Bridge sensor cluster. I have not decided exactly where these would all be placed on the ship. Might just dash a few here and there without a palette. Also experimented with a few cheater ideas on material. I am also debating on how to show the join on the impulse fairings. Likely I will go with this inset hull around it vs any sort of welded seam. Plan will be that the whole stardrive impulse, dock area could pull out for refits etc. Original idea was that all the cowling in this area could be removed in large sections. The saucer was planned with this idea as well.
Have you decided on where you'll place the magnetic grapplers (yet another future gadget that got retooled so the writers wouldn't actually have to think)?
That was Challenger in 1986 and Columbia burned up on re-entry in 2003. I remember both vividly as I watched Challenger live when I was in elementary school and literally drove past cordoned off pieces of Columbia on I-20 and I-30 the morning it happened.
I stand corrected. How could I have forgotten it was Challenger? Was off work that day and watched it live on TV. Lost all respect for Dan Rather that day as he seemed to be getting off on the whole thing while he kept replaying the explosion over and over and over. Anyway, I went out that day and bought the last Challenger shuttle plastic model kit in the city. Still have the kit in the box.
Welded in the bay, cut back the saucer to the impulse fairing, misc bits and bobs, and some sensor doodads.
Nice. Was also wondering, what's the thinking behind the exposed to space landing platform on the threshold of the shuttle bays? Have noticed this detail on a few of your other designs too, and wondered what the point of it was. So the shuttle has somewhere to land should the bay doors not work or something? Or a holding area for while they're clearing the bay to accommodate a new incoming shuttle? Just curious.
Funny thing about the NX-01 is, she actually had some glowing spheres inside her bussards. They were just too subtle and only showed up in screenshots if the conditions were just right.
Yeah there was a whole assembly under the animated texture map on the bussard domes. Back in those days (early 2000) they did not have the time and power to do all the fancy things available now. Even in present production they cannot wait for results we get in our still frames where some often wait overnight or longer for a single render. The thing that sticks with me strongly though with the NX renders I do have is the reflectivity of the domes. I often do them as matte or near matte with high reflectivity so it is more of a specular hit due to the reflection being blurred so much.
Shuttle bays. I usually will platform them since I rarely do multiple bay ships the platforms are staging for cargo staging and maintenance staging IE if a large bit of ship machinery needs work or prefabbing it would be done out here. Same reasons really as the staging platform on the NX. I also consider it an area of magnetic or gravity to hold larger craft that wont fit into the bay or cannot dock via umbilical.
Magnetic grappler, this is one thing I thought would be replaced or upgraded over the various refits the NX got on the shows run. With that said I would consider this to have a tractor beam over a magnetic floppy grappler. If I were to model one I would do so more like ones seen in anime EG SB Yamato or the like where it is a seriously beefy bit of kit coming from a proper hard point and not some pole sticking out one of the shuttle bays. Though I am sure it was designed for the exclusive use of grabbing shuttle pods and not ripping hunks off Klingon cruisers or other mass tonnage objects.
Speaking of NX'y details I am currently looking over what types of weaponry to put on this. I have concluded to use or design this as "the next class of ship" so romulan war and post timeframe. (forget how long it lasted) So maybe larger more klingon like weapons pods for the pulse cannons. This is the only real smear I have with ENT is the canon references to the ROM war and how ENT seemingly introduced all the tech advancements on this balanced scale.
Anyhow updates; planning out the grid patterns on the upper dome I guess these would be decks C&D. I am likely going to have to redo the eyebrow window opening since it appears way too large, defeating the purpose of having the hull plating shielding the windows. I might be adding some portholes in the plating itself. As well the lower plates probably should be continuous but I felt offsetting it and departing from TOS and ENT style grids works better than having panel lines dead end into adjoining structures like the impulse stacks. Guess they would be called plasma conduit cowling? Since all the plasma routing and other crap for the impulse systems are in those fairings. I am hoping this thing will have more ENT feel to it once I set up the final materials and figure out how to layout the hull plating vs this random pattern I have now. I am thinking I might be able to use the existing grid on the hull to create a simple aztec pattern in the physical mesh itself to replicate what was on the NX-01. I probably should get around to replicating the gold material seen on the NX-01 as well since mine is way to yellow and saturated. Oh and I probably should look at either cutting the grids up around those brackets or doing away with them. They are not very trek so likely I will just delete them.
Eh, complicated it up and made the panels go around those ribs. Also screwing around with the materials to see how the use of existing polies to create the patterning.
More fooling about with materials. Added in a ground plane to give some interactivity to the hull as well. Really makes it look like dim chrome so it needs a bit more work. Sticking with the cool blue since this is what the other NX class ships had.
