All right @scifieric and @Lizzy777 I've got a technical Blender question. I'm thinking about kitbashing a great deal of the Connie I'm building out of this tutorial into the Portsmouth class I did up as a mini-desk model for Tiny Trek way back when. I'm still going to be making a lot of custom parts and nothing is getting used quite as is, but I'm trying to figure out the best way to do the underside of the hull.
I'd like to keep the shape of the saucer of the Connie and extend it back to a flat shape (I'll drop the pic below here in a sec) but keep the underside cutout on the saucer. The way I built it in Truespace before, the underside was just flat all the way back without the circular cutout underneath, kind of like the Kelvin ships.
Anyway, here's the desk model of the Portsmouth.
So would it be easier to do up the Connie saucer and grab the vertices of the back of the hull and drag it back flat? Although the upper part of the saucer doesn't follow that method though either. Blarg.
I'm thinking I might have to make the saucer like a regular shape following the Connie, split it along the top part of the saucer, then drag them out separately to the shape I want.
Let's see if I understand you right. Do you want the compound curves of the underside of the saucer to remain, but pull out the back end to be flat?
Okay, I think I have a solution, but you'll need to activate the LoopTools plugin to make things easy. Hopefully, Blender and B4A are close enough that this technique will work.
Create the basic shape of your saucer. Select the rear half of the saucer's rim and make an extrusion. Then pull that back to where you want it. Right-click to bring up an edit menu and go to LoopTools -> Flatten. There should be an input window in the bottom-left corner of your build area. Lock the Z-axis and set the Plane dropdown menu to "Normal" so it doesn't twist or smush your object.
From there you can finish your compound curves that make up the distinctive saucer shape.
Another method I can think of is to create your saucer without the lower dome. Select the rear half of the saucer and delete it. Then extrude the back end to where you want it. And THEN add in your lower dome.
Thank you for the advice @Lizzy777 I've been struggling with the B and C decks on the Connie last few days (more fun with differences between older Blender and Blender for Artists) but I did give the Portsmouth class some thought. When I actually get a bit further along on the Connie build I'll have to try some of your ideas and what I thought about doing
There's some kind of weird subdivision error when I'm building my B-C decks creating this weird bulge in the mid point. I'm guessing it's just the way Bforartists handles it vs Blender 2.7 and after trying to rebuild it four times, I'm calling it Good Enough For Now. Jumped a lil bit ahead on the bridge and added the turbolift cover thingie. I'm kind of curious if the tutorial builds it the same way I did
Built my lower sensor dome a little differently than the tutorial. I built more of the dome into the base that it's affixed to and I built the phaser off the bottom of the dome that was on the 11 ft model. I tossed in a small light so the dome is illuminated here, kind of.
Since I'm swapping over to Blender for my 3D modeling, I realized I'm going to need to rebuild all my Challenger sets, especially since some weren't completed. I'm going to keep going on the Connie Tutorial, but I'm putting what I've learned so far into practice.
Yes, this is based off the TMP sets just a tad, but I'm going rougher with it as Challenger is the last of the Constitution classes launched before the refit of the Enterprise so the concepts and ideas are there but not refined. I'm putting some Phase II elements in as well in the various sets, but it's going to have something of a TMP feel but on a budget.
This is a rough render in Blender. The set is going over to DAZ when in use.
If you jump on the discord, a few of the lads have good workflows for migrating from nearly any platform to blender, including truspace. They may be able to help you convert your sets without having to rebuild from scratch.
Since I'm swapping over to Blender for my 3D modeling, I realized I'm going to need to rebuild all my Challenger sets, especially since some weren't completed. I'm going to keep going on the Connie Tutorial, but I'm putting what I've learned so far into practice.
Yes, this is based off the TMP sets just a tad, but I'm going rougher with it as Challenger is the last of the Constitution classes launched before the refit of the Enterprise so the concepts and ideas are there but not refined. I'm putting some Phase II elements in as well in the various sets, but it's going to have something of a TMP feel but on a budget.
