As you may know, teknomancer has been going through some very trying times just lately. First with his wife (now seperated so does that make her 'ex-wife'?) and also with finding a home (he was let down by the uk benefits people so lost out on a good flat). Those of us who can are doing our best to help but it has been hard going.
Please be patient during this time of troubles. We will try to keep posting new updates etc when possible.
Thunderchild herself is now undergoing a very thorough design review starting at the basic idea and working up. Bearing in mind that the model is based on the idea teknomancer has written in a novel he is working on (or at least, was - until all this happened), there are some aspects of her design that just cannot be changed easily.
That said, I am now working through all the design specs and details for teknomancer so that we can properly work out her overall design and size etc. (She ended up being *too* large at one point).
Then we can work on her actual looks. (wow, concept drawings!)
I'll try to post some of the concept drawings when we have them (again) and we'll go from there.
Thanks to everyone for their continued support and encouragement. You never know, we might even finish this project one day. lol.
Well, Thunderchild is starting to come together. We are getting there with the secondary hull. She has a bay at the back for starships to be repaired. Teknomancer has now decided that the novel he is writing takes place partly in an alternative universe so the thunderchild herself was built there. They have a slightly different situation there so the need for a larger ship that can repair other starships was very high so size is no longer an issue. She will be as big as she turns out to be. Should be fun. It looks like the secondary hull is already quite large. I make it about 3km long! However, considering the fact that it houses the engineering section, starship repair bay, et all it is hardly surprising it is so big. Will post some renders of her asap. TTFN.
well, here she is, guys. preliminary primary hull, an attempt to make it look like a cross between the prometheus, and the enterprise e. i have included these two ships for a sense of scale in the renders, as the model is quite large and detailless, lol.
i have to say, i am pretty impressed with the nacelles, they were made from a single box shape, with just some simple pushing and pulling from an ffd box, crazy huh???
thanks, mate. i was only doing that as a bit of a laugh, as i have come so far since i first began, that i thought it would be fun to see just how far. lol
how's the stuff you're doing? i'm gonna have to take a look, bud. speak soon, dave.
i just took a look, impressive. i think you should do this sort of thing for a job, mate,as you've got a talent i haven't seen for a long time. even though some of the art work there was done with other people's meshes, there is definately inspiration going on, as the effects are tremendous. i would never have thought of some of them, especially the trek meets tron one. that is good. i also liked the ideas for the ares fighter, and would love to see that one first hand, as i think there are some ideas i'd like to work on from that. as you can see, mate, i do like your work. and i think you are one of the most talented modellers i.ve seen on here, i just wish i had your skills. pity, but i will learn lol. anyway, enough waffle, back to the old grindstone, lol
The new version looks to much better, but the size is something that annoys me... way to bigger!!!
i know, it annoys me, too. but in order to fit ANY size of ship into the rear bay, the ship has to be that massive. it is an unforseen sizing problem that leads to people thinking it's gonna be massively powerful, but it isn't. it's just an armed drydock that can go anywhere, and even defend itself, that's all. i wish the project hadn't taken this route, but it is an unfortunate side effect of the need for the repair bay. i shall be doing other ships not so big, however, when this one is finally finished. thanks for the comment, starship.
It's not the size of the ship, it's what you do with it! At least... so i'm told. lol.
It's quite amusing really. Others would build a ship this big just to make it some kind of super ship. We want a ship that is not exactly super, but end up with it being huge anyway. Talk about laugh, I thought I'd never start. lol.
It's not the size of the ship, it's what you do with it! At least... so i'm told. lol.
It's quite amusing really. Others would build a ship this big just to make it some kind of super ship. We want a ship that is not exactly super, but end up with it being huge anyway. Talk about laugh, I thought I'd never start. lol.
speaking of what you do with it... i wasn't happy with the errors in the mesh, and both hagar and myself have had a slight re-think of the rear bay, deciding that the nacelles now madfe the rest of the ship look wrong.
as a result, this is an effort to re-design the said errors, and address those faults at the same time. the neck is not finished, yet, so bear with me on that, but the rest of the hull has been re-set, with more sreamlining to the design (hopefully!) this should make her look more pleasing to the eye than before. will have to post two messages, i think, as lots of piccies to add, lol see y'awl!
in answer to your question, i believe it is the right size, and although i have not checked to see if the two ships do actually fit, i have built this to the size of the old hangar bay, using the original as a reference. i am working on the primary hull now, and the neck as well. bloody awkward, i can tell you. i have got to make a new part for the base of the dish, to make it fit with the rest of the ship. found a new way to do that, by the way, will show you when we get together next. hopefully, it will give me the ability to make the part i need. and easily. i told you to wait till you saw what i had planned! lol. knew you'd like it, all i did was get the rear of the nacelles, re-size them, then adjust accordingly. lol. thanks for all the advice so far, bro. it's been invaluable. one day soon, i'll be finished, and then it's on to the interior! lol. think i'll start a new thread for that, though. maybe then i can get some ideas from others as to what to do for the bridge to make it match the rest of the ship. what do you think of the slots on the bottom of the secondary hull? i thought they could be used to replace the warp core eject hatch normally seen on ships, as i was thinking they do tend to leave a lot to chance when ejecting the warp core. too much chance of a collision with the hull, if you ask me. just an idea, anyway. i also thought that the squarer back part would work better, too, giving space for the name and also a place to put the torpedo tubes when they are ready.
