[Link to the saladin] That is the whole design I refer to. A dish on a pole. It is bisecting the planetary sensor and (for some) the weapons mount for the phasers/torpedos. It accounts for no internal components it is just copy pasting a element of the ship without regard to the mechanics involved. If the deflector dish was just a radio dish fine it could work if you disregard how it could or would affect components in sits on.
To note the whole point of this is to not spend hours or days on the bashes. These are to act as fill in the background and act as a recognizable design.
Sorry, I tent to read these long threads from back to front so sometimes I miss context.
Even if its a bit too late now, another possibility would have been to add the deflector in form of a halo surrounding the ramscoop.
A bit like the tail end of a bazooka. https://ibb.co/rkCGLw1 Just imaging the ramscoop in place of the exhaust hole and the frame around it filled with webbing so it looks like a funnel like dish. A "box" on the bottom of the nacelle would house the deflector components.
You would have to change basically nothing on the base mesh and you could argue that the deflector funnels material towards the bussard. (which it has to do lore-wise anyway)
I just leave that here for what its worth.
The mesh looks great btw. I think your work looks always amazing.
Thanks guys, at full render she will maybe be 400pixels in length. Basically orbiting the station which in itself is a background object.
Debating if I wanna swap out ships to include the wedge. But I dunno already lots to do for conversions as all of these are still in Mental Ray. Almost considering not including the Daedalus or the Miranda as those all need conversion too.
Ok back to the station for now. . . . least between finishing this stupid event. Hate rhythm button smashers exp ones wanting you to press a D pad in 2 directions at once. . . . .
Anyhow cannot say how many times I built these stupid brackets. . . . one goof after another in extruding the stupid things out. Does not help my poly count on the spin only splits in 2s and 4s when a split of 6 would have worked out better. Well, least to match up with the opening. As of yet the dark gray bits in the brackets I have not decided on what it will be. Framed in window sets or smaller launch bays.
I should merge in one of my stupid shuttles to give people a better idea of these openings. Too bad I have yet to do a TOS era shuttle. The dark openings are about 8.6m (28.5ft) larger one is 23m (75.8ft) in height. So loads of room for shuttles.
OK I decided to populate it with windows. They are spaced for 11ft rooms. Maybe more if you want the windows higher than 3~4ft from the floor. Starting to think I might have made this station a bit too large.
Plan on the windows is to later group them all into one and them map a random pattern on to give mixed lighting color and even off or dim windows. Sort of like what I did for the TNG station.
Rough work on a articulating docking collar. Wont be perfect just needs to look ok at 5X20pixels or so lol. Extends in and out has a bendy bit for those side collars and the port itself can extend to a point.
Mostly all rough block in atm.
Also spun some more windows earlier on.
Oh collars will be on the quarters of each saucer/pod so 3 per for now. Maybe I might do then at 45 to the pods center to get 4 in. Depends how I want ships aligned. I had thought at one time they could rotate long the plane of the disc but that would make for a lot of chunky sliding hull parts or a strange airlock/transporter room in the far end of the port making it a bit pointless. Though hard pointing a ship so it can power down I think is the main purpose of these "clamps" That and power use to transport crew off ship. Not TNG yet.
Are you loooking to "Dock" at the front of the ships? or at the typical left or right side of the saucer? if its straight on, then yes you could get 3-4 per saucer, if its on the side, maybe 2? one on each side. Just thinking, ignore if you have something on ur mind
Ha.. just found a pic for what I was thinking..
Was working on the G Class station from Masao awhile back.. came up with this semi stupid idea.. was thinking how to do multipule dockings.. Ha..
I am accounting for both types as some ships have one or the other, hence the articulating joint. I did consider just a fixed T shape on the end instead but it might not clear every situation.
Ok the uppers need work. I forget the bend tool needs continuous loops. Well it isnt that obvious in render as in viewport. Dunno I might have to resort to making new details for this vs just reusing old ones. SIGH oh well.
Ok forgot to submit this one. . . . . again. . . . .
Anyhow likely to just build all new components for this instead of trying to reuse old assets.
New wedge designs, dunno first thing on priority after this is to finish the Emissary model. After that maybe a break from trek or modeling for a while. I have wanted to do more work in the Refit era or design style and wanted my own refit connie but I dunno right now if I will expand on the wedge. It was mostly a cheeky take on one of the rejected study models made for Titans/phase II.
New bits, still going with a modular system. So a base cradle with sub inserts I can swap around. The blue bit is a example of a base I will build the inserts off of.
4 inserts done and at least 4 more to go. Think I might do one panel as a windowed room.
Well, given I seem to have more than 8 variations on the old one maybe filling the existing sample frames with 10 different inserts. . . though I do see I randomized them in the original layout. Yeah I think the old ones is 10 different ones. To give an idea of scale these inserts are about 19ft tall. Original idea of this sectioned greeble strip was that each one could be slid out, or slid into a interior channel to be worked on inside of the ship or station. Door flaps would extend and seal the opening during this procedure. Maybe one I will model as flaps.
Ok, two more to go. The room insert will be a unique unit that I will likely only use near the end points of a strip of sensors. I might wait to make it until I spun the rest as I might have a odd spacing near the collars. Speaking of the docking collars I think I will stick to the NSEW facing arrangement so there will be 3 per saucer as the strut docking them to the main core takes up one space, this also keeps docked ships from going to far into the structure of the station. Reality I am sure they would only allow docking on the outer periphery to begin with and not let ships of any size into the inner sphere of the station.