This is a rough render in Blender. The set is going over to DAZ when in use.
If you jump on the discord, a few of the lads have good workflows for migrating from nearly any platform to blender, including truspace. They may be able to help you convert your sets without having to rebuild from scratch.
Several of the sets I built piecemeal and imported into DAZ so they were never complete sets in Truespace anyway. I've since moved away from that and have been building everything as one set and exporting that way instead. I'd end up doing a lot of rebuilding anyway and this way I get more familiar with the toolset. But yeah, I will remember that when I go to import my Aries sets. I'm not rebuilding those over again.
I’m really digging this corridor...the blend of the multicolored TOS pipes and the TNG style corridor walls actually really works, lol.
If they could get away with it in Star Trek VI, then I can get away with it. I'm thinking about doing some different things with the supports color-wise as well as the stripes on the floor, but I haven't gotten that far yet.
Got all my wall parts in place. Modeled up the doorframe. Doors are next, then the ceiling grating with lights and a flooring that has a flat base and a slightly raised rubber/carpet section depending on where it is in the ship. I'm trying out some color coded framing for the supports and made both turbolift areas red along the frame and they'll have red doors instead of grey.
Finalized my doors. Ended up not going with a version from my Tiny Trek set, but something more like what we had in TMP. The label idea comes from JBogguess concept for a set of door labels for the Phase II era. I do need to texture them. I also built the ceiling and lighting that runs above the GNDN pipes on the ceiling there.
So what's left besides textures? Flooring. I need to put the flooring in along with the 'rubber' padding in the more trafficked areas. I also need to build that black comm/door control thing that was used through the first 4 films. Oh! I need to build that 4 panel wall prop with some flooring that they used as an endcap to the corridors when they weren't using paintings to extend the corridor.
I modeled up the floor and the floor rubber as one big piece. I'll put the gripper texture on it in DAZ. I based the wall comm off the TMP door comm thing first, but it only has ONE button. Then I remembered that NO ONE in TMP went around without a communicator on their wrist. So why would you need wall comms? Well, in TOS and prior to TMP they didn't have wrist comms, so I took the general shape, kept the red 'call' button, but then plopped in a revised com panel in the lower left corner and on the right a red alert/yellow alert/intruder alert button that you can hit and notify the bridge security station directly from any part in any corridor.
This is also why they're sitting up higher, so the speaker/mic is closer to head level.This also allows for them to redesign these and replace them when the wrist comms show up later on.
I think I'm ready to gather up the corridor even though I don't have the wall caps ready or the TMP version of the reinforced door modeled yet.
Playing with coloring a bit. I think the braces are too close to the TNG colors so I'll be changing that. I just wanted it to be less gray, so I think I'll be playing with shades of blue or maybe some red. Beige is out. I've used a purple in the past but if I go with the swap-able wall padding it may clash quite a bit. I might be going with grey anyway. Meh.
After shopping today I built some wall plugs for the end of corridors that were open. They'll be swap-able in DAZ so the can be changed out as needed. I need to build the TMP reinforced door and frame yet, but yeah I think we've got ourselves a working set so far! I think I may borrow an idea from TNG to redress the shorter corridor as the one attached to Engineering or at the very least in the Secondary hull, but I think I might just build out my new Engineering idea with it's own corridor and Jefferies sets attached again.
I had an itch to work out a preliminary design and so here's a first preliminary Engineering for the Challenger.
With the corridor re-design, and needing to work on Engineering and the other sets, I had a few ideas for Engineering, even just using what I'd done before, but, I thought I'd give a shot at re-creating the Phase II Engineering from a fan based cut-away that was based off some early cut-away sketches that put Engineering just under the warp nacelle pylons which is right between the hangar and the cargo bay. I'm also going with something like the Phase II 'warp core' which is roughed out here. It does pump power through the secondary hull, but it goes forward to power the Deflector and then goes up through the neck powering the weapons system in the neck before it goes up into the power system network in the saucer.
