Not to mention the structural integrity field. I also think that part of the reason of capping the bussards was to give the ships a more armoured look. The grill on this Defiant is pretty solidly protected as well, it's not as open as Galaxy or Sovereign type nacelles.
Anyway, onwards!!
I have for now applied the mirror to the saucer and filled in the whole hole. Starting to look more like a complete ship now.
I've done a little more work on the warp engines, I'm liking how it's shaping up and apart from the aft ends, I think I'm pretty much done on that part of the ship until I get to adding some materials to the ship, which is when I shall model the bussard innards. I don't think I'll model the coils, I'll just do a blocked object with an emit material for that, similar to what you see on the Nova wireframe, if you've seen it on Google.
I have been trying to add a scoop down the centre of the bussard casing, similar to the Ent-E, but haven't been able to model it in a way that I like, so that part's on hold at the minute.
Next, the torpedo tubes themselves. I've based these on the Ent-E physical model, the only thing I'm struggling with is the grooves inside the tube. For the life of me I can't figure out how to make them. I've included a wireframe of the tube if anyone could point me in the right direction.
And finally, I've started to give the secondary hull a bit of attention. Primarily, the Deflector. I've gone back to my original idea of a slightly more original deflector whilst keeping a Defiant-esque look to it. I'll be making the glass area material to look like the Defiants deflector, for when I get that far.
Thanks guys. I'm glad that it still give off an aggressive vibe. She certainly has teeth.
Today's update; Escape Pods.
I've taken the Defiant/Intrepid pod ortho's and used them as a basis. I'm not sure yet how close I'll stick to them in detail. I don't like that the entrance seems to be a small hatch. At first I thought it meant you had to crawl through a jefferies tube just to get to it, then maybe they were just hidden behind bulkheads. Either way, it doesn't seem conducive to a quick escape. It'd be a lot slower than simply running into one of them, especially if you were carrying injured crewmen. To that end, I'm thinking that I may make one of the sides a two part pop up and slide out door. They may also need a hatch on the bottom for access from lower decks.
I've scaled the pods to be 3 meters in diameter. This fit surprisingly well with the pods on the concept image. So much so, that I'm now thinking the image was drawn with a 120m Defiant in mind. Anyway, each pod can comfortably fit 5 people, 6 if one stands up.
Ever since the Galaxy class, we've seen escape pods upside down (underside of saucer and secondary hull). If you're running a long into one, you may suddenly find yourself running on your head. My thinking here is that docked pods are at 0G, so once you've floated in, harnessed up and launched, you could then activate artificial gravity.
An escape pod can hold 5 Bob's:
What you may notice here is that the pods protrude from the ship. That is temporary. Starting from the top:
Deck 1: 4 pods located aft of the bridge. 20 person evacuation capacity from deck 1.
Deck 2: 16 pods located around perimeter of crew quarters. 80 person evacuation capacity.
Deck 3: Proceed to deck 2 or 4.
Deck 4: 4 pods located mid deck, 2 port, 2 starboard. 20 person evacuation capacity.
Maximum evacuation capacity: 120 people.
Deck 2 also contains the shuttlebay, but I don't know what type of shuttle could fit there. I'm guessing a Type 6 sized craft would be the best bet, 2 of them at the most. I turned three for the escape pods on deck two upside down, so that they'll fire ventral rather than dorsal. This was more a visual thing than a functionality thing. I may need to move the ventral phasers out a little so that it isn't so visually cramped.
Comments are welcome, as always.
I finally got to the end of series 5 of DS9 last night. This is my first time watching the series through since it's original run. I was nine when the show ended, so now I can appreciate it at a whole new level. I gotta say, they really did great with the CGI stuff for the time. Still holds up great.
Looking at the renders whilst listening to this really has me feeling it.
Nice work. With regards to getting into the pods I seem to remember some Voyager episodes perhaps? Where a wall section would get pulled down like a kinda ramp and the crew would walk up into them, or am I thinking of one of the Next Gen movies? Either way the section of the wall that came away to give access to the pods seemed quite slender so that would suggest a quite small hatch into the escape pods, possibly a hatch only half as wide as one of the walls so it could simply slide aside to allow access. Had not thought about the issues of the ventral pods, I just assumed they had two different models, one for ventral and one for dorsal mounting.
Either way, continuing to love the way this is developing, and the thought that is going into the design process.
