Starship Enterprise Mk II

Yeah OK, the Big E has been done to death, but let me 'splain.

Anyone who's been around here for awhile may remember that last year I created a CGI model of the starship Enterprise. Considering that it was my first CGI model it was an OK effort, but I've never been quite satisfied with the way that the model turned out. For starters, there were several inaccuracies (the B-C teardrop command deck shape was all wrong, the Bussard collectors were too gaudy and oversaturated, etc.), it wasn't "canon" (I added a bunch of running lights and other details that didn't exist on the 11' studio model), and worst of all the fragging thing took FOREVER to render in POV-Ray. Life intervened, though, and I never got around to fixing her.

Well, a few months ago I started getting the CGI "itch" again and started tinkering with the old model. I soon realized that I needed to start from scratch if I was going to do it right, though, so without further ado...





This time around I'm using the excellent blueprints created by Alan Sinclair as the primary source material, augmented by photos of the old shooting model. This version won't have all the "extras" that the previous model had (i.e., no self-illumination lights), and since I know more about modeling than when I tackled version 1.0, this sucker should render a whole lot faster (the parts that are mostly finished already render 20-30% faster than they did on the old model). And yes, I'm still using the freeware POV-Ray raytracer... I never got around to teaching myself how to use LightWave. Maybe someday.

Stay tuned...

Looking very cool, man. Good job.

Thanks Bernardo!

Hot off the pixel-presses:

1024x768:


1280x1024:

Here's a new image that shows the corrected command module portholes and my first stab at the Bussard collectors. (There's also a bit of Gaussian blur and noise added to the image for additional verisimilitude.) I'm off to bed... more updates later this week!

The Bussards look a little too textured, but otherwise the ship is looking good

Originally posted by Boh_iNfecTeD
The Bussards look a little too textured, but otherwise the ship is looking good

Thanks... and I agree that the Bussards are still too gaudy. I think these are a little closer...






And a short animation for good measure, although it uses the old collector texture (note: 2.0 MB file... DivX 5.0.2 required to view AVI):

To celebrate the completion of modeling on the secondary hull, I created this 13-second animation which mimics one of the classic series' opening sequences. (640x480 AVI, 4.1 MB, DivX 5.0.2+ req'd)



Alternate formats:

• 640x480 MPEG-1 4.4 MB
• 352x240 MPEG-1 2.2 MB

The items left on the "todo" list:

• Finish detailing the warp nacelles and struts
• Tweak the primary and interconnecting dorsal textures, and finish the texturing of the secondary hull and warp nacelles
• Add "window boxes" behind the larger windows for more realism in closeups

She won't have a working hangar deck anytime soon--it's not needed for what I have planned for the model. At the rate I'm going, I'm guesstimating mid-May for completion. (I don't know how Vektor and Nova Class knock off their models so quickly, but I suspect that working with a text-based system like POV-Ray is partly to blame... along with my chronic lack of time to fiddle with this thing!)

Hiya Scott,

Really nice job there!!!! One note about the bussards - the rotation is wrong; starboard rotates clockwise (from the front) and port goes counter clockwise. (At least in all the stuff I've seen)

Amazing work - even more impressive that you're using POV-Ray; I don't have that kind of patience!

Bonzai Gopher

Hi Scott,

That really is excellent work, looking really nice. Most impressive that it is POV RAY. I was wondering if I could ask you a favour though....I realize you don't know who I am. I've been rebitten by the modelling bug, and I notice that your latest bussard texture is really good, would you be willing to share it?
here is a link to my project that should explain why I need a good bussard texture.
http://www.globalserve.net/~rexx/Appie/
I would be more than happy to credit your name in the creation process.
thanks in advance for your consideration.
regards,
Lucas

Originally posted by BonzaiGopher
Hiya Scott,

Really nice job there!!!! One note about the bussards - the rotation is wrong; starboard rotates clockwise (from the front) and port goes counter clockwise. (At least in all the stuff I've seen)

Amazing work - even more impressive that you're using POV-Ray; I don't have that kind of patience!

Thanks! As for the Bussard collector rotation direction, I have seen just about every combination of directions you'd care to name. They'd run the film reversed and/or backwards for those same handful of F/X shots of the E so many times that I'm not sure anyone could definitively say that one direction was seen more often than any other... but I'll review some of my favorite DVDs and see if there's a discernable pattern.

