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3DConstitution Class refit Using Blender
Polaris 004199
Posts: 752Member
Seems like every Fall I come back to this site to begin another thread. I get busy over the summer, but something about fall beginning makes me want to build starships!
Well, sooner or later I always knew I would have to have a try at modeling the Connie refit. Thanks to the Trek Motion Picture and Wrath of Khan, this lady is indelibly etched into my imagination. To me, no other Trek Ship has quite her stature or gravitas, except the "D."
But that's a debate, and this is a mesh building thread, so let's get down to it!
I've gotten a pretty good start on this. I pecked at it here and there the last couple of days. Haven't run into any troubles yet...
I've been doing a string of TNG meshes, like the Galaxy and the Nebula, so by comparison these shapes seem pretty straight forward. I don't anticipate having trouble with the basic build of the mesh. Where this project is going to succeed or fail is in all the little details...
The nacelles are imported over from my Miranda Class mesh. I'm pretty sure they are just place holders, and that I will build a new set just for this mesh. I made those years ago, and I'm pretty sure I can do better.
I always welcome comments and criticisms.
Well, sooner or later I always knew I would have to have a try at modeling the Connie refit. Thanks to the Trek Motion Picture and Wrath of Khan, this lady is indelibly etched into my imagination. To me, no other Trek Ship has quite her stature or gravitas, except the "D."
But that's a debate, and this is a mesh building thread, so let's get down to it!
I've gotten a pretty good start on this. I pecked at it here and there the last couple of days. Haven't run into any troubles yet...
I've been doing a string of TNG meshes, like the Galaxy and the Nebula, so by comparison these shapes seem pretty straight forward. I don't anticipate having trouble with the basic build of the mesh. Where this project is going to succeed or fail is in all the little details...
The nacelles are imported over from my Miranda Class mesh. I'm pretty sure they are just place holders, and that I will build a new set just for this mesh. I made those years ago, and I'm pretty sure I can do better.
I always welcome comments and criticisms.
Post edited by Polaris 004 on
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The build continues:
That Bridge is also from my Miranda Class Mesh, but it's actually pretty good. With some minor changes I think it will actually serve well enough. The windows will have to be changed, and I will have to perform a small mesh deformation, making the base wider, but otherwise I think it will pass. I actually like it when I can use something from a previous mesh. We'll see if I can pull it off. I have already decided that those nacelles will not work and that I will be building new ones.
I just love the whole Deflector area on this design. I just..... JUST.... LOVE IT! Building this design only makes me love it more.
This is probably the best angle to view this design by.
Still have some tweaking to do on those smaller deflector focusers on the sided of the deflector dish, but they were actually easier than they looked at first. It's so much more fun doing this hobby now that absolutely EVERYTHING is not a struggle to figure out. Although I have a kink I can't quite work out yet. You can see it up just under the saucer. I think I might need a masseuse to get that kink in the neck out. I rebuilt that area three times.
The art deco curves on this design are just so beautiful.
Here's the bridge again. Like I said, it will need a few changes, but it should be able to work.
And spreenbrouwer, here are some wire shots:
Somehow, I made the secondary hull without doing a boolean cut for the underside. I gotta say I impressed myself there. Not bad for a bumbling amateur. Not sure I could do it again in twenty years of trying, but once is all it takes if you save all your work, right?
.
Nothing really difficult here, of course.
And this is all straightforward enough.
Here's the bridge screenshot...
...And the wires. Let me know if you want to see anything else.
Again, comments and criticisms are welcome. I'm still learning.
I agree, it reminds me of that fantastic approach shot they have at the end of Star Trek IV. I love that shot.
Yeah, I know that shot.
Thanks for the compliments, I was actually surprised how well the shuttle bay turned out. Yeah, the engineering hull is still a subbed area, and I probably won't "lock it in" until I need to cut the deflector grid or the windows.
Here's the pattern with the contrast turned up.
Here's the contrast I am going to use.
Mirror a couple times... reverse materials...
SO much fun!
Lay out the underside...
I think that will pass.
Still no real snags or problems...
