You're welcome, and thanks. I rather like seeing wireframes. It can give you an idea of how some things are done on meshes. Useful for if you ever get stuck on anything.
True. This gives you both, since the SubD isn't applied yet.
Does anyone know the size of the Defiant sets? Most particularly the bridge. None of the blueprints I've managed to come across have an overall size. I'm thinking that in order to correctly place escape pods on such a small ship, I'm going to need to work out where everything goes on the inside.
Also, what's generally used as the hull thickness. I'm thinking half a meter for this since the Defiant hull incorporates ablative armour.
You'd probably have to have some original set blueprints to get the sizes of the sets. (or be really good at scaling stuff based off of perspective views) Since the exterior of the ship is so inconsistently sized from one shot to the next, fan interpretations of everything from the exterior to the interior vary. 30cm is the unofficial hull thickness for the Enterprise-D, according to the Tech Manual. I'd say that half a meter is good for an armored ship like the Defiant. That's an extra 20cm of armor.
There's an entire thread at TrekBBS dedicated to set plans and some of them have dimension on them. Unfortunately, a lot of them a illegible. They've obviously smudged with age or the pictures are too small to make anything out. Guess I'll have to start thinking of modelling an interior, then.
I believe 16 meters was the diameter for the TMP bridge set, or that may have been NX. I'm thinking ten may be good for the Defiant.
Is that 30cm for the actuall panel, or inclusive of the outer and inner hulls and framework inbetween?
30cm is the whole sandwich that makes up the Enterprise's hull. Framework, outer an inner hulls. If you can find a used copy of the TNG Tech Manual somewhere, I'd suggest picking it up. In my opinion, it's the best of the Trek Tech Manuals. Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda really packed it with a lot of great information, such as hull thickness and construction, escape pod sizes, etc. Since they actually worked on the show and know a lot about designing these ships, they really know how to put together some great tech stuff for Trek.
Ahh, excellent. Thankyou. Found a copy of the book on Amazon. Looks like it could be helpful. I never really got all that much into the tech stuff. Guess it's time to fix that.
Another good one is the DS9 Tech Manual by Herman Zimmerman, Rick Sternbach and Doug Drexler. It's got some good stuff in it too. It even tries to fix some of the scaling issues, but it can't get them all. But, I still like the TNG one just a little better. However, both are excellent books. It's a shame they never got to publish one for Voyager. I think Drexler wanted to but I don't think Simon & Schuster want to publish it.
I think Sternbach compiled a hefty document that showed indepth schematics off Voyager, deck by deck. I haven't seen anything on his ebay store for a while, but may be something you'd want to check out every now and then.
Nothing to show for today but I have rebuild the fronts of the nacelles, made some adjustments to the pylons and started to remodel the torpedo launchers to be more of a module that can be plugged in and out. Hopefully, some renders for those shall be up tomorrow evening.
In other news, TNGTM arrived today. Can tell it's had a previous owner, the cover is rather battered looking, which makes me want to cry. I've had a quick flick through and the pages themselves look fine. The detail looks amazing. Work may slow down as I plod through that book. I've always disregarded the tech manuals before because they aren't canon. Kind of wishing that I'd got one sooner now. I assume the DS9 manual has some stuff on the Defiant? I may pick that up afterward. Really want one of these for the NX Class and Sovereign now.
30cm seems rather thin specially if its including structural elements - then again it is the far future but if i was going into battle in a spaceship i'd want a bit more substance between me and space
That's a shame. With all of the detail built into that mesh, it would have been great.
Thanks for those images, they could be useful, the cutaway especially. I'm now wondering how accurate those orthographic views are. Would quite like to build the Defiant someday.
I've redone the vents in the pylons, they're built directly in now. I didn't like them yesterday once I'd done them, but they have grown on me. It took quite some shifting of vertices to get some of the smooth curvature of the pylons back. I had meant to add some paneling on the bottom of them to regain some of it's strength, but had already done two or three renders for this update before remembering. xD
Everything forward of the grilles on the nacelles has been rebuild. Bussards now looking much more Sovereign like, which suits me fine. Still some work to be done on them but it's something I'll come back to. I've also added a bar think at the top. I may put a crystal at the front of it similar to the Connie refit and Sovereign nacelles.
