In the end, the stylistic choices all come down to the era you're aiming for. To me, the Generations repaint always seemed like the most beautiful the six-footer has ever been.
More of that dock. Figured out that the yellowish tube is a turbolift that meets up to the circular area on the yacht. So the entire open platform here is just a large service bay and observation gallery. Been wasting time looking for a retro fabric for the orange panels in the painting.
Spun onto the upper hull. What a pain. They changed the path modifier and boy is it buggy, other forms of the old style exist but they cannot be collapsed and edited. Was forced to detach a spline from the hull as it was the only way to spin these by their centers vs the splines normals.
Just dumped a glossy metal finish on them for now as I am not sure how I want them to look. Now the great fun of aligning and welding on the endcaps.
Oh also a forgot to include the messing about with the lower ribbing that goes around the yacht. Debating how I want it to look based on the way they looked on the original model to the damaged state they are in on the generations repaint. They are clearly to hide the seam of these parts of the ship which were removable for access or a jig mount. I am figuring they could be some sort of shield grid or maybe a tractor field to direct docking of the yacht and upper bridge lifeboat. Or some other handwavium. Either case I decided to go with a fully ribbed look vs grooves cut into the outfacing surfaces. And no I did not bother counting the grooves as they are horribly sanded down and figured it was just a waste of time.
Probably a mistake as I probably should consider texturing the entire thing. I also find it a bit odd to have ship name and pod number on the HATCH. As these stay with the ship. . . . . . Unless the enterprise got a refit set of pods that are like the sov units at some point. Test and main color are a texture so they will get a light grime layer and a set of 4 numbers likely. But then again numbering hatches to me seems a bit naff. Also undecided on the color of the hatches. light gray, tan etc.
I so wish I could find the outline font sans the damned outlines. A real pain to rasterize the text then eliminate the outline. Tempted to use some of the plain bold text but it has the wrong zeros and worst is all the plain fonts will not show up in max. As those can be much easier to use for lettering on the ship itself where the outlined text is not required. EG anything not the main saucer registries.
Also on the blues and some other refs these vary in size. I am normalizing them all with the exception of the set of 3 pairs on the blister below the B decks as those are on a silly hull curve. And likely will have to be custom modeled to fit.
Also found I goofed on the phaser strips as that central spine bit is only on some of the strips. The large ones running the saucer lack this detail. Debating if I will redo them.
update with textures vs materials. Only the gray bits are a separate material. Set up so I can change things as I decide what color I want things.
forgotten how much I hate spinning these. Circular saucers are so much easier I can just move the gizmo to the saucer center align and spin them away. Spline they never point in a known direction and always flip in odd ways and mirror themselves in the most annoying locations. AUGH. Anyhow the generations repaint oddly has some of these upside down. Tempted to ignore this as an error. Either case a sample of them on the hull. They are a near neutral gray with tanish base. To match the tv run. Later I will do a white base version to match generations. And yes this render was done hours ago. food and new season means I spent most of it previewing new shows.
Yeah I made mine all point outwards, seems more logical to me. I have another plane above my saucer with geo that follows the panels that i used to draw the aztecs, so I took all my curves from that to use for the escape pods and window cutters, a circular saucer would be much easier though!
eh I was lazy with the maps on the lifeboats just projected a plan and capped a top down screen cap of the lifeboat. I used flood selection to grab the gray panels then small touch up. The saucer I will probably project a plane too and render out a template in 8k or something to avoid any uglies. Sadly I dunno of any lazy techniques that would produce a noiseless cheap template that would allow quick flood fills. So itll be trace over a template in clip studio. Too lazy atm to do anything else such as vector maps, dunno if I can even do that with diffuse, but then again I would probably loose the option to do dirt and small labels.
no just gonna dump one of 4 textures on em. That is if I number them as mentioned they are hatches not SOV style pods. Have to look at that though as it would work for other pod style ships in the future.
eh I was lazy with the maps on the lifeboats just projected a plan and capped a top down screen cap of the lifeboat. I used flood selection to grab the gray panels then small touch up. The saucer I will probably project a plane too and render out a template in 8k or something to avoid any uglies. Sadly I dunno of any lazy techniques that would produce a noiseless cheap template that would allow quick flood fills. So itll be trace over a template in clip studio. Too lazy atm to do anything else such as vector maps, dunno if I can even do that with diffuse, but then again I would probably loose the option to do dirt and small labels.
My saucer aztec maps are done from projected planes too, it strikes me as the best way for this kind of stuff. I drew all the aztec in geometry, then just baked that out to an 8k map, so there's an 8k map for the top and another for the bottom. There might be more technically graceful ways of doing it but this seems to work fine so I'm not too fussed. It's just a pain drawing all the aztec!
well you COULD unwrap all the rim bits but meh. Though I have mine detached so I COULD if I really want to. Or do other foolery. UVW unwrap just makes dealing with HUGE maps easier. Instead of a mess of materials you have to manage you only have a small group. Less if your a UVW iunwrap master EG, one material for all of it. heh. My TOS connie was a series of I think 5 huge 12k maps to keep the system form puking over all of them as I had gloss diffuse ref and bump/displace and I think a few others for aniso or something I forget atm. But 5 materials for sets of 5 X the size of the maps and well YUCK.