This puts us at 3 full decks of Engineering and then a crawl space where the 'warp core' goes up into the nacelles in the ceiling of Engineering.
I'm thinking one of two ways with this, either putting the Engineer's office in the lower level in one of the corners, or cutting out two of the consoles on level 3 and putting the office on the third level above the one on level one so the Engineer's office looks over the intersection of the power system.
I'm also feeling like this is a bit too large, so I'm thinking of making it less uncluttered and incorporating some converted items from the TOS Engineering like those roving power units and the Auxillary room that looked over Engineering but this time inside the walls. The other option would be to model up some of those blinking light walls they added in Wrath of Khan from the rental props people but this is VERY preliminary and was more to give me an idea of spacing and how it would look.
I'm sorry, do I correctly read in a post higher up that you're claiming to be a noob in Blender? You don't seem to be modelling things like a noob. How long have you been using it? I'm on and off this last week, and still finding some bits frustrating, but I'm basically on fancy looking boxes, you appear to have delivered corridors, spaceships and interiors...
I'm sorry, do I correctly read in a post higher up that you're claiming to be a noob in Blender? You don't seem to be modelling things like a noob. How long have you been using it? I'm on and off this last week, and still finding some bits frustrating, but I'm basically on fancy looking boxes, you appear to have delivered corridors, spaceships and interiors...
Well I'm 'trained' in Truespace (an old version that came out in the late 90s) and I haven't built a ship entirely in Blender yet. The completed ones I've shown were in Truespace, minus the Enterprise saucer I've been working on which is Blender. Still working on that part. lol
Corridor though, yes. And this Engineering set is VERY rough and is basically an outline. Pretty much none of what's here is going to survive as I detail it up. But yeah I started with Blender for Artists in mid-December.
EDIT: I forgot, I modeled a puddle of goo and a TOS version of this tool they were carrying around in Wrath of Khan in Blender too.
EDIT 2: And here's the prop imported over to DAZ used in a Tiny Trek panel
As the work got cut off in the panel when I dropped it into the comic, here's a better look at the hand prop I modeled up as a TOS version of something the crewman were carrying around in Wrath of Khan. Our two unlucky ensigns are going to be using them to sterilize the machinery in the Waste Reclamation Facilities on the Aries.
Rendered in DAZ Studio with iRay
Uniforms are V4 courageous and M4 Valiant
Uniform textures by JamesJAB
Figures are Genesis 3
Hand Prop built in Blender For Artists 2
All other sets and Props built in Truespace
I went through a spate of buying a bunch of products I never learned how to use about 10 years ago. I can't even remember if Daz was one of them. I know I bought Illustrator and Poser. Makes my blood slowly boil, knowing I've never gotten around to learning how to use them...
You are doing very well with all the file swapping though. Everything in this thread looks thoroughly competent. Do continue!
Finally got the script working as an add-on in Blender For Artists so I could import my old Truespace scenes and objects and I started with my TMP bridge. This also gives you an idea of my workspace I was building these in Truespace with. Parts were created on the far left. Then I'd center them on the TMP bridge in the middle and as I went through part revisions I'd drop them below the existing set so I still had them if I needed them but they weren't cluttering up my creation area on the left. To the far right is the Challenger bridge. Same idea.
With Blender for Artists, after I clean up the meshes, I can have both bridges existing in the same place through the use of layers and just hide the one I'm not working on versus having it off to the side and having to match it up later.
I am thrilled these imported as well as they did and are all separate objects as oppose to importing it as an OBJ and having to clean that mess up. I can also cut quite a few poly's if I do it right because half of the outer shells were because I had to work with solid objects in Truespace to do what I was doing and Blender just doesn't care.
That must have been such a relief to see the COB plugin working as intended. Also, I did something similar in TrueSpace. TS6.6 had layers, but I never really utilized them and just had extra parts cluttering up the scene. Tons of hidden objects taking up RAM when I unhid them and crashed the software.
