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3DAlternate Ambassador Class bridge reconversion (tS->LW->Blender)

seanrseanr1097 Brooklyn, NYPosts: 594Member
edited August 2020 in Work in Progress #1
Updated render:
me49y58pddj8.png
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This is a set I originally created in trueSpace a bit over fifteen years ago. At the time, I'd exported to OBJ so someone could do a Lightwave conversion for a fan film. I was able to get the LW files from him and export to FBX (after some cleanup in LW using the trial version) and pull it into Blender. This is the current state and I will be working toward a render of the set as it was but in Blender, followed possibly by some partial rebuilds and a style/detail update to match my TFF corridor plans.

Everything you don't see here has made its way into a collection in Blender (all of which are arranged in a properly labeled hierarchy). In addition, all polygon groups that should have been a single object within those collections have been merged (though not truly joined - they can still be separated again for now, but I intend to make them whole solids).
t0it7a5q6npw.png

This is essentially the inverse of the prior screenshot (not counting discards), with Blenders outliner expanded to show all nested collections (but not their child objects). I don't like to do deep nesting - just enough to be able to select discrete logical "modules" (collections of parts) that should be able to be moved, rotated, etc. as a group.
blqi5zdvd10b.png

My immediate next step is setting light emitting materials on the parts that should have it (or at least some of them for now) and a test render of that.

I will update this post with a credit for the original LW conversion when I hear back from him on what he wants here (I have his real name, but not a username). He'll also be getting at least an FBX export back out of Blender, though I may keep the Blender file for a while to protect my "secret sauce" a little longer. ;)
Post edited by seanr on
Rekkertscifiericashleytingerevil_genius_180BolianAdmiralLizzy777solaremes
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Posts

  • RekkertRekkert4037 Buenos Aires, ArgentinaPosts: 2,302Member
    Oh man it's so exciting to see this! I remember drooling over this bridge design when I was a kid, how you merged the styles of the TNG and TMP eras so neatly. It's gonna look awesome in Cycles with your new materials!

    Damn, that level of organization... I named every object and neatly did collections like that for like... 3 projects, and then never again (unless it was something which I had to deliver to someone else). All my rooms just have one collection named 'bridge', 'sickbay' or whatever with hundreds of 'cube.001,002,003...' :lol: I'm obsessive over my folders, file structures and spreadsheets, but inside the .blends, meh.
    scifieric
    For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
  • scifiericscifieric1122 Posts: 1,497Member
    This will be neat to see. I still have some of my Truespace files, but nothing worth keeping. This looks cool! I can't wait to see more!
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804256 Posts: 11,034Member
    That wireframe looks fantastic. I remember having a bridge or two of yours back when I used Truespace, I always loved the level of detail.
  • seanrseanr1097 Brooklyn, NYPosts: 594Member
    Thanks all!
    I remember having a bridge or two of yours back when I used Truespace, I always loved the level of detail.
    Do you still happen to have any of them?
    Rekkert wrote: »
    Oh man it's so exciting to see this! I remember drooling over this bridge design when I was a kid[...]
    Damn, way to make me feel old! (I'm going on 42, actually) =)
    All my rooms just have one collection named 'bridge', 'sickbay' or whatever with hundreds of 'cube.001,002,003...' :lol: I'm obsessive over my folders, file structures and spreadsheets, but inside the .blends, meh.
    LOL, I don't go all the way down to naming individual objects except for ones I deem significant, but other than that, they have to be organized or it's a nightmare to hide and show stuff as I'm working (which is absolutely necessary for dealing with object selection, sometimes). The great thing about Blender is it can leave collections visible while making them unselectable. You can also set visibility for viewport and full renders independently of each other (which has bit me in the ass a couple times - finding a reference object hiding out in an hours-long render is fucking annoying!).

