- - - Update! After spending some time rooting out mesh errors, I got a little visible work done.
Added nose RCS thrusters and cut them into the hull. The Thruster nozzles themselves are somewhat inspired by Aerospike engines. Hopefully, the spike gives them an alienish look while still being clearly a thruster.
View of the ventral nose RCTs, with the still blocked-in belly sled.
Speaking of the belly sled, here it is, as well as the ventral disruptor turrets. Missie tubes and blow-out panels for the magazines would go ahead of the turret ports.
On the top of the ship I added a little detail based off the top of a D'derix class to the reactor sphere (there's thee in trilateral symetry). What does it do other than look cool? No idea. But seeing how the "tail" feeds into the sustainer ring pylons, it probably has something to do with rectifying the plasma to smooth out the energy flow.
And a view of the ship as a whole. Note additional ribbing on the fuel tank covers.Tubing on the outer hull doubles as radiators to dump heat, keeping the deuterium fuel in a cool slush state.
great work, all of it. nice ribbing structure behind the bridge similar to that on new style battlestars.
Thanks, I was actually going for the spined wings of a D'derix. But I like BSG too (just look at my avatar), and it fits the primitive-warship vibe I'm going for.
Wonderful work! Really loving how this is going so far! It just keeps getting better and better.
Thanks! Should have her screen-ready... soonish. Or not, every day I spend working on her, I get a dozen ideas for cool things to add.
- - - UPDATE after a hiatus of idea-block/birthday festivities/watching Season 3, I got back on track and got some modeling done, this time on the belly. (I deleted the cooling ribs on the fuel tank covers for now, their meshes were hopelessly tangled.)
The great scheme of things. I was considering adding a shuttle-bay in front of the semi-circular plates, but it would be extremely cramped, not to mention in direct line-of-fire of the missile tubes.
Close up on the fore section. Handrails have been added to facilitate EVA repair work. Shields were primitive in this era, and battles were incredibly brutal as ships tore each other to shreds, each hoping to be the least screwed-up when the battle ended. As such, repair work was a never-ending task.
Those plates have some important engineering function, but I don't know what it is. Erm... I mean it's classified.
Close up on the missile tubes, compete with Romulan EV tech working her way down the access ladder. As I look at it, those tubes seem rather large, but this is the 22nd century, stands to reason thermonuclear missiles would need to be bigger than "modern" photon torpedoes to have enough DeltaV to engage their targets. Might do a smaller tube version for comparison
.
Additional belly-sled detail. Added more feathery heat-baffles, perhaps to vent heat from the missile launchers. There's also the aforementioned EVA railings and ladders to facilitate repairs.
Finally, the aft end of the sled. There's an airlock to get to the outside. The airlock and its handholds are rather low-poly, but since this area is hidden from view by the turrets at most angles, it should do.
These details are looking really nice! It's adding so much to the original shape and really starting to come together. Can't wait for more
Thanks! Glad you like her.
- - - update
Not much that's terribly obvious, spent some time tweaking geometry to get rid of mesh errors, and some time watching Star Trek and not working on this at all.
Most prominent is the new shuttlepod bay. It provides (barely) enough room for a single transport shuttle. Said shuttle is shown here in low-poly reference form.
The RC-7 can get away with such a tiny shuttlebay because it's not intended for exploratory missions. It's a predatory, a U-boat in space.
The missile tubes have been switched from single massive tubes, more akin to launching ICBMs than short-range ship-to-ship nukes, to twin launchers. Ganging to launchers so close together obviously makes them more susceptible to damage, as one good hit can knock out both tubes, and potentially cascade back to the magazines. However, the increased first-strike capability was considered worth the risk.
I spent quite some time doing research that consisted of watching all four seasons of Enterprise on DVD. While I was watching, I paid attention to how they did certain things, like lighting on the ship. I took what I learned from that and applied it to my renders. It was very helpful.
Sorry for my late replies. I'm loving the new details as always Very nice work!
Thanks! Think she's as detailed up as she's gonna get, at least for this variant. Not much I can do other than poly-intensive things with little visual impact.
- - -
UPDATE: After finding a useful way to unwrap the hull, I started on texturing, by far my weakest area of modeling. But, worth it to see the boat in proper romulan green.
