Bridge Commander Central
BC Forums => BC Modding => Topic started by: metalnick on June 01, 2010, 06:45:26 PM
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Ok, at the request of Jimmy, I have started a new thread for my connie refit. The ship is pretty much built the way I want (after a while I started liking those nacelles!!) and all it needs now is to be converted from sketchup to 3ds to nif and of course textured and hardpointed. Spent a lot of time today fixing mesh errors and I think I need to take a few days break from this, as even though its been a fun learning experience I don't want to burn out on it. :hithead:
As far as textures go I'm thinking something similar in feel to the Galaxy class as the sovereign is too cluttered looking to me and so is the ambassador. My 2 favorite ships (1701 A & D) both have the sort of feel I'm going for with this ship. For those who don't know, this ship was inspired in part by both marky D's gagarin and the shaandra refit by Zambie Zan. Also by the awesome stuff of DJ Curtis who is one of the masters IMO.
Here's some screen shots of the (hopefully!) finished build. Comments are welcome and appreciated! :P
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Looks good, only coment I'd make is the saucer shuttle bay is not to scale with the aft main bay.
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to me for a Connie Refit the necelle pylons seem to be swept too far aft and it looses some of its recognizable lines, but that is just my opinion there
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Yeah I can see what you mean and I had the same thought but mostly I was worried about mesh errors (had to redo th nacelles dude to a dumb mistake I made :hithead:). I'll see about rescaling the aft section of the ship to match up more with the TMP ratios. Now where did I put those schematics? :thumbsup:
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nick, (if thats ur name)
do not give up, this looks allot better than my first attempt.. stick at what your trying to achieve and dont give up with the corrections mate :)
that said, look at my image and you will see allot... but hey ho, you made good progress, and all is good.. try to fix before you release, as a symmetrical clean model will get mapped 80% faster than urs at the min, the hull (mine) is symmetrical just get the rest to flow suit..
those pylons look way way too thin, they need some meat, and they dont flow that well in my opinion.
But thats my opinion, take it as you will, good work so far mate and good luck with the rest of it :thumbsup:
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I think this is looking great dude! Like what you did with the neck! The only other issue to me is what Darkthorne pointed out. The nacelle pylons look too swept back. I think the Nacelles are positioned okay, just move the upper portion forward (or the entire assembly forward, just keep the same contact point with the secondary hull).
Just a thought. I'm digging this either way and you'll definitely have my download when it's ready!
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Thanks guys for all the kind words although this enitire effort owes a lot to Capt. Licard for getting me started in the right direction. I won't give up on this and I'll see about fixing the symmetry issues and those wheat-thins nacelles lol :funny
As far as unifiying the parts that need it; I can just use the intersect tool, right? :idk:
I'll get started on this later on tonight after I get back from hanging with my relatives.
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You just need to make sure you have exploded all the groups and components. You should be able to click on any part of the ship three times quickly and have the whole thing selected. If not, go to the inside of the parts that arent and create a line from edge-to-edge until its all connected. Make sure it is on the inside. Also, you have done alot of work on her, I like it. I just happen to know a really good texturer who just might have finished a project for someone.
(cough...baz1701...cough)
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Ok guys here's my progress so far. Also have a size comparison with the 1701 refit. :thumbsup:
All it needs is textures and a HP barring any further corrections....
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you forgot to soften coplanar
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No I didn't. Sketchup is just being an @$$......
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if you would like, I could prep the model for use in game.
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Sounds good to me man. Thanks! I'll send the .skp over to you right now.
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Alright, took a break from my other projects to get her ready for use in game. She's not smoothed due to a glitch with gmax.
screenies of her in NifSkope
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Damn that looks pretty good if I do say so myself. Now for the texturing which I've not done in ages....
