evil_genius_180

I'm pretty sure this will do it for the secondary hull. At least, I don't think I forgot anything I plan to put on there.







I didn't do the little sign that goes next to the warp pylon because, if I do it, I'll add it after I add the pylon. However, I have mixed feeling about that sign. The sign says:

"Tail pipe socket adjustment access"

However, that sign goes against the wishes of the designer. When he was designing the Enterprise, Matt Jefferies remembered being in WWII and having to leave his post to go fix something. He figured, by the time the show was supposed to take place, they would have devised a way to fix anything wrong with the ship from the inside. This makes sense, as the ship is in space and fixing something from the outside involves space walks in space suits. That sign indicates that someone has to do a space walk to adjust the tail pipe socket (whatever that is) from the outside. That makes no sense, as it should be accessible from the inside. Indeed, during the run of TOS, we never once saw Scotty suit up to do a repair, he and his team always fixed things from the inside, as did other members of the crew, such as Spock. So, I don't think I'll include that sign or the one or two others on the saucer.

I added a really basic interior. It's just boxes behind the windows with a couple procedurals mixed to make it look like there's something there. I've done interiors like this a lot in the past using Lightwave, and I'm happy that it works basically the same in Blender.

As anyone who has built an Enterprise refit or Reliant can tell you, this piece is considerably different on the Constellation class:



It presented a considerable modeling challenge, but in some ways was actually easier to build than the same piece on the other two models. Anyway, hopefully I did it justice:





It started off life as a cube with a lot of adding cuts and fudging with the verts to get it where I needed it to be before hitting it with a considerable amount of Sub D. It may not be 100%, in fact I guarantee it's not, but it will do. After all, when you're shaping something based solely on a screencap and using blueprints for something else as a reference, there's a definite margin for error.

Incidentally, if nobody else has listened to it, Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack for the movie Alien is quite excellent. I've been listening to that and the TMP Director's Edition soundtrack while working.

Racing stripes. I also added a bit more detail to the thrusters.

Thanks guys.

Working on some pod details.

Helot wrote: »

Why I paint in windows 90% of time. I always get scale wrong! Loving this.

I can't do it, I have to model almost everything. This ship has no textures, everything you see is modeled.

Windows on the B/C deck, along with the rectangle. Also, sensor domes and weapons.





Now we get to one of the issues I have with these blueprints. In TOS, the photon torpedoes always fired from the lower saucer, either the exact same spot as the phasers or at least very close:


(original effect from The Ultimate Computer, where the M5 Multitronic Unit destroys the Woden)

However, the blueprints have the torpedo launchers on C deck:



I think we can all agree that that's an error. I know from reading an interview with Franz Joseph that he was watching TOS in syndication as part of his research for the blueprints and technical manual. So, I don't know why he has the torpedo launchers there. I put mine on J deck (Deck 10) so they line up to be just over the floor on the deck, as is consistent with the torpedoes being loaded into the launchers via the track in the floor in TWOK. I think this works better:



As far as I'm concerned, those windows could represent the weapons room seen in Balance of Terror. In fact, I'm about to go eat lunch and watch that episode.

I started on a new ship yesterday:









Originally, I intended this to be a scout. However, the ship is actually quite large, by TOS standards. It's 202 meters long, just about 86 meters shy of the Enterprise. In fact, I actually used the saucer, engineering hull and nacelles of the Enterprise as reference and just scaled them down. The saucer and nacelles are slightly smaller, and the engineering section, which I sort of mashed into the saucer, is thinner, but the hanger bay is about the same size. The opening for sure is the same size. So, I decided to make it a light cruiser, as I always figure scouts are smaller ships. This sort of fits with canon, as indicated by the dialog from Star Trek III:

Chekov: I could swear there was something there, sir.
Kirk: What did you see?
Chekov: For an instance, a Scout-class wessel.
Kirk: Could be Grissom.

What Chekov actually saw on his scanners was the Klingon Bird-of-Prey, which was a smaller B'Rel-class ship, just before it cloaked. He thought it was a scout ship. Kirk said from that description that it could be the Grissom, which was a smaller ship. Basically, Kirk was saying the Grissom was Scout-class.

Anywho, my ship is something I'm designing as I go, but it's obviously based on some existing designs. Also, I'm giving it more details than TOS had, because I like to do that. Despite what they say, about "modernizing" designs, all you really need to make TOS look more like modern stuff is to give it some extra details. Speaking of that, I found my old "upgraded" TOS Enterprise on a drive:









I did this ship 3 years ago, and I basically took the TOS design and added bits like thrusters, weapons, docking ports and more glowy bits. I also gave it hull paneling, but I need to change my texture settings as it's only in the specular channel. But, that's easy to fix. I just have to do a setting more like what I used on my most recent model. I already changed the bussard domes and some other glowy bits to materials similar to my most recent build.

OK, I fixed the teardrop so I can put windows in it.



Before I figured out the deck plan, I worked on the saucer edge. This is what made me do the deck plan, as I needed a plan before putting windows into the saucer edge.

So, this is a model I made about 10 years ago:



A little back story on this. I originally built a version of this ship in Truespace. Then, in late 2013, I was attached to a fan film as the model maker. They had ideas for what they wanted as the hero ship, so I showed them that model and they liked it, so I rebuilt it in Lightwave 10. Then there was a bunch of childish stuff with the people making the film, and then the whole thing with the people making Axanar doing things they shouldn't be doing happened, which led to the restrictions on fan films, so the film I was attached to fizzled. No biggie to me, but I wound up with some models left over, including this one. I would just convert the model, but it's not up to my current standards, so I just rendered some orthos and I'm going to rebuild it in Blender.

After I got home from work yesterday, I reworked the lines on the neck a bit. No need to do new renders for that, the work is visible in a few of these renders. Today I'm off work, so I spent much of my morning working on lines for the saucer section. I also recreated the indentations for the RCS thrusters, created an indentation for the upper registry and I put the greeble indents back in roughly where the lighted panels were on the original model. For the underside, I decided to put in some nods to the original ship with the 3 indented rings that go around the whole diameter and the triangle details.








For the bits I have modeled, I need to do line work on the teardrop, but I'm probably going to take a break from this for the rest of the day.