3DI'm Doing My Part

Mustang13Camaro68 · October 22

Getting sick of the seaQuest. I'll put it aside for awhile.
I've ALWAYS wanted a physical model of the Roger Young from Starship Troopers, so for this project I'm going to model for 3d printing, not rendering. Which means clean, closed, watertight meshes - no cheating.
There's a few models available on the Internet, but they're not very accurate or the mesh isn't 3d printable. So, like Thanos, I'll just have to do it myself.
I've roughed in the major shapes by modeling over an existing 3d model (digitawn's). Now to start examining all the photo ref I have and adjust my model forms to be screen accurate.
Then I'll figure out how best to break it up for 3D printing and assembly.
Then I'll get into the finer details and greebles.
Then print.
Then paint.
Then rig lighting.
Considering I'm a noob to the last 2 steps, I'll probably finish this project by the year the movie actually takes place...

evil_genius_180 · October 23

YES!! One of my favorite movies of all time and I absolutely love the ships. (the novel is a good read too) Great work so far.

Just one question: Are you going to put the Millennium Falcon on the back of the tower?

Mustang13Camaro68 · October 23

evil_genius_180 wrote: »

YES!! One of my favorite movies of all time and I absolutely love the ships. (the novel is a good read too) Great work so far.

Just one question: Are you going to put the Millennium Falcon on the back of the tower?

Oh, of course. Its pretty visible. Maybe 1 or 2 of the R2D2s as well, though I doubt they'd show up in a print.

BolianAdmiral · October 23

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS…

Mustang13Camaro68 · October 27

Minor Update:

Lost some modelling I did to the side and back due to some 3ds Max file shenanigans OR me opening and saving over the wrong file. Not too terrible. Life goes on.

Started adding tabs and slots that will make all the 3d printed parts eventually fit together like Legos. Not sure if this will be a curse to add lighting wires inside once its printed. I'm figure that I can cut through areas where necessary once its printed.

Not sure if this is the best approach, or if I should figure out how to add some sort of "spine" inside the whole thing to give it strength. Like a piece of PVC pipe or something.

Began detailing the front most part of the ship.

ashleytinger · October 27

Well how big is the model going to be?

Mustang13Camaro68 · October 27

ashleytinger wrote: »

Well how big is the model going to be?

I'm thinking roughly 3 feet long. Large enough for the details to be visible not so large its unwieldy.

ashleytinger · October 28

Mustang13Camaro68 wrote: »

ashleytinger wrote: »

Well how big is the model going to be?

I'm thinking roughly 3 feet long. Large enough for the details to be visible not so large its unwieldy.

You could probably get away with not having a centerline support then

Mustang13Camaro68 · October 29

Continuing to flesh out the "Head" with panel details. Maybe 50 percent done with those.

Mustang13Camaro68 · October 30

Head panels finished. Not sure if I'm gonna model greebles in the horizontal channels or do it in the real world somehow.
Next up, the paneling on the terraced "Chin".
Starting a new job this week, so progress will likely slow down.
On the other hand, money is good. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Helot · October 31

This is cool. The Lego linking for assembly seems smart.

japetus · October 31

AAWW yeah.... Good luck! It's a bit of a beast to model!
I hope it's as big as the filming model

https://live.staticflickr.com/1246/1427710741_d2f4f32251.jpg

Mustang13Camaro68 · October 31

japetus wrote: »

AAWW yeah.... Good luck! It's a bit of a beast to model!
I hope it's as big as the filming model
https://live.staticflickr.com/1246/1427710741_d2f4f32251.jpg

Yeah - its daunting. But, I'm tackling it one section at a time.

Questions on your Roger Young - did you model the greebles yourself, or use some existing ones from a 3d library? I'm trying to decide how best to approach them.

LOL. 18 foot 3d print? I can only dream :P
My God, how many tens of thousands of dollars would that even cost? Probably cheaper to just buy one of the actual filming models. In reality, I'm shooting for a 3 foot model.

evil_genius_180 · October 31

Three feet will make a really nice display size.

Eighteen feet is more like "where the heck am I going to put this?"

srspicer · November 1

" I would like to know more...." ;}

Mustang13Camaro68 · November 5

Reworked the overall form of the "Chin" some more and started adding panels to it.

I've also added the triangular side port. This was never on the physical model, but added through CGI for the sequence where Carmen, pilots the ship away from the dock. The triangular ports are missing from all other shots in the movie too, since they probably didn't think audiences would notice, and probably didn't have the rendering availability anyway. Finding enough computers to render the show was a big issue apparently.

Currently, I'm modeling one side and mirroring to the other. This results in symmetrical paneling on both sides of the ship. The real model didn't do this, but I don't think I'm up to doing twice as much panel work. Maybe I'll un-symmetrize the "Head" and "Chin" in the future (as that's where the non-symmetrical panels are most noticeable) but, not for now.

I'm considering printing these 2 pieces right now to see how the paneling translates into plastic before paneling the rest of the ship (and potentially doing panels in a way that doesn't look good when printed).
I'd have to resurrect my 3d printer somehow. Hmmmm.

evil_genius_180 · November 6

Looking great. The paneling on this thing is a beast, to say nothing of the other details.

Now I'm going to have to rewatch the movie to see that port in that one shot. Like I needed an excuse to watch it again.

Though, one of these days, I need to read the novel again.

wibble · November 6

Mustang13Camaro68 wrote: »

The triangular ports are missing from all other shots in the movie too, since they probably didn't think audiences would notice.

As much as it regards me they have been right.

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