Vortex' WIP's; Lost Era Avenger Class

[Vortex]

Well, after being around since 2007-ish I figure it's time I give this modding thing a shot. Also, I just really want to learn to 3D model, so prepare for some very noobish looking stuff. That said, I've finely got my head around the Boolean tool. (Only taken me two days. xD )













Edit: Here's a break down of the ship.

[Nighthawk]

you'll be better off by using a geosphere for the nacelle collector... it smooths better, uses less polygons, and it's easier to map.
orient it's positive Z forward.

also, don't "extrude" things from previous things... try modelling things separately and then weld their unions.
instead of "growing" as you go, try "clay-ing" in.... if you know what I mean

of course there's no "right" way to do things, and you might want to use the tool you're most confident with,.... but if you can get past that and forget the tools, and instead just focus on the procedure and tecnique, you'll nail it in no time.


you will notice that you sometimes get used to geometric proportions, measured structures and consistent volumes, and it might come a time where you just have to weld in that particular piece, and it either breaks your structure, or ruins the design.
solution: don't take the structures for granted.... just know the limitations of the tool and the mesh, and use them to work your way around the problem.

 

[Vortex]

Thanks Nighthawk. I shall look into this "clay-ing" of which you speak.

[King Class Scout]

I'm getting a "TOS Voyager" vibe off of this, so far.

and he means to think of it like modeling clay, Vortex

[Vortex]

I'm getting a "TOS Voyager" vibe off of this, so far.

Interesting. Not what I was going for, but an interesting notion.

So basically, build separate components of the ship, join the separate objects together and remove doubles?

EDIT: Is an Icosphere the same thing as a geosphere? Basically a polygonal sphere.

[King Class Scout]

Interesting. Not what I was going for, but an interesting notion.

dude, you even cut the deflector dish into the saucer.  the e-hull looks like Voyager's, and you've even got the nacelles in a good position for it.

[Nighthawk]

EDIT: Is an Icosphere the same thing as a geosphere? Basically a polygonal sphere.

the name might differ... one is made of squares, the other of triangles.

[Vortex]

Okay, clear on that now. KCS, I'll give a bit of a think on that. I don't think I've seen a TOS Voyager before.

[King Class Scout]

hey, even defiant has been "TOSed" by GMunoz.  I'd check with everyone who's done a TOS style ship, here, when it comes to texturing time.  btw, I'd stick with the fixed pattern bussards for now instead of the rotaters.

what are you going for with the nacelle pylons?

[Vortex]

I vaguely recall the TOS Defiant. I was planning on fixed textures for the bussards.

I was thinking something between NX and TOS for the pylons, as this was intended to be my own interpretation of the NX class.

[Vortex]

So, whilst looking around the net for tips etc, I came across this: http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/showthread.php?80043-Star-Trek-Model-Ship-with-Cycles-materiasl-needed&p=571471&viewfull=1#post571471

Something about the geometry on the ship grabbed me so I thought I'd try something similar. (Nowhere near as simple as the design looks.) *Note; making my own original design*.

I used two planes to create two objects that currently comprise the secondary hull:









Both objects are still separate.

[andyp]

oh i see you too are using blender. let me know if you have any questions. my technique is to use the mirror modifier, and then use extrude / scale based off of the blueprint of my ship. for my edges i just separate them if they are supposed to be smooth or definitive edges to save on poly's.

for cutting out holes: avoid the boolean tool, it will destroy your model in blender. instead take your area that you want to cut the hole, create the hole shape, delete the faces that you want to cut into, select the edges for both the hole and edges of the original mesh, then use the F hotkey to fill in between the two.

note: make sure your faces are faced the right way that was an issue with my ships.... otherwise the faces will be invisible when brought in game...  you do this by going into edit mode, hit the n key, go to normals, hit the face icon. your faces will have a line growing out of the direction that the face is facing, you correct any issues by hitting flip direction.

and thats the start of a few things i learned from building the envoy.

[Vortex]

I haven't used the mirror modifier on these, but it does seem that extrude and scale is the popular method for Blender. Nice tip for creating the wholes, I'll try that. Thankyou.

How do you go about smoothing? I'm given to understand that subdivide is bad for BC.

EDIT: Incidently, the next free weekend I get, I'm thinking of doing this: http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-series/modeling-sci-fi-vehicle/

[andyp]

under shading click smooth. if you have enough poly's it'll look correct, if you dont it'll look weird. if you know you have enough polys and the smothing looks weird, then click recalculate normals, which will recalculate the edges and direction the faces are facing.

I can tell you right now from your last images you do not have enough polys in your mesh.

my advice is to create your ship design first in illustrator, as a blueprint use that for background images, then build your ship off of that.

[Vortex]

Ah, so it is just smooth then. Thankyou.

I've got some Constitution Refit plans that I'm working from. I've got the main body of the saucer, just need to work out how to do the structures on the top and bottom. I've tried it using a plane, but not sure whether that'd be the best way.

[andyp]

another approach would be to create the outline radius, then move the cursor to the the center point then extrude via radius ALT+R this works best for saucer sections that are perfectly circular like the constitution.

another approach would be to take the edge of the top of the saucer, extrude that down for the edge of the saucer, then use hotkey P to separate the edges to correct smoothing errors.

[Vortex]

For the saucer itself I used a circle and series of extrusions and scaling. I'll probably rebuild it tomorrow and separate the bottom as you've suggested. The super-structure is what I used the plane for.

So if I've got this right, for better smoothing, the top, bottom and side of the main saucer should be three separate objects?

[andyp]

thats what i normally do to make the shading look right, otherwise you'd have to add additional polys for it to calculate how you want it to look.

[Vortex]

Here's the rebuild. Main saucer is done with a circle, currently in three sections (though one object), super-structure has been done likewise. It was during this phase that I found the reference images aren't in exact alignment, so I'm working done one side of the ship and doing both sides as I go.

[andyp]

much better