That was what happened in First Contact when they boarded the pods. If I remember correctly, they never actually showed anybody boarding the pods on Voyager, they just showed them launching.
You might want to put chairs in that escape pod before calling it a day. I've found that the depth of those things, combined with a person who has to sit in them, makes for a lot less space than what you'd initially think...
My problem with multiple types of pods is that you can't just then re-use them anywhere, they have to fit a certain ship/section. That doesn't seem very economic to me and I've always thought it odd. Honestly, I'd have thought that sections of the ship would just detach if they wanted pods all over. (And how come the Borg never climbed into an escape pod during the evacuation? )
@Bobafett: Thanks. aside from the nacelles, I think the deflector is my favourite area at the moment. For me, they're one of the components that can single handedly make or break a ship.
@BorgMan: The pods won't have chairs, more like harnesses on the walls. This would be the most efficient use of space, and allow for 5 as a comfortable capacity, with a higher maximum number if you cram people in due to other pods being damaged.
Thanks all for the feedback.
I looked at some model builds of the Enterprise E on youtube yesterday to get an idea of how to do the bussard effect. It would appear to be three bulbs with animated sequence, so hopefully that won't be too difficult. I've also started to think about the glass part of the deflector. I would like to model it but I'm not sure how to go about it, it'll probably be easier to try and bump map it.
My problem with multiple types of pods is that you can't just then re-use them anywhere, they have to fit a certain ship/section. That doesn't seem very economic to me and I've always thought it odd. Honestly, I'd have thought that sections of the ship would just detach if they wanted pods all over. (And how come the Borg never climbed into an escape pod during the evacuation? )
If there were multiple pod types I'd just see it as dorsal and ventral versions, any other angles could be accommodated by the way the pod shaft is cut into the hull, or by angling the pod slightly in relation to the deck, only a complete inversion would not be able to be potentially accommodated in this method, which is why I assumed that there would at least be dorsal and ventral models, at least that was always my take on it, as much as I've thought about it, which isn't much if I'm honest.
With the glass for the Defiant deflector I seem to remember reading somewhere that is is the perspex from some light fitting, perhaps for a car or something, can't remember off the top of my head, either way it might be quite complex to model, but if you want to get that exact effect it might be worth it to get the correct light refraction and what have you through the glass.
Have to admit, I've never thought about the pods much until this build.
Depending on where you look at that deflector, the shape seems to change. In some places it looks like it's flat, but layered, in other it looks like it could have spiked extrusions.
I'm thinking maybe a layer, subdivided into squares, extruded and alt/scaled may work. The additional problem that I have is that my deflector dish isn't flat. It's a more traditional bowl.
I started attempting to build the airlock for the front... and that somehow turned into doing the hull plating instead. xD
I did insets and extrusions, probably not the best way to do it. I forgot to tack into account leaving room for the arms to open the escape pod hatches up, so am going to need to re-do this anyway. The nose part I just eye-balled, that's where the airlock is going to go. The pod hatches I extruded by .2 and the rest by .1, so the hatches aren't quite flush with the hull. This also prompted a move in the phaser arrays.
That's true. There's also that thing where Goroth's ship isn't a military vessel. He's a Bounty Hunter, hardly an "honorable" career path by Klingon military standards. So, he obviously doesn't have the same moral code as your typical Klingon soldier and probably wouldn't mind having a ship with escape pods. Also, the ship may not have been built by Klingons.
Thanks. The inset and extrude method seems to be holding up fairly well so far. Accidentaly rediscovering "Vertex Slide" has helped a little there.
I've spent some time today giving the armour/hull plating another go. I think the shape of the pod hatches is better, though admittedly I eye-balled it on pulling the sides for the octagonal shape. The only thing really bothering me is that the back hatch is much larger height wise. I think this is due to the shape of the hull on that back corner.
There hasn't really been a very good top down view look so far either, so I've included a new angle.
Thanks. Good to know that it wasn't just me, then. I hadn't logged onto ST:O since Christmas, and hadn't actually played it proper since well before then. It's nice to have a block of content to play through. They've certainly got better at making starfleet ships, but they're still sub-par looking things. Too much like concept art and not enough refinement.
Anyway, before I jump back in game, I've taken a another crack at the armour. I think the bigger hatch is less noticeably big this time around.
