I'm starting a new thread for this project, as it's separate from my other projects. Also, in my other thread, I jumped between Lightwave and Blender a lot, which I won't be doing anymore. I plan on working entirely in Lightwave moving forward. I go into some of my reasoning further in the post.
My goal is to model many of the ships from Star Trek: The Original Series era, both canon and non canon. Unlike the Enterprise I was working on previously, this is an attempt to do mostly accurate TOS era stuff. Of course, accuracy is in the eye of the beholder, as there were no less than four separate models that represented the Constitution class during the run of the series, not including 3 and 4 inch models, used in scenes in The Corbomite maneuver and The Doomsday Machine to show enormous scale and used as Sylvia's miniaturized Enterprise from Catspaw. First there was the 33 inch model, which was built as a study model but was used in almost all of the effects shots in The Cage, and made various other appearances in the series. Then there was the 11 foot model, used for most of the series. And, there were two AMT models built and used, one to represent the Constellation in The Doomsday Machine and one built to represent the Enterprise next to K-7 in The Trouble With tribbles. Post TOS, there was also Greg Jein's model from Trials and Tribble-Ations and various CGI models, used on Enterprise and for the TOS Remastered episodes. All said, there are many models that represent this one design.
So, where I'm at. I started on the nacelles for the Constitution class, as well as other ships, last night and got those finished, along with the connecting pylons. I'll work on the engineering section tonight. Since I'm working from blueprints, there was no need to block in parts, as is necessary when I design ships in 3D. I'm using Alan Sinclair's blueprints as they're my favorites and I'm also referencing photos from the 11 foot model just before its most recent restoration at the Smithsonian. I've found a few discrepancies between the actual model and Sinclair's blueprints, so I'm kind of eyeballing the changes. The hope is to have at least a 90% accurate model. Now, I don't plan to model things like screws. That's just insane, and I do plan to have this represent a finished starship, not a model. Naturally, I'll also be detailing the left side of the ship. 😉
Anyway, this is where it sits right now:
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/tos_enterprise_2019_wip001.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/tos_enterprise_2019_wip001.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/tos_enterprise_2019_wip002.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/tos_enterprise_2019_wip002.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/tos_enterprise_2019_wip003.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/tos_enterprise_2019_wip003.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/tos_enterprise_2019_wip004.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/tos_enterprise_2019_wip004.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/tos_enterprise_2019_wip005.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/tos_enterprise_2019_wip005.jpg)
I'd say I probably have about 8 hours into this total, as I didn't work on it constantly. A few of the things I had to eyeball included the corrugated cardboard around the nacelle end caps and boxes just forward of them, as well as the shapes of some of the bits, like the intercoolers. They were a bit more rounded on the blueprints I'm working from, but that's inconsistent with the actual parts from the model. The grill pattern is also simplified, as what was on the ship in the Smithsonian isn't original to the model and is also too complex for me to feel it's worth recreating. And, of course, the bussard insides are just my interpretation of what was believed to be in there.
For those who are curious, I'm building this in Lightwave 2018. I found some tips and tricks online to deal with the issues I was having before with the reflections. For one thing, I was using older style materials before, and I also upped my samples on both my lights and the reflections prior to rendering these. I'm pretty pleased with how these are rendering. I'll be using Lightwave moving forward. As much as I like the idea of Blender, I don't like the way it does certain things. I also find that open source projects tend to lack direction, evidence of this can be found by the fact that they keep changing render engines and have overhauled their user interface twice in the past decade. But that's just my personal opinion, others will see it differently. Either way, I like Lightwave better, so that's what I'm using. Besides, I paid $400 for the upgrade from LW10 to 2018, so I might was well use it some more.
This looks simply fantastic, Chris! Beautiful work!
Thanks Eric. :)
These are just a couple quick renders that I did to check if the front of the engineering section has any mesh errors. I'm not seeing any.
I figured it was a good idea to do a couple renders to test this, as I don't want to find out that I have smoothing errors to address when I'm rendering images at 7-ish AM again. I had that earlier with the nacelle end caps and had to fix the errors and re-render the images.