Edit: If anyone else wants to take a shot at texturing this badboy go for it. Just ask me and I'll send you the nif. As things stand right now it could be a while before I get this thing textured since this is a whole different animal than texturing for SFC which I was getting pretty good at back in the day. Not to mention I get major system slowdown with Blender to the point where it becomes almost impossible to do anything as my PC decides to tell me to go eff myself. So I'll either have to wait for my new PC or have one of you kind folks do it instead. I know everyone's really busy with their own stuff though, so I'll try and get it worked out on my own. :facepalm: :hithead: :banghead: :idk:
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Just realized a really dumb mistake. NO PHASERS ON THE SAUCER!!!! :banghead :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:
Putting them in now and no poly will be spared!! :evil:
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Ok phasers are done. I can't think of anything else that can be done to it now. As always here's some pics for ya. BTW I checked the poly (or entity in sketchup) count and its like 17K.
But now I'm gonna go smoke a cig and have a drink and just relax after 4 hours of modeling hell..... :smoke :drink3:
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Uh, :hithead: your poly count is wrong. the model you sent me is just under 24.5k polies. basically the model will cause lagging on older systems. what you need to do is go through and delete any edges that are not required.
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He was probably counting quads and tis collectively. I dunno how sketchup works though. Either way, spiffy.
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Yeah I went through and deleted a lot of internal stuff that wasn't needed and redid the edge of the saucer as it just didn't flow like I wanted it to. Not too sure how to accurately count polys but like I said no poly was spared. I'm going for quality with this bad boy... :evil:
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Okay, just making sure. Again, I happen to know a very good texturer who might just help you with this project. I mean, im not naming any names. Cough...baz1701...cough..cough,
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Well I imagine baz is pretty busy but if he wants to take a shot at this I'm all for it.
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Well I imagine baz is pretty busy but if he wants to take a shot at this I'm all for it.
Just drop him a PM asking if he will. in the meantime, go ahead and send the GE4 .kmz file for conversion.
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Alright, im converting the model as we speak, Ill post screenies later. as a note to any texturer, the model is the size of a small solar system as far as scaling is concerned.
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lol I built that sucker full scale man. :funny
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Ok The guys passed me this ship yesterday and I've started to fix the converstion errors.
Saucer mostly done just have to rebuild the phaser emitters
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right I have the mesh sorted out.
Here are some before and after pics. As you can see there were a lots of faces back to front
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:facepalm: I thought I noticed something wrong, but thought it was just another piece of malfunctionng software.
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yeah same thing with the nx I did for you that is why I tried it as a 3DS instead of NIF.
Anyway I have started the saucer.
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Beautiful man. Just Beautiiful. Have a cookie. :thumbsup:
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cool looking
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I still think the nacelles should be moved closer to the neck so it retains more of the original configuration instead of the
sovereign class look.
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It might be time to start to thinking what you want to call this ship and reg number.
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Got most of the main two hulls fleshed out.
Note: - your all getting a sneak preview of my new TMP Aztecing I have been working on for my connies.
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It's a good model for sure.
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Baz is like the superhero of BC modding. When some one needs help, he always there to save the day. If more modders followed your example, we would have awsome ships dayly, :thumbsup: Cookie to you my friend.
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Just passing on the help I had when I started. Marky D and Wiley were two very helpful guys that got my first ship of the ground.
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:evil:
Your textures have improved massively.. your making that model look good man :thumbsup:
kudos.. and cookied
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Your textures have improved massively.. your making that model look good man :thumbsup:
ya no doubt! im really liking where this one is going :)
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glad you guys like it.
Yet to add windows but you get the idea.
Just to note this ship was bigger than my V'ger.
I have scaled it down to just slightly larger than my refit connie.
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textures look great Baz..
but back to Nick..
If you look at the size of the phaser strip i made on the hull, all your phaser mounts are different sizes.. just one for the future ;)
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I agree with mark, was never happy with them so I have rescaled them.
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:)
That works for me :)
Nice work BAZ..