And finally, the torpedo launchers have now been turned into a single module. Idea is the launchers can then be unplugged and replaced with upgraded launcher that just plug in. I still need to decide what to do with the tubes themselves. I was going to make them like the Pathfinder image has them, which is basically the Connie refit launchers, but to me they say "photon" and I don't think the Defiant ever had them. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) I may go for something similar to the Ent-E Quantum launcher, just need to figure out how to do all of that ridging inside it.
Like it, the vents on the pylons look good, and the new torpedo launcher assembly also looks like a good enhancement, nice smooth mesh across the board really, liking how this is coming together, and it is definitely an improvement on the original concept design, now I've had a chance to look at it.
thats looking great - so much better a starfleet ship than the defiant was - might think about making teh nacelles look less like normal federation starships though get some armour on them and personal thing for me but doesn't really fit the universe timeframe but would be cool to see some turret ports just to make it more obvious this is a warship
30cm seems rather thin specially if its including structural elements - then again it is the far future but if i was going into battle in a spaceship i'd want a bit more substance between me and space
You might be surprised how thin aircraft skins are. There are cardboard boxes that are thicker.
thats aircraft of today that operate under the assumption they wont get hit and if they do they are a loss not a space warship that will be getting antimatter lobbed at it and have phasers and dust traveling at super luminal velocities all hitting it on a regular basis and expected to survive
Yeah, the new launcher emplacement is much better.
On a side note: those protrusions under the pylons, are they impulse engines? I'm digging them a LOT. Very elegant, but it also gives you something to look at from that angle. Usually, the bottom aft angle is a little bit... dull.
@Stormcloud: I'll give some thought to armouring the nacelles, but I don't want to bulk them up if I can help it. I feel it would take away from the streamlined look.
@Borgman: Yes, they are the impulse engines, couldn't figure out where to put them and I wanted to give the secondary hull something to do other than house the deflector.
another of my starship design issues is that i always feel that the engines thrust should be applied down the axis of the center of gravity - so having all the impulse engines on the secondary hull might unbalance the ship - but there is a spot you could squeeze in another impulse engine to balance things off a bit
hard to say for certain if its needed or if i would be enough to balance the thrust without a closer look at the model but though would mention for consideration
I see what you mean about the visual appeal. Does set a good starting point, though. I've always rather liked the Columbus on that page, it's a pretty good TOS Sovereign.
another of my starship design issues is that i always feel that the engines thrust should be applied down the axis of the center of gravity - so having all the impulse engines on the secondary hull might unbalance the ship - but there is a spot you could squeeze in another impulse engine to balance things off a bit
hard to say for certain if its needed or if i would be enough to balance the thrust without a closer look at the model but though would mention for consideration
I thought on the original design that that's where the impulse was. I was initially going to place the aft torpedoes there, before realising that the scale I'd chosen wouldn't allow for it. That spot is 4m wide by 87cm tall. My plan at the minute is to put the aft sensor palette there. You are right about the physics of it, though, but since Trek designs have rarely cared for such things I'm letting it slide. I was initially going to place the engines in the saucer, close to the centre line. I'm sure some Treknobabble can fix it.
@Vortex and Stormcloud: Y'are aware that's what the deflector is for? Pushing space dust out of harms way, even at superluminal speeds? Now true that won't work with phasers and guided things like torpedoes, but that's a different thing altogether.
Trek ships have more than just their superiour armour (duranium seems to be quite a tough material anyway), but also deflector shields and fields (Decker in TMP).
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You're welcome, and thanks. I rather like seeing wireframes. It can give you an idea of how some things are done on meshes. Useful for if you ever get stuck on anything.
