I don’t know how many people remember this thing, but I built this ship last year. It was my very first starship build since switching to Lightwave. The original idea came from an unused concept drawing by John Eaves for Enterprise. I had a rear three-quarters view, which gave me a basic look and layout for the ship, and I worked from that. Anyway, I finished the model and started on the textures when I lost my mojo and quit working on it. And it’s sat on my hard drive until the other day, when I was looking at things and loaded it into Lightwave. I decided then that I was going to finally texture it, but I didn’t start until yesterday.
When last we saw this ship, I’d started on the saucer section textures. I’d originally done that beige color that the NX-01 was covered in. However, I’m not overly fond of the beige and brown color scheme, (it reminds me too much of desert camouflage) so I decided to go a different route. I started off with a color that I mixed myself, but it was dreadful. So, I decided to get some colors online. Unfortunately, due to paint companies, especially automotive paint, there are different formulas for the same color, so that can be fun sometimes. I tried finding steel gray, but it was too hard to find something accurate on that, so I chose light steel blue. However, that made the hull too blue, so I went with metallic silver, which has just a bit of a blue tone to it. For accents, I chose light slate gray and quite a bit of chrome and copper. I figure the shiny materials will really help some of this stuff pop. Once I had the color scheme all worked out, things went a bit more quickly.
I got most of the ship textured today, with only a few parts left to do. Modeling wise, I still have a couple things to do. For one thing, there’s an interior to add, though that won’t take very long. (just basically textured boxes for depth) Also, I noticed that the front underside of the center thing, between the deflector and the saucer, needs some details. It’s pretty plain.
Aside from changing the color scheme, I also decided to rename the ship. Originally, I was calling it “Manticore,” but I decided to use the name “Endeavour” instead. Though, it is a Manticore-class ship. Here’s quick history that I came up with:
The Manticore-class was originally designed in the 2150s to be a possible successor to the NX-class. The Manticore-class boasted improved hull strength, better engine performance including a warp six engine, as well as a number of other improvements, including experimental deflector shields. However, once war broke out between Earth and the Romulan Star Empire, the need for warships rose quickly. So, the Manticore-class was pushed into production ahead of schedule. Due to its new role as a warship, many of the class’s science labs and other non-war facilities were converted into ammunition storage and extra crew quarters, which were necessary to house replacement crew members and ground troops, though those wound up not being necessary as the war was fought completely in space. The class ship, the Manticore, was completed in early 2158, with several other ships following quickly as the war was taking its toll on Earth and its allies.
During the war, the Manticore-class performed well and distinguished itself as one of Starfleet’s top ship classes, even though certain systems, such as the warp six engine, could not be realized due to the rushed production. However, the class was still faster and more maneuverable than the NX, and it had energy shields and more powerful weapons.
Since the Manticore-class performed so well during the war, the newly formed Federation Council decided to keep the class in service, though in its original role as a deep space explorer, along with newer ship classes, such as the Daedalus-class, after the war. The surviving Manticore-class ships were refitted. Among the systems upgraded during the refit were the warp engines, which were upgraded to the new warp six engine developed for the Daedalus-class. The extra ammunition and crew facilities were also converted back into science labs, as they had originally intended to be. With the refits in place, the Manticore-class enjoyed a long operational history as one of the Federation’s first deep space exploration vessels.
Posts
@xumucane: I actually have some really nice renders of the NX from Doug Drexler's old blog done in all white lighting, so I could probably match the colors pretty closely. I just really don't like that color scheme. I like the Columbia's color scheme much better.
I’ve pretty much got the hull materials done. I’ve been tweaking a few things, and I may continue to do so, but this is basically it. Interiors are next, followed by something for that bare spot on the front underside. I also have some work to do on the bussards, though I’ll probably do those last as I’m likely going to rig them for animation. (similar to what I did on my TOS Enterprise) Also, I decided the ship has more than enough blue glows, so I switched the impulse engines to a red-orange glow.
On a side note, I’d like to say that, for professional software, Lightwave has to have some of the worst UV mapping tools. If you’re using flat images with planar, cylindrical, etc. mapping, you’re fine. However, unwrapping in Lightwave leaves very much to be desired. The default tool for doing it flat out sucks. It generates way too many parts. I have a plugin that’s a little better, but it’s an older plugin and I get a lot of error messages. Plus, it doesn’t put parts on the sheet straight, it puts things on there at an angle, making it a pain to try and put paneling on things. And, last but not in any way least, there’s no way to export generated maps to images. There are a few third party plugins, but they won’t work with Lightwave 64-bit, so they’re useless to me.
I did manage to get the plugin that I have to work for the weirdly shaped part on the back underside, (the thing the warp pylons connect to) so I was able to add some paneling there. However, a lot of other places that have “paneling” only do because I manually selected faces and changed the materials on them to create a paneling look.
Otherwise, looking good! :thumb:
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Also, could we get some comparison shots with an NX class, please? It looks like the Manticore is actually a bit smaller than the NX, but I can't be sure and would like to see.
As you can see, the Endeavour is slightly longer and, due to its “wingspan,” slightly wider. The saucer isn’t as bulky, but the nacelles are more bulky. Here are the numbers on both ships:
NX-01:
Length: 225 meters
Width: 135.8 meters
Height: 33.3 meters
(Note: these are the official numbers on the NX, and may not be accurate to Kenny’s mesh, because I scaled it down using the length with the other values locked, to preserve the proportions)
NCC-35:
Length: 240 meters
Width: 154.5 meters
Height: 38.7 meters
Those figures are rounded to the nearest tenth of a meter.
Thanks.
Anywho, after I tweak the animation I was rendering and change some rendering settings to make it go faster, IAâm going to start over on rendering that. Meanwhile, hereAâs the current state of the model:
Only one image today, because these 1920X1080 images take over ten minutes to render and I want to get on to the animation.
glowey blue bits on the nacelles but its still a good design.
At long last, the animation sequence is ready. As I’m sure y’all know, I’m not really an animator, but I did a few simple flybys to showcase the model, especially the flashy and spinny bits.
http://vimeo.com/84836426
I found out Vimeo and my tablet don’t get along well. I tried twice to upload the damn video and both times it stalled at “finishing upload” and wouldn’t finish. So, I uploaded it from my PC.
I think if you spend a little more time futzing with the overall scene lighting, and then toss in some post-effects stuff like lens distortion, film grain, and a bit of bloom for the bright stuff, it'll look amazing.
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
The fast bussard blinking is intentional. I wanted it to be a bit frantic.
Frantic is one thing. Distracting is another.
That said, this was solid work for a rough draft. The cyan blue on the nacelles (esp. the aft portion) seemed off somehow, but I can't quite describe it. It's too ... pastel?
But, again, solid work. I liked the motion and the general composition.
And dayum, talk about nacelle envy!
Not really liking the way the pylons overlap into the glowey blue panels on the nacelles. Could you reduce the size of the pylons where they attach to the nacelles to eliminate that?
(though, mine actually goes less into the blue area than his does)
I wonder if anyone else noticed the way most other trek ships, even the original klingon cruiser, had far thicker and or wider pylons than the connie. Could the original design have been an experiment in making the pylons with an early version of TNGs structural integrity field so that in effect the pylons were augmented by a forcefield allowing them to be physically quite small compared to other designs? Could the pylons SIF have been linked to the engines so that the more power put to the warp drive the more powerful the pylon fields became? Was this ditched In later designs? When one looks at TMP enterprise It's apparent at a glance the pylons changed far more than any other element of the design In terms of overall proportion .