Miscellaneous Stuff

[evil_genius_180]

I'm not a big fan of using the term "side projects," because that implies that I have a main project I'm working on, which I don't. Right now, my big project is basically a bunch of little projects while I attempt to learn new 3D software. So, to that end, I built this earlier:







By the way, in case anybody isn't getting it, it's a lightsaber hilt. It's not much, but it's the first object I've finished since switching software. The materials are temporary, I need to look into doing metal materials. More stuff to come, I'll just be posting stuff in this thread as I work on it.

[evil_genius_180]

I chromed the lightsaber hilt. Fortunately, chroming something in one 3D program isn't all that different than doing it in another. All you have to know is what the settings do and then fool around with diffusion, specular, glossiness and reflection settings. Also, it helps to know where to put the environment map. One thing that’s easier is using a node-based texture system with everything done in one window, as opposed to what I had to do in TrueSpace, which involved using multiple windows and was a big pain in the butt at times. (but easy once I got used to it)





So, that will pretty much do it for this object. I mostly just created it because I like lightsabers and because I wanted to start off with something simple(ish) to play around with modeling settings. Ironically, this is actually the 2nd hilt I started, I hit a creative wall on the first one, so it’s currently in limbo.

[gmd3d]

Very nice work Chris..

a great project to start and finish in any program.. top work

[evil_genius_180]

Thanks Ger.

I was looking at a couple Daedalus Class projects on Scifi-Meshes the other day where a couple people are updating the ship to make it look more modern. I was looking at Madkoifish's and I had an interesting thought. Instead of making the ship look more modern, why not make it look less modern? I personally love retro Sci-Fi stuff, especially those old rocket ships. So, I started retooling the ship to look more like those old rockets. Also influential in my design are 1950s automobile designs, I freakin’ love cars from the 50s. Also, yes, there was a drawing circulating a while back of the Enterprise where someone had done it 50s retro style. There were even a couple great 3D models made from it and posted on Scifi-Meshes. That too is an influence here. So, this is where I am so far:







There’s still much to be done, but this is where I am after a few days working on it. I would be further along, but I recorded the latest episode of Defiance and some 1950s Richard Carlson Sci-Fi movies to my DVR, so I’ve been also watching that stuff. I already watched It Came From Outer Space, which I hadn’t seen in years, and The Magnetic Monster, which I’d never seen. I still have Riders to the Stars to watch, which I’ll probably do here in a bit. Watching classic Sci-Fi films gets me even more in the mood for retro Sci-Fi, so this is actually a good thing.

About the ship: Yes, it will be red. (if you don’t like it, come to terms with it) Or, at least, partially red. I plan to do some textures with a more exciting hull pattern, but the material settings are similar to what will be on the final ship. Also, ignore the nacelle pylons, those are just place holders until I build the actual pylons. Also, I may do some more work on the connector between the sphere and the secondary hull, to blend it into those structures a bit more. Anywho, more to come.

[gmd3d]

I like it.. there is something more appealing with retro designs.. this is a great example ..

Nothing wrong with red...

More, More I call.

[Auditor]

Zarkov would trade his Rocket Ship for that in a second.

[evil_genius_180]

Thanks guys. Yeah, I had to think of Flash Gordon a bit when I was designing this.

[evil_genius_180]

I spent way too much time on the damn fins today. In fact, that’s all I did for several hours. But, that kind of time is worth it to get that look you want. My first fins were too small, so I started over. I sketched out the shape with the pen tool, then beveled it out to get the width. However, to get it to run along the nacelle took some hand work. Then came the sub patching, which revealed some errors that had to be fixed. So, I fixed those and here’s what we have. Though, I have to say that I never would have been able to do these in TrueSpace. To my knowledge, it has nothing like sub patching. So, I’m definitely glad I made the switch to Lightwave, it has so many more great tools to help me get the job done.