Overkill for wallpapers or web based images but when printed it makes all the difference, even if it is just to me. >_>
I do know when it comes to that secondary I might have to break down and deal with it properly.
I had thought ot make all the aztec on a dummy saucer hull then bake that into a texture (render out to texture) and edit as I see fit. Still might do that. ATM I am just doing all sorts of other things to avoid doing the textures. Well, that and having the lifeboats phasers etc on the hull I can account for them and do grime painting around them, add in annoying markings etc.
Also finding a lot of changes in the lifeboat layout between the generations and tv versions of this model. Glaring obvious ones that are accountable in photos are the 4 on the B deck.
Sucks is I cannot take the blueprints as correct as they show 6 in 2 sets of 3 in place of the 5 behind the shuttle bay.
Also found some massive bugs in the tools (spacing tool) used to chase objects along a spline in max. Just crashed it as it kept replicating the object until max ate all my ram. Thankfully it is only 30min of dicking around attempting to align stage 3 of the one rim of boats and not everything since the last save.
So odd how something that never had issues so suddenly has issues. All while fatal bugs that have existed for over a decade remain. UGH
Second row. I am making slight alterations as I just do not like how close some are to hull grids. Even as mine are place I dislike the "closeness" I am also retaining a spacing between the hatches.
One thing I am not so happy about is how tall they seem on the hull. I might look at lowering them a bit more. Hopefully that eliminates this unsatisfactory look for me.
On the filming model they're just decals. I did flirt with the idea of making mine completely flush with the hull and just cutting a 'rim' around them. In the end I made them 15cm tall, I prefer the smoother look though.
At one point, or at least one of the models they were AVERY labels. In some of the photos floating around you can see the things peeling off the models. I think it was a Nebula class or something similar in scale to the D. Given how the model was built and latter time constraints decals were probably the only solution. Hell of a lot easier to have sheets of decals printed vs painting out 400 bits of styrene.
Given we are in 3d and can build to scale I see no reason to make them anything less than what they are a flip up hatch. Just spinning the buggers and getting heights right for the look is all that matters. I was more worried about the curved hull and clearing the physical objects without clipping etc. I cannot even say how much mine protrude from the top as I modeled the details in so I have a rounded lip and extrusion on top but I am sure it is in the same range maybe less. dunno some times I think oh that's 4ft out and it is more like 9inches.
ok yeah sidewall height 10cm 4in" total height 12cm 5in so close to the same. I lowered them more so that the rounded edge is nearly flush to the hull give or take half a cm. I think most of it has to do with hdri or v-ray making a lot of bounced light off the white lip of the hatch.
Here you can see the height difference on them. Blue ones are the same height of the last render. Green ones are the now lowered state.
keeping the things separate is a lot easier to deal with. Cutting the size into the hull is 400 more things in addition to the windows you would have to mess with then texturing all those bits and aligning the textures YUCK. Well 400 according to the tech manual, how true that is is yet to be seen. . . . . Great fun will be all those compound curves and angles on the secondary hull.
There we go 2 rows done 2 more to go, least on top.
I think what I do not like is the dark stripes as they make them stand out at a distance. Have to change that out. Great fun getting all those instanced and collapsed objects to change their materials.
MORE lifeboat caps. I am planning to do what Nightfever did and either stick the registry in the hatch number area. I just cannot abide by numbered hatches that are random numbers. Hell I am tempted to remove the ship name on them. Just stick lifeboat hatch DANGER on em maybe lol. The 4fter does have a red block on it that would be about the right ratio for "DANGER" or KEEP CLEAR. Really does bug me how they are not aligned to the grids in the hull but W/E I guess.
Been meaning to ask, and if you have covered this before and I missed it, apologies. What is the dark area beyond the conference room behind the bridge?
No idea. Glare strip for those in the conference room? Heat shield for when the bridge module detaches? Who knows. Likely tape to hide a screw up? It was replicated on the stunt saucer for generations and is there in the classic fly over from the opening credits.
Early plans and even the AMT model had it as a separate unit to the rest of the ship. Dunno if there is any proper reference to it as a IDEA or not.
Thanks for the info. Yeah, I suspect it was to cover up a mistake. In universe it could be anti glare and a heat shield since both would be covered in some matte black material.
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Well, she's 42 decks tall, that makes her a flying block of skyscrapers.
I seen that video, because of the size of the ship and crew numbers. It explain why you never saw over crowding in the hallways.
