Indulging my inner Trekkie

[ghoyle1]

Here are some pics of my pre-TOS Trek ship WIP.

[ghoyle1]

Here's another:

[ghoyle1]

Yet more pix, after some mods:

[ghoyle1]

More:

[ghoyle1]

A few more tweaks

[ghoyle1]

Hope I'm not boring anybody

[Lee]

wow, thats a nice job.

[gmd3d]

VERY NICE JOB.. love the comparison with the Connie ..

Remindes me a little of the old Akula class. Always loved those. Great work so far.

[evil_genius_180]

Originally Posted by ghoyle1

Hope I'm not boring anybody

If anyone here is bored by a cool scifi WIP or art, they really shouldn't be posting on a scifi art forum.

Awesome work on the ship so far. I always like these pre-TOS designs and this one is really nice because it shows a transition between the Daedalus-class and the Constitution-class.

I'm not a fan of ToS ships normally, but this one is very very well done...

I'm oficially a fan man, great job.

[KDoug]

Very nice work! I like how you've got a lot of symmetry in the ship, which makes it more believable. My only suggestion would be that the nacelles should be rotated so that the blue glowy parts are facing each other between the two nacelles. Or, at least, I read that was one of Andrew Probert's notions in the way they worked.

[ghoyle1]

That's something I considered, though I don't think that's specifically in Probert's specifications; he does say that each nacelle should have at least a 50% line of sight of each other, though. I went with the design I did beccause I like having the blue glow showing on each side of the nacelle; also, it saves me the trouble of having to learn how to put the stupid red stripe symbol on each side of the nacelle, which is defeating me at the moment. (I'm still pretty much a newbie at Cinema 4D, so any advice on that subject would be of great assistance to me.)

[KDoug]

I can't help you there, unfortunately! I'm afraid I'm way more of a newbie than you are, and that's just with 3-D modeling in general, much less Cinema 4D.

[evil_genius_180]

I know someone around here who knows something about Cinema 4D.

WHAT!?!


Um... If you can send me a pict showing tharea your trying to get that red stripe on I can show you how...

And as for that line of site thing... The Akula is a canon design and it had no site what so ever. It was set up just as you have it. Keep it.

[evil_genius_180]

It's about time you took notice of this. You, of course, were to whom I was referring.

I noticed... I noticed. I was one of the first three to comment on this project.

Besides, I didnt know i was on-call.

[evil_genius_180]

*voice comes over the loud speaker.*

"Paging Dr. morganzacd5p. Repeat, paging Dr. morganzacd5p"

(to intern/med student) Go take care of this ... Ill be on the back nine

[ghoyle1]

This is similar to what I was trying to put on the nacelle cylinder. They're from the Miranda model I got off of Star Trek Australia awhile back, but I don't know who created it.

[evil_genius_180]

That model was by Tachy (Cyrille Lefevre) He made a bunch of meshes a while back at www.scifi-art.com including that Miranda.

Ghoyle1... Do you have bodypaint or just Cinema?

[ghoyle1]

Just Cinema.

should be an easy few steps.

First you will need the color print of the logo and a black and white alpha map of it. White for what you want to show black for whats to go. gota be same demensions and everything.

Now create a new material in cinema and add in the two picts you have. (obveosly under color and alpha) Alpha' s a little funky. If it doesnt work at first click that soft or invert boxes under the alpha page. I cant remember which. (not at my animation computer right now.) Also create a plane solid color to be the hull plating. Or something more detailed if you want.

Next take the object that you have for the nacell hull and click and drag the hull texture onto it, then the logo. Now under the objects window, select the hull texture that you just placed. This should give you an atributes window somewhere on your work layout. Play with that till you get the effect you want (cylindrical, cubic, shrinkwrap, ect). Then select the logo texture in the objects menu. Under its attributes you first want to deactivate the "Tile" box. We want just one of these. Then, if your mesh is clean enough, I recomend setting the wrap type to UV Mapping. If tis looks funky, try selecting all the poygons of the object and go align normals. If it still looks bad, try using Cubic insted of UV Mapping.

I know this looks long, but its really about 5 of 6 clicks and drags. If your still having trouble PM Me and Ill get you images of the process 24 hours from now.

By the way, I did this on a computer hooked to a TV so I cant see squat. Excuse any typing errors.

[ghoyle1]

Thanks, Morgan! I'll try this out ASAP.

Guy

[ghoyle1]

I played around with this design all weekend, and made a whole slew of little changes.

[ghoyle1]

I messed around with the saucer, turning it around so the wedge-shaped section was facing the back again. The impulse engines were scrapped and redesigned; I'm still not sure I like them, but I can live with them for now. I need to hone my meshworking skills (I mainly use primitives, with a bit of tweaking).

[ghoyle1]

I'm happy with the way the warp tube glow worked out, as did the bussard glow (I may work on a spinner sometime, but I think it looks pretty without it). I'm also happy with the lights on the implse engines, but my favorite is the pearly white sensor dome.

[ghoyle1]

Well, this has come a long way from its ignominious beginnings. I'll probably take another breather before I work on it again. Thanks for your comments!

Guy