These textures are still WIPs, but it should give you an idea of what the hull will look like.
the ship overall looks great, as for the colour at least consider having a two tone scheme where the main base hull is green and the panels on it are grey / silver /very different shade of green. another thing i should mention is if possible you want to make many of the edges appear sharper rather so smoothed, especially round the edges of the cool panels on the forward hull.
Your texture is looking very good.
As for the colors, both green and grey would look cool, but I guess the green hull will make it easier to differentiate from your Earth vessels.
For all my finished Trek fan art, please visit my portfolio
Sorry I'm late to the party! diggin the start of the textures, though I agree with some others that the gray/green combo is a bit odd. alas I had presumed the reason those panels were gray was because you hadn't started on them yet lol
That... is the reason. When I'm finished, the ship will be all green. I was also tinkering with the idea of a more TOS-like gray version, to distinguish the various ships.
that could also be really cool. that just gave me an idea! a less futuristic version of the enterprise era warbird could have that paint scheme. in flight next to the enterprise version it would look more rustic, perhaps even implying the ship from tos was either very old or a refit of the old design.
that could also be really cool. that just gave me an idea! a less futuristic version of the enterprise era warbird could have that paint scheme. in flight next to the enterprise version it would look more rustic, perhaps even implying the ship from tos was either very old or a refit of the old design.
I was thinking the gray color scheme was a result of wartime measures. Sure, we'd like to paint them up with proper colors, but we need these ships now, so a quick coat of anti-corrosion gray will have to do. Between recovering from their war with earth, and skirmishing with the Klingons, the Romulans didn't get their economy back to full strength until sometime after TOS, when they went back to the traditional green.
- - -
Anyhoo, updates!
Got some more work done on the hull textures, and some WIP textures on the fuel-tank covers. Trying a MiG-blue for the radiators, but I'm not sure if I'll keep it. There's also some post-processing on the nacelle glows.
Looking at this again, that space on the nose seems ripe for interesting nose-art, be it an abstract design like Nero's tattoos, some sort of stylized skull or bird-of-prey, or even a romulan pin-up girl.
great work, but both the green and grey parts need a a somewhat rougher texture, at the moment they appear to just be coloured rather than truly textured with a mapped image or a repeating tileable material. liking the red region around the nose thrusters and the grey side panels, rough enough to look good.
nose art would be great but..
[great work, but both the green and grey parts need a a somewhat rougher texture, at the moment they appear to just be coloured rather than truly textured with a mapped image or a repeating tileable material. liking the red region around the nose thrusters and the grey side panels, rough enough to look .
Materials and texturing is my weakest area right now, and they still need work.
i'm not sure if they would put girls on their nose art.
I need to stop typing updates at 1am. 'nuff said.
- - -
UPDATE!
After further thought, I decided the textured paneling wasn't cutting it. Back to clay for line-cutting. I also added some applique armor tiling along the fore hull.
your add on armour is an absolute must, the difference is subtle but when you look carefully at both the one with extra armour is quite an improvement.
Digging the updates! Definitely love the modeled paneling. I like the idea of a half-finished painting job, especially if this is varied for different ships. I think it would just have to not suddenly drop into a gray patch but rather should look an area where they just stopped painting at the last second, ya know?
Posts
Added nose RCS thrusters and cut them into the hull. The Thruster nozzles themselves are somewhat inspired by Aerospike engines. Hopefully, the spike gives them an alienish look while still being clearly a thruster.
View of the ventral nose RCTs, with the still blocked-in belly sled.
Speaking of the belly sled, here it is, as well as the ventral disruptor turrets. Missie tubes and blow-out panels for the magazines would go ahead of the turret ports.
On the top of the ship I added a little detail based off the top of a D'derix class to the reactor sphere (there's thee in trilateral symetry). What does it do other than look cool? No idea. But seeing how the "tail" feeds into the sustainer ring pylons, it probably has something to do with rectifying the plasma to smooth out the energy flow.
And a view of the ship as a whole. Note additional ribbing on the fuel tank covers.Tubing on the outer hull doubles as radiators to dump heat, keeping the deuterium fuel in a cool slush state.
- - - UPDATE after a hiatus of idea-block/birthday festivities/watching Season 3, I got back on track and got some modeling done, this time on the belly. (I deleted the cooling ribs on the fuel tank covers for now, their meshes were hopelessly tangled.)