Looking really Good Chris!
Thanks Dean. :)
I got the secondary hull mostly done on the Connie. The flattened out areas on the sides and bottom of the front area and the shuttlebay section are the more painful areas for this part. Both require a lot of work and a lot of polygon cleanup. Of course, the windows are also no fun, as each one had to be positioned, cut, inset and rounded. Plus, a few of the round portholes needed a bit of vert cleanup, but that's to be expected. Other details include the shuttlebay doors, which don't open, and other assorted bits around the shuttlebay. I figure if I ever want the bay to work, I can always build working doors and the interior. However, I have a bad habit of wasting time making that stuff all work only to never do the actual bay, so I figured I'd just do simple doors that mostly match what's on the actual model.
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip008.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip008.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip009.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip009.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip010.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip010.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip011.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip011.jpg)
The only two things left to do on this section are the navigational deflector and main pylon (neck) that connects it to the saucer. Then, it's on to the saucer. For those who are wondering, pennants and whatnot will be added in the texture phase. With 4K maps, there's no real advantage in quality to modeling the stuff, and there's a lot of cleanup involved in stenciling it on the hull, to say nothing of the work involved in removing a name and registry from a ship. (It's even worse if the ship has grid lines) Anyway, I'll draw all of the pennants and other markings in Inkscape and put those onto the texture maps. I figured out textures in Lightwave 2018 earlier. Fortunately, it uses nodes similar to Blender, so I was able to quite quickly figure out how to add a map using the node editor. I successfully applied a color and spec map to one of my older models using LW2018's Principled BSDF materials. So, I'm stoked about that, as textures are obviously necessary and will make stuff like adding those markings a simple matter for me. :)
You are moving VERY quickly, and with beautiful results! Well done!
Thanks Eric. Having some time off work helps.
Sweet!
I had off one week. I SLEPT through it. I just can't believe how much I slept.
I don't sleep a whole lot, even when I'm off. 8 hours is a lot of sleep for me. I'm usually more of a 6-7 hours kind of person, but I can survive on 4-5 if necessary. Though, I was zonked this morning with Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars going on the TV when my cellphone rang. >:( I had forgotten to change it to silent.
LOL! Sorry about Flash Gordon.
I used to get by with 4 hours of sleep. Not any more.
Waking me up was what pissed me off. I can go backwards in the DVD, which is what I did. ;)
I finished up the secondary hull with the "neck" and deflector dish. The dish is as close to the one in the Smithsonian, (post most recent restoration) which is supposed to be accurate to what was on the model during the series.
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip012.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip012.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip013.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip013.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip014.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip014.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip015.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip015.jpg)
Eric right your moving fast though this. But it looking great!
Thanks Dean.
I hate making this thing. It's probably my least favorite shape to make on this whole ship. I'm just glad there are apparently no smoothing errors.
The modeling is done on the Connie. Up next are the materials.
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip017.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip017.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip018.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip018.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip019.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip019.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip020.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip020.jpg)
Holy cow, that was FAST! It also looks just beautiful, Chris!
Thanks Eric.
The materials are coming along. I've tried to mach the colors of the ship from the TV show as best I can. Of course, nobody really knows what the colors were 50+ years ago. I used Gary Kerr's painting guide for the ship, as Gary has tried his best to match what the colors were. Two places where I'll definitely go off of canon, sort of, are with hull paneling and weathering. If you count TOS Remastered, the paneling is canon. My paneling will be subtle, but I want it to be there for realism and for looks. Another realism choice I'm making is to not do all that weathering they did on the TOS Enterprise. The reason for this is that it's unrealistic that a ship is going to get dirty flying through space. While the are things that will mark up your hull, that would mean that the hull integrity is compromised and that would be fixed at a Starbase. But, there aren't really any circumstances where a ship will pick up dirt flying through space. There just isn't going to be dirt in concentrations in a vacuum. Even nebula gas isn't as tightly concentrated as it's depicted on these shows. Also, the navigational deflector and other systems would keep most of that stuff off of your hull. While it is canon that the TOS ship has all that weathering, it's also keeping in universe to not do it, as other ships don't have all that. Back in the '60s, nobody really knew much about space travel. Astronauts were actually kept in quarantine when they returned in case they picked up any illnesses in space. Obviously, it was later realized that didn't happen and that practice was dropped. I believe the weathering was applied for the same reason, because they didn't know any better. It's possible that, when they had more scientific advisors in the 1970s and onward that someone let them know that the ship wouldn't pick up all that crap flying through space.
