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3DUSS Endeavour

evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804617 Posts: 11,190Member
edited January 2014 in Work in Progress #1
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.

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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.

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Post edited by evil_genius_180 on
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  • Vortex5972Vortex5972333 Posts: 1,211Member
    I remember this. Been keeping a look out for it. Fantastic looking ship. Awesome job!
  • AresiusAresius359 Posts: 4,171Member
    Looks like the Ent-Era version of the Ayakazi-class.
  • xumucanexumucane0 Posts: 0Member
    I really like the paint job. Good call with the metallic silver and the hint of blue. I know when I was working on an NX-01 back in the early days of Enterprise, I tried to mix my own and had a devil of a time coming up with anything even close. I recall some garishly gold ships. *gulp* Never got anywhere as nice as this. Looks really great.
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804617 Posts: 11,190Member
    Thanks a lot, everyone.

    @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.

    endeavourwip09.jpg?w=500

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    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.
  • McCMcC373 Posts: 704Member
    Looks like something weird's going on with the texture on the trapezoid bits behind the saucer.

    Otherwise, looking good! :thumb:
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804617 Posts: 11,190Member
    Thanks. It looks like how I intended it to look. Though, I may do something different there. Like I said, I'm still tweaking things.
  • TaidremTaidrem67 Posts: 279Member
    Beautiful ship with you, but at the same time, you have it some do not live, try to add to the basic texture, scratches scrapes, tuning of the right lighting, and then the ship will look like the real thing. :thumb:
  • Bell'OrsoBell'Orso331 Posts: 93Member
    That's an interesting design. It looks like its SF design team moved the warp core all the way back there between the nacelles into a dedicated pod, to be jettisoned incase of emergency. If it's not too late, you might think about adding a separation plane between the half-saucer and the neck. Either just behind the trapezoids, or maybe even leave them attached to the neck, to end up with two (almost) fully functional starships, kind of like the later Galaxy class.

    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.
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804617 Posts: 11,190Member
    I've thought about putting a separation plane in there, I might still. We know from the episode "The Apple" that the original Enterprise could separate, so why not? ;) I'm sure I can hunt down a decent NX mesh to use for a comparison shot or two, so that shouldn't be a problem.
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804617 Posts: 11,190Member
    As requested, comparison shots. Unfortunately, NX-01 meshes aren’t so easy to come by. There are a couple available for free in Lightwave format. One was at Foundation 3D and it was modeled in Lightwave 9. Unfortunately, it’s inaccurate. The author even admits that it is. So, I went with an older but more accurate mesh by Kenny_Z, converted to Lightwave by Darrell Lawrence over at 3D Gladiators. The only thing I couldn’t get were all of the textures, because Darrell didn’t include them all in the .zip file. I could have gotten them from trekmeshes.ch, but the download link is broken. However, as this is a size comparison, textures aren’t a necessity.

    endeavourwip17.jpg?w=500

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    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.
  • BasillBasill172 Posts: 0Member
    Looking pretty sweet. I have to say it kind of reminds me of a Vulcan lirpa.
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804617 Posts: 11,190Member
    Hm, now that you mention it... ;)

    Thanks. :D
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804617 Posts: 11,190Member
    I got all of the textures done, added a few bits and rigged the lights. I’m rendering an animation, but here are some beauty shots.

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  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804617 Posts: 11,190Member
    I had to abort the animation I was rendering because it was taking too frakking long. However, I took a look at what had been rendered so far and made some changes to the ship. One thing that was changed that canA’t be seen in still images is the blink pattern on the lights. They were too fast before. Also, I wasnA’t as fond of the bussard collectors as I should have been. I decided the A“light spotsA” on the dome were too bright and too well defined, so I redid the animation on those. I softened the effect a lot and IA’m a lot more happy with it. Also, I had two A“light spotsA” animations, one for the outer dome and one for the inner dome. That was redundant, so I removed the outer one and tweaked the dome materials to create almost the same effect as the two animations together, but with only one animation on the inner dome and a standard A“glassA” material on the outer dome. (unintentional bonus: you can see the A“bladesA” better now :cool:)