That must have been such a relief to see the COB plugin working as intended. Also, I did something similar in TrueSpace. TS6.6 had layers, but I never really utilized them and just had extra parts cluttering up the scene. Tons of hidden objects taking up RAM when I unhid them and crashed the software.
Yeah while I'm cleaning these up I'm realizing I went with a few fan versions of the ceiling and I happened to look at Donny's and my lights and halon system etc that run the rim are passable but not accurate. So those are getting remodeled.
That and I need to remodel the helm. I'd rebuilt the side consoles entirely and the helm is still my first attempt at it and it really sicks out in Blender. Meh.
Gotta do cleanup first though on both the Refit and my Challenger bridge before I start modeling. Blender closed in some hold that were left as holes intentionally in Truespace and I need to delete the faces and then re-attach the vertices with new spaces.
I'm massively cleaning up both bridge meshes to be editable in Blender which includes grouping the parts to their respective bridge collections as well as relabeling the parts, materials, shading and edge clean-up, deleting as many extra polys as I'm comfortable with and saying good bye to the trash parts I'd saved in Truespace but probably won't use again here. I've also taken the liberty of snatching the larger consoles I built for the Refit bridge and moving them over to the Challenger bridge, but making them only slightly larger than the mid-size consoles I'd made for Challenger. This was MUCH easier to do in Blender than it would have been in Truespace.
I'm guessing a few more days of clean-up and I can start modeling bits and pieces for both bridges again, although I'll be concentrating on the Refit bridge first as I have far less work to do on Challenger and even less after I get the console buttons and screens modeled.
This is great fun to watch as you switch over! Well done!
It's teaching me a bit too. Not just about Blender but how the two programs handled objects and materials. It's also showed me how I can put different materials on the same object by selecting the faces I want to have the different materials, so bonus!
Blarg. Well the clean-up on the Refit bridge continues. But, I'm re-thinking my original decision to build all of the displays and consoles as actual mesh.
It's A LOT to clean-up. Especially when I can fix-up JUST the buttons and indicator lights and the displays can be edited in Photoshop in a third of the time.
I was thinking about dropping the labels on the controls, but I'm remembering they were actually there on the consoles in the films, so they stay.
One thing I am doing though is bringing those buttons down as flat as I can get away with on the consoles.
Most of this ship model is complete at this point (need some windows and markings yet) so I'm showing off a little. I'm building out the actual ship from the desk model of the Edmonton I built like 2 or 3 years ago at this point. Decided I wanted to have one of these show up in Tiny Trek. Well not the Edmonton because she got destroyed, but another one of the class. Also trying new lighting techniques with the lights and nacelle domes. Completely built in Blender for Artists
Portsmouth Class History
Original launch 2235
Last Built 2260
Technology Original Standard Scale
Max Warp 6.5
Cruising Warp 5.5
Current Warp Scale
Max Warp 5.4
Cruising Warp 4.64
Armaments
1 Torpedo launcher
1 Dual mount phaser turret
While the Constitution Class was still on the drawing board, Starfleet was in need of a multi-mission light cruiser that could function as the backbone of the fleet. Ending up with everything ranging from escort duties to hauling long range supplies, the Portsmouth Class fulfilled it's duty for 25 years before being phased out for the Miranda Class Heavy Cruiser.
The bigger ships would get the glory, but the Portsmouth class was the workhorse of the fleet, keeping the logistics division moving. While the Miranda gained a lot of favor, the Portsmouth's reliability and extreme range without maintenance on standard nacelles of its era kept it active within the fleet for almost 50 years before being turned over to private owners.
The original ship of the class, the Portsmouth, resides in a fleet museum, while some of them are still active as long haul transports well into the 24th century.
Posts
I'd like to keep the shape of the saucer of the Connie and extend it back to a flat shape (I'll drop the pic below here in a sec) but keep the underside cutout on the saucer. The way I built it in Truespace before, the underside was just flat all the way back without the circular cutout underneath, kind of like the Kelvin ships.
Anyway, here's the desk model of the Portsmouth.
