Seriously, it's nice to know you're still plugging away on this one. As for the job, be happy you have one that allows you to do 3D all night. Not all of us are that lucky. (happy to be employed, just not that lucky)
As the site was down or unavailable all night, I'll post pictures later at work. Speaking of which, the client allows us to use personal computers, DVD players, or anything that helps us stay awake through the long, boring nights. Don't get me wrong, I have a great job, but the pay sucks and it's difficult to make ends meet. I'm trying to find employment as an investigator, but it's not going well. As nice as it is to play while at work, I'd trade it any time for a job that pays well enough to let me get back on my feet and live rather than just barely survive. Something I can only do with the charity of others at this moment.
Anyway, enough personal mess, pics will be forthcoming.
For those who have been following this thread from the beginning, you will notice this newest version shares some similarities to the others, but there are also several differences. I am trying to remain true to the original concept while expanding on the basic design elements and the overall aesthetic to achieve a superior product. Therefore, as promised, here are pictures of my latest restart. I will endeavor to update at least once a week and hopefully this time proves to be the charm. Enjoy.
As I stated previously, I have also been recreating the support vehicles for the carrier, her is my latest concept for a troop transport shuttle. I tried to recapture the previous design characteristics while improving on them, but certain parts I’m not too sure about as a potential end product. I may revisit this design later and apply some new techniques I’ve developed while rebuilding the carrier. Enjoy.
Nice restart on the carrier. I definitely see the familiar design, but with some new stuff too. I really like the latest incarnation of the transport shuttle. Great job on that.
Okay, update time, instead of following my usual path and beginning to detail the ship, I started to work on some of the peripherals, such as the guns. Trying to remain true to the original concept; however, as my old friend Crimsonline pointed out years ago, the guns never looked right on this ship. They did not look Klingon, nor did they truly fit the ship; therefore, this time around I took inspiration from a design I was toying with for another ship that never got past the guns. Additionally, I usually apply only a material (color) to the ship, which always makes it look so new and fresh out of the spacedock. This time I’m taking a new approach and applying some textures as well to give it an older, used and abused feel. Maybe this will be the catalyst I need to complete the ship, who knows. Anyway, here are some updates and a few at the end to establish scale. Which by the way, there is an interesting story behind the scale of this ship, but I’ll post it another time, for now enjoy the pics.
It's not typical to see gun turrets like these on Star Trek ships. Usually, stuff that doesn't look like guns winds up being the weapons. The exception, of course, is the Klingon Bird of Prey. Having said that, they don't look bad. They could work, as long as you do the rest of the detailing right. It helps that you're not putting the big swivel turrets all over the ship. The smaller wing guns definitely fit Trek designs better.
I’ve been working hard on this latest version, getting a lot done; however, as I review my previous day’s work, I continue to find things that I either do not like or have mesh related issues. For example, I rebuilt the main turret guns because I still was not happy with their angular appearance. Fortunately, I really like my new design, it looks more “modern” and it give the right fit and feel for this ship.
So, once I completed the reconstruction of the new main guns, I moved on to the in-close guns. These will be positioned around the launch and recovery tubes, or any area that needs protecting, such as the bridge or the engines.
Speaking of guns, I’ve got some further rework to do on the head of the ship because after spending an entire night at work plating the ship and then adding the medium range gun turrets along the port side of the aft portion of the head, I discovered earlier today that the entire section is a mess. Apparently, the computer or the program (to be more precise) played me for a sucker while I was building it and somehow jacked up much of this area. It’s hard to see the issues in the pictures, but believe me they are there.
However, before I began on those, I started some detailing of the head, including the bridge (no picture yet, sorry). I cut the VIP shuttle bay into the neck and the upper shuttle bay into the side. Added the observation windows, lots of plating, and thus far finished up with the forward impulse engines and another set of gun turrets along the side of the neck.
So, there you have it, progress, one step forward and two steps back. Enjoy.
