I think those yellow things, since they're on the sides of the saucers right next to the airlocks and hatches, are something to do with the mooring, either hiding mooring mechanisms or maybe they're just impact zones, like the tires you put outside of a boat (can't really have tires around a starship... too pikey).
Mmm... both of the possibilities you mentioned are probable, though I'm more inclined towards the sensor arrays because most later designs have them in those positions.
By the way, I've contacted Bernd from Ex Astris Scientia to see if he knew of another way to contact Mr. Frenczli, but he doesn't know one.
Anyway, things are slower now that the winter recess is over, but I'm still getting things done. Except for those things around the saucer and for some details on the nacelles (RCS thrusters and lights), the modeling is done.
I've also added most of the name markings on the ship. They're 3D text, so when the time comes to make the other ships, to replace it will be very easy, I'll just open them and change the text displayed. The ones on the top saucer and on the nacelles will have to be done in a different way, as they'll be curved.
For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
I've started creating the texture for the top saucer. I've found it rather easy once all the UVW crap is done.
I made the whole top saucer one big texture, while some areas like windows and modeled hull lines are just "painted over" with another material.
I'm not entirely happy with the texture quality. No matter how big I make it (it's at 4096x4096 right now), it always seems to be pixelated. Am I doing something wrong here?
For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
They look ok, what matters is how it looks at angles or in renders you plan to use it in. The only thing I could say is to keep it all in a lossless format no JPGs exp with the reds since jpg makes a mess of those. As for the jaggies I don't remember what app you use but in max there is a blur setting that is often way too high set to 1 where you really only need is 0.1 or so This ends up with sometimes jaggie or overly blurred textures. Kinda of funny timing since Im modeling in those silly yellow/black boxes on my nacelles thinking I should just be lazy and use a different map channel to place them as textures instead.
And yeah when mapping huge areas of the ship with fine details youll need HUGE maps. What I have done over time was break things up across various materials or material channels using various UVW channels. It makes a huge mess of the materials though. But it makes for easy lazy texturing.
@evil_genius_180: Thanks. I also thought about using UV maps first, given that I'm just "pasting" the map as a 2D plane. But the whole unwrap thing added some more options and made the whole thing easier for me at the end of the day.
This is the texture distribution I'm using for the top saucer, the empty spaces will be used down the line to add more areas of the ship.
@MadKoiFish: I'm saving the texture as a PNG in the highest quality.
As for the blur setting, I'm using the default Scanline rendered and the Catmull-Rom filter... and I can't find it. A quick Google search didn't gave me anything to improve the resolution of the rendered textures either, so I would be very grateful if you could elaborate on your comment.
I've finished the bridge area and I'm moving on to the "B Deck" structure.
For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
I've played with the blur setting a bit and found out that, in this case, a smaller value made it worst, because it made the hull lines more pixelated. I experimented some more and found that a value of 1.5 was the best I could get, a bigger value made some lines smoother but the smaller details became too blurred to be noticeable.
Anyway, most of the B Deck is done. I think I've already said this, but I found this to be extremely fun to do.
For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
Ok that means the map size is a bit small. This is something I found annoying with unwrapping things like saucers is with it all on one image some regions got way to large to justify it. A way I found for details I wanted more pixels on is to enlarge the UVW in the unwrap manager. IE select that bridge area and scale it larger than the rest of the hull. Doing it this way allows you to have the higher map density for those bits that are often closer to the view or bits you plan to get close into.
And yes the blur settings I point out are just that a bluring of the textures. I fin d lower settings keep it looking like what it does in the graphics editor vs some smeary blurfest. It also eliminates some of that steep DOF looking texture thing max does. Try some text on a plane and put the camera at a shallow angle to it and render you will find it blurs off unnaturally as it falls from view.
The positioning is kind of weird for them to be thrusters. They wouldn't give the ship a very good turn radius. Plus, there are holes on the saucer in the usual spots where you would find thrusters, so I'm assuming said holes are supposed to be the thrusters.
They could be hardpoints or magnetic locks. But the positioning and layout makes them seem more like TOS style NX sensor pallets. They look like capsule shapes with lines in, very much TNGish like transporter emitters but in TOS I think the large domes did that work. If you can get a higher rez image of that area you could just model them as they appear.