So, with all that, this is where it stands:
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip021.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip021.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip022.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip022.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip023.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip023.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip024.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip024.jpg)
The bussards are a work in progress, but I like how they're going so far. Also, ignore the sensor domes, that was an experiment that didn't work so well. For textures, I'll have 10 4K maps to make; color and specular maps for the saucer top, saucer bottom, engineering hull, and both nacelles. I've also got a couple smaller maps to make, for the teardrop and underneath the shuttlebay, as both have markings on them that will need to be textured. Also, I may do a texture for the impulse vents. Everything else is just going to be the colors they are. This pretty much matches the paint that's done on physical models, as it's usually just a solid color. There's no need to texture solid colors. 😉
Looking Good!
Thanks Dean. :)
This is a render I did to test how the bussards look, and I think I finally got them were I want them. I also got the color map done for the saucer top. I'm probably going to lighten the grid lines a lot. They're correctly colored for graphite, though, which is a nod to them being put on with pencil on the original ship.
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip025.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip025.jpg)
I'm getting jealous! Excellent work, Chris! Great job!
Thanks Eric. No need to be jealous, though. You're one of the people who sets the gold standard when it comes to doing this ship in CGI.
Quote from: scifidude79 on Oct 03, 2019, 12:19 pmThanks Eric. No need to be jealous, though. You're one of the people who sets the gold standard when it comes to doing this ship in CGI.
Uh, holy crap! Thank you, my friend!
I got the color maps done. For the most part, this is all easy stuff to do. Though, some things are more of a pain, like getting the stupid little numbers on the engineering hull close to where they needed to be. But, stuff like that happens when you put stuff onto a tube and you're working from flat images.
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip026.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip026.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip027.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip027.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip028.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip028.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip029.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/tos_enterprise_2019_wip029.jpg)
All that's left to do on this one is the spec maps, which shouldn't take too long. I can usually knock out some paneling rather quickly. Also, I need to add a material to my window boxes to make it look like the ship has an interior. I'll probably do a procedural texture for that.
Absolutely terrific-looking work!
Thanks Eric.
I decided not to do any paneling on the ship. It's not hard to do or anything, I just really like how the ship looks. Besides, I went through so much to try and match the colors of the ship in the Smithsonian, why make it look totally different with some hull panels? So, I'm calling this done (for now.) I decided to render some beauty shots. I did a few renders with a single light, and a pass from each camera with the light turned off to use as illumination passes. I had the ship shots saved to .png files, so I dropped those against a starfield I made in GIMP a couple years ago, comped in my illumination passes, and we have some beauty shots:
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/enterprise_beauty01.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/enterprise_beauty01.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/enterprise_beauty02.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/enterprise_beauty02.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/enterprise_beauty03.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/enterprise_beauty03.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/enterprise_beauty04.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/enterprise_beauty04.jpg)
For those who like specs:
Length: 288.6 meters
Width: 127.8 meters
Height: 69.3 meters
For those who are wondering, I took the blueprints and selected the ship only, then took the dimensions of the sheets, converted the pixels to meters, then created a cube with those dimensions. I then scaled the ship up to the canon length of 288.6 meters. That means the generally accepted canon width of 127.1 meters is slightly off, and the height of 72.6 meters is significantly off. And, it's not a symptom of the blueprints I'm using, I've done the same thing with other blueprints, all of which were created by taking measurements of the model, and I always get a height of over 69 meters, but less than 70. So, I don't know where the 72.6 meters came from. (and I don't really care)
371,802 polygons
9 texture maps (least amount I've done on a model in ages)
All told, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Aside from not thinking the panels were going to look right, I also concluded that there's no reason you can't paint a ship in solid colors. If you look at real world examples, Navy ships are typically solid gray. I decided to keep the shine levels low, but not quite flat like the paint on the original ship. It's got a kind of satin finish to it. The only really shiny bits are the glass domes and metallic parts.