Looking at these I really should have just deleted the inner faces of the station groove so I could go as deep as I wanted with these details. Though unless they are right up in the render probably would not see that detail. . . eh.
And with that and screaming at the game at the same time These are DONE. Just the planning of the room and then arranging these in random order/spinning the things onto the saucers.
Rough in of the windows and clam shell doors. Center part stays with the upper door and rotates inward as a overhead light panel and tractor array. I would think a small launch bay for workbees or a work floor behind these doors. Windows can be a lounge or embarkment areas or even a work room as plan is to have them flanking each docking ring as well as the strut interface to the central station itself. Still arguing if I should shorten this part as you can see my 5'8" figure shows scale here. Mirroring those doors just seems a bit eh. (mesh is in quads atm.
[snip]
Ok never mind lol I just chopped it up and I think this is better. Might pull one of the windows out to give more "machine room" space between the doors and the lounge. I also need to blanket UVW these things too that composite texture is all over in these renders.
Posts
Likely have to change the saucer decals but depends so I should really stop here for now.
Sorry, I tent to read these long threads from back to front so sometimes I miss context.
Even if its a bit too late now, another possibility would have been to add the deflector in form of a halo surrounding the ramscoop.
A bit like the tail end of a bazooka. https://ibb.co/rkCGLw1 Just imaging the ramscoop in place of the exhaust hole and the frame around it filled with webbing so it looks like a funnel like dish. A "box" on the bottom of the nacelle would house the deflector components.
You would have to change basically nothing on the base mesh and you could argue that the deflector funnels material towards the bussard. (which it has to do lore-wise anyway)
I just leave that here for what its worth.
The mesh looks great btw. I think your work looks always amazing.
what you have looks great, I don't know how far back in a scene or anything your coming up with so
Keep it up!
Debating if I wanna swap out ships to include the wedge. But I dunno already lots to do for conversions as all of these are still in Mental Ray. Almost considering not including the Daedalus or the Miranda as those all need conversion too.
Anyhow cannot say how many times I built these stupid brackets. . . . one goof after another in extruding the stupid things out. Does not help my poly count on the spin only splits in 2s and 4s when a split of 6 would have worked out better. Well, least to match up with the opening. As of yet the dark gray bits in the brackets I have not decided on what it will be. Framed in window sets or smaller launch bays.
I should merge in one of my stupid shuttles to give people a better idea of these openings. Too bad I have yet to do a TOS era shuttle. The dark openings are about 8.6m (28.5ft) larger one is 23m (75.8ft) in height. So loads of room for shuttles.
Plan on the windows is to later group them all into one and them map a random pattern on to give mixed lighting color and even off or dim windows. Sort of like what I did for the TNG station.
Mostly all rough block in atm.
Also spun some more windows earlier on.
Oh collars will be on the quarters of each saucer/pod so 3 per for now. Maybe I might do then at 45 to the pods center to get 4 in. Depends how I want ships aligned. I had thought at one time they could rotate long the plane of the disc but that would make for a lot of chunky sliding hull parts or a strange airlock/transporter room in the far end of the port making it a bit pointless. Though hard pointing a ship so it can power down I think is the main purpose of these "clamps" That and power use to transport crew off ship. Not TNG yet.
Are you loooking to "Dock" at the front of the ships? or at the typical left or right side of the saucer? if its straight on, then yes you could get 3-4 per saucer, if its on the side, maybe 2? one on each side. Just thinking, ignore if you have something on ur mind
Ha.. just found a pic for what I was thinking..
Was working on the G Class station from Masao awhile back.. came up with this semi stupid idea.. was thinking how to do multipule dockings.. Ha..
Just spitballing, Continue on your idea
https://starstation.wordpress.com/my-art/docking-scenes/
and his big station, maybe will conjurer up some ideas?
https://starstation.wordpress.com/my-art/star-station-india/
Looking good!
now the fun of spinning these annoyances around the saucers and leave clearance for the docking collars.
Ok forgot to submit this one. . . . . again. . . . .
Anyhow likely to just build all new components for this instead of trying to reuse old assets.
New wedge designs, dunno first thing on priority after this is to finish the Emissary model. After that maybe a break from trek or modeling for a while. I have wanted to do more work in the Refit era or design style and wanted my own refit connie but I dunno right now if I will expand on the wedge. It was mostly a cheeky take on one of the rejected study models made for Titans/phase II.
Well, given I seem to have more than 8 variations on the old one maybe filling the existing sample frames with 10 different inserts. . . though I do see I randomized them in the original layout. Yeah I think the old ones is 10 different ones. To give an idea of scale these inserts are about 19ft tall. Original idea of this sectioned greeble strip was that each one could be slid out, or slid into a interior channel to be worked on inside of the ship or station. Door flaps would extend and seal the opening during this procedure. Maybe one I will model as flaps.
I don't think the windows are too big, but that's just me. And I do like this docking arm.
Or dare I say, nice dock pic
Looking at these I really should have just deleted the inner faces of the station groove so I could go as deep as I wanted with these details. Though unless they are right up in the render probably would not see that detail. . . eh.
[snip]
Ok never mind lol I just chopped it up and I think this is better. Might pull one of the windows out to give more "machine room" space between the doors and the lounge. I also need to blanket UVW these things too that composite texture is all over in these renders.