As you can see I have moved down from the neck to the secondary hull, and now I will probably move back up the pylons to the nacelles. Yes, those Miranda Nacelles are getting entirely replaced. That should be fun.
I'm missing plenty of details, but I will go back and get them after the nacelles are built. I'm itching to get this entire basic build done, and will go back and fill everythig in.
Kind of strange, but still no real difficulty or work-stopping problems. Just sailing through it...
Looking forward to seeing the bill and texturing develop.
You're inspiring to me, a complete Blender noob. A few days ago you mentioned that you did your secondary hull undercut without using the boolean modifier for the first time? When I've been doing my E-nil, the only method that works for me is boolean and to clean up after the mess, which I'm finishing up only now.
http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Irishman/media/TOStest15.png.html?sort=3&o=0
What was your method?
Well the sources I am looking off of are all 1701 references, not 1701-A references, but I couldn't say how accurate they are in their particulars. They don't all agree with each other on all points, so I am just picking and choosing. I think if I were making a model of the "A" I would still put the aztec pattern on it, even if it did not strictly conform to what was done on the studio model. The Connie just looks way better with it.
I have already decided that this is going to be the U.S.S. Colorado, NCC-1751, an older Constittution Class ship that was given the same refit as Enterprise, sometime during the original Trek movies Timeline. I don't actually make the hero ships from the shows and movies; I like to build other ships from the fleet instead. This is for two reasons: 1) there are lots of other (and better) modelers who build the famous hero ships, so I like to do something else. and 2) It frees me up to take much more creative license, since i don't have to exactly match a pre-existing model or footage.
Okay, once I looked back, I realized I was wrong, and that I HAD cut out the bottom after all. (I tried building this secondary hullseveral different ways, and I just was wrong about which method had worked for me.)
I save all the major steps of all my builds. Here's some screencaps of the undercut:
Here's the general shape of the hull, without the undercut.
I made the cut. I think I individually cut through the edges using the knife tool. You could do a boolean, b ut then you should dissolve the extra verticies on the cut edge until you get something like this.
Here's an off set angle.
Select the edge verticies, duplicate them. Extend them and set x scale to 0 so they meet in the middle.
Then I built that back rim and connected it all up.
I put in an extra extended little loop in to make the transition to the undercut less sharp. Not really sure how I did that.
Then sorta extended stuff out as needed to get the final shape.
I hope this helps. But please know that I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm just a Noob like you, that's been working at this hobby for about 9 years, bumbling and stumbling the whole time. Probably much of what I do is not the best way, but I do manage to get the results I am after.
Blender is SOOO much better than it used to be. Stuff that used to take me all day I can now do in an hour! I can't believe how easy some stuff has become. Booleans are so clean and easy and crash-free now! The interface is so much more intuitive. Stuff just works better. It's just unbelievable that it's freeware. Life before Blender was so bleak!
Thanks for the encouragement, guys. The nacelles are going well and i should have an update soon.
I had a fairly easy time with the nacelles this time. The first time I tried to build these accurately for my Miranda Class it took me days to figure out. This time I just had two false starts and I got them together pretty quickly. Likewise the Pylons were pretty easy.
I mentioned in my last post how it used to take me all day to do the regs and banners... now the work is almost trivial. Blender seems to cut through this stuff much better after the last couple version upgrades. I used to be able to only do a letter or to of the Registry at a time. Now I can just do a whole reg at once. It's amazing.
So that's the basic build, with many of the details. Now I just have to go back and fill in all the rest of the details. I think I'm just going to keep the bridge the way it is. It's accurate enough except for the rear facing windows. Definitely good enough for my purposes.
Really not too much left. My next update should be the completed mesh.
My chief engineer says she should be ready for trials in two weeks. I told him he has five days.
Here's a dynamic Flyby:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/32tjjm3xlwmo4wo/Colorado%20FB%20Dyn%201.avi?dl=0
And here's a fleet flyby featuring all of my "movie era" meshes. These meshes are all my own.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzUDZyy10d95eTR6VWFJTEVqZmc/view?usp=sharing