Does anyone know the size of the Defiant sets? Most particularly the bridge. None of the blueprints I've managed to come across have an overall size. I'm thinking that in order to correctly place escape pods on such a small ship, I'm going to need to work out where everything goes on the inside.
Also, what's generally used as the hull thickness. I'm thinking half a meter for this since the Defiant hull incorporates ablative armour.
Exactly my point. It's very useful. :thumb:
I believe 16 meters was the diameter for the TMP bridge set, or that may have been NX. I'm thinking ten may be good for the Defiant.
Is that 30cm for the actuall panel, or inclusive of the outer and inner hulls and framework inbetween?
http://www.ebay.com/sch/intrep74656/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_ipg=&_from=
Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
Nothing to show for today but I have rebuild the fronts of the nacelles, made some adjustments to the pylons and started to remodel the torpedo launchers to be more of a module that can be plugged in and out. Hopefully, some renders for those shall be up tomorrow evening.
In other news, TNGTM arrived today. Can tell it's had a previous owner, the cover is rather battered looking, which makes me want to cry. I've had a quick flick through and the pages themselves look fine. The detail looks amazing. Work may slow down as I plod through that book. I've always disregarded the tech manuals before because they aren't canon. Kind of wishing that I'd got one sooner now. I assume the DS9 manual has some stuff on the Defiant? I may pick that up afterward. Really want one of these for the NX Class and Sovereign now.
Thanks for those images, they could be useful, the cutaway especially. I'm now wondering how accurate those orthographic views are. Would quite like to build the Defiant someday.
http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/showthread.php?81728-The-Defiant-Alternative&p=600149&viewfull=1#post600149
And now, this update:
I've redone the vents in the pylons, they're built directly in now. I didn't like them yesterday once I'd done them, but they have grown on me. It took quite some shifting of vertices to get some of the smooth curvature of the pylons back. I had meant to add some paneling on the bottom of them to regain some of it's strength, but had already done two or three renders for this update before remembering. xD
Everything forward of the grilles on the nacelles has been rebuild. Bussards now looking much more Sovereign like, which suits me fine. Still some work to be done on them but it's something I'll come back to. I've also added a bar think at the top. I may put a crystal at the front of it similar to the Connie refit and Sovereign nacelles.
And finally, the torpedo launchers have now been turned into a single module. Idea is the launchers can then be unplugged and replaced with upgraded launcher that just plug in. I still need to decide what to do with the tubes themselves. I was going to make them like the Pathfinder image has them, which is basically the Connie refit launchers, but to me they say "photon" and I don't think the Defiant ever had them. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) I may go for something similar to the Ent-E Quantum launcher, just need to figure out how to do all of that ridging inside it.
:thumb:
You might be surprised how thin aircraft skins are. There are cardboard boxes that are thicker.
On a side note: those protrusions under the pylons, are they impulse engines? I'm digging them a LOT. Very elegant, but it also gives you something to look at from that angle. Usually, the bottom aft angle is a little bit... dull.
@Stormcloud: I'll give some thought to armouring the nacelles, but I don't want to bulk them up if I can help it. I feel it would take away from the streamlined look.
@Borgman: Yes, they are the impulse engines, couldn't figure out where to put them and I wanted to give the secondary hull something to do other than house the deflector.
I still want to transform that one into something a bit more visually appealing...
hard to say for certain if its needed or if i would be enough to balance the thrust without a closer look at the model but though would mention for consideration
I thought on the original design that that's where the impulse was. I was initially going to place the aft torpedoes there, before realising that the scale I'd chosen wouldn't allow for it. That spot is 4m wide by 87cm tall. My plan at the minute is to put the aft sensor palette there. You are right about the physics of it, though, but since Trek designs have rarely cared for such things I'm letting it slide. I was initially going to place the engines in the saucer, close to the centre line. I'm sure some Treknobabble can fix it.
Trek ships have more than just their superiour armour (duranium seems to be quite a tough material anyway), but also deflector shields and fields (Decker in TMP).