So would it be easier to do up the Connie saucer and grab the vertices of the back of the hull and drag it back flat? Although the upper part of the saucer doesn't follow that method though either. Blarg.
I'm thinking I might have to make the saucer like a regular shape following the Connie, split it along the top part of the saucer, then drag them out separately to the shape I want.
Okay, I think I have a solution, but you'll need to activate the LoopTools plugin to make things easy. Hopefully, Blender and B4A are close enough that this technique will work.
Create the basic shape of your saucer. Select the rear half of the saucer's rim and make an extrusion. Then pull that back to where you want it. Right-click to bring up an edit menu and go to LoopTools -> Flatten. There should be an input window in the bottom-left corner of your build area. Lock the Z-axis and set the Plane dropdown menu to "Normal" so it doesn't twist or smush your object.
From there you can finish your compound curves that make up the distinctive saucer shape.
There's some kind of weird subdivision error when I'm building my B-C decks creating this weird bulge in the mid point. I'm guessing it's just the way Bforartists handles it vs Blender 2.7 and after trying to rebuild it four times, I'm calling it Good Enough For Now. Jumped a lil bit ahead on the bridge and added the turbolift cover thingie. I'm kind of curious if the tutorial builds it the same way I did
Thank you!
Built my lower sensor dome a little differently than the tutorial. I built more of the dome into the base that it's affixed to and I built the phaser off the bottom of the dome that was on the 11 ft model. I tossed in a small light so the dome is illuminated here, kind of.
She's coming along
Thanks!
Since I'm swapping over to Blender for my 3D modeling, I realized I'm going to need to rebuild all my Challenger sets, especially since some weren't completed. I'm going to keep going on the Connie Tutorial, but I'm putting what I've learned so far into practice.
Yes, this is based off the TMP sets just a tad, but I'm going rougher with it as Challenger is the last of the Constitution classes launched before the refit of the Enterprise so the concepts and ideas are there but not refined. I'm putting some Phase II elements in as well in the various sets, but it's going to have something of a TMP feel but on a budget.
This is a rough render in Blender. The set is going over to DAZ when in use.
Current Projects:
Ambassador Class
Several of the sets I built piecemeal and imported into DAZ so they were never complete sets in Truespace anyway. I've since moved away from that and have been building everything as one set and exporting that way instead. I'd end up doing a lot of rebuilding anyway and this way I get more familiar with the toolset. But yeah, I will remember that when I go to import my Aries sets. I'm not rebuilding those over again.
If they could get away with it in Star Trek VI, then I can get away with it.
Not going to have the standard red alert strips on it either. I'm using the little displays that were in the ceiling as alert indicators.
Got all my wall parts in place. Modeled up the doorframe. Doors are next, then the ceiling grating with lights and a flooring that has a flat base and a slightly raised rubber/carpet section depending on where it is in the ship. I'm trying out some color coded framing for the supports and made both turbolift areas red along the frame and they'll have red doors instead of grey.
Finalized my doors. Ended up not going with a version from my Tiny Trek set, but something more like what we had in TMP. The label idea comes from JBogguess concept for a set of door labels for the Phase II era. I do need to texture them. I also built the ceiling and lighting that runs above the GNDN pipes on the ceiling there.
So what's left besides textures? Flooring. I need to put the flooring in along with the 'rubber' padding in the more trafficked areas. I also need to build that black comm/door control thing that was used through the first 4 films. Oh! I need to build that 4 panel wall prop with some flooring that they used as an endcap to the corridors when they weren't using paintings to extend the corridor.
I modeled up the floor and the floor rubber as one big piece. I'll put the gripper texture on it in DAZ. I based the wall comm off the TMP door comm thing first, but it only has ONE button. Then I remembered that NO ONE in TMP went around without a communicator on their wrist. So why would you need wall comms? Well, in TOS and prior to TMP they didn't have wrist comms, so I took the general shape, kept the red 'call' button, but then plopped in a revised com panel in the lower left corner and on the right a red alert/yellow alert/intruder alert button that you can hit and notify the bridge security station directly from any part in any corridor.