Since that took most of my modeling energy, I decided to start on the textures and at least make a color map for the nacelles. I want people to have an idea of exactly the type of look I’m going for. So, I opened up Inkscape and started drawing. I wanted to do a blend of 60s Starfleet and retro and I think I got that accomplished. The rest of the hull will be similarly patterned, so you see what the final colors will be (dark red and eggshell white.) Also, I found a cool free handwriting font for the name, because a lot of old planes and rockets had hand painted names on them. The chrome will of course be staying chrome because retro stuff should have chrome. Really, lots of things that don’t have chrome should have chrome, but that may just be my opinion.







I’m currently torn between grid lines and no grid lines. However, I’ll probably do them if for no other reason that real space ships aren’t poured into molds. They do have hull section separation lines, so I’ll likely be doing those as well.

Anywho, more tomorrow (or when I get it done. )

[evil_genius_180]

It’s been a busy couple of days and tomorrow is looking to be another one. But, I've managed to find a few times here and there to pick at the nacelles and get some stuff done. I cut in the lines (and, yes, they will be staying.) They’re only half an inch thick, so they shouldn't be too bad. I’ll do some of the same width on the engineering and sphere sections also. And, I have the bussard collectors mostly done. I spent some time earlier making a bunch of stuff that won’t really be seen, but that’s how it goes. I also spent way too much time trying to figure out how to get the glows to activate in Lightwave before I finally just Googled it. Of course, I found the information I needed quite easily after I did.

Anywho, this is what I have so far. There’s not much more to be done on the nacelles.

[evil_genius_180]

The nacelles are finished. I want them to look like a lot like old rockets, so I didn’t want to overdo the details. So, to that end, I added some running lights and a few other bits to finish them off. The rear running lights are based off of some car taillights from the ’50s.

The only details that I added that aren’t necessarily “retro” are the 8 holes just forward of the end caps. Those are RCS thrusters. As most people who know the history of space flight know, prior to the flights of the X-15 and other “near space” craft, there were no such things as RCS thrusters. In fact, that was one of the points of the X-15 test flights, to test maneuvering in space. Prior to the invention of RCS thrusters and the test flights of the X-15 and other craft, nobody knew how you maneuvered in space. In fact, a lot of retro science fiction rockets and other space craft didn’t address this issue. They usually just put some kind of wings or tail fins on them, I guess assuming that flight dynamics in space would be the same and that you’d use some kind of aileron and rudder system, which of course doesn’t work without air. So, prior to 1959, when the X-15 test flights started, nobody really knew how to do this. The, sometime in the 1960s or so, such thrusters started appearing on science fiction space craft. Even though I’m doing my ship in retro style, I still had to add the thrusters because, realistically, you’re not maneuvering in space without them.















Up next are the nacelle pylons. The temporary ones are just ugly and don’t look anything like what’s in my head. Then I’ll move on to the engineering section, finish that and then finish the sphere.

[evil_genius_180]

As people who follow my blog probably already know, I started another ship the other day. I was inspired recently to do something from the NX-era, so I started looking through my references and whatnot from that series. That's when I found this great concept drawing by John Eaves:



John posted that on his blog at some point and I saved it thinking I would one day use it for inspiration. Well, I'm using it now. As people who are familiar with the series know, the ship on the right was used. It was the Intrepid, which appeared in the episodes The Expanse and Twilight. I like that ship a lot and I did a 3D model of it a few years ago in TrueSpace. That does eventually need to be redone in Lightwave, but not right now. What I'm working on now is the ship on the left, which was never used on the show. I like the design, so I'm building it.

Obviously, the drawing is detailed, but not quite how they detailed things on the show. So, I'm taking cues from other ships from Enterprise and doing details based off of them. Also, since it's easy to scale the ship to the Intrepid using the nacelles, I used the orthos of the Intrepid model from the series for a scale and started with the nacelle. I'm nearly done with it and will be moving on to the warp pylon next. (then those will both get mirrored, of course)

Anywho, this is what I have so far:

[gmd3d]

Looks like a great start Chris

[evil_genius_180]

Thanks Ger.

[Auditor]

Yeah great start. The nacelle's look great. Doing a great job capturing the NX series style. Look forward to seeing the whole ship. John Eaves concept art looks great.