Cool work, it definitely feels like it could be a slightly smaller, more advanced version of the NX-01. I do have a question about the green vents/engines on the trailing edge of a the nacelle pylons. Is there any particular reason for that gap between the innermost and middle ones? To me it feels out of place, like they should either all be close together like the middle and outer, or all have some space.
Sadly, most of the images are not shown. "Image [image-URL] cannot be displayed because it contains errors". Even F5 doesn't work. Anyway, from what I can see, it looks amazing. I like the idea with a dual deflector dish, tho I don't really get the idea behind that....
Added in bracing and some visual junk to the conference room or whatever it is, cut in those observation windows in bridge dome and made a room inside. That area is just big enough to walk through and peer out. Guessing this would be a way to see wtf is up if things on the bridge go out, or a means to manually look out for inspection for damage, that or just plain machine access.
Finished off the rest of the paneling on the inner dome. Next will probably be working on detailing that extension off the bridge's backside. In some ways I really dislike the curves on that area but to redo it would mean a lot of work. Dunno what I was thinking when I let the curves affect so much of that upper area of that structure. Oh well.
The hull material is shaping up really nicely.
I love those little windows you've added on the bridge dome and the gray detail on the hull around them, they really add to the "submarine" feel of the ship, not only for their shape but also for the functionality you described for them.
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I've always had trouble thinking up the greebles and such that go on ships, trying to think up why they'd be there, etc. For that reason I had to comment on those little projections on the aft side of the pylons. They remind me of the flap track fairings on a 737 and just seem to fit that space perfectly. Was that look intentional, or did you just draw something and go "oh, that works..."?
That looks rather nice. I like the lighting and I'm curious about how you accomplished it. Right now it's a struggle for me to create photorealistic lighting for spacecraft- my models end up looking like pictures of plastic models. Anyway, if you have any pointers I'd appreciate it.
But I'm gonna be honest, I've been using his tutorials for years and I've NEVER come out with the same results that he does... Again, so so so so jealous of how his stuff comes out...
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Discovery resides at the Smithsonian in Virginia. Has anyone mentioned Endeavour?
I stand corrected. How could I have forgotten it was Challenger? Was off work that day and watched it live on TV. Lost all respect for Dan Rather that day as he seemed to be getting off on the whole thing while he kept replaying the explosion over and over and over. Anyway, I went out that day and bought the last Challenger shuttle plastic model kit in the city. Still have the kit in the box.
Nice. Was also wondering, what's the thinking behind the exposed to space landing platform on the threshold of the shuttle bays? Have noticed this detail on a few of your other designs too, and wondered what the point of it was. So the shuttle has somewhere to land should the bay doors not work or something? Or a holding area for while they're clearing the bay to accommodate a new incoming shuttle? Just curious.
Cool, those bussard effects look pretty unique.
Shuttle bays. I usually will platform them since I rarely do multiple bay ships the platforms are staging for cargo staging and maintenance staging IE if a large bit of ship machinery needs work or prefabbing it would be done out here. Same reasons really as the staging platform on the NX. I also consider it an area of magnetic or gravity to hold larger craft that wont fit into the bay or cannot dock via umbilical.
Magnetic grappler, this is one thing I thought would be replaced or upgraded over the various refits the NX got on the shows run. With that said I would consider this to have a tractor beam over a magnetic floppy grappler. If I were to model one I would do so more like ones seen in anime EG SB Yamato or the like where it is a seriously beefy bit of kit coming from a proper hard point and not some pole sticking out one of the shuttle bays. Though I am sure it was designed for the exclusive use of grabbing shuttle pods and not ripping hunks off Klingon cruisers or other mass tonnage objects.
Speaking of NX'y details I am currently looking over what types of weaponry to put on this. I have concluded to use or design this as "the next class of ship" so romulan war and post timeframe. (forget how long it lasted) So maybe larger more klingon like weapons pods for the pulse cannons. This is the only real smear I have with ENT is the canon references to the ROM war and how ENT seemingly introduced all the tech advancements on this balanced scale.
Broke images are something the site has to take care of I refuse to use offline source so it is all locally hosted here.
Finished off the rest of the paneling on the inner dome. Next will probably be working on detailing that extension off the bridge's backside. In some ways I really dislike the curves on that area but to redo it would mean a lot of work. Dunno what I was thinking when I let the curves affect so much of that upper area of that structure. Oh well.
I love those little windows you've added on the bridge dome and the gray detail on the hull around them, they really add to the "submarine" feel of the ship, not only for their shape but also for the functionality you described for them.
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Excellent job btw!
In MKF's sigline, he's got a link to Madfishways, that's full of tutorials... Generally the link is here:
http://home.surewest.net/joyceu/madfishway/light/
But I'm gonna be honest, I've been using his tutorials for years and I've NEVER come out with the same results that he does... Again, so so so so jealous of how his stuff comes out...