TOS Star Trek Builds

[scifidude79]

Thanks guys.

[Tralfaz]

I am sure you here this a lot Chris, but your modeling and attention to detail is fantastic!

[scifidude79]

I am sure you here this a lot Chris, but your modeling and attention to detail is fantastic!

Thanks bro.

[scifidude79]

So, I had a slight meltdown the other day. I bought and installed a brand new 2TB SSHD last week and decided I was going to go to one operating system, that being Windows 10. So, I got the drive installed and got Windows installed and everything was going well. Well enough, that is. I couldn't help but notice that Windows 10 is sometimes sluggish and just plain slow at times. I have a plenty powerful enough computer and I installed the OS myself, so there was no bloatware on there. No bloatware, that is, except for Windows itself. I determined the issue was Windows 10, so I fragged it. As luck would have it, Ubuntu and its derivatives released a new version on Friday, so I downloaded and installed Xubuntu 20.04 where Windows 10 had been. Needless to say, that runs smooth and fast. The only issue with Linux is, no Lightwave. I checked because I recently got an e-mail about Lightwave 2020 being out, but it still doesn't have Linux support (nor was I expecting it to.) So, it's back to Blender.

So, I downloaded Blender 2.82a and started checking it out. Of course, the last version I used was 2.79b, so there are a lot of changes. I decided something I definitely wanted to do was import the Enterprise I made last year. It's better than building a new one. I used one of my laptops, which has Windows 10 Professional on it, to export the mesh to .fbx format, which Blender 2.82a happily imported. I had to do this twice, because the way I modeled some of my window cuts didn't import well into Blender, and it was easier to fix them in Lightwave. Anyway, this was the result:



Not bad at all, I can certainly work with it. Of course, the materials were a mess. Now, this wasn't the first attempt at doing this, I spent way too long dorking around with Blender's UV mapping, which I've never liked. After that, I decided to just re-import the unmodified .fbx file and start over. That render was the result. After messing around with the materials for a while, this is where I am with it:





It's coming along. At least it's not all flat paint. 😉 The bussard collectors are getting there, but they're not quite there yet. Now, there are a lot of things to like about Blender 2.82a. For one thing, the collections are really nice. You can just add stuff to a collection. For example, I have a collection called "Enterprise," with sub collections for the saucer, sngine section and nacelles. I can make anything from any collection invisible, or just make the whole collection invisible. I like that a lot better than messing with layers, which both Lightwave and earlier versions of Blender use. I also find a lot of the material tools to be really intuitive, perhaps more so than Lightwave. So, I'm liking it so far.

Still to do on the ship: markings and texturing. I don't think I'll texture the markings, as I did before. I think I'll just model them. Honestly, it's not much more work than the textures, and one of the main issues I was having was getting my markings to line up where I wanted them. The saucer was pretty easy, but the engineering section gave me fits. So, I'll just model those and shrink wrap them to the hull. After I get this ship done, I have a few more on one of my older hard drives to grab.

[Prime_8]

your w10 fresh install would be slow. even if you used a be install media/tool

It backgrounds downloads and indexes system files into an image in the windows old  ( or some name like that ) folder. it will contain only the delta from the image windows was installed from. slow till it's done that.
and big updates, are now images. ( anything that says hold on while we get some new features for you .. )  is most likely applying an image to the system folders.
once it's had a few hours to sort it's shit out it becomes usable. LOL
W10 wants to be on an SSD or hybrid drive when it comes to updates.

// importing or converting formats for 3d is kind of a tossup for some apps for sure.

[scifidude79]

I installed Win10 over a week ago and it was fully updated within a few hours. It's just a bloated piece of shit. But, it's not like I need Windows. I lost some games, but I can always put together a gaming rig or use my Steam Machine. I can dump Windows on that piece of shit. They should get along well. Or, you know, just play other games. Steam Proton also works pretty well.

[scifidude79]

A couple more quick renders before I go get some sleep for work tonight.





Remembering how to do text in Blender was a whole lot of fun, by the way. (fun like stubbing your toe is fun)

[scifieric]

"like stubbing your toe"  LOL!  That made me laugh!

Excellent work, Chris.  Spectacular!

[Prime_8]

haha yeah.   I think for me its import SVG and extrude and boolean.

[scifidude79]

Thanks guys. I just used Blender's built in text tool. Then extruded it and used the booleans. I tried shrinkwrap at first, but the contours are too curvy for that to work.

[scifieric]

Thanks guys. I just used Blender's built in text tool. Then extruded it and used the booleans. I tried shrinkwrap at first, but the contours are too curvy for that to work.

Oh wow.  That's different.

[scifidude79]

Thanks guys. I just used Blender's built in text tool. Then extruded it and used the booleans. I tried shrinkwrap at first, but the contours are too curvy for that to work.

Oh wow.  That's different.

Which part? That's actually exactly how I used to do text in Truespace. (it "hovers" just over the hull) Unless you mean the shrinkwrap thing. That kind of disappointed me. I've noticed some of the tools don't quite work the same in 2.8.

[scifieric]

Which part? That's actually exactly how I used to do text in Truespace. (it "hovers" just over the hull) Unless you mean the shrinkwrap thing. That kind of disappointed me. I've noticed some of the tools don't quite work the same in 2.8.

Yep, I should have been explicit.  The shrinkwrap thing.  I've worked around it before, but I like how Blender does it in 2.79.

[scifidude79]

Well, the Shrinkwrap modifier worked great for my little red stripes on the saucer underside. So, it appears to be hit or miss. It didn't work at all for the upper registry (didn't try it on the bottom) or the panels on the teardrop.

I got my saucer markings all done. The name and registry are where they should be. I still need to add those gray and yellow panels that are where the underside windows are, but that won't take long. I also further tweaked my bussard collectors and added a material to my interior boxes. Like I did with Lightwave, this is achieved by mixing procedural textures. I find mixing really simple in Blender. I have 4 different procedural textures mixed, each one is plugged into a color mixing node. Each node has 2 color slots, so I have 2 color mixing nodes plugged into a third, then that's plugged into the color channel of my material. Overall, I like the effect. I went with different colors to simulate that thing in TOS where different rooms were different colors (usually achieved with lighting.)

[scifieric]

Excellent work, Chris!  This is pretty to watch!