Probably not much visual going on but the saucer and aft hull are now one subdiv unit. While some things are not to my liking Things seem to be flowing pretty good. It is going to be one ugly object to clean, loads of dead end edges leading to the flat faces.
I have opted for the tos like dome effect but it is a real drag on renders. I dunno why a gradient adds so much to the render but heh.
Having to redo the saucer as I totally forgot to do all the match to get the TOS grids on the thing as they break panels on center lines and I hate doing this on existing edges on a hull as they make the smoothing segment up visually so having to respin and weld in the saucer bit of the hull this is allowing me time to do poly decimation on the inner saucer parts so I can save a good number of polies and avoid that density mess that occurs near the centers. Means all that saucer stuff I did is gone now and needs redoing as I cannot patch in the old crap. Hopefully nothing is different visually except the uvws are all screwed up.
More grids and loads of time wasted on setting up mapped bussards as temps. (still seem to take forever to render) whilst doing this it seems adjusting and resetting the render settings now has self lum objects blowing things out. I have adjusted some of it but you can see it really well in white lights. Go fig. Upper saucer grids are as temp as the lower ones as I decide how to deal with spacing on the horz lines. As well as how the grids dead end into the bulkhead. TMP model they just ended into the wall which was just coped to the saucer profile vs being puttied in or any other sense of making it part of the hull.
Grids are only 1" wide and using a black paint material so likely I will use a tinted material later on or extrude the grids on a bevel so they wont be so pronounced. I have yet to decide if the grids will run right up to the bridge super like on the connie or end just before.
Aft conference room or lounge etc. Big decision is if I will do a TOS connie room config for the rest of the B/C deck or go with groupings of TMP like portholes.
Ok all bits welded together. The BC deck might be a bit to rounded in on the seam. Thing between the turbolift caps is a hatch to exit the ship. Probably the worst place to go as you have no way up once you slide down the hull heh. No ladders like the Yamato. Not sure if I want to add any decal details on these bits or keep them clean. I had planned to do a stenciled panel line around the rear lounge windows so they would look like a module insert but I kinda like the molded in look.
intercoolers or whatever the fin things are. and uh some other things I forget atm. Oh adjustments to the nacelles and changing of the fronts of the nacelles too. The old brackets were to detailed for my liking and well looked odd, still look odd but well dunno.
Starting to second guess the nacelle shapes too so dunno might just change it all.
Mostly small changes all over and refinement of bits here and there. Impulse deck is looking a bit messy now so I might reduce some of the crap going on back there. . . . . .
Mostly doing those belly elements, I kept pretty close to the originals with these with a few changes. Front torps are in but I am thinking maybe I should have kept them further apart so the internals would flank the sensor core and other gubbins that runs through the saucer center. Something I found odd on the studio model those flanking vent slots have like little oval dishes inside. So I added those to it and put blue on em to match, all goes dark though so meh.
LOL I keep rattling on about those things that are in a tri formation on the connie and keep forgetting they are constantly labeled as docking hard points. They are labeled as such on miranda documentation, though I dunno how canon any of that is. (IE official printworks) Either way likely have to rethink that ribbed crap as well it is pointless shaving hard points in the locations I have them etc.
Render just shows a mess of fill ports and emergency venting nozzles. As well as emergency antimatter containment ejection hatches. YES they would interfere with a roll bar but I think they rethink the layout later on as making them dump between the nacelles sounds a bit brainless to me. Debating if I will add all the grid lines over this flat surface and the TNG ship is full of panel lines and grids bumps and random stuck on bits of styrene cubes. Likely make these fill nozzles inset vs just stuff stuck on as they are now. Mostly deciding how they look and if I like the positions.
belly render as I messed about with things a bit here too. Mostly adjusting heights and spacing of bits. Do need to figure out how I want to end the gridwork in this area too and to unify the "tacked" on details better.