[evil_genius_180]

Thanks a lot. Yeah, I always like John's concept art. He designs some awesome stuff.

[evil_genius_180]

Work continues on the ship. I mostly finished the nacelles. Though, after seeing the “blank” spot I have in front of the pylon connector, I think I need to add a greeble or something there. Also, I started on the pylons. Those went well, better than I’d hoped they would. Of course, I still have to detail them, but getting the shape right was the majority of the work on those. There are a couple tiny issues, but I’ll fix them later.









Close up on the pylon: (yes, I see the mesh errors.)



RCS thruster:

[gmd3d]

very nice,,

[evil_genius_180]

Thanks dude.

I noticed (and so did someone at Scifi-Meshes) that the pylons didn’t have enough girth. Also, while I was initially pleased with them, I didn’t quite like the shape. so, I redid them and their connectors.

[evil_genius_180]

More work on the pylons. In fact, this will probably be all I do with them, modeling wise. For the top, I tried to duplicate John's line pattern as best I could. It's all done using the pylon's existing geometry, so there are a few differences. For the bottom, I just did what I felt like.

[gmd3d]

now that does look better........ your doing fantastic work on this in LW.... bravo

[evil_genius_180]

More work on the ship. The part that looks like it should be part of the Batman emblem took a long time. I made something yesterday that I hated, so I had to redo it today. I'm fairly happy with how it came out after I rebuilt it. Originally, the back came to points like it does in John's drawings, but I had some mesh errors that wouldn't smooth out, so I cut it off and capped it. I'll put some thrusters or something there. That's also why there are "trenches" in the side, I'll put some greebles in those. (the sub-patching is great, but it can leave errors) The other stuff is pretty basic, modified cylinders, spheres and cubes.

Also, I had to cut some off of my pylons because I realized AFTER I did all of those grid lines (of course) that I hadn't rotated the part that connects to the ship like I did the part that connects to the nacelles. So, they weren't lining up with the ship, so I sunk them in some and removed the part that got buried. It was either that or completely rebuild them, which I wasn't doing.

[evil_genius_180]

Starting on the saucer was the next logical step. I need it in order to get the other parts laid out. It may look simple, but the saucer is actually not just a standard saucer. The edge is round, like the saucer on Enterprise and Intrepid, but the center parts are ovals. It's not difficult to do, but it's a bit time consuming. But, it's worth it because it's coming out exactly how I want it to look.









Fun facts about the ship:

Length: 240 meters
Width: 154.55 meters
Height: 36.38 meters (there's a possibility that will change)
Decks: 5

How I got there:

The specs on Enterprise are as follows:

Length: 225 meters
Width: 135.8 meters
Height: 34.4 meters

When I built Intrepid, I noticed that it has the same saucer as Enterprise, it's just been modified. However, the base saucer is the same. The windows are the same size and are in the same places. That's because Pierre Drolet kitbashed the NX to save time. So, that means it's a more compact version of Enterprise, much like how the Nebula-class is a more compact version of the Galaxy-class. So, using that, I scaled Intrepid to these specs:

Length: 177.44 meters
Width: 136.16 meters
Height: 34.96 meters

(Intrepid has impulse engines that stick out slightly on the sides of its saucer, that's why it's slightly wider.)

These specs are fairly accurate, they might be off a hair, but not much. I've seen similar sizes on other sites, so I think I did a fairly good job.

So, bearing all of that in mind, you'll notice in John Eaves' original drawings that the ship I'm building is around the same size as Intrepid, it's just more "stretched," making it longer:



Comparing the nacelle sizes, I realized they were pretty darn close to the same size. So, I used the orthos that I have from Doug Drexler's old blog of Intrepid as a size scale for the nacelles. Using those as a scale and laying out the ship in what appears to be the correct configuration, that's what I came up with. And, indeed, it's been confirmed by building the saucer. That's the size the ship will be.

Sorry for the long winded explanation on that, but I don't want anyone asking how it's the size it is, so I explained it.