Thought I would check in and let you guys know I'm still working on the ship, should have some more pics soon. I have been a bit busy at work, pulling extra hours because the client decided to lay off a lot of employees and when they do, they are always afraid of someone coming back and causing trouble, so they request extra security for a few weeks afterwards. Unfortunately, they started their cut backs by eliminating some of our guards, so we are extremely short staffed and our district manager is an idiot who does nothing to support his post supervisors. Thus, my boss has to make do with what he has because his boss won't get him the help he needs per the client's request. Yeah, I scratch my head on this one too.
This past weekend was a blow, spent most of Saturday and Sunday installing a garage door and opener in my friend's garage. He's the one I share his house with, him and his wife. Sucks when you can't afford to support yourself by yourself. Anyway, once I have time to connect to my home Internet, I'll post more pics and show my progress. Of course, it doesn't help that I've had to rebuild certain sections two or three times because the program keeps doing wonky stuff.
Hang in there, bro. It sounds like a really crappy situation at work, but hopefully things will get better. It's always a bad thing when companies start laying off or firing people. Not only does it hurt the people who lose their jobs, but it hurts the people who then have to do more work because of there being less people.
There's no shame in living with people. At least you're working and making money, as opposed to just sitting on your butt. I had to move back in with my parents a few years ago, but I did it to have a place to live. I'm just glad I'm employed full time again, so I can buy groceries and help pay for other stuff around here.
Due to certain technical issues, those updates will be a little longer in coming. In short, I was unable to work on the ship last night, nor will I be able to do so tonight because my wireless keyboard I use while in my car at work took a dump. I made some modifications to it to make life easier for me and wouldn't you know it, as soon as I did it stopped working and started sending crazy signals to my netbook that caused it to do some very strange things, such as activating shortcuts I didn't even know existed. Luckily, no damage done to the netbook or the ship file, just frustrating is all.
To make matters worse, I bought a new keyboard and mouse today and only the mouse worked, the keyboard did not. Brand new, out of the box, and it failed. And people wonder why I hate computers. So, going to return it tomorrow and try again. Hopefully, I'll have updates posted Saturday afternoon or evening. Until then, again, my apologies.
Tell me about it, got a new keyboard combo today, checked it before moding it, worked fine. Modified it, still worked fine. Got to work tonight, worked fine. An hour into work and it stopped working. Go figure.
There are days I really just want to give up and say to heck with it, let my demons loose, wreck havoc on the world, and just stop giving a .... altogether.
Ok, it's 5 am where I'm at, I'm tired, but as promised updates. I'll let the pics speak for themselves, but I'll say this, it's all in the details. Subtle changes made throughout these pics from start to finish because of one issue or another.
By the way, I figured out my keyboard problem, but as I said, I'm tired, so I'll explain that one a little later. In the meantime, enjoy.
It's looking really nice. With all of those guns, it could broadside another ship. Are the smaller things below the cannons (seen clearly in pic 58) photon launchers?
At least you figured out your keyboard issue, whatever it was.
Keyboard issue was amps. Yes, amps; apparently, as it turns out, these wireless keyboard can run off more than 3 volts, but not more than 1 amp. Let me explain, the keyboard uses 2 AAA batteries that produce a total of 3 volts, but can only produce a maximum of 1 amp. However, my modifications allowed me to hardwire the keyboard to run off a 5 volt USB plug/port that barely produces any amps, when plugged into a computer port. But I was trying to run the keyboard off my car's cigarette lighter via an adaptor; unfortunately, this allowed more than 1 amp to pass through and fried two keyboards total, before I found out what was going on. Additionally, I attempted to create a keyboard light from some PVC pipe and Christmas tree lights. This worked until the amp surge that fried my keyboard also fried my bulbs. So, I had to redesign my keyboard light from the ground up as well.