Cookie :thumbsup:
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Yeah I was more concerned withe getting them on there and looking nice. I discovered a little trick with the arc tool after I had made the bottom phaser strip and was just too lazy to go back and redo it. :P As far as name and registry how about USS Orlando NCC 41987? Orlando cuz I live in FL and 41987 is my DOB. :D BTW, I really want to thank you all for all your help and encouragement and if there's anything I can do to return the favor in the future don't hesitate to ask. :thumbsup:
As far as the hardpoint goes I'm going to go for something maybe 10-20% weaker than DJ's ambassador, but more maneuverable. And about the nacelles being out as far as they are, if I had made them any closer the impulse exhaust would have burned through the pylons. Not a good way to get out of spacedock lol. :eek Will BCUT be enough for the HP or do I need to get the MPE again?
I might give this thing some custom sounds and maybe work up a specific torpedo for it. But good stuff baz I'm really liking what you've done with her.
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Well there is a lesson in there for you... details matter.. an escape hatch needs to match the scale of a window etc etc... :evil:
:thumbsup:
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last updates for today.
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AMAZING!!! You Both Get a Cookies.
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just the bridge and pylons to go.
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That actually looks kinda cool.
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^ indeed
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All I can say is that this just keeps looking better and better man. Truly awesome.
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I'm thinking of making the reg's smaller, opinons?
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Smaller reg gets a yes from me.
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Yes.
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ok after a nice time out to final see a good British 1, 2 victory in Canada I have resized the reg on this ship.
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I think the upper registry needs to be a bit bigger, and there could be some more spacing between the lettering.
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That actually looks kinda cool.
agreed.
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I'll revisit the reg tomorrow.
In the mean time the bridge is done.
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any way to make the textures high resolution? they're pretty jagged.
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any way to make the textures high resolution? they're pretty jagged.
I second that..
But still sweet work mate.
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Resized to 2048, not sure the detail any better but makes the regs clearer.
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The reg under the saucer looks good, but the upper one needs a bit more spacing. Since you just upped the texture resolution you also may need to redraw your saucer texture to reflect the changes.
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totally rebuilt the saucer texture to 2048 so detail more enhanced. And also lightened the whole ships base colour
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That looks much better. :)
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Ok folks I give you the USS Orlando ready for outfitting for space trials.
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Now that's a pretty little ship. :thumbsup:
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One crit, the cowling around the bussard, the little cut-in looks like a modelling accident more than a designed feature. Maybe you can make it a wee bit more defined somehow...
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Nah man those are supposed to look that way. Pretty sure they were built that way by Cpt Licard.
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I agree with Bren. While you don't have to get rid of them, I'd say they could use a bit of refinement, as they do look kind of like a mesh error.
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Well If I ever get Blender to play nice with my PC I might do a version with different nacelles that I'm currently building/refining.
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Well If I ever get Blender to play nice with my PC I might do a version with different nacelles that I'm currently building/refining.
Look forward to seeing the result. :thumbsup:
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Well I've got good news and bad news. I got the ship working and ingame. But except for the aft torpedoes all the weapons are in the wrong places and I can't seem to figure out what went wrong. I carefully selected all the points for the weapons and even attempted to make each torp come from its respective tube. I'm at a loss and after 6 hours of MPE HELL I need a break. Perhaps someone here can help me? Attached are some screenies of my problem.
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Is your model scale in MPE set to 0.01?
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No, I forgot about that. :facepalm: :D Guess I'll just have to start over eh? :hithead:
I'll see about getting it done this weekend.
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No, I forgot about that. :facepalm: :D Guess I'll just have to start over eh? :hithead:
I'll see about getting it done this weekend.
I'm pretty sure everyone that's messed with MPE has done this one before. Don't let it get you down! If you need someone to take it, I'll gladly put in some HP work on it. I'm not amazing, but I can do it. ;)
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I got it all sorted out last night. Now all that's left is to tweak it so its relatively balanced. I'm thinking of making it circa 2376. Right now I'm using the DS9FX type 6 photon for standard torps and also gave it a very small amount of Quantums to hold off the bigger baddies.