Originally, I'd planned this ship to be older than Enterprise, but I don't see how that's possible if it's longer. Yes, they could have made longer ships in the past and the ship certainly won't have the internal volume of Enterprise, but I still don't like it being longer if it's older. It's safe to assume that Enterprise was the largest ship built by Starfleet to date, it was certainly the most advanced (as was Gene Roddenberry's intent for ships named Enterprise, they were supposed to represent the latest Starfleet tech.) So, having a ship that's longer that predates the NX is problematic and I can just see Trekkie colons clinching at the thought of it, so the ship post-dates Enterprise. I'm thinking this is something that was built during the war with the Romulans, when Starfleet needed new ships. So, its service time would be from the late 2150s to around 2190 to 2200. That way, it's possible for the ship to be larger, faster, etc. than Enterprise, which was decommissioned after the war. That means I'll also be adding phase cannon ports, as opposed to the originally planned plasma cannons.

[evil_genius_180]

And the ship is now a single unit, more or less. I built the structure that goes in the center of the saucer. Obviously, both that and the saucer itself are thicker than on John's Drawing. But, you have to take a bit of creative license when doing things off of a single sketch. Indeed, they did so when they built Intrepid, it's not exactly like the design. For one thing, both ships have really thin saucers. Neither one is a deck thick at its edge, as many Trek saucers are. Some are two decks thick, but all are at least one deck thick at the edge. I thickened the whole saucer and gave it a more rounded design to fit better with other ships of the time.

So, here's the ship as it stands. I included a render that's close to the same view as the sketch, to give an idea of how it compares. Obviously, as I already stated, there are some slight differences. But, overall, I'm happy with how it's progressing.

[gmd3d]

oh now that is nice...... love the panel detail...

[evil_genius_180]

Thanks bro. I love doing paneling in Lightwave, it's so much better than doing it in TrueSpace.

[evil_genius_180]

It should be fairly obvious what I've been working on. Needless to say, the saucer grids were very time consuming, but worth it in the end. The cut-outs on the side also took a bit of time, more than they should because there were extra verts in there interfering with the rounder. I had to find and eliminate those to get the edges rounded.













And now it's time for a fun game: Spot the Error.

I made a mistake somewhere that has now been corrected. It's blindingly obvious to me, but I want to see if anybody else can spot it. So, if anybody on either my blog or the three forums on which I post my work can tell me where and what it is, I'll admit to it and tell everyone. If not, there is no mistake and it looks exactly as it was intended to look. These aren't the droids you're looking for. I'll give you a hint: it has something to do with the saucer grid lines. (the big part of the saucer)

[Senmut]

You must be a starship design engineer come back through time!
Very cool.

[evil_genius_180]

Thanks a lot.

There were a few guesses as to what the error was that I spoke of in my last post. However, Eric Reinholt (AKA, scifieric) got it correct:

“My best guess would be the two straight lines under the saucer that match the edges of the rounded cut and move forward. The look a little odd when the rest of the lines are radial lines.”

Illustrated here:



Basically, those lines shouldn’t exist on the bottom, or at least they shouldn’t go back that far. I needed them on the top and partly on the bottom so that the lines could have a nice edge and not go all the way into the thing in the center. So, I selected the faces where I needed a line and knifed it in. Unfortunately, I also did it all the way along the bottom. So, I put in the paneling and then rendered it and realized my mistake. I had a few options, I could have deleted what I did and used the “clean” version to redo that part. However, I decided to simply knife in another line and panel between them. However, (again) I decided I don’t like that, so I went with option one and just redid the paneling.

[evil_genius_180]

And now it has windows. This will pretty much do it for Windows on the entire ship. What this ship has for a secondary hull is small, so it won’t need many. There are three windows back there on the drawing, so I’ll probably add those to both sides. There are also three on the bridge module, which I’ll also do. Other than those, this is it. Enterprise had all of its Windows in its saucer and bridge module, the catamarans had none.

[gmd3d]

yeah they work very nicely