I don't play Star Trek Online anymore because they have no Linux client. Besides, last time I played, it was a laggy SOB. Add to that the fact that I haven't liked the game as much since they borked the crafting system and added more crap to grind for, like fleet and personal marks. I was finding that grinding for that stuff was leaving little time to play actual missions.
Meanwhile, I've been enjoying playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II with the restored content mod, both of which are now Linux compatible on Steam. To me, none of the MMORPGs can compare to a great story driven classic RPG.
I need to get that version of KotOR at somepoint, never played the original but I do quite like TOR.
Grinding was one of the things that put me off ST:O. Being a mainly solo player, it wasn't as much fun. I just wish they could figure out how to make Star Trek missions rather than kill everything missions.
The Old Republic is OK. I liked it better before it went Free to Play and EA forced Bioware to make some stupid things paid things. (EA didn't want to go F2P, but Bioware knew it was the only way to keep the game alive) Though, I did use some of my "free" Cartel Coins for having been a paid subscriber prior to F2P to do some account unlocks. One thing I don't like about TOR is how it and a lot of other things have "canonized" the first two games. Those games gave you the option of either playing as a male or female and you had many choices that were either Light Side or Dark Side choices. The second game even has a mechanic built into one of the conversations where you can input the choices you made in the first. However, the "canon" options are male for the first game and female for the second and Light Side choices all the way. That means the other choices in games full of choices are officially "alternate" versions. :rolleyes: Anything relating to those games in SWTOR reflects the "canon" choices only. I also don't like how your class choice in SWTOR gives you no selection on weapon types or skills/Force powers. You get what the game gives you with little in the way of customization. The first and second game are full of customization. But, still, it's not a bad game overall.
But, it's all a moot point for me anyway, because SWTOR won't run (natively) in Linux either. Neither will KOTOR, but I have that one for the XBOX. I only bought KOTORII on Steam because of the newly added Linux support and the fact that I could get a new digital copy (with widescreen support) for about half the cost of a used XBOX copy with all of the bugs and incompleteness of the original release. At least some of that has been fixed in the computer version, and the game is more complete with the restored content mod.
I've not played the first two games, but am passingly familiar with the lore. I don't like the way it was canonized either, for much the same reason. This is something that The Elder Scrolls do well to avoid. As much as I do like TOR, I'd like to see a NextGen KotOR 3 at some point. I tend to play solo anyway, so a good, strong story with multiple outcomes and re playability would make me happy.
Yeah, when I played the game, I played solo too. Used to do battle groups against the world bosses for XP and gear, until somebody got all mad at me for getting the gear he wanted and called me all kinds of things in the chat. (private messages) I decided I don't need that kind of stress in a game that's supposed to be fun, and that I was paying to play, so I stopped doing those then and there. Some people just take that stuff way too seriously. Besides, those groups were hit or miss as far as being effective, depending on the strengths of the people involved and if they understood their combat roles. So, I went solo after that.
What a nice break it's been. Let's see if I can slowly get back into this. Having not watched DS9 for the past month, my drive for this has sunk a little, but I'm sure it'll come back. After a month off, feeling a little recharged now.
Anyway: The bottom of the secondary hull has had all Edge Creases removed and is now controlled with loop cuts. This took me three days of starting over and over to get the damned impulse openings to look any kind of decent, but I think I've got something I'm happy enough to call done. I need to get and do the ventral panelling. When I tried to do this to the dorsal, I found that relying on edge loops for the panelling created too many creases in the mesh. Looks like I'm going to have to figure out where I can edge crease and loopcut.
The problem with edge crease is that, whilst it's convenient, it can cause pinching (Which you can see at the back of the spine). It also makes edges look rather sharp, as seen on the bridge cap.
The most noticeable change here is the new pylons. I've gone for something more along the lines of Sternbach than Eaves. I think it pulls it in to the TNG/DS9 series feel, rather than the TNG movie feel that the previous pylons had. Also feels a little tougher and hardier, to me.
Also, got home on Friday to see Bear McCreary retweet some tweets. They've rather quietly released an Agents of SHIELD soundtrack. And it is AWESOME!! Only 18 tracks covering the two series, but since I didn't think we were getting one, I'm happy with that.
Posts
Anyway, onwards!!
I have for now applied the mirror to the saucer and filled in the whole hole. Starting to look more like a complete ship now.