Anyway, that's what I have. I'll be kitbashing this thing to create more models.
Chris, that is DAMNED pretty!
Thanks Eric.
I converted the materials on my Klingon battlecruiser to LW2018 materials:
Chris, that is BEAUTIFUL! Wow!
Thanks Eric.
Well, it seems we don't have a sub-forum for finished works. **cough cough**
Quote from: scifidude79 on Oct 06, 2019, 06:55 amThanks Eric.
Well, it seems we don't have a sub-forum for finished works. **cough cough**
I'm on it!
All done!
The Enterprise turned out really nice mate.
Loving that Klingon battlecruiser.
Thanks a lot, Dean. :)
I bashed together a Hermes class scout. For those of you doing the math, yes, it's the same design as the Saladin class destroyer. The main difference is that the destroyer variant has more weapons. However, in canon, there are two scout ships that have been name whose class was never revealed, but their names and registries come from the Starfleet Technical manual. Those ships are the USS Columbia NCC-621 and the USS Revere, NCC-595. In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the Columbia is being ordered to rendezvous with the Revere during the establishing shot of the Epsilon IX station. So, I chose to make mine one of those scouts, the Revere.
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/revere_beauty_01.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/revere_beauty_01.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/revere_beauty_02.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/revere_beauty_02.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/revere_beauty_03.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/revere_beauty_03.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/revere_beauty_04.jpg?w=800) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/revere_beauty_04.jpg)
The build was, obviously, mostly just rearranging parts from my Constitution class, with only a few parts to make. Then I made some new texture maps for the changed name and registry. I also moved one of the lines on the neck forward, to between the vents and the windows. So, it's pretty simple, but it adds another ship to the fleet.
Ah! Beautiful work, Chris!
Thanks Eric.
So, I had errors on my nacelle end caps:
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/revere_errors.jpg) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/revere_errors.jpg)
I hate errors. These were caused by Lightwave flipping faces. I fixed them in both this model and my Enterprise model:
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/revere_beauty_04a.jpg) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/revere_beauty_04a.jpg)
I swear I had not even noticed! Good pickup and excellent work!
Quote from: scifieric on Oct 14, 2019, 02:59 amI swear I had not even noticed!
I'm extremely anal when it comes to my own work. I actually noticed these when I was working on the Enterprise, but I had thought I'd fixed them by triangulating my faces. Well, they came back. There were a lot more, tiny little faces that would have been no more than specks in that render. They're also dark spots but they're harder to see.
So, I went into LW and looked at my Enterprise model WIP file, and found all of these flipped faces. There's a tool called "Unify Normals," which in theory should work a lot like Blender's "Recalculate Outside" tool. Well, the Lightwave one is hit or miss on working. In this instance, it worked and actually set all of my faces facing inward. So, I just flipped them and all of my faces were how they needed to be. 8)
Very Nice Chris.
Excellent work, Chris. Elegant solution.
Thanks guys.
I am sure you here this a lot Chris, but your modeling and attention to detail is fantastic!
Quote from: Tralfaz on Oct 15, 2019, 02:21 amI am sure you here this a lot Chris, but your modeling and attention to detail is fantastic!
Thanks bro.
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:
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/screenshot_2020-04-26_04-43-18.png)
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:
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/screenshot_2020-04-26_06-42-13.png)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/screenshot_2020-04-26_06-45-43.png)
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.
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.
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.
A couple more quick renders before I go get some sleep for work tonight.
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/screenshot_2020-04-26_09-51-58.png)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/screenshot_2020-04-26_09-57-33.png)
Remembering how to do text in Blender was a whole lot of fun, by the way. (fun like stubbing your toe is fun)
"like stubbing your toe" LOL! That made me laugh!
