3DDetailing downloaded 1701-B, abandon ship?

Posts

• Starship388 São Paulo - BrasilPosts: 1,918Member

  January 2013 #2

  

  I know this history.
  
  I started doing mine (available for download here) by the same way as you, using ShawA’s mesh (available in the downloads section too), converting it to studio max. In the process of trying to produce a more accurated version, I endeed replacing enterelly the geometry by a mesh built by my own.
  Pros: I learnt a lot in this process;
  Cons: It ended not so accurated due to my limited skills, not enough references available at that time and.... a bit of lazyness, I must addmit.
  You can use ShawA’s mesh as a placeholder and go ahead replacing their pieces by more accurated ones, or start a new one, but you can go ahead.
• Maikl0 Posts: 0Member

  January 2013 #3

  Hey,
  
  first, thanks for the kind words about my Enterprise B thread :notworthy:
  
  From looking at the shots from that mesh I would say you have 2 problems with it, if you want to datail it for close shots:
  -the proportions are far off in some places, most noticable the warp nacelles...
  -and it seems to be pretty low res, even from that far perspective, so you would need to up-res the model, at least the part you want to show close-up which can be tricky to maintain smooth surfaces...
  
  I would guess starting at zero from blueprints might be faster than reworking that mesh...
• Lonewriter235 Posts: 1,073Member

  January 2013 #4

  

  Starships mesh is a great one, I've got the obj version that I need to texture one day.
• Starship388 São Paulo - BrasilPosts: 1,918Member

  January 2013 #5

  

  Lonewriter wrote: »

  Starships mesh is a great one, I've got the obj version that I need to texture one day.

  Thank you for the kind words!
  Do you known Dave (sfm id Elisandra and deviant id Karanua )? He did a great conversion to Lightwave, just the light rig was pending. Dave was planning to finish it but, his health problems kept not allowing it. Sadly, he died in august of 2012 after many years fighting against a pancreatic cancer. A great friend and a great miss...
  
  YouA’ll be welcome doing the conversion.
• jrhottel9 Posts: 0Member

  January 2013 #6

  I don't know were you are on the learning curve but seriously consider making your own from scratch. Getting started.
  
  1) Find reference illustrations.
  2) Use paint program, ie. Photoshop. Split illustrations into separate views and save in square canvas pixel count ie. 1024X1024.
  3) In Max create square six planes one for each view. Position planes. Apply bitmap images you created.
  4) In properties for planes turn off frozen in gray.
  5) Create a box with dimensions of ship. Scale and find final position for planes using box. Then delete box.
  6) Freeze planes, so they can't be moved accidentally.
  7) Model top and bottom separately. Hide the one your not using unless in side, front or back view.
  
  I'm sure you'll learn a great deal either way.
• HelloHiHola0 Posts: 0Member

  January 2013 #7

  I greatly appreciate everyone's rapid responses and input! The amount of work to do is worse than I thought. This model has contracted, "The Abrams Squish." Maikl, at first, I only "felt" the nacelles were too chunky or big and and jrhottel's suggestion confirmed it - jrhottel, I'll tell you what, I'll split the difference and use your good instructions to pull the Shaw version into shape. Then, as Starship suggests, use that tweaked version as a placeholder for more high-res, more true objects.
  
  Another "B" WIP is running concurrently, and, Mr. Maikl thank YOU for sharing your kung fu! I've been curious to add the human element to the exterior that I think Star Trek misses and I think this will keep our two B's exciting and different.
  
  The elevations I have are from an AMT model. They're playfully large and under-detailed, but I'll start with those. I've followed Starship's links all over the Internet and discovered more references for 'human element' details I never thought of! Much gratitude and I'll check in soon with better proportions.
  

  scifi-mesh elevation 01.jpg 28.6K
• HelloHiHola0 Posts: 0Member

  January 2013 #8

  Since I wanted to make the exterior make sense in terms of the human factor, I used some great references for the B's bridge (attached) from cygnus-x1.net who got it from a German site. The interior of the Bridge and the modelling I've started then indicated the size of a human.
  
  The adjustments I've made (read previous reply) show the bounding area of phaser emitters to match really well already. My question: If a man in a suit from the Webdings Office rode his bike down the saucer, would the ship's Phaser Banks be the size relative to him and his bike as shown?
  