The great scheme of things. I was considering adding a shuttle-bay in front of the semi-circular plates, but it would be extremely cramped, not to mention in direct line-of-fire of the missile tubes.
Close up on the fore section. Handrails have been added to facilitate EVA repair work. Shields were primitive in this era, and battles were incredibly brutal as ships tore each other to shreds, each hoping to be the least screwed-up when the battle ended. As such, repair work was a never-ending task.
Those plates have some important engineering function, but I don't know what it is. Erm... I mean it's classified.
Close up on the missile tubes, compete with Romulan EV tech working her way down the access ladder. As I look at it, those tubes seem rather large, but this is the 22nd century, stands to reason thermonuclear missiles would need to be bigger than "modern" photon torpedoes to have enough DeltaV to engage their targets. Might do a smaller tube version for comparison
.
Additional belly-sled detail. Added more feathery heat-baffles, perhaps to vent heat from the missile launchers. There's also the aforementioned EVA railings and ladders to facilitate repairs.
Finally, the aft end of the sled. There's an airlock to get to the outside. The airlock and its handholds are rather low-poly, but since this area is hidden from view by the turrets at most angles, it should do.
- - - update
Not much that's terribly obvious, spent some time tweaking geometry to get rid of mesh errors, and some time watching Star Trek and not working on this at all.
Most prominent is the new shuttlepod bay. It provides (barely) enough room for a single transport shuttle. Said shuttle is shown here in low-poly reference form.
The RC-7 can get away with such a tiny shuttlebay because it's not intended for exploratory missions. It's a predatory, a U-boat in space.
The missile tubes have been switched from single massive tubes, more akin to launching ICBMs than short-range ship-to-ship nukes, to twin launchers. Ganging to launchers so close together obviously makes them more susceptible to damage, as one good hit can knock out both tubes, and potentially cascade back to the magazines. However, the increased first-strike capability was considered worth the risk.
Yes! This is always my excuse as well haha.
Digging the new updates! It's looking great
I spent quite some time doing research that consisted of watching all four seasons of Enterprise on DVD. While I was watching, I paid attention to how they did certain things, like lighting on the ship. I took what I learned from that and applied it to my renders. It was very helpful.
- - - UPDATE
Added proper pylons for the warp sustainer engine, and some cowlings around the joints.
- - -
UPDATE: After finding a useful way to unwrap the hull, I started on texturing, by far my weakest area of modeling. But, worth it to see the boat in proper romulan green.
These textures are still WIPs, but it should give you an idea of what the hull will look like.
And an interesting article on warp drive research:
http://www.space.com/22430-star-trek-warp-drive-quantum-thrusters.html
As for the colors, both green and grey would look cool, but I guess the green hull will make it easier to differentiate from your Earth vessels.
I was thinking the gray color scheme was a result of wartime measures. Sure, we'd like to paint them up with proper colors, but we need these ships now, so a quick coat of anti-corrosion gray will have to do. Between recovering from their war with earth, and skirmishing with the Klingons, the Romulans didn't get their economy back to full strength until sometime after TOS, when they went back to the traditional green.
- - -
Anyhoo, updates!
Got some more work done on the hull textures, and some WIP textures on the fuel-tank covers. Trying a MiG-blue for the radiators, but I'm not sure if I'll keep it. There's also some post-processing on the nacelle glows.
Looking at this again, that space on the nose seems ripe for interesting nose-art, be it an abstract design like Nero's tattoos, some sort of stylized skull or bird-of-prey, or even a romulan pin-up girl.
great work, but both the green and grey parts need a a somewhat rougher texture, at the moment they appear to just be coloured rather than truly textured with a mapped image or a repeating tileable material. liking the red region around the nose thrusters and the grey side panels, rough enough to look good.
nose art would be great but..
in the words of shinzon of remus i'm not sure if they would put girls on their nose art.
I need to stop typing updates at 1am. 'nuff said.
- - -
UPDATE!
After further thought, I decided the textured paneling wasn't cutting it. Back to clay for line-cutting. I also added some applique armor tiling along the fore hull.
A render without any add-on armor.
But overall digging it! Really nice progress