Anyway, haven't been able to work on it for the last few days as I've been busy running network cable through the house to the basement from the attic (my room). I'm trying to set up a secondary computer station down there in my workshop. CGI is one of many hobbies I have, Airsoft is another. I run a small business based around Airsoft, I was manufacturing tactical gear and other stuff, but right now I'm mostly providing tech services, repair, upgrade, and customization of Airsoft guns. You can track some of my projects, etc. on www.airsoftsociety.com. I go by BoogerMc there as well, so just look up my profile and then follow my threads, especially my Engineering, Tricks, and Tips, my Overkill is at it again, and my Ongoing Projects threads. I've even managed to work some CGI into the things I do in Airsoft.I
Heh, Airsoft. When I was in the Army, we used to do Airsoft wars in the barracks. Not something we were supposed to have or do, of course, but nobody really cared.
Good news, I have finished the head of the ship to the point I am currently satisfied with it; although, I may make a few tweaks in the future depending on how the rest of the ship turns out. I have begun the neck, which does not look as though it will take long. Therefore look for update pics by the end of the weekend.
Well Here they are, the devil is in the details. I've been tweaking things as I go, minor changes to materials, lighting, and the original mesh itself. I don't have any numbers on the mesh yet, but using Blender's measurement units and doing some math based on my scaling, I do have some for the ship, but I'll post those at the bottom. After you see the ship, you'll understand the stats a little better. So, enjoy.
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Klingon Carrier Statistical Specifications and General Information
Head Section
Decks: 137
Note: Each deck consists of a corridor of 4 meters in height and a crawlspace of 4 meters in height for a total of 8 meters.
If we had a box built to the dimensions of each ship, the total cubic meters each box would contain are:
Klingon Carrier: Total Cubic Dimension: 88,042,736,340 cubic meters
Romulan Warbird: Total Cubic Dimension: 229,260,840 cubic meters
Galaxy Class Starship: Total Cubic Dimension: 58,178,640 cubic meters
By cubic meters, the Klingon Carrier is:
Approximately 384 times larger than a Romulan Warbird
Approximately 1,513 times larger than a Galaxy Class Starship
By comparison the Klingon Carrier is larger than a Romulan Warbird by:
5.61 times higher
10.76 times wider
6.35 times longer
By comparison the Klingon Carrier is larger than a Galaxy Class Starship by:
8.21 times higher
17.9 times wider
10.3 times longer
So there you have it, I finally got this ship up to the standards she was designed to be built at, which in a word is gigantic, ok, maybe huge. Those poor Romulans don't stand a chance.
The math was converting the in Blender measurements to real life dimensions. For example, in Blender, a corridor is scaled to 0.02 so that would be 4 meters in real life. The actual difference between the highest vert on the head to the lowest once converted to meters gave me just a fraction under 138 decks at 8 meters per deck, so I rounded the decks to 137, but the height is determined from the actual measurement rounded to the nearest meter. Even using the metric scale, I don't think Blender could handle this thing, it's already giving my system fits. Even the one my friend uses, which is super fast, took a dump trying to do a single render. Had to restart Blender almost a dozen times last night while merging the two halves of the head for my completed ship file. By that I mean I am building each section of the ship in one file and then importing the completed mesh into a second file that will be used for rendering only.
Anyway, hope to get more done tonight or tomorrow.
Okay, a minor update, but take these with a grain of salt because changes have been made since these were rendered. However, I felt I owed you guys an update none-the-less. First, the following paragraphs introduce some information, which will help you to better understand where I’m at and where I’m going with this ship both in construction and in background. Second, one of these times, I’m going to write up the history behind this ship, not the real one, but the imagined one. How the ship came to be, who designed it, and why it is designed the way it is from the point of view as if this were a real ship and its history were being published in a Klingon newspaper or whatever they use in the Star Trek universe of this time period. Third, the renders should also help to establish a better sense of scale and just how massive this ship rally is. That being said, enjoy.
