3DTOS NCC-1701 U.S.S. Enterprise

Tralfaz

The first model I ever built on my own in Cinema 4D was the TV Enterprise from Star Trek. At the time, I was ecstatic about how it looked and turned out. Recently, I was going through some of my old projects and came across the model. Took a look at it and realized how much better it could be done with what I have learned over the years.

That brings me to this project. I am redoing the Enterprise at a slightly higher resolution and more accurate to the original model. I am using Sinclair's blueprints for this as I had read they are pretty darned close to the 11 foot model. A friend of mine had gone to the Smithsonian and took some pictures of the 11 foot model on display and will be using that as a reference as well.

Al

Chris2005

Just no modeled grid lines.

Lovely start to so far.

evil_genius_180

Great start. This is definitely one of my favorite subject matters. I've used Sinclair's blueprints more than once, they seem really accurate to me. Or, at the very least, close enough.

[Deleted User]

Looking very good so far.
IA’ve finished my Lightwave-Version of this ship-class a few month ago

Brandenberg

Can't wait to see how this comes out! Looking superb so far.

Tralfaz

Thanks folks for the kind words.

And Chris, not to worry about the grid lines!

Haven't had a whole lot of time to work on the model, but have made some small progress on it. The darned neck took me longer than I thought it would. But finally got the shape correct to the blueprints and modeled, inset and bevelled all the little windows. I found some photos of the original 11 foot miniature during what looked like one of its restorations in the tear down process. Don't know if it is the current restoration or not. Anyway, the pictures did show faint panel lines drawn or painted onto the saucer. This is what I hope to achieve with my model, subtle textures and not over the top.

Al

evil_genius_180

Looking great. The "neck" is a tricky bit, more so than a lot of people who haven't tried making one think.

Here's the deal with the grid lines. Somebody drew them on in pencil between seasons one and two. As far as I know, they were only on the saucer top. I think somebody was adding them and somebody else said "NO," so that's all that got done. This is a theory reinforced by the fact that they didn't add them to the 33-inch model when they got it ready for filming between seasons two and three.

Chris2005

I think Steve Neill's scratch build TOS Enterprise is the most accurate physical model, even next to the studio model, since it was never finished, lol.

Tralfaz

Thanks Evil. Chris, I checked out Steve Neill's TOS Enterprise on YouTube. Pretty amazing work. Couldn't watch too much of it as the one hand shaky cam was giving me headaches. Too bad.

I've been working on blocking out the major pieces of the Enterprise. Have the basic shape of the secondary hull done. Still have to complete the front part of it, bevel and extrude the windows and all of the other details associated with it. Rigged the shuttle bay doors so they could be animated. Took a bit of time to figure out logistically how these doors should work and came up with the best interpretation that I could. Also did a comparison of my new Enterprise to my old one.

Al

[video=youtube_share;n9FqSLVsFnU]

Tralfaz

Well, finished blocking in the major components of the Enterprise. Still lots of modeling and detailing to go, then textures. Off topic, I got my first blue screen of death in Windows 7 Professional 64 bit tonight. Scrolling through Google images looking for reference images on the impulse engines, then bang! Blue screen. Unfortunately, I hadn't saved my work on the impulse engines in C4D and had to re-create it from scratch. Saved quite often after that.

evil_genius_180

That's looking great. :thumb:

I occasionally get a BSOD in Windows 7 (Home 64) but they're few and far between. Something about a memory dump. I have no idea what causes it but, the last time I got one, I was modeling and hadn't saved for a while. :shiner: Boy, nothing beats my first computer with Windows 98 (original edition.) BSODs all the time on that beast. At the time, I had no freaking idea what kernel 32 was, I just knew I hated it for failing me frequently.

MaxxRush

evil_genius_180 wrote: »

That's looking great. :thumb:

I occasionally get a BSOD in Windows 7 (Home 64) but they're few and far between. Something about a memory dump. I have no idea what causes it but, the last time I got one, I was modeling and hadn't saved for a while. :shiner: Boy, nothing beats my first computer with Windows 98 (original edition.) BSODs all the time on that beast. At the time, I had no freaking idea what kernel 32 was, I just knew I hated it for failing me frequently.

