The detail here is amazing. I do like the thinner ribs as well. I was not sure of this design at first but I'm really starting to get into it now. Thank you for all the updates.
2 sets of windows in. YUCK. still have to properly UVW the rooms but for now they work. Will later on do the whole carpet color code thing as well. The outer windows I have not decided if the placement of them is where I really want them. Hence why I have left them uncut for now.
Ribs in the inset area. Only thing I got done as I redid them in all sorts of whys and kept changing my mind lol. Just one of those things I guess. I also moved some more materials about. I do wish I had worked some of that upper hull pattern more into the lower saucer. Maybe I could yank off some of the grids off the forward saucer and work it into that.
Well, shoot I might just undo all the work and do something else.
Your work is absolutely asounding @MadKoiFish. The details are breathtaking. You do better work than most professionals! They should have you making the ship models for Star Trek XD
Thanks, I could only wish but then again it would mean living in LA. . . . . .
Added in another row of windows to the saucer dome. I had not placed these previously as they are almost floor windows. I think it is maybe a 10deg angle to the floor. If I were to model interiors these would be like those hipster studios where they have a platform inside a tall room to allow you to look down and out of the windows.
I am sure some do but most all want to meet face to face at some point or have a need for control of assets. Add in most of the people I know who have gotten work in similar situations have always relocated.
I'm continually blown away by the level of detail on this model. I'm curious what the poly count is?
@MadKoiFish are Mesh Smooth and Turbo Smooth the best options to up the poly count on a ship originally designed for gaming to bring it's quality up to the level I'm seeing here on Sci-Fi Meshes?
I do not model for gaming but you cannot just dump a modifier onto a mesh. Any subdiv will make things not "fit"
Example:
Create a optimised spline circle in top down. (make sure adaptive is turned on)
Now create a cyl of the same size with 18 sides. make sure it is centered to the spline.
Apply turbosmooth or meshsmooth or other subdiv modifier (not sure if max has added any over the years)
Now in the top down wireframe you can see the smoothed cyl is smaller.
This is not the only reason to not just use subdiv to increase polycount and smoothness on a existing model. When using subdiv it is mostly to allow you to create smooth curves using a base mesh of much lower polycount. It also allows you to evenely distribute the topology or wireframes.
Long and short there is no make hgier rez button. You still have to model with the intent for the final LOD (level of detail)
Personally I would not suggest anyone leave a object in subdiv either. I always collapse it then clean off edges and verts that do not contribute to the wanted shapes. So flat surfaces will be void of any crossing edges or verts. There are a lot of little things you need to learn to keep in mind. So if I have a transition to a flac face I keep a single loop on the flat face just before the curvature starts. This allows the surface smoothing to flow vs having a kink.
With subdiv modeling I would look for tuts and training relating to box modeling edge loops and use of (least in max) smoothing groups and material IDs to control the subdiv effect. Also learning how a ngon (5+ sides poly) quads and tris affect the subdiv results. KIM that all the rules pe9ople claim about quads only is a bit off. I regularly use tris and ngons to create specific results in a subdiv object. I also routinely model with results in multi sided ngons due to that earlier mentioned removal of unwanted edges and verts.
Examples of eliminating unwanted edges and verts
Note the base of the bridge area.
Suggest you look at the wireframe posts on my blog or others wires. KIM you can learn from wires from work done in other apps. A lot of what I learned came from LightWave users. Many are members from SFM.
Good way to think of it all is like a tent or a 3d kite. The verts are corners or attachments the edges are sticks and the poly surface is like the skin that is stretched over. If the sticks and connectors are not in the right form the skin can wrinkle or fold or flip over.
Polycount; this model atm is fairly large 2mto 4m ( I have a lot of other grabage in the scene file) or so mostly all in the interiors ( I have 5 fully furnished rooms in her) and all the stupid lifeboats. If it was just externals with simple box rooms which most hero models would have for animation she probably would be 900k maybe 1m.
The Day's Update: might not have much for visual updates today as so far it is all cleaning up overlapping hull bits and clearing out interior rooms from said overlapping faces.
Also to answer what would be the best way to increase a low poly mesh,
Use it as a template to model a higher poly one in it's place.