Ship Compliments
Bird of Prey
Although there is much debate over the size of certain Klingon ships, especially the Bird of Prey, let’s examine a few truths about the Klingons before establishing some numbers. First, Klingons believe in redundancy, their ships have built in back up systems even for their back up systems. In fact, I remember reading somewhere that Klingon anatomy is much the same, they have two hearts, as well as several other organs that are doubled inside their bodies, if one fails or becomes problematic, the other takes over or steps up its usefulness. Therefore, they build their ships much the same.
Second, Klingons like to keep things simple; they design most everything to be modular, so to speak. As for ship design, this means that they keep things simple and interchangeable. A module of one ship will work just as well in another, so for example, an impulse coil of a BoP will also work in a Vorcha class cruiser. They tend to mass-produce various parts and components so as to maintain this philosophy.
Third, everything in the Klingon culture is based around honor and bloodlines (family) because of this, their society centers on these beliefs in many ways, including shipbuilding. The more powerful or wealthier a family is, the better, bigger, or badder their ships are likely to be. Therefore, it is not unforeseeable for certain families to require or at least request variations to the standard. This would explain the multiple ship size comparison discrepancies, especially where the BoP is concerned.
This being said, after some research, the apparent original size for a BoP (as it first appeared in STIII: TSFS was 110 meters. However, subsequent appearances would perplex many Trekkies and create a rather intense debate over the actual size of the BoP. Fortunately, this can be easily explained, if one considers more than just movie and TV reference material. As stated, taking culture and the like into account, the original Star Trek canon established three classes of BoP, the D-12, the B’rel, and the K’vort. Within these three classes, there may exist several sizes based on the requirements of the commissioning family.
Klingon ships are not built like Federation or Vulcan ships, they are commissioned by individual families or groups of families to serve the house of that family. Therefore, if a high ruling class family commissions a ship, it also dictates the specific needs of that ship. If it is a scout ship, it may be smaller than standard, if a cruiser, it may be slightly larger than standard; same goes for the mission requirements, perhaps it is for a high dignitary and therefore needs to present a more impressive appearance. It may be built slightly different than standard in order to give the right impression. Anyway, point is, there is no one set size or standard for Klingon ships as there are with other species.
All that having been established, using the same measuring techniques and mathematics, the BoPs pictured are approximately 132 meters in length and there are 21 of them inside the tail section of the carrier. The top row consists of 11 ships and the bottom row is 10 ships. This allows for a compliment of seven scouting groups or three squads of attack cruisers, depends on how they are deployed.
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Pic 106
As you can see, the interior of the tail, the Bird of Prey docking bay can hold several BoPs, as it stand in the pictures, there are 21, but recent corrections and changes have brought this number up to 22. Hopefully I’ll have more updates by the end of next week and they will be much more detailed and show a more completed ship. Again, until then enjoy.
Some further updates, that lead to further issues and even more changes, so don't get used to these because many of them have already changed. I'm posting them so you guys can see the process of progress.
Posts
Seriously, it's nice to know you're still plugging away on this one. As for the job, be happy you have one that allows you to do 3D all night. Not all of us are that lucky. (happy to be employed, just not that lucky)
Anyway, enough personal mess, pics will be forthcoming.
Nice restart.
So, once I completed the reconstruction of the new main guns, I moved on to the in-close guns. These will be positioned around the launch and recovery tubes, or any area that needs protecting, such as the bridge or the engines.
Speaking of guns, I’ve got some further rework to do on the head of the ship because after spending an entire night at work plating the ship and then adding the medium range gun turrets along the port side of the aft portion of the head, I discovered earlier today that the entire section is a mess. Apparently, the computer or the program (to be more precise) played me for a sucker while I was building it and somehow jacked up much of this area. It’s hard to see the issues in the pictures, but believe me they are there.