This is also why they're sitting up higher, so the speaker/mic is closer to head level.This also allows for them to redesign these and replace them when the wrist comms show up later on.
I think I'm ready to gather up the corridor even though I don't have the wall caps ready or the TMP version of the reinforced door modeled yet.
Playing with coloring a bit. I think the braces are too close to the TNG colors so I'll be changing that. I just wanted it to be less gray, so I think I'll be playing with shades of blue or maybe some red. Beige is out. I've used a purple in the past but if I go with the swap-able wall padding it may clash quite a bit. I might be going with grey anyway. Meh.
After shopping today I built some wall plugs for the end of corridors that were open. They'll be swap-able in DAZ so the can be changed out as needed. I need to build the TMP reinforced door and frame yet, but yeah I think we've got ourselves a working set so far! I think I may borrow an idea from TNG to redress the shorter corridor as the one attached to Engineering or at the very least in the Secondary hull, but I think I might just build out my new Engineering idea with it's own corridor and Jefferies sets attached again.
With the corridor re-design, and needing to work on Engineering and the other sets, I had a few ideas for Engineering, even just using what I'd done before, but, I thought I'd give a shot at re-creating the Phase II Engineering from a fan based cut-away that was based off some early cut-away sketches that put Engineering just under the warp nacelle pylons which is right between the hangar and the cargo bay. I'm also going with something like the Phase II 'warp core' which is roughed out here. It does pump power through the secondary hull, but it goes forward to power the Deflector and then goes up through the neck powering the weapons system in the neck before it goes up into the power system network in the saucer.
This puts us at 3 full decks of Engineering and then a crawl space where the 'warp core' goes up into the nacelles in the ceiling of Engineering.
I'm thinking one of two ways with this, either putting the Engineer's office in the lower level in one of the corners, or cutting out two of the consoles on level 3 and putting the office on the third level above the one on level one so the Engineer's office looks over the intersection of the power system.
I'm also feeling like this is a bit too large, so I'm thinking of making it less uncluttered and incorporating some converted items from the TOS Engineering like those roving power units and the Auxillary room that looked over Engineering but this time inside the walls. The other option would be to model up some of those blinking light walls they added in Wrath of Khan from the rental props people but this is VERY preliminary and was more to give me an idea of spacing and how it would look.
Well I'm 'trained' in Truespace (an old version that came out in the late 90s) and I haven't built a ship entirely in Blender yet. The completed ones I've shown were in Truespace, minus the Enterprise saucer I've been working on which is Blender. Still working on that part. lol
Corridor though, yes. And this Engineering set is VERY rough and is basically an outline. Pretty much none of what's here is going to survive as I detail it up. But yeah I started with Blender for Artists in mid-December.
EDIT: I forgot, I modeled a puddle of goo and a TOS version of this tool they were carrying around in Wrath of Khan in Blender too.
EDIT 2: And here's the prop imported over to DAZ used in a Tiny Trek panel
As the work got cut off in the panel when I dropped it into the comic, here's a better look at the hand prop I modeled up as a TOS version of something the crewman were carrying around in Wrath of Khan. Our two unlucky ensigns are going to be using them to sterilize the machinery in the Waste Reclamation Facilities on the Aries.
Rendered in DAZ Studio with iRay
Uniforms are V4 courageous and M4 Valiant
Uniform textures by JamesJAB
Figures are Genesis 3
Hand Prop built in Blender For Artists 2
All other sets and Props built in Truespace
You are doing very well with all the file swapping though. Everything in this thread looks thoroughly competent. Do continue!
Finally got the script working as an add-on in Blender For Artists so I could import my old Truespace scenes and objects and I started with my TMP bridge. This also gives you an idea of my workspace I was building these in Truespace with. Parts were created on the far left. Then I'd center them on the TMP bridge in the middle and as I went through part revisions I'd drop them below the existing set so I still had them if I needed them but they weren't cluttering up my creation area on the left. To the far right is the Challenger bridge. Same idea.