Excellent work, Chris. Spectacular!
haha yeah. I think for me its import SVG and extrude and boolean.
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.
Quote from: scifidude79 on Apr 26, 2020, 09:26 pmThanks 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.
Quote from: scifieric on Apr 26, 2020, 10:39 pmQuote from: scifidude79 on Apr 26, 2020, 09:26 pmThanks 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.
Quote from: scifidude79 on Apr 26, 2020, 11:33 pmWhich 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.
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.)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/screenshot_2020-04-27_18-26-05.png)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/screenshot_2020-04-27_18-33-01.png)
Excellent work, Chris! This is pretty to watch!
Thanks Eric.
Looking Good Chris.
Thanks Dean.
looking pretty sweet man.
Thanks Scott. :)
Ignore anything in this thread that was being done in Blender. I had a meltdown a few months back with desktop Linux and trying to find a distribution that worked for my needs without something going wrong, so I switched back to Windows 10. This means I'm back to using Lightwave 2018. The reasoning on this is simple. I paid a lot of money for Lightwave, so I'm running it.
As I indicated in the finished art post I did earlier, I converted a few of my older ships to Lightwave 2018. This basically entails completely redoing the materials, as Lightwave 2018's render engine is designed to use Principled BSDF materials and older versions of the software used different materials and a different render engine. These models were made in Lightwave 10 about 5-6 years ago.
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/equinox_01.jpg) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/equinox_01.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/erickson_01.jpg) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/erickson_01.jpg)
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/starbase15_01.jpg) (https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/starbase15_01.jpg)
I'm seriously considering redoing the Equinox (and not calling it that) as that was designed to be a ship that was a later TOS era, almost to the TMP time frame ship, hence the details. But, I'd prefer to do a model that looks like an older ship. Besides, I haven't done that style of hull in ages and it's a fun style to do. Another thing I'm considering is rigging up models for animation. For the most part, these models wouldn't be hard to animate or take a long time, but the bussard collectors are a problem. They're done practically with modeled lights and mirrors, and a lot of light refraction. The refraction is what is causing the noise that is visible on the Erickson render. This can be done away with, or at least greatly reduced, but increasing the anti aliasing to the level required results in really long render times. So, I'm probably going to have to fake the look of what's inside the bussard collectors with a texture, which isn't all that hard to do. I've done it before, all I have to do is animate it, render it to a .avi file and then use that as a applied to a dome. For animation, this will work fine. Really, it would probably be OK for still images, so I'll have to decide after I do it if I want to keep the practical bussards or just go to the textured version.
This is all terrific work, Chris! Fantastic!
I've been fighting a lot of noise when I render my TOS ships, especially where the light from the bussard collectors is hitting the hull. An idea struck me and I finally figured out what the problem was; the lights inside the bussard collectors were too strong. In an effort to make them more visible and pop more, I really cranked up the luminosity setting, which is what was causing the noise. So, I went in and backed down the luminosity setting a lot on all of the lights and I changed the dome settings to make the lights more visible. I'm pretty happy with the end result.
The old bussard collector:
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/revere_bus_old.jpg)
The new one:
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/revere_bus_fix.jpg)
I don't feel I lost a lot in the look of the bussard, in fact I think it looks a lot better, but I lost a lot of the noise. The light hitting the hull was too strong anyway, that's what caused the noise. Now it's there but it's pretty subtle.
Here's how the Erickson looks with the new bussards:
(https://evilgenius180.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/erickson_bus_fix.jpg)
So, yeah, I'm pretty happy with the results. I have the bussards looking how I want them, light is still hitting the hull and there's a lot less noise.
Quote from: scifidude79 on Jul 12, 2020, 06:10 amSo, yeah, I'm pretty happy with the results. I have the bussards looking how I want them, light is still hitting the hull and there's a lot less noise.
Excellent work, Chris!
You've done a great job maintaining the look while reducing the noise! Well done.
Thanks Eric. That noise was really bothering me, so much so that if I didn't find a solution I was going to have to switch software.