  I know it's goofy but this is how I'm controlling close-up proportions as I model.
  

  cygnus-x1_net b bridge.jpg 107K

  suit bike phaser emitters.jpg 104.9K
• BolianAdmiral1011 Torrance, CaliforniaPosts: 2,425Member

  January 2013 #9

  

  This page also has some shots of the studio model's plans, including the detail areas:
  
  http://trebuchestarships.blogspot.com/2011/03/model-magic-reference-photos.html
• McC371 Posts: 704Member

  January 2013 #10

  

  I'm really excited by the prospect of this thread. Not sure why, but very eager to watch this develop.
  
  HelloHiHola, I don't think that's an outlandish size at all. The TNG Tech Manual mentions that each phaser array segment on the Galaxy-class is 3.25 m x 2.45 m x 1.25 m, so having a phaser turret emplacement be around that scale seems about right to me. :thumb:

  WIP: [ SDF-1 Macross ] Done: [ Coronado | Ambassador (original) | T'Varo ]
  
  Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
• japetus2695 SeattlePosts: 1,357Member

  January 2013 #11

  

  Good luck! I did my own B here a couple years ago. She's tougher than she seems. I'd be happy to share my reference with you if you wish!
• Zeropoint0 Posts: 0Member

  January 2013 #12

  Obviously when you're modeling an existing ship, you've got to go with the proportions set out by the creators . . . but those phaser turrets seem kind of small to me, when you think about the size of something like a WW2 battleship gun, or even a modern 5" gun turret.
• BolianAdmiral1011 Torrance, CaliforniaPosts: 2,425Member

  January 2013 #13

  

  ^
  
  Well, phasers are beams of light, not bullets or shells... so you don't need to size a phaser bank based on the caliber of bullet or shell.
• Zeropoint0 Posts: 0Member

  January 2013 #14

  <shrug> You could also say that the beam generator IS huge, but is inside the hull, and all we see is the final beam steering mechanism. That's kind of like the way that all you see of a WW2 gun system is the turret housing and barrels, not the spaces beneath devoted to powder storage, shell storage, powder and shell elevators, and rotation/elevation gear.
  
  I just find it a bit irritating that so much stuff in science fiction is so SMALL. 20-foot fighters, shuttlecraft with no place that you could fit a modern car engine, stuff like that. Apparently, I'm in the minority with these thoughts, though.
• McC371 Posts: 704Member

  January 2013 #15

  

  BolianAdmiral wrote:

  Well, phasers are beams of light, not bullets or shells... so you don't need to size a phaser bank based on the caliber of bullet or shell.

  Zeropoint wrote: »

  <shrug> You could also say that the beam generator IS huge, but is inside the hull, and all we see is the final beam steering mechanism. That's kind of like the way that all you see of a WW2 gun system is the turret housing and barrels, not the spaces beneath devoted to powder storage, shell storage, powder and shell elevators, and rotation/elevation gear.
  
  I just find it a bit irritating that so much stuff in science fiction is so SMALL. 20-foot fighters, shuttlecraft with no place that you could fit a modern car engine, stuff like that. Apparently, I'm in the minority with these thoughts, though.

  I think there's a certain balance to be struck.
  
  On the one hand, a lot of designs are all style and no substance, which gives rise to your examples of tiny fighters or shuttles with no place for internal machinery. I absolutely agree with you about this: an artistic rendition of something intended to represent a real thing in the context of the world in which it exists should have some level of engineering sense behind it, not just aesthetics.
  
  That's not to say things can't be built impractically because of aesthetics -- look around at the world for plenty of examples of this! But at the very least, the thing being presented should be internally consistent enough with its setting so as to stretch suspension of disbelief to a minimum. This is something I feel strongly about and I can't count the number of times I've heard or read someone use "Well, it looks cooler this way" as a justification for a nonsensical design decision. I cry a little (on the inside, where no one can see) every time I see someone say something along these lines. Breaking reality "because it looks cooler" rarely ends up being true; reality has a lot of really cool stuff to offer if one takes the time to explore the "real" options! :thumb:
  
  On the other hand, I think this particular comparison is unfair for a few reasons.

  • First, Starfleet's ships are military vehicles in part, not wholly warships as WW2 battleships were and modern Navy vessels are. It is reasonable that their armament would not be their primary focus.
  • Second, we're talking about very different mechanisms with very different engineering requirements (see my tirade above). A large-bore projectile weapon needs to follow certain design guidelines to address: containing the propulsive explosion that propels the projectile (i.e. big, thick barrels); guiding the projectile's path so that it can predictably hit its target (i.e. length of the barrel, rifling?); a turret motor strong enough to turn this large, heavy barrel or set of barrels (one governing factor in the size of the turret); and a turret mounting fixture robust enough to handle the recoil of such a large-caliber explosive. All of these factors inform how big the guns are on a battleship.
    
