tweak this bay for the stardrive bay...and then I'm done modeling!
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Have you considered going the Whole Hog and sticking in some side maintenance bays ala STV instead, and maybe populating with TNG consoles and cargo stuffs?
Looking great, I really like that a lot. Being a big dork and having every single episode and movie on DVD, I immediately started noticing where you got the different bits from.
I'm aware of their origins, but in TMP they were present clearly as structural reinforcement, and did not intrude into the hangar footspace as much as the elements used here (or in ST'09, which in this instance McC indicates his are derived from). Those supports were also designed for a ship decades older, and for a secondary hull hangar - hence why to me at least the curvature is very much out of place.
Sorry, my remark about the ribbing's origin was actually directed at McC. (he said it went back to Trek 2009) I probably should have been more specific, quoted him or something.
Good point - maybe some elevator platforms on the saucer bay, and then roll-up doors at the forward bulkhead in the engineering shuttlebay, ala the STV hangar? Would also give some further differentiation between them too (not that they really need any, lol)
Okay, so I kind of cheated here.
As to their depth, they actually only protrude into the bay as far as the doors pull back, so you can draw a straight line from the widest opening of the doors to the back wall of the bay without those supports interfering with it at all. I may remove the side windows (or at least the rear one) on the side observation rooms, though, since you're quite right about the view from them.
With the secondary bay, I actually do plan to ape the shuttle storage racks seen in ST'09 if I can make it work. There may not be enough space for it, since Enterprise is a lot bigger in ST'09 than even an Ambassador. If it doesn't, they'll just revert to being structural elements.
Also, it's not really easy to see with the bright lights in the ceiling, but there are blue glowy bits along the inner edges of the ribs that are meant to provide ancillary illumination (and maybe represent forcefield emitters to hold in atmosphere?).
I thought about it, but every time I tried to visualize how I wanted to do it, it didn't come together in my head, so I abandoned it. The side maintenance bays from ST5 never quite made sense to me, either, since they were too small to accommodate an entire shuttle and the roll-up doors at the end of the bay seemed intended to serve the maintenance bay purpose. Went instead with the multi-paneled TNG look for the walls.
I'll probably imply the presence of elevators in the texture map for the upper bay. The lower bay has a lot more linear space than the upper bay does, so I was indeed planning to include the roll-up doors seen in ST5.
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Straight supports in the upper bay
Lower bay. Accidentally placed the ceiling-mounted tractor beam emitters in the inner-most light panels. Have corrected this already, but it seems silly to re-render for just that.
And with that and excluding any potential fixes, after over six months
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Lower bay: I'm umming and ahhing about those struts (they'd look better with the spaces filled with a deeper layer, I reckon) but otherwise it's gorgeous. Are workbees or shuttlepods going to sit in between them? The spaces don't look big enough for full-sized shuttlecraft...
I especially like the access door placed to the starboard side; is there a portside equivalent or are you going for some asymmetry there?
I'm willingly suspending my disbelief as far as those emitters are concerned
I think the true scale of the bay and the super-wide-angle lens used on the interior render is actually distorting the sense of scale somewhat. Those girders are pretty thick as they are (the same ~30cm as the outer hull, which is consistent with the hull layering described in the TNG Tech Manual), and I think the impression of their purpose as solid structural elements will improve once they have a darker, more I-beam metallic material on them rather than the bland gray that's on pretty much everything right now.
As for the size, the gap between each girder gives a Type 6 shuttle (parked perpendicular to the long axis of the ship's hull, so that its nose faces the landing strips) a one-meter clearance on each side, and about a 2 meter clearance from the nose to the bounding box of a Type 6 shuttle sitting on the landing strip. I have wireframe stand-ins sitting in place to ensure that the scale all works correctly.
There is indeed a port-side equivalent, and it's roughly where I positioned the camera for the interior render of the bay. That's more or less the view you'd get as you walked into the bay from the ship.
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Great idea! I will definitely do this.
I started UVing the saucer, which reminded me how much I hate UVing.
Anyone have any suggestions?
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Spherical mapping for the UVs. There's details somewhere round on here. Tobias posted them. Just have to remember to create an equal number of UV segments however you want to organise it.
Hi!
Story time! As detailed a few pages back, my wife graciously loaned me her nVidia video card to see if I could coax better rendering speeds out of Blender. The improvement was dramatic.
However, my video card wasn't cutting it for her and new games were coming out that she wanted to play. Reluctantly, I surrendered the nVidia card back to her. At that point, with everything slowed down so substantially using my AMD card, I kind of lost the motivation to keep working on the model. It didn't help that I was trying to tackle UVing, which I have never much cared for. It didn't help that I had returned to playing Star Trek Online, which started eating into a lot of the leisure time I had been devoting to Blender. It didn't help that I started writing my next book.
A few moments ago, I just ordered myself a 3GB GTX 660 Ti.
So, while I don't have a meaningful visual update to post today, when the card arrives in a couple of days, I will return to working on this with renewed vim and vigor!
See you soon. :cool:
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Edit: wait...I'm confused...are we looking at two different versions?
IAâll be here, anxiouslly waiting the next update.