Ok that means the map size is a bit small. This is something I found annoying with unwrapping things like saucers is with it all on one image some regions got way to large to justify it. A way I found for details I wanted more pixels on is to enlarge the UVW in the unwrap manager. IE select that bridge area and scale it larger than the rest of the hull. Doing it this way allows you to have the higher map density for those bits that are often closer to the view or bits you plan to get close into.
And yes the blur settings I point out are just that a bluring of the textures. I fin d lower settings keep it looking like what it does in the graphics editor vs some smeary blurfest. It also eliminates some of that steep DOF looking texture thing max does. Try some text on a plane and put the camera at a shallow angle to it and render you will find it blurs off unnaturally as it falls from view.
Ship is looking really good in TOS attire.
Thanks! I'll try both of your suggestions to try and understand the way textures work on Max and how to make them look better.
Yellow bits:
Like evil_genius said, they most definitively aren't RCS thrusters, given both the size and position, and the fact that the ship already have thrusters in the usual positions.
I noticed the small lines inside the yellow shapes that MadKoiFish mentioned. When zoomed in, they have a hexagonal pattern. That made me think... I've seen a golden pattern like that before, some real spacecraft have them, particularly the James Webb Space Telescope. According to the NASA website, "the gold coating of the telescope mirrors maximizes the reflectivity of said mirrors to infrared light".
I don't know if that's the reason why Paul put them there, but I think it's a possible reason; even though the inner workings of the sensors would have to be different, given that the receptor should be behind the mirrors on the NX-01, rather than in front of them as in the Webb. Most likely they wouldn't be actual mirrors, but rather some other form of sensitive surface tuned to capture infrared light.
So, that's probably the way I'll be modeling them, as a small extruded area going into the saucer, with the "mirrors" inside.
For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
The whole bridge superstructure is done, as well as the aft part of the saucer. Now I'm moving onto the rest. I'm taking my time here, mostly because this is by far the hardest part of the ship to texture. Once this is done, the rest will be easier.
This weekend I'll probably have enough time to also tackle the problem of the texture resolutions. I'll try MadKoiFish's suggestions and maybe make the textures good once and for all.
For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
^^ Either what Starship suggested, or maybe darken the red some. Yes, I know bright red was used on the TOS ship, but in less places. The Aztec is definitely looking good so far.
I've been tinkering with the textures settings a bit more, and found out a way to make the anti-aliasing Max applies to them a little bit better looking.
I had to change the texture filtering from Pyramidal (default) to Summed Area. This is apparently not recommended for "everyday use" because it consumes much more memory when rendering, even though it has the same rendering time.
I said "what the heck, I have 32Gb of RAM for a reason", and changed it. The textures look much better now, and because of that I was even able to change the blur setting to a lower value.
You can see that now even the far away gray lines stay consistent.
As for the texture itself, I've finished all the "unique" areas, which I tried to include from the original NX-01. The rest of the texture area has a more common aztec patter, which is the part that I still haven't done. The problem with this model is that every single area has a different size, so there's very little I can reuse. this wasn't a problem on the original NX, because several panels are of the same size there.
I hope that by my next update I've already moved to the catamaran textures.
For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
Well, I'll never finish the type of texture work I've been doing so far, it's way to boring to do. :P
So, after reading a lot of what some other people do (mainly MadKoiFish and Tobias Richter), I'll now try and texture this using simpler, less specific maps.
Here's what I've got so far, what do you think? I might get rid of the bump map, I don't like how it looks.
For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
Sorry to reserect a post thats been 5 months quite but this is amazing, now im trying to understand how your texturing that, but can't quite make up the picture, is there anyway you could link me to the information from madkoi and tobias please?
The gold sensor thingies - the suggestions seem correct when you put them together - they could very well be sensors to line up for mooring. Since IR is line of sight, it helps with guidance to get the large ship to line up exactly with the dock.
My two cents, way too late.
Posts
By the way, I've contacted Bernd from Ex Astris Scientia to see if he knew of another way to contact Mr. Frenczli, but he doesn't know one.
Anyway, things are slower now that the winter recess is over, but I'm still getting things done. Except for those things around the saucer and for some details on the nacelles (RCS thrusters and lights), the modeling is done.
I've also added most of the name markings on the ship. They're 3D text, so when the time comes to make the other ships, to replace it will be very easy, I'll just open them and change the text displayed. The ones on the top saucer and on the nacelles will have to be done in a different way, as they'll be curved.