However, before I began on those, I started some detailing of the head, including the bridge (no picture yet, sorry). I cut the VIP shuttle bay into the neck and the upper shuttle bay into the side. Added the observation windows, lots of plating, and thus far finished up with the forward impulse engines and another set of gun turrets along the side of the neck.
So, there you have it, progress, one step forward and two steps back. Enjoy.
This past weekend was a blow, spent most of Saturday and Sunday installing a garage door and opener in my friend's garage. He's the one I share his house with, him and his wife. Sucks when you can't afford to support yourself by yourself. Anyway, once I have time to connect to my home Internet, I'll post more pics and show my progress. Of course, it doesn't help that I've had to rebuild certain sections two or three times because the program keeps doing wonky stuff.
Until then, this is as good as it gets.
There's no shame in living with people. At least you're working and making money, as opposed to just sitting on your butt. I had to move back in with my parents a few years ago, but I did it to have a place to live. I'm just glad I'm employed full time again, so I can buy groceries and help pay for other stuff around here.
To make matters worse, I bought a new keyboard and mouse today and only the mouse worked, the keyboard did not. Brand new, out of the box, and it failed. And people wonder why I hate computers. So, going to return it tomorrow and try again. Hopefully, I'll have updates posted Saturday afternoon or evening. Until then, again, my apologies.
There are days I really just want to give up and say to heck with it, let my demons loose, wreck havoc on the world, and just stop giving a .... altogether.
By the way, I figured out my keyboard problem, but as I said, I'm tired, so I'll explain that one a little later. In the meantime, enjoy.
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At least you figured out your keyboard issue, whatever it was.
Keyboard issue was amps. Yes, amps; apparently, as it turns out, these wireless keyboard can run off more than 3 volts, but not more than 1 amp. Let me explain, the keyboard uses 2 AAA batteries that produce a total of 3 volts, but can only produce a maximum of 1 amp. However, my modifications allowed me to hardwire the keyboard to run off a 5 volt USB plug/port that barely produces any amps, when plugged into a computer port. But I was trying to run the keyboard off my car's cigarette lighter via an adaptor; unfortunately, this allowed more than 1 amp to pass through and fried two keyboards total, before I found out what was going on. Additionally, I attempted to create a keyboard light from some PVC pipe and Christmas tree lights. This worked until the amp surge that fried my keyboard also fried my bulbs. So, I had to redesign my keyboard light from the ground up as well.
Anyway, haven't been able to work on it for the last few days as I've been busy running network cable through the house to the basement from the attic (my room). I'm trying to set up a secondary computer station down there in my workshop. CGI is one of many hobbies I have, Airsoft is another. I run a small business based around Airsoft, I was manufacturing tactical gear and other stuff, but right now I'm mostly providing tech services, repair, upgrade, and customization of Airsoft guns. You can track some of my projects, etc. on www.airsoftsociety.com. I go by BoogerMc there as well, so just look up my profile and then follow my threads, especially my Engineering, Tricks, and Tips, my Overkill is at it again, and my Ongoing Projects threads. I've even managed to work some CGI into the things I do in Airsoft.I
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Klingon Carrier Statistical Specifications and General Information
Head Section
Decks: 137
Note: Each deck consists of a corridor of 4 meters in height and a crawlspace of 4 meters in height for a total of 8 meters.
Overall Exterior Dimensions:
Height: 990 meters approx.
Width: 2,200 meters approx.
Length: 3,080 meters approx.
Complete Ship
Overall Exterior Dimensions:
Height: 1,601 meters approx.
Width: 8,307 meters approx.
Length: 6,620 meters approx.
Romulan Warbird
Overall Exterior Dimensions:
Height: 285 meters approx.
Width: 772 meters approx.
Length: 1,042 meters approx.
Galaxy Class Starship
Overall Exterior Dimensions:
Height: 195 meters approx.
Width: 464 meters approx.
Length: 643 meters approx.