If one has time and can learn from watching someone model I do have some old videos on youturd.
I do not have tuts though. Stopped doing many of those as they were often stolen by for profit websites. Worst of them would not even rehost it but frame link my host. -_-. That and I am one whom hates video tuts. BUT I have found from modeling with others that watching another do things and how they do it can give you ideas or a different view towards solutions in how to accomplish what you want.
I would venture to bet that if you did a tutorial and only sold it to people on this site (email it or a link to us) you could sell it for at least $40 a pop. It won't make you a millionaire but you got some dinner money. I'm probably being an ignorant bloke. Maybe you get thousands from the Ship of the line Calendars.
Ok some holes and decals a few you cannot see in the render as oddly the material is matching the hull at this angle. . . . shrug.
Also all the pink windows in random renders exp of ones where ceilings are is just cause I am using a red carpet material on some decks. All of this will be corrected later on as I am likely going to do the deck color carpet thing (think I mentioned this once already) Given the angle of most of these windows I probably should map a ceiling onto the room boxes vs white. . .
Anyhow slow going as I am only getting a hour here and there or less.
Extruding and matching those dark hull panels. Also refining the dodgy cuts and smoothing off some near too low poly bits that show up a bit more with the extrusion highlighting them more. I will be breaking these up with more of those white patterns later on. I am a bit unhappy with the clearance around the phaser emitters though it looked ok prior to extrusion but now they seem crowded in.
I think a lot of the paneling or grid work forward of these dark panels might be bridged back to a flat hull and redone. Dunno or I will keep it and panel around them. Say something like the gray ones that are on top of the ship similar to the rim panels on the SOV saucer top.
Some of those white line things on the panels. Can see the reason I loath Photometric lights as ship lighting all those crescent artifacts near the gizmo. A huge one just in front of the torps. (could be a max 2010~13 issue) Need to replace those sadly photometric look so much better than the mr or standard gizmos. Even if they make renders crawl.
Adding in those SOV like panels. Lots of messing about and changing my mind on things. Issue is breaking it up across the existing grids etc. I forget what those forward gray areas were for as well so that might get base hull color.
Oh also ignore the use of white on the insides this will be hull color when I am done. I also think the panels themselves use a different color as well. Again this is all for the selection process.
Yeah, I noticed earlier you were in the wrong thread. I figured you probably had multiple tabs open and just hit reply in the wrong one. I've done that before.
Only thing I could think of. I did have a mess of windows open with various tabs.
Spent most of my time today fooling with the stuff in front of the Torpedo launcher. Most of it got undone and I am still not happy with it. There is a inner panel or decal inside of the bluegreen one but it is nearly invisible and jpg is probably gonna make it go away.
Forward glass cut in etc, just need to build room boxes and cut another row in the black bits. Considered stepping some of these areas in like some of the larger room in this area but the advantage of it is minimal due to the rake of the hull and having areas like that near weapons systems deemed a bit to iffy as those cuts would be a weak point on the hull. But mostly cause of the limited gain to have the windows more vertical. And how much it would start making the hull look lumpy.
Posts
Well, shoot I might just undo all the work and do something else.
Added in another row of windows to the saucer dome. I had not placed these previously as they are almost floor windows. I think it is maybe a 10deg angle to the floor. If I were to model interiors these would be like those hipster studios where they have a platform inside a tall room to allow you to look down and out of the windows.
Aren't there a lot of CGI workers who just do their work remotely and DON'T live in LA?
@MadKoiFish are Mesh Smooth and Turbo Smooth the best options to up the poly count on a ship originally designed for gaming to bring it's quality up to the level I'm seeing here on Sci-Fi Meshes?
Example:
Create a optimised spline circle in top down. (make sure adaptive is turned on)
Now create a cyl of the same size with 18 sides. make sure it is centered to the spline.
Apply turbosmooth or meshsmooth or other subdiv modifier (not sure if max has added any over the years)
Now in the top down wireframe you can see the smoothed cyl is smaller.
This is not the only reason to not just use subdiv to increase polycount and smoothness on a existing model. When using subdiv it is mostly to allow you to create smooth curves using a base mesh of much lower polycount. It also allows you to evenely distribute the topology or wireframes.