Your doing a great job! details are coming out great! Your getting real good at Max!
I've started creating the texture for the top saucer. I've found it rather easy once all the UVW crap is done.
I made the whole top saucer one big texture, while some areas like windows and modeled hull lines are just "painted over" with another material.
I'm not entirely happy with the texture quality. No matter how big I make it (it's at 4096x4096 right now), it always seems to be pixelated. Am I doing something wrong here?
And yeah when mapping huge areas of the ship with fine details youll need HUGE maps. What I have done over time was break things up across various materials or material channels using various UVW channels. It makes a huge mess of the materials though. But it makes for easy lazy texturing.
This is the texture distribution I'm using for the top saucer, the empty spaces will be used down the line to add more areas of the ship.
@MadKoiFish: I'm saving the texture as a PNG in the highest quality.
As for the blur setting, I'm using the default Scanline rendered and the Catmull-Rom filter... and I can't find it.
I've finished the bridge area and I'm moving on to the "B Deck" structure.
Thanks! Yes, I forgot to mention I am using Max.
Why is it that I didn't look there? :argh:
Anyway, most of the B Deck is done. I think I've already said this, but I found this to be extremely fun to do.
And yes the blur settings I point out are just that a bluring of the textures. I fin d lower settings keep it looking like what it does in the graphics editor vs some smeary blurfest. It also eliminates some of that steep DOF looking texture thing max does. Try some text on a plane and put the camera at a shallow angle to it and render you will find it blurs off unnaturally as it falls from view.
Ship is looking really good in TOS attire.
Assuming they do the same job as the yellow bits on other saucers (Ent A and D for example) they are the RCS thrusters.
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Reaction_control_thruster
Thanks! I'll try both of your suggestions to try and understand the way textures work on Max and how to make them look better.
@spacefighter: Thanks!
Yellow bits:
Like evil_genius said, they most definitively aren't RCS thrusters, given both the size and position, and the fact that the ship already have thrusters in the usual positions.
I noticed the small lines inside the yellow shapes that MadKoiFish mentioned. When zoomed in, they have a hexagonal pattern. That made me think... I've seen a golden pattern like that before, some real spacecraft have them, particularly the James Webb Space Telescope. According to the NASA website, "the gold coating of the telescope mirrors maximizes the reflectivity of said mirrors to infrared light".
I don't know if that's the reason why Paul put them there, but I think it's a possible reason; even though the inner workings of the sensors would have to be different, given that the receptor should be behind the mirrors on the NX-01, rather than in front of them as in the Webb. Most likely they wouldn't be actual mirrors, but rather some other form of sensitive surface tuned to capture infrared light.
So, that's probably the way I'll be modeling them, as a small extruded area going into the saucer, with the "mirrors" inside.
This weekend I'll probably have enough time to also tackle the problem of the texture resolutions. I'll try MadKoiFish's suggestions and maybe make the textures good once and for all.
Other than that, the ship looks a beauty.
Sensory thingies added on the saucer rim. I'm still playing with the reflection settings on the gold material.
I've been tinkering with the textures settings a bit more, and found out a way to make the anti-aliasing Max applies to them a little bit better looking.
I had to change the texture filtering from Pyramidal (default) to Summed Area. This is apparently not recommended for "everyday use" because it consumes much more memory when rendering, even though it has the same rendering time.
I said "what the heck, I have 32Gb of RAM for a reason", and changed it. The textures look much better now, and because of that I was even able to change the blur setting to a lower value.
You can see that now even the far away gray lines stay consistent.
As for the texture itself, I've finished all the "unique" areas, which I tried to include from the original NX-01. The rest of the texture area has a more common aztec patter, which is the part that I still haven't done. The problem with this model is that every single area has a different size, so there's very little I can reuse. this wasn't a problem on the original NX, because several panels are of the same size there.
I hope that by my next update I've already moved to the catamaran textures.
Well, I'll never finish the type of texture work I've been doing so far, it's way to boring to do. :P
So, after reading a lot of what some other people do (mainly MadKoiFish and Tobias Richter), I'll now try and texture this using simpler, less specific maps.
Here's what I've got so far, what do you think? I might get rid of the bump map, I don't like how it looks.
My two cents, way too late.