    Flip it around and look at the design requirements for a phaser. Phasers are either pure beam weapons or some form of accelerated particle beam (they're often referred to as "nadion beams" in the shows and are explained in the TNG Tech Manual as dependent on the "rapid nadion effect," though it makes no explicit mention of these being part of the final beam). In either case, they're described as using plasma as an energetic first stage. If they're "special lasers" (i.e. beam weapons), then one may suppose they're some form of gas laser; if they're "nadion particle beams," then they'll have the requirements of particle beam weapons. In either case, there's a lot less recoil; the "barrel length" equivalents are a lot shorter; and the resulting machinery necessary to move the "barrel" equivalent is a lot smaller.
  • Third and finally, history shows that as technology advances, things get smaller per unit performance they provide as operating and design principles are better understood, manufacturing technique improves, and dependent technologies advance alongside. Suppose materials science introduces a manufacturing medium that provides all of the necessary resiliency requirements of the materials that go into big, heavy ship turrets, but at a tiny fraction of the size and mass. This will lead to a reduction in turret size with no loss in performance. When we're discussing a ship ostensibly built 200-300 years from now, and compare the technological advances to the state of the art from 1713 or even 1813, supposing that "heavy guns" take up less space is not entirely unreasonable, so long as the earlier point about accounting for the underlying design holds true.

  
  Whew, that ended up being a lot longer than I expected.
  
  Hey, HelloHiHola, have you seen this giant repository of reference images for Lakota? Not exactly Enterprise-B as I understand it, but perhaps worthwhile anyway?

  WIP: [ SDF-1 Macross ] Done: [ Coronado | Ambassador (original) | T'Varo ]
  
  Books: [ Ashes of Alour-Tan | Embers of Alour-Tan ] | Blender Tutorials | Blog
• HelloHiHola0 Posts: 0Member

  February 2013 #16

  Reality in sci-fi can create a huge division among fans - I'm not surprised to see it more in Star Trek than most others. Personally, I respect altering what was the standing design to better suit what we now know to be; TOS 1701 was made before men on the moon and designers took a huge leap guessing what space ships might look like. Then, "before" TOS, Enterprise's NX; it's prickling with evidence of modern knowledge.
  
  After the Eagle landed, designers of the Star Destroyer tossed thousands of random parts with no function on to their models and audience imagination soared; the ships seemed more plausible. Later, functions were assigned to each and every bump and pipe. - Greebles and nurnies.
  
  That's where I've been lately. I haven't abandoned ship but have continued understanding Blender better with side projects. A fresh release saw me over process one of my experiments last night but otherwise, what I've been learning has been mind blowing for a free software.
  
  @ZeroPoint - I'm with you in the minority thinking that inner workings deserve an external nod; but then I look at my iPhone. Damn it's pretty but all those functions, speakers, microphones, buttons, have been turned into something the shape of a chocolate bar.
  
  @McC - Thank you for your kind enthusiasm and I hadn't seen that collection of images! Wow! In your small book you mention the role of Star Fleet and the Enterprise. Today, the United States Coast Guard is about the only service I can think of that fits a parallel role; I'm going to say that Star Fleet is to Earth what the Coast Guard is to the US Military. Their ships have enough fire power to defend themselves, but their mission primarily includes saving Somali pirates from drowning just as dutifully as they would save a Statesman.
  
  With all that we've said taken in to consideration, I think an important element missing from Star Trek is the group that performs the dirty work i.e. if Star Fleet is the US Coast Guard who's told to leave when things require force from DOD - Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force - what comes in when Star Fleet leaves?
  And, what I think is missing from Star Fleet, if they're the US Coast Guard, is the "regular people" element i.e. Reservists, stepping into mundane situations that are life and death for individuals.
  The Federation shouldn't have had Star Fleet take on both roles of savior and aggressor. That only breeds contempt and it's left fans with an ethical story-telling problem.
  
  I said earlier that, "I respect altering what was the standing design to better suit what we now know to be," and I think I'll go that direction and I know it's going to tick some folks off. I want the outside of the ship to be as imagination-friendly as the inside without totally violating all the traditions.
  
  @BolianAdmiral - does the B have any kinetic weapons/ballistic armory at all?
  

  Sdisp as it goes.jpg 29.4K