I've done a little more work on the warp engines, I'm liking how it's shaping up and apart from the aft ends, I think I'm pretty much done on that part of the ship until I get to adding some materials to the ship, which is when I shall model the bussard innards. I don't think I'll model the coils, I'll just do a blocked object with an emit material for that, similar to what you see on the Nova wireframe, if you've seen it on Google.
I have been trying to add a scoop down the centre of the bussard casing, similar to the Ent-E, but haven't been able to model it in a way that I like, so that part's on hold at the minute.
Next, the torpedo tubes themselves. I've based these on the Ent-E physical model, the only thing I'm struggling with is the grooves inside the tube. For the life of me I can't figure out how to make them. I've included a wireframe of the tube if anyone could point me in the right direction.
And finally, I've started to give the secondary hull a bit of attention. Primarily, the Deflector. I've gone back to my original idea of a slightly more original deflector whilst keeping a Defiant-esque look to it. I'll be making the glass area material to look like the Defiants deflector, for when I get that far.
And for now, that's it, so here are the goods:
Today's update; Escape Pods.
I've taken the Defiant/Intrepid pod ortho's and used them as a basis. I'm not sure yet how close I'll stick to them in detail. I don't like that the entrance seems to be a small hatch. At first I thought it meant you had to crawl through a jefferies tube just to get to it, then maybe they were just hidden behind bulkheads. Either way, it doesn't seem conducive to a quick escape. It'd be a lot slower than simply running into one of them, especially if you were carrying injured crewmen. To that end, I'm thinking that I may make one of the sides a two part pop up and slide out door. They may also need a hatch on the bottom for access from lower decks.
I've scaled the pods to be 3 meters in diameter. This fit surprisingly well with the pods on the concept image. So much so, that I'm now thinking the image was drawn with a 120m Defiant in mind. Anyway, each pod can comfortably fit 5 people, 6 if one stands up.
Ever since the Galaxy class, we've seen escape pods upside down (underside of saucer and secondary hull). If you're running a long into one, you may suddenly find yourself running on your head. My thinking here is that docked pods are at 0G, so once you've floated in, harnessed up and launched, you could then activate artificial gravity.
An escape pod can hold 5 Bob's:
What you may notice here is that the pods protrude from the ship. That is temporary.
Deck 1: 4 pods located aft of the bridge. 20 person evacuation capacity from deck 1.
Deck 2: 16 pods located around perimeter of crew quarters. 80 person evacuation capacity.
Deck 3: Proceed to deck 2 or 4.
Deck 4: 4 pods located mid deck, 2 port, 2 starboard. 20 person evacuation capacity.
Maximum evacuation capacity: 120 people.
Deck 2 also contains the shuttlebay, but I don't know what type of shuttle could fit there. I'm guessing a Type 6 sized craft would be the best bet, 2 of them at the most. I turned three for the escape pods on deck two upside down, so that they'll fire ventral rather than dorsal. This was more a visual thing than a functionality thing. I may need to move the ventral phasers out a little so that it isn't so visually cramped.
Comments are welcome, as always.
I finally got to the end of series 5 of DS9 last night. This is my first time watching the series through since it's original run. I was nine when the show ended, so now I can appreciate it at a whole new level. I gotta say, they really did great with the CGI stuff for the time. Still holds up great.
Looking at the renders whilst listening to this really has me feeling it.
http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Goroth%27s_starship
Either way, continuing to love the way this is developing, and the thought that is going into the design process.
:thumb:
@Bobafett: Thanks. aside from the nacelles, I think the deflector is my favourite area at the moment. For me, they're one of the components that can single handedly make or break a ship.
@BorgMan: The pods won't have chairs, more like harnesses on the walls. This would be the most efficient use of space, and allow for 5 as a comfortable capacity, with a higher maximum number if you cram people in due to other pods being damaged.
Thanks all for the feedback.
I looked at some model builds of the Enterprise E on youtube yesterday to get an idea of how to do the bussard effect. It would appear to be three bulbs with animated sequence, so hopefully that won't be too difficult. I've also started to think about the glass part of the deflector. I would like to model it but I'm not sure how to go about it, it'll probably be easier to try and bump map it.
This is the studio model version.
