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3DHeavy Cruiser (Trek or Stargate? What do u think?)

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  • Major DiarrhiaMajor Diarrhia331 Posts: 0Member
    Ashkael wrote: »
    Thank you for all your comments!

    @ saquist: Of course IA’ll do what I want ;-) But as you said I really appreciate all the critics and support I get, with every mesh I learn more about modelling (special thanks to spacefighter, life is so much easier now) and after all this is scifi, so the only limit is imagination!

    That beeing said, here is another small update, but I think as mentioned earlier concerning the windows, I have some really big scale issues. Any tips on how to establish a personal reference for detail size? IA’m quite sure the screws I added around the reactor cores look nice, but are probably as big as a car :-)

    Attachment not found.

    Scale really is hard to establish. Andrew Probert, Chris Foss, John Berkey, and who ever drew this reworking of Space Battleship Yamato are great at it.

    http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/qq83/oldschoolanime/Space%20Battleship%20Yamato/20919493_p1.jpg
    Ashkael wrote: »
    I liked your advice spacefighter, so here is a first impression of the sublight engines. I always liked the linear aerospike idea, so IA’ll try to adopt it. There will be 2 of those monsters btw.

    Attachment not found.
    I love the idea of using a linear aerospike; I'm not even going to make criticism on it, instead I'll just leave some info.

    Aerospikes are more efficient the longer the spike is made, but the longer the spike, the harder it is to cool it. Future materials, designs, and maybe force fields mean you could make the spike as long as you wish in order to extract the highest efficiency.

    Since the aerospike is for variable atmospheric pressure, maybe having vacuum dedicated engine cones, as well, makes sense. Two such cones, of very large size, might make the most sense, because it provides redundancy without being over redundant. On the other hand, a single giant engine would show a brave, confident design, besides which, the aerospikes would act as backups just in case.
  • spacefighterspacefighter2 Posts: 0Member
    that yamato picture is nice but really doesn't give much indication of scale., the key point for establishing scale is to use features that everyone knows the size they should be, airlocks for example or in some of your renders have an astronaut doing EVA to fix something on the hull., another thought is a small ship in the foreground of an image with it's crew visible to establish it's scale then the same type of small ship again emerging from a hangar bay on the cruiser in the background.
  • AshkaelAshkael0 Posts: 0Member
    ItA’s been a while, but I havenA’t given up yet. I really want to finish my first model and very much appreciate all your input!
    Here is a new rendering and some rough sketching of the main engines. Still have to figure out how they should look like, IA’m kinda lost. :-(
    cruiser37.jpg
    cruiser38.jpg

    Edit:
    I think this doesnA’t look that bad
    cruiser40.jpg
    107253.jpg107254.jpg107256.jpg
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804256 Posts: 11,034Member
    It's looking great. I'm glad you haven't given up on it, I think it's a great design and you're doing a great job on the modeling.
  • spacefighterspacefighter2 Posts: 0Member
    Great to see more work on this design. It doesn't look bad at all, there are some areas without enough details and some flat surfaces that could use texturing but the overall design and the detailed areas are fantastic. Tips for your engine design: avoid glowing stuff, go for hard mechanical and industrial shapes, look at the bell nozzles on the saturn v rocket. Glowy stuff can be put in later when you add flames/plumes. Forward shot is slightly better than the other two as the hull looks grey whilst the others show it to be yellowish. Nice choice of background image.
  • AshkaelAshkael0 Posts: 0Member
    How about something like this? I changed the color again, since u liked the dark one better.

    cruiser41.jpg

    Can I be lazy and use the same model for all 3 engine sizes or should I at least vary the small one?
    107259.jpg
  • AshkaelAshkael0 Posts: 0Member
    Had not much time to work on this ship, but here are some updates on the engine section and experimentations with the material. I tried a car paint material on the first one, but I think itA’s way to shiny though. Since IA’m still quite happy with the wings, I havenA’t done any details there yet. What weapons do you guys think this baby should have? I remember spacefighter suggesting heavy turrets in a superfire configuration. Maybe some unmovable heavy energy beam weapons and turrets along the way for fighter defense? Should they be retractable or always visible?