    Anywho, after I tweak the animation I was rendering and change some rendering settings to make it go faster, IA’m going to start over on rendering that. Meanwhile, hereA’s the current state of the model:

    endeavour_beauty01a.jpg?w=500

    Only one image today, because these 1920X1080 images take over ten minutes to render and I want to get on to the animation.
  • Vortex5972Vortex5972333 Posts: 1,211Member
    Looking great. Definitely a good call with the impulse engines. It contrasts against the rest of the blue nicely.
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804617 Posts: 11,190Member
    Thanks a lot. :D
  • xumucanexumucane0 Posts: 0Member
    Golly that's a pretty ship. :) There's something about the Bussard collector that I don't like, but I'm not sure i could put my finger on it. It maybe seems a little too dark? Probably I'm just remembering it wrong. So excited to see the animation.
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804617 Posts: 11,190Member
    Thanks. Yeah, I went with a darker bussard.
  • Judge Death.Judge Death.1 Posts: 0Member
    I like the design and your back story. I can see this as a midpoint between the nx and the connie. I don't know about the
    glowey blue bits on the nacelles but its still a good design.
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804617 Posts: 11,190Member
    Thanks. I like glowy bits. ;)

    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.
  • McCMcC373 Posts: 704Member
    Camera motion is nice and smooth.

    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.
  • xumucanexumucane0 Posts: 0Member
    Looks beautiful. I think the whip-pan is a little too fast as you change directions in the first and third bits. Also seems like the Nacelle blinking is too fast to my eye. The textures, lighting and meshes look terrific!
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804617 Posts: 11,190Member
    Thanks guys. I appreciate the suggestions but I really don't animate. (translation: I probably will move on and not change anything ;)) I did a test animation of a model I built for a project I was attached to late last year and that was the first time I'd animated in ages. Then I did one of my TOS Enterprise and now this. That's it. I'm really more of a mesh builder and I sometimes do still images.

    The fast bussard blinking is intentional. I wanted it to be a bit frantic.
  • SanderleeSanderlee1 Posts: 0Member
    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.
  • Bell'OrsoBell'Orso331 Posts: 93Member
    Thanks for those comparison shots. :)

    And dayum, talk about nacelle envy!
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804617 Posts: 11,190Member
    Thanks guys. :)
  • Judge Death.Judge Death.1 Posts: 0Member
    One thing I do like is you kept the copper 'radar dish' type sensor array that's reminiscent of the original connie instead of doing a glowey array like nx-01 had.

    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?
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804617 Posts: 11,190Member
    Thanks. :) The NX had a gold deflector dish, but it was kind of undersized, so you saw a lot more of the glowy thing behind it. I made my dish fill up more of the space. As for the pylons, I could change the attachment point, if I felt so inclined. The design of this ship is based off of an unused John Eaves concept drawing for Enterprise. I replicated as much of the basic structure as I could from that one drawing, though of course a liberal amount of interpretation and doing things based on what was done on the series was called for. One thing I actually didn't change from his drawing was how the nacelles attach to the pylons. Here's the original drawing:

    exp-2.jpg?w=500
    (though, mine actually goes less into the blue area than his does)
  • Judge Death.Judge Death.1 Posts: 0Member
    One thing I do notice on trek designs, my ship Included most definitely, Is everyone makes the pylons much more substantial than the original connies. I'm not running this down, just observing on it. Hell, I made my ships pylons so big I put auxillary impulse engines in them, which makes sense If you consider most of the material collected by the bussards will be used as Impulse engine fuel.

    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 .
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804617 Posts: 11,190Member
    That's because the TOS pylons are kind of thin and weak looking. As much as I love that ship, that's one issue I have with it. Some fan designs do have thin, TOS-style pylons, but you're right in most cases. A lot of them have beefed up, stronger looking pylons.
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