I don't know what I've done right, or maybe it's just luck, but I've never had a BSOD, from Win98, to WinME (only for a short time), to WinXP, and now Win7Pro64.

Chris2005

Tralfaz wrote: »

Well, finished blocking in the major components of the Enterprise. Still lots of modeling and detailing to go, then textures. Off topic, I got my first blue screen of death in Windows 7 Professional 64 bit tonight. Scrolling through Google images looking for reference images on the impulse engines, then bang! Blue screen. Unfortunately, I hadn't saved my work on the impulse engines in C4D and had to re-create it from scratch. Saved quite often after that.

Looking very nice.

Bummer. Does C4D have an autosave feature?

Tralfaz

Thanks guys. C4D does have a save feature if it crashes. It will save your work to a debug folder at which point you can recover what you lost. In the years that I have been using C4D, it has crashed maybe 2-3 times, so it is very stable. As for an auto-save feature, I will have to look into that. Would be a great feature if it doesn't have it.

Chris2005

evil_genius_180 wrote: »

That's looking great. :thumb:

I occasionally get a BSOD in Windows 7 (Home 64) but they're few and far between. Something about a memory dump. I have no idea what causes it but, the last time I got one, I was modeling and hadn't saved for a while. :shiner: Boy, nothing beats my first computer with Windows 98 (original edition.) BSODs all the time on that beast. At the time, I had no freaking idea what kernel 32 was, I just knew I hated it for failing me frequently.

I think the only time Win7 has BSOD'd on me was for hardware issues... other than that, I've never had a BSOD.

Autosave is a life safer, 3ds max is default at every 5 minutes...

I remember the BSOD's with Windows 98, and the Unhandled Exceptions, etc. My personal favorite was the "Illegal Operation" one.

Tralfaz wrote: »

Thanks guys. C4D does have a save feature if it crashes. It will save your work to a debug folder at which point you can recover what you lost. In the years that I have been using C4D, it has crashed maybe 2-3 times, so it is very stable. As for an auto-save feature, I will have to look into that. Would be a great feature if it doesn't have it.

It should be in Preferences > Files, from what I found online.

Tralfaz

Thanks very much for the info on Auto-save Chris. Now have it turned on!

I do have two questions for those more knowledgeable than me about the TOS Enterprise. Since I have the major pieces blocked in, I have started to work on the details from the bridge working my way down.

1) There appear to be two lights on either side of the bridge hull. It is hard to make them out in any photos I have seen. In some they almost seem to be oval shaped at a slight upward angle. In others they appear to be circular. Does anyone have a definitive answer or photos of this?

2) On the front side of the saucer, there are 3 holes. Are these windows or sensors? If sensors, is there any detail visible in them?

Slightly off-topic, found out about the 'tallywhacker' on the bottom planetary sensor dome. Interesting theories on what this is supposed to be, from the ion pod to a phaser turret. Not sure what it is, but it is modeled on my Enterprise.

Chris2005

Tralfaz wrote: »

Thanks very much for the info on Auto-save Chris. Now have it turned on!

I do have two questions for those more knowledgeable than me about the TOS Enterprise. Since I have the major pieces blocked in, I have started to work on the details from the bridge working my way down.

1) There appear to be two lights on either side of the bridge hull. It is hard to make them out in any photos I have seen. In some they almost seem to be oval shaped at a slight upward angle. In others they appear to be circular. Does anyone have a definitive answer or photos of this?

2) On the front side of the saucer, there are 3 holes. Are these windows or sensors? If sensors, is there any detail visible in them?

Slightly off-topic, found out about the 'tallywhacker' on the bottom planetary sensor dome. Interesting theories on what this is supposed to be, from the ion pod to a phaser turret. Not sure what it is, but it is modeled on my Enterprise.

