Greetings!

Welcome to Scifi-Meshes.com! Click one of these buttons to join in on the fun.

3DAshley's Star Trek WIP Thread

11112141617

Posts

  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    seanr wrote: »
    I think you'd be well served by moving to BFA, but I may be a little biased (I manage the Mac builds for that). Blender in general is literally a decade and a half (or more, really!) past where trueSpace left off.

    I downloaded it last night. Apparently there are scripts to convert COB and SCN files over to import to Blender, so, hoorah! I think that's made up my mind for me because I don't want to lose the work and I think learning 7.6 is counter-productive because eventually it's going to stop working too.
    Freak wrote: »
    Congratulations on the new Job Ashley, and I am sorry to hear about your cat.

    Is Truespace still going? I thought Microsoft killed it after they bought it.
    I would say go with Blender, I think you can import Truepsace files so it just a case of converting it.
    Plus Blender will be around for sometime to come and keeps getting updated at no cost to yourself. Hell it gotten to the point where it so good, lots of production and game companies are now switch over to using it.

    Thank you and thank you.

    Microsoft did kill it after they absorbed Caligari. 7.6 was the last release and it was free. I've been using the ancient 3.2 because it was basically comfort food. I knew what it could do and it was familiar and I could make it sing.

    And there is a script to import Truespace for Blender. lady-die on deviantart was kind enough to point me to it. Even if it doesn't work I can go in and convert files in 7.6 to OBJ files to bring in and manipulate so there's that but that's a LOT more work. I'm just hoping the script will work.

    In the meantime, I think I'll grab that tutorial for building the TOS Enterprise and learn a thing or two about Blender...

    Lizzy777
  • Lizzy777Lizzy7771249 PNWPosts: 754Member
    lady-die on deviantart was kind enough to point me to it.

    Is me! 😊
    "Cry 'Havoc!,' and let slip the corgies of war!"
  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    Lizzy777 wrote: »
    lady-die on deviantart was kind enough to point me to it.

    Is me! 😊

    I realized it this afternoon. I was all like... wait... lol
    Lizzy777
  • FreakFreak1088 Posts: 4,361Member
    For a good TOS Enterprise Tut for Blender with lots of background info.
    check out our very own Scifi-Eric Tut on building the Enterprise. It done in an older version of blender before they changed the UI, but 99% shortcuts and steps are still the same with the current version.
    But if you get stuck us Blenderheads are on hand to give you any help if needed.

    Here is the start of Eric, Tut.
    Lizzy777scifieric
  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    Freak wrote: »
    For a good TOS Enterprise Tut for Blender with lots of background info.
    check out our very own Scifi-Eric Tut on building the Enterprise. It done in an older version of blender before they changed the UI, but 99% shortcuts and steps are still the same with the current version.
    But if you get stuck us Blenderheads are on hand to give you any help if needed.

    Here is the start of Eric, Tut.

    That's the one I fired up! ;) I'm using Blender for artists instead so even some of that is different but I'm figuring it out as I go.
  • Mustang13Camaro68Mustang13Camaro68328 DetroitPosts: 156Member
    Gonna also recommend Blender. If you're facing having to learn something new for your own personal works, Blender has a huge community of people who want to rapidly make it the best it can be. There's so much info out there on it, and it is legitimately, a capable 3d software for productions big and small.
    MustangCamaro's Other Projects: TaelonMothership MarsAttacks SeaQuestDSV
  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    Gonna also recommend Blender. If you're facing having to learn something new for your own personal works, Blender has a huge community of people who want to rapidly make it the best it can be. There's so much info out there on it, and it is legitimately, a capable 3d software for productions big and small.

    That's the route I'm going for now. Haven't had much free time this week to play but I've gotten a good chunk into the Saucer tutorial for the Blender Enterprise tutorial that @scifieric put together. But like I mentioned, using Blender for Artists so it's a little bit different than what was in the tutorial but I'm learning as I go.