Originally posted by Lucas
Hi Scott,

That really is excellent work, looking really nice. Most impressive that it is POV RAY. I was wondering if I could ask you a favour though....I realize you don't know who I am. I've been rebitten by the modelling bug, and I notice that your latest bussard texture is really good, would you be willing to share it?
here is a link to my project that should explain why I need a good bussard texture.
http://www.globalserve.net/~rexx/Appie/
I would be more than happy to credit your name in the creation process.
thanks in advance for your consideration.
regards,
Lucas

Unless you're using POV-Ray, I'm not sure that my texturing technique would help. Each collector is a frosted dome that uses a material construct with emitting media (10 spherical emitters, one for each "Christmas light".) The blades are simply another dome inside the outer dome with a radial texture applied, and the texture is rotated about 9 degrees per animation frame. The radial texture varies from 65% transparency down to 20%, and repeats 12 times (once for each blade). Both domes are hollow, and the whole shebang is in a light group with global lights turned off (the collectors are light-emitting and are not illuminated by any global lighting that hits the surrounding hull plating).

By the way, here's an ultra-high resolution image (0.0 anti-aliasing using adaptive sampling method 2, for you POV-er's out there) of the model in her current state of finish.



It's really a shame that the gridline work doesn't show up better, but with the relatively flat lighting that was used for the original series it's hard to see some of the more subtle surface details.

you really gotta tell me how you made that moving starfield. it looks cool

I'm really rather proud of that effect myself... and it was amazingly simple to accomplish. I used a spreadsheet to create 10,000 rows and three columns of random numbers. These numbers represent the starting <x,y,z> positions of 10,000 stars in space, with some adjustments made to ensure that stars won't fly "into" the Enterprise (Sulu would never do that, but I'm a terrible driver so I have to be extra careful ). The 10K rows each had a fourth formula column that concatenated the first three random number columns into a formatted string: "object{MovingStarfield(xxx,yyy,zzz)}", where xxx,yyy and zzz were replaced with the randomly-generated numbers.

I then copied the fourth column of 10,000 "object{}" definitions to my POV-Ray source file, which contained a macro, "MovingStarfield(start_x,start_y,start_z)". The macro evaluated to an ambient sphere that varied the radius of the star sphere, depending on the distance from the camera (if I didn't do that, most of the stars would disappear beyond a couple hundred POV-Ray units from the camera). When animated, the macro's start_z parameter was decremented 1 POV-Ray unit per frame for all 10,000 stars, giving the illusion of thousands of stars zipping by at warp speed! I know that sounds a little computationally-intensive, but by animating the starfield at output quality 0, I was able to render about 1 frame per second on my 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 workstation.

Welp, I'm getting closer... last night I finished most of the modeling work on the warp nacelles:



1024x768 PNG format (189 KB)
1280x1024 PNG format (246 KB)

I have to add some markings to the secondary hull and the warp nacelles, and then overall final texturing can begin in earnest.

Scott, buddy, you and your ship are awesome. Great job again.

Here are eight orthographic images of the Enterprise that I created to check for any missing or inaccurate details. These are extremely large files... the resolution is 40 pixels per inch. Since the studio model was 134" long, that makes the side and top/bottom images 5360 pixels wide... download only if you have some time to kill and the bandwidth to support it!

















With these nearly-life-size images, I've already spotted some problems. For one thing, I forgot to put the little bitty numbers on the secondary hull--D'OH! That's OK, though--I was planning to apply those numbers as part of the texture for the secondary hull, and keep in mind that most of the Enterprise is still clothed in its temporary "skin". I've also noticed that at this level of magnification, the ship's name and registry on the upper primary hull is a bit jaggedy--that's because I'm using a 2500x2500 bitmap for the primary hull pigmentation, which includes the text. I think for details that large I should probably just model them instead of applying them with a bitmap "decal"... that way they'll look good no matter how close I get to the hull.

But hey, that's why I made these large images--to see the small details that weren't evident in my earlier "normal-sized" test renderings. These orthographic images will be updated as the project winds its way towards completion, so the above hyperlinks will be updated with new and improved images during the next several weeks. Enjoy!