okay, i have to agree, starship has a point! the size is TOO HUGE for a ship to be of much use to anyone let alone to make it a viable option for almost any fleet. as a result, both myself and hagar have discussed this and come up with the idea to REDUCE the scale to a more managable one, in alignment with the sizes of the ships currently in use with starfleet. This will not have an effect on the role of the mobile dry dock, as it will still be available, albeit in a slightly different way. It will, however, have a knock on effect on the role of the docking area at the rear of the ship.
seeing as the dock will be smaller, it will obviously not be needing to house a starship of such a size as a galaxy class or soverign class. instead, the idea has been suggested that smaller defensive vesels be included, like maybe defiant style ships as an additional protection (a bit like the mutli vector attack system of the prometheus from voyager.) this has left me with a little dilemma. do i just simply use the same vessel as the defiant, and modify the hull slightly, or do i invent a new version to go with the alternate universe the thunderchild comes from in the first place? not an easy decision. this is where you guys can help. any suggestions, please? whatever method i use, will have to fit inside the rear docking bay (which is four times the size of the defiant original at full scale, so plenty of room there! LOL) heres the latest render of the scale of the model, (which has had to have a re-design of the dish, due to a foul up in the mesh (caused by my own meddling with it, i might add:p ) i will do a better version later. this one is just a place keeper till i can be bothered to get it right. i also did this one to get the neck right, as it was giving me hell.
just a little test anim to see if the ship looks okay, lol. have changed the dish, and (finally) got the errors out of the mesh (i hope!) lol. the size is now just big enough to be able to fit the ent-e between the nacelles, and the windows are beginning to be cut out. i have started at the top, and am working downwards. i will post some renders, when max stops crashing on me. (basically, i discovered a small part in my renders, removed it, and the program crashed, can't figure out why just yet, but will do soon, i assured you!) anyway, hope you like the avi! lol.
these are the latest pictures, trying out some glowing textures, to see if they work, wondering if i shopuld continue with them, as they are tricky to say the least.
Thats an interesting dish design in the last couple of renders. Could you show a top, bottom, front back and side views?
Not keen on those glowing textures though.
i will as soon as my broadband is up, mate. sky is messing me around lol. also, the textures are just to see if the idea worked, which i am glad to say it did, self illuminating textures are a great idea, asd i have found i can animate them with the intensity for each frame, and this one set is only to test the theory, as the idea is to make some of my own. i was especially looking to work on the idea of making the textures for the nacelles, as they need to be animated for the film progress, i am also looking at setting the windows as part of the textures, as that would be easier than trying to cut each set of windows for eacvh deck, all those bloody cuts are horrific! boolean wont do it, niether will proboolean, and trying to make them my self is almost impossible. the complexity of the model prevents that to my knowledge. if anyone can suggest a method that is both quick and simple, and doesnt require the major reconstruction of the mesh, please let me know! lol thanks , will get some posts up asap. ttfn.
well, i have now moved on to encompass the basic bridge design, and have based this on something i saw on line somewhere. i'm not sure where i got it from, but i thought it would make a wonderful bridge design, and re-created this from scratch. no seats as yet, still working on those, (never really done seats before, so struggling a bit, lol.) will be adding some newer consoles to the inner walls later, and am hoping to add textures later. (incidentally, there are two inner walls that do not show up on these renders, as they are facing the wrong way for rendering.;) and the two blue globes are actually holographic spheres!)
okay, latest renders. not much going on here these days, i know, but at the moment, i am getting to grips with the needs of being a writer as well as a modeller. so, now that the outside is almost done, i will be concentrating on the inside of the ship, as the needs of the book require it to be that way. thanks for all the support from all who have been keeping up here, and it's been fun. look out for the interior modelling thread coming soon!
yes, it has. my internet is down, as i could not afford it, at the moment. i am getting a new dongle for the weekend, and should be online from then, but do not expect anything till well into next week, as i do not know if i will even be able to do it then. also, i have been having a re-think on a few of the smaller details, as i have had the time to do so, and i have decided to try and make the bridge a little smaller than i had it, as there was just simply too much space in there. and the one thing i never envisioned was too much space on the floor level. anyway, will get there soon, as i have lots of stuff i have to do, so thanks for posting, bro. btw, that hard drive i wanted to fit is just not gonna go in my machine, i can't exactly give it away, so anything you can do will help, thanks bro. see you soon, ok? and to all my friends on here, i hope to speak to you all soon, too. dave.