    I'm already VERY happy with the Bezier curve tool, so we'll see how it goes from there. =)

    I'll post updates as I build it and will probably be asking questions. I should probably hop on Discord here at some point too.
    Rekkertscifieric
  • scifiericscifieric1122 Posts: 1,497Member
    Haven't had much free time this week to play but I've gotten a good chunk into the Saucer tutorial for the Blender Enterprise tutorial that @scifieric put together.
    If I can help, let me know!
  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    blender_tutorial_connie_wip_01_by_ashleytinger_deaq7t7-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD03MjAiLCJwYXRoIjoiXC9mXC9mYWM0NTJhNi0wYmEzLTRiM2EtOTExNS00OTVjODYwMWE3NzNcL2RlYXE3dDctNjUyODExMmQtNWY1Yi00ZTRmLWJhMGYtOTdiMWY0NDRhNDUyLnBuZyIsIndpZHRoIjoiPD0xMjgwIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmltYWdlLm9wZXJhdGlvbnMiXX0.eTjfIv_rgS-e_a4VsLPwk381TvDqeNsab08XpYbSqeA

    I know she doesn't look like much yet, but my toe-dipping into Blender has started with the fantastic youtube tutorial @scifieric put together.

    Took me a bit to get used to it since the tutorial is for Blender and I'm using Blender for Artists so my options are hidden in different places and the keyboard shortcuts aren't the same, but I think it's a good start.
    Lizzy777Warp Propulsion Laboratory
  • P5ych0p4thP5ych0p4th476 GermanyPosts: 341Member
    Ahh ... that tutorial was so much fun! ... my main problem was, that it’s for Blender 2.7 something, which is pretty different from 2.8 onwards ... but I feel like this helped a lot with learning the new program since you couldn’t just copy everything.
    ashleytinger
  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    P5ych0p4th wrote: »
    Ahh ... that tutorial was so much fun! ... my main problem was, that it’s for Blender 2.7 something, which is pretty different from 2.8 onwards ... but I feel like this helped a lot with learning the new program since you couldn’t just copy everything.

    That and I've never built my own Connie before. While I'm going to stick to it, I'm going to add some of my own flourishes to it.
  • scifiericscifieric1122 Posts: 1,497Member
    Thank you both! I should do something on the later versions of Blender, and I will when I have the time to learn the latest version.

    You are doing a great job so far, ashleytinger!
    P5ych0p4th
  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    OK, One of the B4Artists disconnects with regular Blender seems to be rearing it's head and I'm just not figuring it out.

    I'm doing the windows portion of the tutorial. Got the rectangle and circle all measured out and I have them up to match the hull angle and position, but I can't get them to rotate around the cursor at the center of the saucer. It's only rotating around the object center. I've changed the orientation to the cursor, but it just keeps spinning in the same spot which isn't helpful. I'd position them manually but this is definitely something I'll need later on to work on other things.

    deargfa-d44ed770-fba8-42e7-8571-8fc76a532bdc.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3sicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvZmFjNDUyYTYtMGJhMy00YjNhLTkxMTUtNDk1Yzg2MDFhNzczXC9kZWFyZ2ZhLWQ0NGVkNzcwLWZiYTgtNDJlNy04NTcxLThmYzc2YTUzMmJkYy5qcGcifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6ZmlsZS5kb3dubG9hZCJdfQ.MG0Cc2vV4v28_FGf83laIJXfuxJAr_iEeNML5jiH9HY


    Warp Propulsion Laboratory
  • Lizzy777Lizzy7771249 PNWPosts: 754Member
    edited December 2020 #405
    Looks like your cursor isn't set to 0,0,0 by what that panel window is showing. Center the cursor with Shift+C or edit the coordinates in that panel.

    OK, so in Blender, all I'd need to do is right-click on an object to bring up the context menu. Then Set Origin -> Origin to 3D Cursor.

    Looks like in B4A you need to set the Pivot Point. Select your object and hotkey Period ( keyboard key, not the decimal point key on the Numpad ) to bring up the Pivot Point menu. Then select 3D Cursor in that popup menu.

    I hope I got that right. Took me a bit to find the info and parse what other users are doing.
    Post edited by Lizzy777 on
    ashleytingerscifieric
    "Cry 'Havoc!,' and let slip the corgies of war!"
  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    Lizzy777 wrote: »
    Looks like your cursor isn't set to 0,0,0 by what that panel window is showing. Center the cursor with Shift+C or edit the coordinates in that panel.

    OK, so in Blender, all I'd need to do is right-click on an object to bring up the context menu. Then Set Origin -> Origin to 3D Cursor.

    Looks like in B4A you need to set the Pivot Point. Select your object and hotkey Period ( keyboard key, not the decimal point key on the Numpad ) to bring up the Pivot Point menu. Then select 3D Cursor in that popup menu.