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Looks good, but you seem to be forgeting one thing, BETA TESTING, of which you should probably do before release to work out any bugs. Even though it may work in your system doesnt mean it will work everywhere else.
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I've got some bad news fellas. All of my HP work was recently lost due to total HD failure. Tried everything I could think of but nothing worked. So as of now I have no desktop of my own and will have to use my roomates's PC from now until I get a new PC. I attempted to reinstall windows but now all I get is the BSOD. Might be possible to fix but I'm not very hopeful. :banghead: :cry:
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I still have all the ship files I did if you can not recover them.
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Dude, sorry about ur HD, ive had it happen to me before, but hence the power of weekly backups. Just a thought, open the side up and make sure all the cables are connected to the drive, Ive seen some machines where the cables vibrate loose with time. If that doesnt work, Desktop computers with decent graphics an be picked up pretty cheaply
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Well guys got it sorted. Turns out re-installing did fix the problem but one of my RAM chips had gone bad (broken connector :idk:) and was the real reason for the BSOD. So after about a week of updates I should be getting back to this and getting it packed up and ready for beta. I'll post back here when this has been accomplished. I do still have the original connie files from baz on a flash drive so all I have to do is endure more MPE hell. :P
I swear, you gotta love modern technology..... :roll
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Ok guys, got her all redone and she works in game. So who wants to beta? I'll get it all packed up tomorrow and get it to whoever wants to try it. Any takers?
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I might try it out. But that woud be my fist beta-test.
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Well the beta test is under way and I've got four people so far which should be plenty. But anyways here's some screenshots that will go with it on BC Files.
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Well I've taken the model back to the drawing board as a few issues had popped up during the beta tests. Biggest two were a mesh error under the main deflector (like three tris were slightly off) and the warp nacelles' back ends were just fugly imo. So I went back and did some tweaks, rebuilt the nacelles, thickened up the saucer (was a little too thin at second glance) and fixed some errors. Baz did an awesome job texturing her for me and Captain D was my inspiration to give this another go. Thanks to both of yas. So here's my question for you guys. Should I release both ships or replace the current version with the new and improved one? Screens below.
Just a note on the Nacelles: I thought it might be kinda cool to give them the clamshell look to go with the shuttle bay for something different.
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actually, that would be a logical transition (the nacelles) spot. like a halfway point between horizontally flat style pioneered by excel/gal and the A shape of Sov and it's derivatives. it's also nice to see something other than the 4 by 4's with rounded edges I usually see on refit mark 2 and up connies.
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sorry i never reported, the hp was ok for a first time, but the model could use some more detail, split phaser arrays would be Interesting
also, the poly count was sorta low for a modern ship. also add better aztecking to the saucer and new escape pod layout like on the ambassador
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I really like the rout you are going with the engines now, suits the design more. Perhaps taper them on the sides in the rear a bit.
,,,,,,,,,,,,the poly count was sorta low for a modern ship.,,,,,,,,new escape pod layout like on the ambassador
I agree with deadthunder2_0, some of the escape pods on the top of the saucer should be removed and some added to the bottom of the saucer.
Cookie for your improvements, Looks great. :thumbsup:
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Update!
More tweaks and randomness. I'll admit now that I did kinda rush through this at first. I extended the neck and tapered the nacelles' aft sections.
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Right on the money with those engines, they look great. :thumbsup:
Like what you are doing with the neck of the secondary hull, got sort of a slight galaxy feel to it.
She is turning out to be a real beauty. great work.
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thanks man. I still need to polish up the neck area as its still a little rough near where it meets the rear of the saucer.
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ok wow..... im definatly gonna use this when its finished, though i wonder how it will fare against my solaris class starship when its finished(tricobalt and a cloak lol..)
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Can we get a side view? I need a better look at the nacelles.
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Sure thing man. Soon as I get back from my little vaction. As far as taking on the solaris, I'm thinking she's gonna be a contender. Definitely gonna be quick and agile. :thumbsup:
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well i hope you know how to break a cloak....,and get past transphasics that have the same strength as tricobalts.....anyways, shes gonna be hard to beat!