    If it makes anyone feel any better, my digital world is far more organized than my physical spaces with the notable exceptions of my books and my spice shelf (I took up cooking after COVID hit and I don't do anything half-assed). ;)

  • seanrseanr1097 Brooklyn, NYPosts: 594Member
    fwdg53jy2pm9.png
    Materials are coming together now, though there's plenty to do. Lighting is currently 100% emissive materials. There are no actual lights anywhere in the scene (except for the default one which I think is still hanging out outside the set :D). There are, as you can probably see, a few glitched faces - two on the outer wall, and one on the base of the helm console. They're actually there, and flipping normals doesn't seem to fix them. Anyone have any ideas (using Blender here)?
    evil_genius_180RekkertBolianAdmiralashleytingerLizzy777solaremes
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804256 Posts: 11,034Member
    That looks good.
    seanr wrote: »
    I remember having a bridge or two of yours back when I used Truespace, I always loved the level of detail.
    Do you still happen to have any of them?

    No, unfortunately. That was too long ago and too many computers ago.
  • RekkertRekkert4037 Buenos Aires, ArgentinaPosts: 2,302Member
    Looking good indeed!

    For those glitched faces, I'd try removing doubled vertices (in edit vertex mode, select all vertices with 'A', then press 'M'->'Merge by distance'), or just deleting the faces and then refiling that space (delete the face, then in edit edge mode select all the border edges and press 'F' to fill them with a new face). :)
    For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804256 Posts: 11,034Member
    After trying Rekkert's excellent suggestion, if you're still seeing those, make sure they're really flipped faces and not just missing faces. I've had that before with imported objects.
  • seanrseanr1097 Brooklyn, NYPosts: 594Member
    edited August 2020 #10
    Here's an example of an object with a whole bunch of them:
    https://forums.scifi-meshes.com/uploads/editor/2s/oynmucgoqber.png

    I selected one so you can see that they are really there - just simple triangles in this case.
    Post edited by seanr on
  • BolianAdmiralBolianAdmiral1114 Torrance, CaliforniaPosts: 2,560Member
    I always liked this bridge. My favorite of yours has always been the Sam Houston bridge, though. 😉👍🏻
  • seanrseanr1097 Brooklyn, NYPosts: 594Member
    edited August 2020 #12
    I always liked this bridge. My favorite of yours has always been the Sam Houston bridge, though. 😉👍🏻

    LOL, I don't even remember which one that is anymore, though I do remember the name - I'm sure that was a commission, because I'd never name anything after that person, at least not now. 🤣 Unfortunately, I'm having trouble with my old external hard drive (I think the drive itself is fine, but my Mac stopped recognizing it), so I'm unable to access all of the old stuff at the moment.
    Post edited by seanr on
    BolianAdmiral
  • batboy853batboy853333 Posts: 88Member
    The edges marked in blue are blue because they were marked as Sharp on import. Are they supposed to be sharp edges? Also be sure to check face orientation via the view port overlays. You will want your object normals to have all the faces the same color blue for outside, red for inside, you can recalculate normals via the Mesh > Normals Menu.

    Additionally in the object data properties menu, under Normals > Check the box for Auto smooth if the angle is still greyed out go into Geometry Data and click 'Clear Custom Split Normals Data'

    Also welcome back! I too used to follow your work when I first started teaching myself blender. Glad to see you back at it!
    You may know of me as AndyP elsewhere...
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804256 Posts: 11,034Member
    seanr wrote: »
    LOL, I don't even remember which one that is anymore, though I do remember the name - I'm sure that was a commission, because I'd never name anything after that person, at least not now. 🤣 Unfortunately, I'm having trouble with my old external hard drive (I think the drive itself is fine, but my Mac stopped recognizing it), so I'm unable to access all of the old stuff at the moment.