    I hope I got that right. Took me a bit to find the info and parse what other users are doing.

    Thank you! That worked! Don't know what I'd done to screw it up on my end but reloading the scene and following your steps worked great!
    Lizzy777scifieric
  • Warp Propulsion LaboratoryWarp Propulsion Laboratory913 BrooklynPosts: 322Member
    The TOS Enterprise is so much fun to make and I'm sure yours will come out great following Eric's tutorials. Enjoy the build!
    scifieric
    Please visit my YouTube channel!
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqRhLEHgwgTKxsalM5YznYQ


    Formerly furswift
  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    Ok, so Bforartists... I'm trying to use the select box and select circle, but it's not grabbing all the points in the area when I go over it from a top down or bottom up view. It'll grab the facing verts but not the ones beneath so then I either have to go ortho view and hold shift to grab them or just flip to opposite view and shift grab them that way.

    Anyone know if that's a setting I need to change?
  • scifiericscifieric1122 Posts: 1,497Member
    Rats, I do not know. I was going to ask if you can do it from another view, or if there is a keyboard stroke for grabbing all in a circle (I'll bet there is) but unfortunately I don't know it.
  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    scifieric wrote: »
    Rats, I do not know. I was going to ask if you can do it from another view, or if there is a keyboard stroke for grabbing all in a circle (I'll bet there is) but unfortunately I don't know it.

    I tried a few different things. Not really sure. I just ended up flipping views and then going orthographic to make sure it all lined up. It works, just differently. *shrugs*

    Anyway, after figuring out Layers are Collections in Blender for Artists, and a few other things, I finally finished part 2 of the tutorial...

    blender_tutorial_connie_wip_02_by_ashleytinger_deaurs4-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD03MjAiLCJwYXRoIjoiXC9mXC9mYWM0NTJhNi0wYmEzLTRiM2EtOTExNS00OTVjODYwMWE3NzNcL2RlYXVyczQtMjNjMGU4ZmEtYjkwOS00ZTNhLTg5M2MtOTIzZWI3ZmEzZGUxLnBuZyIsIndpZHRoIjoiPD0xMjgwIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmltYWdlLm9wZXJhdGlvbnMiXX0.qzzyquLlJjnu0m1BMnEGYDcfoCPsstAzqUHVUpLFg54

    Step two of the tutorial teaches mirroring the windows and doing cut-outs, etc. This covers the side and front windows on the saucer and the 4 lighted squares on the top of the saucer. As the lower saucer windows aren't mirrored, that's up next. To light the windows I just threw 5 point lights inside the saucer hull behind the glass panes there mainly so they'd show up. You can KIND of see the lighted panels on top but they're being washed out from the other lights I had to add so the saucer was at least visible in the black.

    Again, this is the tutorial that @scifieric put together and while I'm using Blender for Artists, it all still works just a little different in a few spots.


  • JeffrySGJeffrySG321 Posts: 477Member
    Looking good so far! I haven't use the Blender for artist build. Is it very different from the standard Blender builds?
  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    JeffrySG wrote: »
    Looking good so far! I haven't use the Blender for artist build. Is it very different from the standard Blender builds?

    I know the version I'm using is based off 2.8 and older. It uses more of a UI interface than standard Blender and the keyboard shortcuts from 2.7 (I think) don't match up at all, but I'm not big on the keyboard shortcuts anyway as I prefer a more UI approach. I haven't used standard Blender at all I'll admit. The last time I tried it years ago I just got annoyed with it and ended up not using it at all.
  • JeffrySGJeffrySG321 Posts: 477Member
    The first time I tried blender it was before 2.8 and I couldn’t get the feel of it. But I gave it another go after 2.8 came out and it felt really good to me. I’ve been pretty happy with it and it always takes a little while to adjust new software after coming from another application. I use a lot of icons and menus for actions I don’t use too often but the 5 or 6 that I use 90% of the time I just use shortcuts at this point.

    I wish more blender tutorials would show where actions are in the menu as compared to just rattling off shortcut commands. Makes it a bit harder for someone just starting with it.
  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    JeffrySG wrote: »
    The first time I tried blender it was before 2.8 and I couldn’t get the feel of it. But I gave it another go after 2.8 came out and it felt really good to me. I’ve been pretty happy with it and it always takes a little while to adjust new software after coming from another application. I use a lot of icons and menus for actions I don’t use too often but the 5 or 6 that I use 90% of the time I just use shortcuts at this point.