Long and short there is no make hgier rez button. You still have to model with the intent for the final LOD (level of detail)
Personally I would not suggest anyone leave a object in subdiv either. I always collapse it then clean off edges and verts that do not contribute to the wanted shapes. So flat surfaces will be void of any crossing edges or verts. There are a lot of little things you need to learn to keep in mind. So if I have a transition to a flac face I keep a single loop on the flat face just before the curvature starts. This allows the surface smoothing to flow vs having a kink.
With subdiv modeling I would look for tuts and training relating to box modeling edge loops and use of (least in max) smoothing groups and material IDs to control the subdiv effect. Also learning how a ngon (5+ sides poly) quads and tris affect the subdiv results. KIM that all the rules pe9ople claim about quads only is a bit off. I regularly use tris and ngons to create specific results in a subdiv object. I also routinely model with results in multi sided ngons due to that earlier mentioned removal of unwanted edges and verts.
Examples of eliminating unwanted edges and verts
Note the base of the bridge area.
whole backside of the saucer.
https://bolidecascade.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/iowa-0484.png
https://bolidecascade.wordpress.com/2019/07/22/everybody-likes-wireframes/
Some of these might be of help too.
https://madkoifish.wordpress.com/2019/07/21/collected-tut-like-images/
https://bolidecascade.wordpress.com/2019/07/22/collected-tut-and-info-images/
Suggest you look at the wireframe posts on my blog or others wires. KIM you can learn from wires from work done in other apps. A lot of what I learned came from LightWave users. Many are members from SFM.
Good way to think of it all is like a tent or a 3d kite. The verts are corners or attachments the edges are sticks and the poly surface is like the skin that is stretched over. If the sticks and connectors are not in the right form the skin can wrinkle or fold or flip over.
Polycount; this model atm is fairly large 2mto 4m ( I have a lot of other grabage in the scene file) or so mostly all in the interiors ( I have 5 fully furnished rooms in her) and all the stupid lifeboats. If it was just externals with simple box rooms which most hero models would have for animation she probably would be 900k maybe 1m.
The Day's Update: might not have much for visual updates today as so far it is all cleaning up overlapping hull bits and clearing out interior rooms from said overlapping faces.
Thanks MKF for good tutorial.
Also to answer what would be the best way to increase a low poly mesh,
Use it as a template to model a higher poly one in it's place.
If one has time and can learn from watching someone model I do have some old videos on youturd.
I do not have tuts though. Stopped doing many of those as they were often stolen by for profit websites. Worst of them would not even rehost it but frame link my host. -_-. That and I am one whom hates video tuts. BUT I have found from modeling with others that watching another do things and how they do it can give you ideas or a different view towards solutions in how to accomplish what you want.
think this will link you if not search for my nick
https://www.youtube.com/user/Madkoifish/
Oops. Forgot to say "I would buy one."
Also all the pink windows in random renders exp of ones where ceilings are is just cause I am using a red carpet material on some decks. All of this will be corrected later on as I am likely going to do the deck color carpet thing (think I mentioned this once already) Given the angle of most of these windows I probably should map a ceiling onto the room boxes vs white. . .
Anyhow slow going as I am only getting a hour here and there or less.
Extruding and matching those dark hull panels. Also refining the dodgy cuts and smoothing off some near too low poly bits that show up a bit more with the extrusion highlighting them more. I will be breaking these up with more of those white patterns later on. I am a bit unhappy with the clearance around the phaser emitters though it looked ok prior to extrusion but now they seem crowded in.
I think a lot of the paneling or grid work forward of these dark panels might be bridged back to a flat hull and redone. Dunno or I will keep it and panel around them. Say something like the gray ones that are on top of the ship similar to the rim panels on the SOV saucer top.
Oh also ignore the use of white on the insides this will be hull color when I am done. I also think the panels themselves use a different color as well. Again this is all for the selection process.
Extruded out etc.
Spent most of my time today fooling with the stuff in front of the Torpedo launcher. Most of it got undone and I am still not happy with it. There is a inner panel or decal inside of the bluegreen one but it is nearly invisible and jpg is probably gonna make it go away.
Yeah, it happens. I know I've posted and gone "Crap! wrong tab!" before.