If we had a box built to the dimensions of each ship, the total cubic meters each box would contain are:
Klingon Carrier: Total Cubic Dimension: 88,042,736,340 cubic meters
Romulan Warbird: Total Cubic Dimension: 229,260,840 cubic meters
Galaxy Class Starship: Total Cubic Dimension: 58,178,640 cubic meters
By cubic meters, the Klingon Carrier is:
Approximately 384 times larger than a Romulan Warbird
Approximately 1,513 times larger than a Galaxy Class Starship
By comparison the Klingon Carrier is larger than a Romulan Warbird by:
5.61 times higher
10.76 times wider
6.35 times longer
By comparison the Klingon Carrier is larger than a Galaxy Class Starship by:
8.21 times higher
17.9 times wider
10.3 times longer
So there you have it, I finally got this ship up to the standards she was designed to be built at, which in a word is gigantic, ok, maybe huge. Those poor Romulans don't stand a chance.
Anyway, hope to get more done tonight or tomorrow.
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Enjoy.
Ship Compliments
Bird of Prey
Although there is much debate over the size of certain Klingon ships, especially the Bird of Prey, let’s examine a few truths about the Klingons before establishing some numbers. First, Klingons believe in redundancy, their ships have built in back up systems even for their back up systems. In fact, I remember reading somewhere that Klingon anatomy is much the same, they have two hearts, as well as several other organs that are doubled inside their bodies, if one fails or becomes problematic, the other takes over or steps up its usefulness. Therefore, they build their ships much the same.
Second, Klingons like to keep things simple; they design most everything to be modular, so to speak. As for ship design, this means that they keep things simple and interchangeable. A module of one ship will work just as well in another, so for example, an impulse coil of a BoP will also work in a Vorcha class cruiser. They tend to mass-produce various parts and components so as to maintain this philosophy.
Third, everything in the Klingon culture is based around honor and bloodlines (family) because of this, their society centers on these beliefs in many ways, including shipbuilding. The more powerful or wealthier a family is, the better, bigger, or badder their ships are likely to be. Therefore, it is not unforeseeable for certain families to require or at least request variations to the standard. This would explain the multiple ship size comparison discrepancies, especially where the BoP is concerned.
This being said, after some research, the apparent original size for a BoP (as it first appeared in STIII: TSFS was 110 meters. However, subsequent appearances would perplex many Trekkies and create a rather intense debate over the actual size of the BoP. Fortunately, this can be easily explained, if one considers more than just movie and TV reference material. As stated, taking culture and the like into account, the original Star Trek canon established three classes of BoP, the D-12, the B’rel, and the K’vort. Within these three classes, there may exist several sizes based on the requirements of the commissioning family.
Klingon ships are not built like Federation or Vulcan ships, they are commissioned by individual families or groups of families to serve the house of that family. Therefore, if a high ruling class family commissions a ship, it also dictates the specific needs of that ship. If it is a scout ship, it may be smaller than standard, if a cruiser, it may be slightly larger than standard; same goes for the mission requirements, perhaps it is for a high dignitary and therefore needs to present a more impressive appearance. It may be built slightly different than standard in order to give the right impression. Anyway, point is, there is no one set size or standard for Klingon ships as there are with other species.
All that having been established, using the same measuring techniques and mathematics, the BoPs pictured are approximately 132 meters in length and there are 21 of them inside the tail section of the carrier. The top row consists of 11 ships and the bottom row is 10 ships. This allows for a compliment of seven scouting groups or three squads of attack cruisers, depends on how they are deployed.
Pic 101
Pic 102
Pic 103
Pic 104
Pic 105
Pic 106
As you can see, the interior of the tail, the Bird of Prey docking bay can hold several BoPs, as it stand in the pictures, there are 21, but recent corrections and changes have brought this number up to 22. Hopefully I’ll have more updates by the end of next week and they will be much more detailed and show a more completed ship. Again, until then enjoy.
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