Creating New 3D Ship Designs

[MrD]

You are welcome, any time.
It's no trouble at all, I remebered Drexler had some nice pics of the ENT BoP in his blog so I assumed there were a few D5 pics there as well.
I just wish I had remembered that sooner so you wouldn't have needed to make all those scrrencaps.

I'm sure you will do fine.
More often than not a few screengrabs and an orthographic is all I got of a ship.
Yesterday I had a restless afternoon, but I was also tired of working on the Gorn.
I wanted to do a Romulan ship for a change so I fired up KA and got lucky it remained stable longer than 2 minutes.
I took a few pics and:



To get the proportions right I used a top wireframe image from the Starfleet Command 1 manual, where the same ship is used.
However the role of the ship in SFC is that of a D7-sized light cruiser (called Sparrowhawk) and of a 400 m command cruiser in KA (called Senator).

So I am pretty certain you can pull it off.
Just remember: you can't do it 100% right, and you won't have to.
There is always an amount of uncertainty whether your model is accurate in one place or another.
Just capture the look and feel, just like you did with the D10 and you're gonna blow us all away.

[Pigman]

MrD, that's a really nice Romulan ship and very impressive for something you just knocked up while being bored of doing Gorn ships!

I like it very much. Will you now go on to texture it?

Regards

Pigman

[MrD]

MrD, that's a really nice Romulan ship and very impressive for something you just knocked up while being bored of doing Gorn ships!

I like it very much. Will you now go on to texture it?

Regards

Pigman

Thank you.

I do intend to, but not right now.
First of all, I'll need to have another look at the nose, it's a little too wide.
stock SFC Version:

http://members.fortunecity.com/sfc2auxs ... before.jpg

As you can see the nose must be a little more pointed.
Most of the other differences come from the fact that the SFC version is less detailed, but it is the only pic of the ship I could find on such short notice.

Additionally this is just a fun project and it would be irresponsible on my part to give it more attention than the ships I promised to get done for the TOS mod, so it will be quite a while before this is going to be finished.

*edit: by "could find" I meant on the web without the need to upload*

[MrD]

Update:

here the ship with the corrected forward section.
The whole thing is more pointed to the front, like a Romulan ship should be.
The "comb" is less pronounced while the "beak" is larger.
There is also a previously missing image of the underside.



Information on the ship according to the old KA news page:

The Senator-class command cruiser features three warp nacelles, with the third mounted in upswept wings from the port and starboard nacelles. This is also a fairly new design, first encountered by a Klingon freighter which was intercepted by one of these warships in the neutral zone in 2290. Very little information is available from this engagement, other than a few harried sensor scans transmitted back to the nearest Klingon border station before the Klingon vessel was lost with all hands.

SPECS:
BPV: 400
Length: 381 meters
Mass: 330,000 metric tonnes
Crew: 300
Marines: 55
Maximum Impulse: 1,230 kellicams per second
Hull Rating: 2.2
Shield Rating: 39.0
Maneuverability Rating: .33/.19

WEAPONS:
Forward: 4 disruptors, 2 medium plasmas
Aft: 2 disruptors; 2 light plasmas
Port/Starboard: none

TACTICAL SUMMARY: Like the War Eagle Dreadnought, this vessel's warp nacelles are also exposed and may be vulnerable to attack. The Klingon freighter M'kaa attempted to ram her antagonist, but was hit by two plasma torpedoes at point blank range and was destroyed before she could complete her maneuver. The last sensor image received from the M'kaa shows the top warp nacelle slightly damaged by the M'kaa's explosion, however.

[Kyrfamor]

Hi!
I ve tried to do some modells for myself, but it is requering more talents, than I have. Could anyone create some post dominium war modells? Titan, Luna, Wells class and so on?

[MrD]

Hello Kyrfamor,

I'd like to know what you did.
Sometimes it's not that much about talent (after all I have none) but about the patience to learn to "think in vertices and polys" as I'd like to call it if you don't mind.
Maybe if you told us we could give you some advice in addition to what has already been said here.
What program(s) have you been using?
Have you taken a look at the tutorials, here in general and those of the software you used?
I have to admit that after my first try at Milkshape I, figuratively speaking, didn't touch it for over a year.
It sometimes takes a little time but I'd like to think if I can learn it...umm how do I put this without making it sound wrong or offensive in any way?
I am no genius and I have no artistic skills, so everyone can learn it if I can
After all this thread is here exactly for this purpose isn't it?

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

For ths Luna class I could find some images that might be useful
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Luna_class

But I could not find a discovery class that is post DW, only one that is pre-tos (from ST:Legacy)
http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Discovery_class
Is this the one you meant?

[anjel]

Hi there, this is my first attemp of making the Vesta class MK 1, from the Destiny series books, i ´ve already talked with Dr. Breen and i really appreciatte his answers.
So, i started making it in 3D max 2009, and with a count of 520 polygons and 548 vertices, this is what i have for now



And the real big part, would be texturing, because there isn´t too many images on the web, so i have to do it from scratch.