Matter fill tank nozzles in a pit now, added some stuff on the belly maybe carried away on some of it. And added some TOS connie markings. Ignore the ****ery near those right of way lights be fixing that up soon, just some badly turned edges as max chose wrong yet again and given 2013 does edge turning as solid lines vs older dashed lines it gets a bit visually confusing as what is a hidden edge and what isnt. Oh yeah note lower grids are more pronounced as they are the wrong material atm. I do not think I will be extruding in any of the grids as they are 1" wide and a chamfer and extrude might be too tight for the renderer to resolve them meaning it would break up unless I set ungodly sample settings that would cause all sorts of other artifacts later on.
Also looking at the aft render, I am starting to think maybe too much is going on around the tops of the impulse drives. Maybe pull off those rib parts or the shunt bars? Also gotta remember to alter the red markings on those hatches as it is too much red gunk all over.
What opinions are there on windows? Frosted to mimic the TOS studio model or clear to see into the rooms?
eh soso update, not all that sure I will use these endcaps or do something more inline with TOS canon. I did forget to adjust the lower nacelle when in subdiv to not taper so much at the bottom. OOPS.
Well starting work on placing windows and with a deck thickness of some 50ft or so there is just NO way I can cram all those TMP era windows in. Not that I had any plans to match them all but I just cannot see how you can get 8 decks in there. I am guessing the adage of 2 window rows = one deck. I wont be doing that. Right now I can cram in 4 10ft decks. Giving most finished deck heights would be about 8 to 9ft this would give room for cables and pipes. Looking at many blues for this thing most give a deck count here of 5 decks.
Well got 4 decks of windows and it looks easily cluttered with holes. I might actually pull some of these off as it does look like too many, even if this is a ship recently built given the connie was already 25yrs old at this stage. (2245~2265~6) The saucer will have unique layout all round but the window farms will just be mirrored. One thing I do not think i will manage is to squash 3 rows of holes on the forward facing bulkheads above the saucer.
Oh interesting fact those vents at the rear of the saucer that I saw had little dishes inside (photo ref) are labled as nav deflectors on some of the blues I found. SO yeah heh. I also took off those podiums that I had those ribbed bits on. I dunno if I will replace them with some other element or not.
Currently opinion is 2:5 against clear windows so likely I will be placing clear glass in.
More window layouts. Sorta going for a connie layout here but given the larger hull in the saucer spacing is ever so off not to mention that thing on the saucer blocks some of the placements. Some of the windows near the torps are up for being moved as I feel they are a bit close. (least the purple row) Also added some small RCS, I am unsure if I will leave the yellow glow or not or patch them and make smaller units. I thought of using a series of small round holes on the hull instead. Another thing to note I have not found any other RCS on the main hull of the TMP version of the ship, did they think just the nacelle units would be enough?
I still need to finish up the panels on the saucer too. Idea is to hint at a TMP pattern.
Aft windows in same on both sides except the lighting is unique. Likely have to fine tune it down the road. ATM it is just white rooms with no textures or anything else.
I have been thinking about the forward bulkhead rooms as some of those are listed as arboretum on some blues but I do not think any of those are canon but the idea persists.
really hate these round portholes, expanding them out into rooms is a real PITA.
To note some rooms have bits of those brackets in them which will change as I cut things down and decide how the mechanical bits of those things will work. IE move the rooms some or move the bits of the overlapped polies. comparo of frosted and unfrosted glass as well as small details added to the grids.
bulkhead windows
I am also finding the glows off my lum objects are being choked down IE they fall off very fast so some rooms they only lite up one wall or less some none at all. While I want a tight fall off to get that patchy TOS lighting I do not want rooms to fall off to black unless it is a unlit room.
First set of windows here. Goofed a bit and I will have to respin those purple ones to get them a bit lower than they are now as clearances for the rooms were a bit to tight. This is part of why the purple ones are sticking out of the hull so much in the render as it was an attempt to get the clearance but it is still too tight resulting in really high windows on those rooms IE near the ceilings. I think I had similar issues with the TOS connie as rooms couldn't bee too deep without crossing each other or using one large room for some windows. heh, Also some changes to the grids and small markings.