    cruiser43.jpgcruiser44.jpg
    107279.jpg107280.jpg
  • spacefighterspacefighter2 Posts: 0Member
    image from november 9th looks great, still could use a texture and some more details on the flat parts of the hull but otherwise really nice. I hadn't noticed those cool details inside the engine bells before, nice design. feel free to use those engines for all instances whatever the size, but you might want to remove the finest details from the small ones(leave them in the larger ones as thye are visble and look great there), as such details would probably not be noticed and would contribute unneccessary file size. i think the current grey colour is better than the yellow one, not because it's darker, that isn't a major part of the appearance, but because the yellow shade (however dark or light) didn't fit well with the details of the ship.

    today's post: glad to see an attempt at texturing. I think the left hand image is better as the texture is more visible, where on the right it is also just a uniform colour. Noticed those "hook/cover/shield" features above and below the main engines, they are a nice touch. Your material looks a bit too shiny, that is a consequence of your "specular" value not a consequence of texture choice, make your specular value less and give ti a darker colour to solve this. the very shiny silvery material on the pipes works quite well, it could do with being slightly duller but not by much. All in all my only real criticism is the plain flat expanses on the wing roots, thye are begging for details placed o them, even just some panel lines to break up the flat bits slighty. Now you have started adding texturs remember to be careful with lining them up at corners and edges, it really spoils a model if you can spot all the edges and corners because of discontinuities in the texture when it crosses them. I love the overall design of this ship and the details you have so far are awesome, you don't need to change the detailed parts now, thye are ideal for this design, you jusy need to add detail to the blank bits (as i said even panel lines can be REALLY helpful to the finished ship's appearance).

    As for weapons, and don't feel you have to take my advice here, it's just a suggestion. Give it something big spinally mounted, this will be the main offensive weapon, it could be a laser, or a rail gun or a coil gun, or some other sort of gun. then add some missile banks for a secondary offensive weapon, give them the sort of hatches you see on missile carrying submarines. Pop a few medium laser turrets on for a final offensive system. the for defensive systems give it some small laser turrets, rail gun turrets and more missile launchers. Think of the phalanx close in weapons system as found on current warships. Have quite a few of these but don't absolutely cover the hull in them, position them so there is no part of the ship which cannot be defended by a turret and then have a few spare turrets to add extra protection for the more sensitive regions. The wing roots would be a good place to mount some of these defensive turrets and perhaps the offensive ones. Don't make the turrest too big, it would spoil the nice lines, but don't worry about streamlining them either, this is a starship not an aeroplane. turrets that look a bit like the camera unit on a predator (or reaper) drone would be nice for defensive laser systems but keep them fairly small. and keep the offensive turrets small also. no need to worry about retraction unless you can find a really cool and elegant way, if you do then you needn't set it up for all the turrets just a few of them (you decide which). alongside turrets and weapons you need sensors, no point in a gun if it can't be aimed. these could be domes or dishes, or both and may or may not be partially retractable, not for aerodynamic reasons of course but to protect the long range high sensitivity vulnerable ones during close range battle. It could also have some fighter bays for a few defensive fighters (or drones)to launch from. Back on the subject of weapons, what type you choose will be based on how different weapon types compare in your verse. you might have a verse where lasers are high damage, long cooldown devices, in which case the spinally mounted superweapon would be a laser and everything else would be kinetic. or in a verse where lasers are low damage fast "reload" you would have laser defenses and the superweapon (and offensive stuff) would all be kinetic. one other thought, with all those lasers you will need somewhere to dump the waste heat they generate, you could put radiators on those wing root areas, thye could either be folding retracting systems with armoured covers, or thye could be grills all over those currently blank regions. thye would add both detail and plausability at once.
  • evil_genius_180evil_genius_1804256 Posts: 11,034Member
    I like the engines a lot.

    In regards to the material. Car paint is designed to look fantastic in heavy sunlight on our planet. I'm not sure you're going to get the same effect in space. Having said that, it doesn't look horrible. With a few tweaks, I think you'll have a great looking metallic material.

    For the guns, I don't see why you'd need them to be retracted, or hidden behind doors. Usually, that's only necessary to increase the airflow around your craft or to decrease your radar signature. For space, that's not necessary. Also, you are clearly going for a look with lots of greebley details, so I don't see why you'd need to hide your guns. Let them show. But, that's just my opinion, take it or leave it. ;)
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