Just dumped a glossy metal finish on them for now as I am not sure how I want them to look. Now the great fun of aligning and welding on the endcaps.
Oh also a forgot to include the messing about with the lower ribbing that goes around the yacht. Debating how I want it to look based on the way they looked on the original model to the damaged state they are in on the generations repaint. They are clearly to hide the seam of these parts of the ship which were removable for access or a jig mount. I am figuring they could be some sort of shield grid or maybe a tractor field to direct docking of the yacht and upper bridge lifeboat. Or some other handwavium. Either case I decided to go with a fully ribbed look vs grooves cut into the outfacing surfaces. And no I did not bother counting the grooves as they are horribly sanded down and figured it was just a waste of time.
I so wish I could find the outline font sans the damned outlines. A real pain to rasterize the text then eliminate the outline. Tempted to use some of the plain bold text but it has the wrong zeros and worst is all the plain fonts will not show up in max. As those can be much easier to use for lettering on the ship itself where the outlined text is not required. EG anything not the main saucer registries.
Also on the blues and some other refs these vary in size. I am normalizing them all with the exception of the set of 3 pairs on the blister below the B decks as those are on a silly hull curve. And likely will have to be custom modeled to fit.
Also found I goofed on the phaser strips as that central spine bit is only on some of the strips. The large ones running the saucer lack this detail. Debating if I will redo them.
forgotten how much I hate spinning these. Circular saucers are so much easier I can just move the gizmo to the saucer center align and spin them away. Spline they never point in a known direction and always flip in odd ways and mirror themselves in the most annoying locations. AUGH. Anyhow the generations repaint oddly has some of these upside down. Tempted to ignore this as an error. Either case a sample of them on the hull. They are a near neutral gray with tanish base. To match the tv run. Later I will do a white base version to match generations. And yes this render was done hours ago. food and new season means I spent most of it previewing new shows.
I assume you'll be using the MaterialByElement modifier for the lifepods?
My saucer aztec maps are done from projected planes too, it strikes me as the best way for this kind of stuff. I drew all the aztec in geometry, then just baked that out to an 8k map, so there's an 8k map for the top and another for the bottom. There might be more technically graceful ways of doing it but this seems to work fine so I'm not too fussed. It's just a pain drawing all the aztec!
Overkill for wallpapers or web based images but when printed it makes all the difference, even if it is just to me. >_>
I do know when it comes to that secondary I might have to break down and deal with it properly.
I had thought ot make all the aztec on a dummy saucer hull then bake that into a texture (render out to texture) and edit as I see fit. Still might do that. ATM I am just doing all sorts of other things to avoid doing the textures. Well, that and having the lifeboats phasers etc on the hull I can account for them and do grime painting around them, add in annoying markings etc.
Sucks is I cannot take the blueprints as correct as they show 6 in 2 sets of 3 in place of the 5 behind the shuttle bay.
Also found some massive bugs in the tools (spacing tool) used to chase objects along a spline in max. Just crashed it as it kept replicating the object until max ate all my ram. Thankfully it is only 30min of dicking around attempting to align stage 3 of the one rim of boats and not everything since the last save.
So odd how something that never had issues so suddenly has issues. All while fatal bugs that have existed for over a decade remain. UGH
One thing I am not so happy about is how tall they seem on the hull. I might look at lowering them a bit more. Hopefully that eliminates this unsatisfactory look for me.
Given we are in 3d and can build to scale I see no reason to make them anything less than what they are a flip up hatch. Just spinning the buggers and getting heights right for the look is all that matters. I was more worried about the curved hull and clearing the physical objects without clipping etc. I cannot even say how much mine protrude from the top as I modeled the details in so I have a rounded lip and extrusion on top but I am sure it is in the same range maybe less. dunno some times I think oh that's 4ft out and it is more like 9inches.
ok yeah sidewall height 10cm 4in" total height 12cm 5in so close to the same. I lowered them more so that the rounded edge is nearly flush to the hull give or take half a cm. I think most of it has to do with hdri or v-ray making a lot of bounced light off the white lip of the hatch.
Here you can see the height difference on them. Blue ones are the same height of the last render. Green ones are the now lowered state.
keeping the things separate is a lot easier to deal with. Cutting the size into the hull is 400 more things in addition to the windows you would have to mess with then texturing all those bits and aligning the textures YUCK. Well 400 according to the tech manual, how true that is is yet to be seen. . . . . Great fun will be all those compound curves and angles on the secondary hull.
I think what I do not like is the dark stripes as they make them stand out at a distance. Have to change that out. Great fun getting all those instanced and collapsed objects to change their materials.
Early plans and even the AMT model had it as a separate unit to the rest of the ship. Dunno if there is any proper reference to it as a IDEA or not.
Thanks for the info. Yeah, I suspect it was to cover up a mistake. In universe it could be anti glare and a heat shield since both would be covered in some matte black material.