Please i need some critics, if a have to give it more details (polygons, vertices) or something else, or if it is OK, then i start with the mapping and texturing.

Thanks so much in advance


Live long and...

[Dr_Breen]

somebody in here is quite talented. actually you shouldn't go into detail much more. perhaps a bit by adding a bridge on top and making the nacells a bit less tubelike.

even tough you're still quite far away from the maximum allowed value of 5000 vertices you have to keep in mind that somebody may fight a battle in botf with 200 of these things so keeping poly and vertices count low is one of your primary goals.

texturing will bi a hard one :-) perhaps you orient yourself by a norway class. which has a triangle like saucer as well

[anjel]

thanks for the reply. So i´ll do more details to the things you mentioned. Here you can see, that i didn´t concentrate on the bridge, because it isn´t very visible, nevertheless i will do something. But as you said, i will focus on the nacells, that i think are the most important part of the ship because it has a quantum slipstream drive. So I have more vertices to spend...



I didn´t understand, if you have a shio of 5000 vertices you can use a number of 200 ships at the same time in the game ???? or you calculated the numbers of vertices i mentioned before for that ecuation.

Thanks again, and please any opinion in the matter would be appreciated by everyone.

Live long and...

[Tethys]

5000 per ship, but try to keep in below 1000-1500 for good gameplay's sake... otherwise with many 5000 vert ships in a battle, combat becomes laggy and unplayable

[Dr_Breen]

5000 per ship, but try to keep in below 1000-1500 for good gameplay's sake... otherwise with many 5000 vert ships in a battle, combat becomes laggy and unplayable

/\
\/

even tough you're still quite far away from the maximum allowed value of 5000 vertices you have to keep in mind that somebody may fight a battle in botf with 200 of these things so keeping poly and vertices count low is one of your primary goals.

*cough*

hmm there is indeed no bridge

another hint, that you need to keep in mind. your models pollygons need to be grouped like this: (scroll down to my first post on this page)
viewtopic.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopi ... &start=150

and also be sure your model is clean / hollow inside.

[anjel]

Hello there, Dr_Breen I´ve been reading the link you posted, and again and again, and i don´t understan well, why i have to separate the model in grouped pieces, i mean the model i did it´s an entire box (the shape i started with), there aren´t any separated pollygons from another pieces or inside or somthing else, so it´s a hollow box. And i was reading the tutorial from this link :http://www.trekmania.net/conference/botf_tutorial.htm
and as far as i can see, the steps you mentioned start in the step five where i have to use the multigens creator... or i have to do it before in 3d max?.
Sorry for the confusion if i mixed everything, but for being the first attemp of making a ship i think my neurons are overheated

Thanks again for the patience

Live long and prosper

[Dr_Breen]

so if you already read trekmania, you know that botf has a z-buffer weakness. if you read trough the current thread we're writting in right now you may pick up useful information:

here's a few important parts:
viewtopic.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopi ... c&start=15 (read my 2 posts on this page, they explain why we have to slice)

viewtopic.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopi ... highlight= (old slicing tutorial, instead of slicing in "creator" we can also already make convex groups in 3ds max. this saves LOTS of vertices as each slice in "creator" creates a huge amount of vertices)

viewtopic.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopi ... c&start=60 (explains texturing, scroll down theres several parts )

viewtopic.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopi ... c&start=75 (explains how to add glows)

http://www.4shared.com/file/112742014/c ... _face.html (thunderchero's tutorial about seperating by face, this works without having to groups pollygons, however your model needs to be clean inside, and the amount of vertices grows fast. try it, if your vertice count stays below ~2000 vertices you may use this way )


so if thundercheros way works you may use his as it goes faster, otherwise you need to do it the old way.

these are your possiblilites

either:

make all convex groups in 3ds max already and then simply hit the seperate selected button in creator. results in a low amount of verts/polly's and a medium amount of work.

or:

finish your model in 3ds max without grouping and then slice your model in creator into convex groups. results in a medium amount of verts/pollys and a high amount of work. advantage using this way is that you may also be able to make horrible curvy fed's ships look quite solid.

or:

finish your model in 3ds max without grouping but be sure your model is clean inside. results in a high amount of verts/pollys and a low amount of work. may be used on smaller models with less pollys as the vertices and pollys don't increase that much then

(thunder wrote an example of about what a clean model looks like here: viewtopic.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopi ... &start=105)

[thunderchero]

anjel,

Don't feel bad even after 2 years I still do not understand how to seperate/slice the way Dr_Breen does his models

thunderchero

[anjel]

Thanks to all for the replies .
I just made a quick glance at the links you posted Dr_Breen and it seems i have a lot of work to do, so it will take a while but i definitely want the vesta in the game. I`ll be posting my progess

Live long and prosper to all