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Okay here's the requested side view and also a look at the neck which I think I've got ironed out. Also tried to make the screenies a bit more friendly to the eyes.
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those nacells look too fat for the rest of the ship in context, if you thined them out a little it will go with the flow of the design a bit more, maybe you could take some of the chunkiness out of the nacells and use it to strenghten the pylons a bit.
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those nacells look too fat for the rest of the ship in context, if you thined them out a little it will go with the flow of the design a bit more, maybe you could take some of the chunkiness out of the nacells and use it to strenghten the pylons a bit.
I agree, but not too much. I think thickening the pylons would help alot as well, shorten them a bit but keep the connie style of them. Sort of go the way you thickened and shrank the neck of the secondary hull. Good job on the neck, much better now.
Great Job. :thumbsup:
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While I agree with Flare and D, I don't think the pylons are too skinny. Who says that the pylons need to be large? The only reason would be to support weight, and we all know . . .
So why is it necessary for any ship to have a hefty support column for something that creates a field that envelopes the ship? Keep them as they are, I say.
But the nacelles could use some shrinking, just because. ;)
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because laws of inertia don't cease to exist when the gravity does.
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because laws of inertia don't cease to exist when the gravity does.
what he said.
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One thing that always bugged me about (most) Star Trek ships, is that they have these ginormous engines (the JJ Ent being a prime example), and most of the time, they are sitting on relatively skinny or fragile pylons.
My suggestion would be to either make the engines skinnier, or fatten the nacelle pylons. Or both.
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I'll play around with them a bit guys. And for those of you who don't know one of my least favorite ships is the JJ-prise and I'd like to avoid any design elements that make people think of that monstrosity....
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I'll play around with them a bit guys. And for those of you who don't know one of my least favorite ships is the JJ-prise and I'd like to avoid any design elements that make people think of that monstrosity....
Here here!!! +1 and +1 tomorrow.
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Well how's this? :D About 20% thinner...
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That's more like it. It's also more pleasing to watch now. :thumbsup:
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ok, now add a little more thickness to those pylons and youve got one badas ship there.
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Going back a few posts:
because laws of inertia don't cease to exist when the gravity does.
Apparently they do. When the Enterprise enters or exits warp, seems to me that the speed at which this is happening should tear the ship apart regardless of the size of any structural elements. After all, you're talking in terms of literally thousands of miles per second. At the rates the ship slows down or accelerates, that would translate to thousands of G's. Our greatest technologies and composite construction techniques of today can only handle around 20-30 G's before becoming unstable and brittle. Hence: inertial dampeners, which are mentioned numerous times throughout the shows and movies. And yes, there are external dampeners, as well. So there really is no need to have super-sturdy ships from a technical point of view. It's just our infatuation with sexy, sleek and aesthetically pleasing ships.
Sorry, but it bothered me.
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well, if we would want bulky ships, all that is needed is a good look at Star Wreck Imperial Edition pics..
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That looks great to me. :yay:
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Nacelles look better than the first version though the flare are the top of the dorsal could use some work and the nipple sensor dome.
But generally an improvement.
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Well guys I'm back at last with an actual working computer but can't seem to make any progress with this model. :banghead: If any of you more talented folks want to take it and see what you can do with it you are more than welcome. PM me and I'll send you the 3ds file. (luckily had that saved on a flash drive and found it the other day :D)
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we also need to thing about what the nacelles are made out of Vs the pylons. From what I remember in tng nacelles are mostly empty space, filled partly with coils and such, which contain more empty space, and would probably be a light weight conductive material (heavy stuff would interfear with the subspace field) where as the pylons wouldn't be that way, and could be made out of much stronger material, so while they appear fragile they may not be same as the nacelles may not be as heavy as they look. Plus, lets not forget structural integrity field.
That's enough geek for this thread. Nice job on the concept model, keep it up.