    I wish more blender tutorials would show where actions are in the menu as compared to just rattling off shortcut commands. Makes it a bit harder for someone just starting with it.

    The nice thing about the one I'm following is that he's doing both the shortcuts and the menu which has helped tremendously in figuring out where things are in there.

    I'll have more time to blow through a bunch of them the next few days so I'm hoping to have most of the Connie built before 2021 and get back to modeling my sets ;)

    Although now I want to completely re-do my TMP era sets as I'll be able to do the curves a lot more justice with just the change in toolset.
  • Lizzy777Lizzy7771249 PNWPosts: 754Member
    Ok, so Bforartists... I'm trying to use the select box and select circle, but it's not grabbing all the points in the area when I go over it from a top down or bottom up view. It'll grab the facing verts but not the ones beneath so then I either have to go ortho view and hold shift to grab them or just flip to opposite view and shift grab them that way.

    Anyone know if that's a setting I need to change?

    If you want to grab all of the faces/lines/verts with a selection tool, try to do it in wireframe mode. I've found that in solid view it only grabs the areas directly visible on the screen.
    "Cry 'Havoc!,' and let slip the corgies of war!"
  • scifiericscifieric1122 Posts: 1,497Member
    You're doing a GREAT job, AshleyTinger!
  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    Lizzy777 wrote: »
    Ok, so Bforartists... I'm trying to use the select box and select circle, but it's not grabbing all the points in the area when I go over it from a top down or bottom up view. It'll grab the facing verts but not the ones beneath so then I either have to go ortho view and hold shift to grab them or just flip to opposite view and shift grab them that way.

    Anyone know if that's a setting I need to change?

    If you want to grab all of the faces/lines/verts with a selection tool, try to do it in wireframe mode. I've found that in solid view it only grabs the areas directly visible on the screen.

    Yeah I was in wireframe, it just doesn't want to function that way. I don't know if it's a Bforartists thing or what. I've kind of learned to get around it now.
    scifieric wrote: »
    You're doing a GREAT job, AshleyTinger!

    Thanks! I figured building a Trek ship would be the easiest way to learn the program since I started with playing around with Trek ships in Truespace. Bonus there is your tutorial that covers the whole build. =)
    scifieric
  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    blender_tutorial_connie_wip_03_by_ashleytinger_deaz3y7-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3siaGVpZ2h0IjoiPD03MjAiLCJwYXRoIjoiXC9mXC9mYWM0NTJhNi0wYmEzLTRiM2EtOTExNS00OTVjODYwMWE3NzNcL2RlYXozeTctOTExYWEwMTMtNGMyMi00NmJjLWIwOTQtNzU3ODM4YTBhNTM2LnBuZyIsIndpZHRoIjoiPD0xMjgwIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmltYWdlLm9wZXJhdGlvbnMiXX0.etxSWoaIlRHtGFd2DoxGjRlQ6UeRu1EA8ckdnQ-ngtg

    This includes both parts 3 and 4 of the tutorial which are the windows in the lower part of the saucer along with the triangles in the hull there.

    Lizzy777scifiericlewisnivenJeffrySGFreak
  • BolianAdmiralBolianAdmiral1114 Torrance, CaliforniaPosts: 2,560Member
    I like that engine room and arboretum... the arboretum especially at least to me, has a very first season TNG feel to it.
    ashleytinger
  • scifiericscifieric1122 Posts: 1,497Member
    Nice work! This is fun to watch come together!
    ashleytinger
  • ashleytingerashleytinger1998 Central OhioPosts: 1,232Member
    I like that engine room and arboretum... the arboretum especially at least to me, has a very first season TNG feel to it.

    Thanks! I wanted something that felt a little TOS but more advanced and then I wanted some of that Phase II in it as well. There is some Star Trek Beyond in it's DNA as well, at least the behind the scenes design work for it anyway.

    The arboretum evolved from me wanting a split deck space and wanting to use the windows on the lower deck for a kind of mini lounge within it. That and it's a good place to host visiting dignitaries ;)


    scifieric wrote: »
    Nice work! This is fun to watch come together!

    Just following your tutorial for the most part. ;) Already learning a bunch of the tools to use in my sets =)

    scifieric
Sign In or Register to comment.