If there were multiple pod types I'd just see it as dorsal and ventral versions, any other angles could be accommodated by the way the pod shaft is cut into the hull, or by angling the pod slightly in relation to the deck, only a complete inversion would not be able to be potentially accommodated in this method, which is why I assumed that there would at least be dorsal and ventral models, at least that was always my take on it, as much as I've thought about it, which isn't much if I'm honest.
With the glass for the Defiant deflector I seem to remember reading somewhere that is is the perspex from some light fitting, perhaps for a car or something, can't remember off the top of my head, either way it might be quite complex to model, but if you want to get that exact effect it might be worth it to get the correct light refraction and what have you through the glass.
Depending on where you look at that deflector, the shape seems to change. In some places it looks like it's flat, but layered, in other it looks like it could have spiked extrusions.
I'm thinking maybe a layer, subdivided into squares, extruded and alt/scaled may work. The additional problem that I have is that my deflector dish isn't flat. It's a more traditional bowl.
Or who's writing the script.
I started attempting to build the airlock for the front... and that somehow turned into doing the hull plating instead. xD
I did insets and extrusions, probably not the best way to do it. I forgot to tack into account leaving room for the arms to open the escape pod hatches up, so am going to need to re-do this anyway. The nose part I just eye-balled, that's where the airlock is going to go. The pod hatches I extruded by .2 and the rest by .1, so the hatches aren't quite flush with the hull. This also prompted a move in the phaser arrays.
Insets and extrusions may not be the "best" way to get hull plating, but it's an effective way.
That's true. There's also that thing where Goroth's ship isn't a military vessel. He's a Bounty Hunter, hardly an "honorable" career path by Klingon military standards. So, he obviously doesn't have the same moral code as your typical Klingon soldier and probably wouldn't mind having a ship with escape pods. Also, the ship may not have been built by Klingons.
I've spent some time today giving the armour/hull plating another go. I think the shape of the pod hatches is better, though admittedly I eye-balled it on pulling the sides for the octagonal shape. The only thing really bothering me is that the back hatch is much larger height wise. I think this is due to the shape of the hull on that back corner.
There hasn't really been a very good top down view look so far either, so I've included a new angle.
Gaming was the thing to do over the weekend. Trust me, I know.
Anyway, before I jump back in game, I've taken a another crack at the armour. I think the bigger hatch is less noticeably big this time around.
I don't play Star Trek Online anymore because they have no Linux client. Besides, last time I played, it was a laggy SOB. Add to that the fact that I haven't liked the game as much since they borked the crafting system and added more crap to grind for, like fleet and personal marks. I was finding that grinding for that stuff was leaving little time to play actual missions.
Meanwhile, I've been enjoying playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II with the restored content mod, both of which are now Linux compatible on Steam.
Grinding was one of the things that put me off ST:O. Being a mainly solo player, it wasn't as much fun. I just wish they could figure out how to make Star Trek missions rather than kill everything missions.
But, it's all a moot point for me anyway, because SWTOR won't run (natively) in Linux either. Neither will KOTOR, but I have that one for the XBOX. I only bought KOTORII on Steam because of the newly added Linux support and the fact that I could get a new digital copy (with widescreen support) for about half the cost of a used XBOX copy with all of the bugs and incompleteness of the original release. At least some of that has been fixed in the computer version, and the game is more complete with the restored content mod.
Anyway: The bottom of the secondary hull has had all Edge Creases removed and is now controlled with loop cuts. This took me three days of starting over and over to get the damned impulse openings to look any kind of decent, but I think I've got something I'm happy enough to call done. I need to get and do the ventral panelling. When I tried to do this to the dorsal, I found that relying on edge loops for the panelling created too many creases in the mesh. Looks like I'm going to have to figure out where I can edge crease and loopcut.
The problem with edge crease is that, whilst it's convenient, it can cause pinching (Which you can see at the back of the spine). It also makes edges look rather sharp, as seen on the bridge cap.
The most noticeable change here is the new pylons. I've gone for something more along the lines of Sternbach than Eaves. I think it pulls it in to the TNG/DS9 series feel, rather than the TNG movie feel that the previous pylons had. Also feels a little tougher and hardier, to me.
Also, got home on Friday to see Bear McCreary retweet some tweets. They've rather quietly released an Agents of SHIELD soundtrack. And it is AWESOME!! Only 18 tracks covering the two series, but since I didn't think we were getting one, I'm happy with that.
impulse engines you mean