    You could try downloading a free Linux distribution and running that off of a USB stick on the Mac. Using that, you can access the drive and use it to copy files to the Mac partitions, assuming Apple allows that kind of access to the partitions. (I know very little about Macs, but I had an iPhone and I know how that drive was locked) Or at least copy them to something that the Mac can read. There are probably very few (if any) partition types that Linux can't read, since it intentionally tries to be compatible.
    Rekkert
  • BolianAdmiralBolianAdmiral1114 Torrance, CaliforniaPosts: 2,560Member
    seanr wrote: »
    I always liked this bridge. My favorite of yours has always been the Sam Houston bridge, though. 😉👍🏻

    LOL, I don't even remember which one that is anymore, though I do remember the name - I'm sure that was a commission, because I'd never name anything after that person, at least not now. 🤣 Unfortunately, I'm having trouble with my old external hard drive (I think the drive itself is fine, but my Mac stopped recognizing it), so I'm unable to access all of the old stuff at the moment.

    No worries... it’s this bridge here. 😁

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulbhartzog/28239001870/in/photostream/lightbox/

  • seanrseanr1097 Brooklyn, NYPosts: 594Member
    Ah, that's a variation of the Olofat set (which I actually prefer - not a huge fan of the First Contact style side stations in that Houston one).

    BolianAdmiral
  • seanrseanr1097 Brooklyn, NYPosts: 594Member
    Getting very close on materials and lighting:
    n4hslued3fbd.png
    Lizzy777BolianAdmiralevil_genius_180solaremes
  • Wishbone_AshWishbone_Ash325 Posts: 250Member
    I always liked your interpretation of an Ambassador class bridge...
  • seanrseanr1097 Brooklyn, NYPosts: 594Member
    Thanks! I always hated the canon one. :lol: When I originally started thinking about it all those years ago, I had always felt like the TFF bridge design should have come _after_ the TUC design. There's also always been a general sense that TFF largely should have been left out of canon in some circles. So, what if the Enterprise C bridge was actually the auxiliary control center (wouldn't really have _actually_ been a battle bridge until the TNG era, IMO)? Then we can take the decent elements from TFF, and place them correctly in the timeline between TUC and TNG, so still a fair amount of metal, yet a little more organic, and here we go. :)

    First real render, though still a lot of issues to fix:
    17uhqchpxjlc.png
    Rekkertevil_genius_180ashleytingerLizzy777solaremes
  • Wishbone_AshWishbone_Ash325 Posts: 250Member
    edited August 2020 #20
    I always saw the Ambassador class (canon version anyway) as really just a large version of the Enterprise-A so this bridge design is wholly appropriate.
    Post edited by Wishbone_Ash on
  • RekkertRekkert4037 Buenos Aires, ArgentinaPosts: 2,302Member
    Yeah, the TFF bridge really doesn't make much sense in context as being before the TUC or even the Enterprise-B bridge.

    Love what you're doing with that brushed aluminum on the consoles. Also, is that a Churchill MSD?
    BolianAdmiral
    For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804256 Posts: 11,034Member
    Yeah, the canon bridge is pretty awful. It's not that elegant for Starfleet's flagship and it has a major issue: doors where there shouldn't be doors. They put consoles blocking the doors where they were on the Enterprise refit and used the side doors, which are part of the Galaxy class battle bridge. The problem is, the module is built up around the back where there could possibly be turbolifts but the side of the bridge isn't. So, those doors couldn't really work. Your design fixes that issue.