With Blender for Artists, after I clean up the meshes, I can have both bridges existing in the same place through the use of layers and just hide the one I'm not working on versus having it off to the side and having to match it up later.
I am thrilled these imported as well as they did and are all separate objects as oppose to importing it as an OBJ and having to clean that mess up. I can also cut quite a few poly's if I do it right because half of the outer shells were because I had to work with solid objects in Truespace to do what I was doing and Blender just doesn't care.
Yeah while I'm cleaning these up I'm realizing I went with a few fan versions of the ceiling and I happened to look at Donny's and my lights and halon system etc that run the rim are passable but not accurate. So those are getting remodeled.
That and I need to remodel the helm. I'd rebuilt the side consoles entirely and the helm is still my first attempt at it and it really sicks out in Blender. Meh.
Gotta do cleanup first though on both the Refit and my Challenger bridge before I start modeling. Blender closed in some hold that were left as holes intentionally in Truespace and I need to delete the faces and then re-attach the vertices with new spaces.
Clean-up on Deck 1.
I'm massively cleaning up both bridge meshes to be editable in Blender which includes grouping the parts to their respective bridge collections as well as relabeling the parts, materials, shading and edge clean-up, deleting as many extra polys as I'm comfortable with and saying good bye to the trash parts I'd saved in Truespace but probably won't use again here. I've also taken the liberty of snatching the larger consoles I built for the Refit bridge and moving them over to the Challenger bridge, but making them only slightly larger than the mid-size consoles I'd made for Challenger. This was MUCH easier to do in Blender than it would have been in Truespace.
I'm guessing a few more days of clean-up and I can start modeling bits and pieces for both bridges again, although I'll be concentrating on the Refit bridge first as I have far less work to do on Challenger and even less after I get the console buttons and screens modeled.
It's teaching me a bit too. Not just about Blender but how the two programs handled objects and materials. It's also showed me how I can put different materials on the same object by selecting the faces I want to have the different materials, so bonus!
Blarg. Well the clean-up on the Refit bridge continues. But, I'm re-thinking my original decision to build all of the displays and consoles as actual mesh.
It's A LOT to clean-up. Especially when I can fix-up JUST the buttons and indicator lights and the displays can be edited in Photoshop in a third of the time.
I was thinking about dropping the labels on the controls, but I'm remembering they were actually there on the consoles in the films, so they stay.
One thing I am doing though is bringing those buttons down as flat as I can get away with on the consoles.
Most of this ship model is complete at this point (need some windows and markings yet) so I'm showing off a little. I'm building out the actual ship from the desk model of the Edmonton I built like 2 or 3 years ago at this point. Decided I wanted to have one of these show up in Tiny Trek. Well not the Edmonton because she got destroyed, but another one of the class. Also trying new lighting techniques with the lights and nacelle domes. Completely built in Blender for Artists
Portsmouth Class History
Original launch 2235
Last Built 2260
Technology Original Standard Scale
Max Warp 6.5
Cruising Warp 5.5
Current Warp Scale
Max Warp 5.4
Cruising Warp 4.64
Armaments
1 Torpedo launcher
1 Dual mount phaser turret
While the Constitution Class was still on the drawing board, Starfleet was in need of a multi-mission light cruiser that could function as the backbone of the fleet. Ending up with everything ranging from escort duties to hauling long range supplies, the Portsmouth Class fulfilled it's duty for 25 years before being phased out for the Miranda Class Heavy Cruiser.
The bigger ships would get the glory, but the Portsmouth class was the workhorse of the fleet, keeping the logistics division moving. While the Miranda gained a lot of favor, the Portsmouth's reliability and extreme range without maintenance on standard nacelles of its era kept it active within the fleet for almost 50 years before being turned over to private owners.
The original ship of the class, the Portsmouth, resides in a fleet museum, while some of them are still active as long haul transports well into the 24th century.