[Hito]

Scott these are incredable.
Thanks for the orthos.

I am sure they should make cool posters

Originally posted by Hito
Scott these are incredable.
Thanks for the orthos.

I am sure they should make cool posters

Ew, don't make posters yet! I'm spotting all kinds of things that need to be fixed/tweaked/replaced... gimme a couple of weeks to get it right.

OK, new stuff: Updated versions of all eight orthos have been uploaded (see my earlier post above for the hyperlinks). As for changes to the model itself, the aft bolts on the warp nacelles have been added, the texturing on the nacelle casing has been made less severe, and the Bussard collector domes have been changed again--Maker willing for the last time. I also tweaked the lighting for each ortho view to (hopefully) pick up more highlights in the hull details. (A lot of those details aren't there yet, but they will be soon enough and I wanted the lighting rig ready for it.)

(And yes, I did notice that the teeny-tiny ribs abaft of the deflector dish on the port side of the secondary hull are pitch black. It's an error in the runtime texturing algorithm that they're using... I'll fix that today.)

[Sean Kennedy]

Very cool! I like the little MPEG you threw together.

Originally posted by Sean Kennedy
Very cool! I like the little MPEG you threw together.

Thanks! This one's better:



MPEG-1 format (800x600, 16 secs, 8.9 MB)
AVI format (800x600, 16 secs, 8.3 MB, DivX 5.0.2 required)

Yeah, I kinda run out of stars towards the end of the animation, and the moire-patterns on some of the smaller hull details are distracting (any ideas how to combat those?), but all in all I hope it's not too bad for a WIP.

Hot damn, that's gorgeous!

Nice work man, this ship is truly a classic. And you've done a fantastic job of her too! Its kinda fun coming back to old projects sometimes isn't it? Anyways great work and I hope you consider making some other TOS ships too, even a few federation variants would be cool. The animation is fun btw, you should add a few more views to go with the music a bit more tho.

Although the effects etc were cheesier, I still wish they hadn't started the "Entperise" series and screw up everything in trek... blah blah blah... I can only hope they come to their senses..

You mean when they blow up the NX-01 Voyager style and shove Archer and the gang on a Dadelus?

Cardinal and Jason, thanks very much. Yes, it is fun to go back to your old projects... especially when your skills have (hopefully) improved enough to finally do them justice.

My next project will be either an original series Klingon Battlecruiser or the Planet Killer from "The Doomsday Machine"... probably the Klingon D7 since I have the Lincoln Enterprises blueprints. I've completed two major versions of the same Federation starship... it's time to give the Enterprise a worthy adversary for my planned animations!

Originally posted by Michael_T
You mean when they blow up the NX-01 Voyager style and shove Archer and the gang on a Dadelus?

Better yet, lets just blow up the NX-01 and end the series. Personally I'd rather see capt Sulu at the con of the Excelsior

[Sean Kennedy]

I like the new MPEG better! Very cool!
Blow up the NX-01? damn you guys are harsh....

I always blow off the first two seasons of any Trek series because the characters and plots are never wholly believable until at least the third season....

just look at the ifrst two seasons of STTNG, DS9, And Voyager....I only really began to like them when the plots and the characters got interesting.

I think all prequels should be blown up

I wouldn't give Takei and the "Excelsior" ten minutes of my time. I am enjoying "Enterprise" quite a bit, though.

I love the super-sized orthographics, BTW. Just got DSL service the other week, just in time to appreciate them.

Thanks Dennis! I'm almost finished with the final texturing of the warp nacelles and will be posting updated orthographics this weekend. This is the first time I have used a photoshop program to create texturing maps, so I'll appreciate any critique of the weathering effects when you see them.

[seanr]

Originally posted by Dennis
I wouldn't give Takei and the "Excelsior" ten minutes of my time. I am enjoying "Enterprise" quite a bit, though.

BAH!!! Blasphemy!!! Enterprise is getting better, and it currently a shade better than Voyager IMHO, but I'd much rather see a series set during the movie era, or shortly thereafter. Maybe an Enterprise-B series (but they'd BETTER reporoduce that bridge EXACTLY as it appeared in the movie or better, not that cheap shazbot they pulled for the "Flashback" Excelsior bridge).