    Aside from all of that, it's just way more elegant. It looks more like what you'd expect for a ship named Enterprise. Like Wishbone_Ash said, it's reminiscent of the Enterprise refit bridge. I also like the Enterpise-D influences with the consoles and turbolift alcoves. It really looks like a transitional design that could exist between the time of the first six movies and TNG. Also, the materials and lighting are looking great.
  • Wishbone_AshWishbone_Ash325 Posts: 250Member
    I must admit though, the TFF bridge is my favourite bridge set ever in Star Trek.
  • seanrseanr1097 Brooklyn, NYPosts: 594Member
    I always saw the Ambassador class (canon version anyway) as really just a large version of the Enterprise-A so this bridge design is wholly appropriate.
    Actually, it's smaller, believe it or not. It's a redress of the TNG battle bridge set, so same radius as the movie sets with the front half knocked in. The vast majority of those TNG sets were done that way - they had the parts used in the battle bridge, so it was a simple redress each time.
  • seanrseanr1097 Brooklyn, NYPosts: 594Member
    edited August 2020 #25
    Rekkert wrote: »
    Also, is that a Churchill MSD?
    It's actually the Lexington's from a fan film I originally shared this set with. There are a couple of their bits hanging around in there that will eventually be replaced, but 99% is from my original, just converted by them to LW.
    Post edited by seanr on
    publiusr
  • Wishbone_AshWishbone_Ash325 Posts: 250Member
    seanr wrote: »
    I always saw the Ambassador class (canon version anyway) as really just a large version of the Enterprise-A so this bridge design is wholly appropriate.
    Actually, it's smaller, believe it or not. It's a redress of the TNG battle bridge set, so same radius as the movie sets with the front half knocked in. The vast majority of those TNG sets were done that way - they had the parts used in the battle bridge, so it was a simple redress each time.

    TNG had two battle bridge sets though, the first was a redress of the movie Enterprise bridge, the second was only used for The Best of Both Worlds and never seen again as the battle bridge. That set was a redress of the set used for the Enterprise C bridge, but also various science labs, and even a courtroom.
  • publiusrpubliusr550 Posts: 1,746Member
    I can see Probert’s Ambassador being zoomed up on by the “camera” (Cage style) with this underneath.

    Leaving the Spacedock, out from under the mushroom as Probert intended. Since this actually looks newer than Ent-D, though it harkens back to the refit, the time period would be post Nemesis.
  • seanrseanr1097 Brooklyn, NYPosts: 594Member
    TNG had two battle bridge sets though, the first was a redress of the movie Enterprise bridge, the second was only used for The Best of Both Worlds and never seen again as the battle bridge. That set was a redress of the set used for the Enterprise C bridge, but also various science labs, and even a courtroom.
    You are quite correct that it was a rebuild for Yesterday's Enterprise (see https://forgottentrek.com/designing-the-enterprise-ds-battle-bridge/), but I am absolutely certain it was crammed into the same footprint on the same soundstage. Unfortunately, all I'm finding in the way of plans are ones like these which I really don't trust: https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/gallery/bridges/federation-bridges2.jpg
  • seanrseanr1097 Brooklyn, NYPosts: 594Member
    Full test render. The chairs, and possibly even the two forward consoles are temporary due to scaling issues (in particular, anyone have dimensions for those consoles?):
    me49y58pddj8.png
    ashleytingerevil_genius_180Lizzy777Freaksolaremes
  • Wishbone_AshWishbone_Ash325 Posts: 250Member
    seanr wrote: »
    You are quite correct that it was a rebuild for Yesterday's Enterprise (see https://forgottentrek.com/designing-the-enterprise-ds-battle-bridge/), but I am absolutely certain it was crammed into the same footprint on the same soundstage. Unfortunately, all I'm finding in the way of plans are ones like these which I really don't trust: https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/gallery/bridges/federation-bridges2.jpg

    I really don't know how one could ever really tell where the set was built and if it was of identical size. What's the story of the TFF bridge set? Was that 100% new?

  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    seanr wrote: »
    You are quite correct that it was a rebuild for Yesterday's Enterprise (see https://forgottentrek.com/designing-the-enterprise-ds-battle-bridge/), but I am absolutely certain it was crammed into the same footprint on the same soundstage. Unfortunately, all I'm finding in the way of plans are ones like these which I really don't trust: https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/gallery/bridges/federation-bridges2.jpg

    I really don't know how one could ever really tell where the set was built and if it was of identical size. What's the story of the TFF bridge set? Was that 100% new?

    I think they were able to salvage the turbolift alcoves, but the rest was ruined in the weather while it was dismantled and being stored outside. So pretty much everything else was new for TFF.
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