More windows and markings on the lower hull. I debated on all the tiny tick marks as I will have to spin them all over the saucer but it adds that bit of eye dirt to the ship. Added a few smartass labels to the hull too. Probably move onto the upper saucer soon so I can remember to match up the random markings. Then rim windows I suppose. Going to have to detach panels soon to do unique uvws unless I decide to planar map them to do the grunge maps but I might just do those as a separate UVW ID though that gets to headache levels of complexity in the textures.
Here is the update, just more panel lines that funny neck thing I had always thought was to patch up where the neck joined on the CONNIE before I knew that ILM built this out of scale and from scratch vs using existing molds. Now it just seems like some dodad to not have a nekkid saucer. I did think about leaving it out entirely and doing some other detail but ehhhhhhh I was lazy.
Eh a kinda crappy render, does not really show some of the grids. Maybe they are too close to the triangle thing. oh well. And yes, the uvw maps are all fugly right now.
Well, all the windows are in I think. I might pull off some of the windows in the aft hull area. It is a lot fewer than the TMP ship but it is a lot more than the connie in any one place.
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I have opted for the tos like dome effect but it is a real drag on renders. I dunno why a gradient adds so much to the render but heh.
Grids are only 1" wide and using a black paint material so likely I will use a tinted material later on or extrude the grids on a bevel so they wont be so pronounced. I have yet to decide if the grids will run right up to the bridge super like on the connie or end just before.
Ok all bits welded together. The BC deck might be a bit to rounded in on the seam. Thing between the turbolift caps is a hatch to exit the ship. Probably the worst place to go as you have no way up once you slide down the hull heh. No ladders like the Yamato. Not sure if I want to add any decal details on these bits or keep them clean. I had planned to do a stenciled panel line around the rear lounge windows so they would look like a module insert but I kinda like the molded in look.
Starting to second guess the nacelle shapes too so dunno might just change it all.
Render just shows a mess of fill ports and emergency venting nozzles. As well as emergency antimatter containment ejection hatches. YES they would interfere with a roll bar but I think they rethink the layout later on as making them dump between the nacelles sounds a bit brainless to me. Debating if I will add all the grid lines over this flat surface and the TNG ship is full of panel lines and grids bumps and random stuck on bits of styrene cubes. Likely make these fill nozzles inset vs just stuff stuck on as they are now. Mostly deciding how they look and if I like the positions.
belly render as I messed about with things a bit here too. Mostly adjusting heights and spacing of bits. Do need to figure out how I want to end the gridwork in this area too and to unify the "tacked" on details better.
Also looking at the aft render, I am starting to think maybe too much is going on around the tops of the impulse drives. Maybe pull off those rib parts or the shunt bars? Also gotta remember to alter the red markings on those hatches as it is too much red gunk all over.
What opinions are there on windows? Frosted to mimic the TOS studio model or clear to see into the rooms?
atm it is 2to5
Oh interesting fact those vents at the rear of the saucer that I saw had little dishes inside (photo ref) are labled as nav deflectors on some of the blues I found. SO yeah heh. I also took off those podiums that I had those ribbed bits on. I dunno if I will replace them with some other element or not.
Currently opinion is 2:5 against clear windows so likely I will be placing clear glass in.
I still need to finish up the panels on the saucer too. Idea is to hint at a TMP pattern.
I have been thinking about the forward bulkhead rooms as some of those are listed as arboretum on some blues but I do not think any of those are canon but the idea persists.
really hate these round portholes, expanding them out into rooms is a real PITA.
addition, bulkhead cutters set up. I could not figure out a way to get 3 rows in this area short of double decks or other foolery.
comparo of frosted and unfrosted glass as well as small details added to the grids.
bulkhead windows
I am also finding the glows off my lum objects are being choked down IE they fall off very fast so some rooms they only lite up one wall or less some none at all. While I want a tight fall off to get that patchy TOS lighting I do not want rooms to fall off to black unless it is a unlit room.
Eh a kinda crappy render, does not really show some of the grids. Maybe they are too close to the triangle thing. oh well. And yes, the uvw maps are all fugly right now.