No problem.

1) In this picture, although the CG model used in TOS-R:
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1xbonushd/interactiveent/interactiveenthd029.jpg

They appear to be little stubs...

2) To my understanding, those front 3 windows were supposed to be something other than windows... but I can't quite recall.

Tralfaz

Wow! Thanks for the quick reply Chris. That picture you provided is great.

evil_genius_180

Tralfaz wrote: »

1) There appear to be two lights on either side of the bridge hull. It is hard to make them out in any photos I have seen. In some they almost seem to be oval shaped at a slight upward angle. In others they appear to be circular. Does anyone have a definitive answer or photos of this?

Yes, I have several clear photos of that area. See attached.

Tralfaz wrote: »

2) On the front side of the saucer, there are 3 holes. Are these windows or sensors? If sensors, is there any detail visible in them?

The general fan consensus is that that's a sensor or saucer navigational deflector. In Where No Man Has Gone Before, there was a running light there. They removed the light and we were left with three glowing holes that are slightly larger than the windows.

Tralfaz wrote: »

Slightly off-topic, found out about the 'tallywhacker' on the bottom planetary sensor dome. Interesting theories on what this is supposed to be, from the ion pod to a phaser turret. Not sure what it is, but it is modeled on my Enterprise.

It's hard to say what the little nipple is. It could be the phaser. We know the phasers fired from somewhere around that dome. They fired from the dome itself in The Doomsday Machine.

Tralfaz

I know what you mean about where the phasers fired from Evil. There wasn't really any consistency back then.

So, I am working on the saucer top right now and finally got the lettering done last night. The closest font I could find was Airborne or Airborne II. I had some Federation fonts, but just didn't come close to what was used on the model. Even with the Airborne font, I still had to tweak the N, 1 and E characters. I kind of miss the style and flair of the 1701'A fonts. Maybe when I am done with this version, I will re-do the Enterprise as if it used the type of fonts and textures from the movie Enterprise. Still keep the same basic design, just freshen it up a bit with mainly textures.

evil_genius_180

That looks great.

Airborne and Airborne II are the best fonts. Charles Casimiro made those to be very close to what was on the original ship. He even has pilot versions, since the lettering was slightly different in The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before.

BolianAdmiral

Those little red 'nipples' are bridge running/marker lights.

Tralfaz

BolianAdmiral wrote: »

Those little red 'nipples' are bridge running/marker lights.

They remind me of the lights on top of a Dalek. LOL

Seriously, if they are running lights, should the starboard side be green and the port side red? In photos I've seen of them lit up, they both appear to be red.

evil_genius_180

I think they're more of a "don't hit the top of our ship" light. (like the red lights you see on broadcast towers, cell phone towers and water towers) The actual navigation markers are on the edges of the saucer, which is where they need to be in order for a dock controller to correctly guide the ship into a docking space.

Tralfaz

Quick update. Been working on the underside of the saucer section as time permitted.

trekki

Very good, the ship is the original. Love it!
You work with Cinema ? Please make a wireframe.
Thanks
Greetings
trekki

Tralfaz

trekki wrote: »

Very good, the ship is the original. Love it!
You work with Cinema ? Please make a wireframe.
Thanks
Greetings
trekki

Thanks trekki. Yes, I work with Cinema 4D R11. I am hoping to upgrade to a newer version in the next little while, but then I also have to re-purchase my plug-ins again.

And here are some wireframes.

trekki

Thank you for the Wireframes, Clean meshes very good.
I wait of the next update. :flippy:
Greetings

BolianAdmiral

Some clean modeling... very nice wireframes, too.

Tralfaz

I've started working on the nacelles and the first thing I wanted to work on is the bussard effect. C&C always welcome.

Chris2005

Very nice.

I personally would make the "spokes" a little thinner or spaced apart, so there isn't as many and just a little faster in rotation...

Here's a pic:

Granted, after the dreadful refurbishment...