Posts
As you may know, teknomancer has been going through some very trying times just lately. First with his wife (now seperated so does that make her 'ex-wife'?) and also with finding a home (he was let down by the uk benefits people so lost out on a good flat). Those of us who can are doing our best to help but it has been hard going.
Please be patient during this time of troubles. We will try to keep posting new updates etc when possible.
Thunderchild herself is now undergoing a very thorough design review starting at the basic idea and working up. Bearing in mind that the model is based on the idea teknomancer has written in a novel he is working on (or at least, was - until all this happened), there are some aspects of her design that just cannot be changed easily.
That said, I am now working through all the design specs and details for teknomancer so that we can properly work out her overall design and size etc. (She ended up being *too* large at one point).
Then we can work on her actual looks. (wow, concept drawings!)
I'll try to post some of the concept drawings when we have them (again) and we'll go from there.
Thanks to everyone for their continued support and encouragement. You never know, we might even finish this project one day. lol.
but I like the over all shape.
i have to say, i am pretty impressed with the nacelles, they were made from a single box shape, with just some simple pushing and pulling from an ffd box, crazy huh???
while on patrol near the neutral zone, we have come across an earlier version of this vessl, and are proceeding to investiget the occurrance!
just thought i'd see how the two version looked together, for a bit of fun,lol
thanks, mate. i was only doing that as a bit of a laugh, as i have come so far since i first began, that i thought it would be fun to see just how far. lol
how's the stuff you're doing? i'm gonna have to take a look, bud. speak soon, dave.
But I posted some stuff on my Blog. http://freakart80.blogspot.com/
i know, it annoys me, too. but in order to fit ANY size of ship into the rear bay, the ship has to be that massive. it is an unforseen sizing problem that leads to people thinking it's gonna be massively powerful, but it isn't. it's just an armed drydock that can go anywhere, and even defend itself, that's all. i wish the project hadn't taken this route, but it is an unfortunate side effect of the need for the repair bay. i shall be doing other ships not so big, however, when this one is finally finished. thanks for the comment, starship.
dave.
It's quite amusing really. Others would build a ship this big just to make it some kind of super ship. We want a ship that is not exactly super, but end up with it being huge anyway. Talk about laugh, I thought I'd never start. lol.
speaking of what you do with it... i wasn't happy with the errors in the mesh, and both hagar and myself have had a slight re-think of the rear bay, deciding that the nacelles now madfe the rest of the ship look wrong.
as a result, this is an effort to re-design the said errors, and address those faults at the same time. the neck is not finished, yet, so bear with me on that, but the rest of the hull has been re-set, with more sreamlining to the design (hopefully!) this should make her look more pleasing to the eye than before. will have to post two messages, i think, as lots of piccies to add, lol see y'awl!
I love the new hangar bay. Is it to the right size? Do the Soveriegn and Galaxy sizes still fit?
But that definately fits with the overall design concept we are looking for. Next is to bring the primary hull into line with this look.
We are definately on the right track with this look. It's modernistic, graceful, smooth and streamlined.
Looking forward to seeing the neck changes when you get to them.
Excellent work. It looks like you really have got the feel for this baby now! lol. :thumb:
seeing as the dock will be smaller, it will obviously not be needing to house a starship of such a size as a galaxy class or soverign class. instead, the idea has been suggested that smaller defensive vesels be included, like maybe defiant style ships as an additional protection (a bit like the mutli vector attack system of the prometheus from voyager.) this has left me with a little dilemma. do i just simply use the same vessel as the defiant, and modify the hull slightly, or do i invent a new version to go with the alternate universe the thunderchild comes from in the first place? not an easy decision. this is where you guys can help. any suggestions, please? whatever method i use, will have to fit inside the rear docking bay (which is four times the size of the defiant original at full scale, so plenty of room there! LOL) heres the latest render of the scale of the model, (which has had to have a re-design of the dish, due to a foul up in the mesh (caused by my own meddling with it, i might add:p ) i will do a better version later. this one is just a place keeper till i can be bothered to get it right. i also did this one to get the neck right, as it was giving me hell.
Not keen on those glowing textures though.
i will as soon as my broadband is up, mate. sky is messing me around lol. also, the textures are just to see if the idea worked, which i am glad to say it did, self illuminating textures are a great idea, asd i have found i can animate them with the intensity for each frame, and this one set is only to test the theory, as the idea is to make some of my own. i was especially looking to work on the idea of making the textures for the nacelles, as they need to be animated for the film progress, i am also looking at setting the windows as part of the textures, as that would be easier than trying to cut each set of windows for eacvh deck, all those bloody cuts are horrific! boolean wont do it, niether will proboolean, and trying to make them my self is almost impossible. the complexity of the model prevents that to my knowledge. if anyone can suggest a method that is both quick and simple, and doesnt require the major reconstruction of the mesh, please let me know! lol thanks , will get some posts up asap. ttfn.