Here's the second turntable animation from below. Rotation from Below (DivX, 741KB) - Again, please right-clilck and save to your computer.
Finally, here's a couple of close-up renderings showing the latest changes. As you can see, I simplified the bridge structure in a way that I think is much cleaner and less complicated. It will also work better with the saucer separation scheme I have in mind once I get to that point. I also made some changes to the deflector assembly. I made the oval shape slightly triangular and canted it forward a little to reduce its bluntness. Opinions?
That's looking real nice. My only (minor) concern is how the neck joins up to the engineering hull - the slant feels like it's going back pretty sharply, like the neck's about to pinch off. It might be just some shadow coming off the lower hull making it look that way, though.
Hey Vektor, Seraphim here. We've all come to enjoy your designs of starships and what not over the years, and I'm sure I can speak for everyone when I say well done on the new USS Grandeur. I do have a question however, so bear with me here. What would you say is the purpose of this new ship? Is it your concept of what a future Starfleet vessel should look like, for perhaps an upcoming Series VI? Or is this ship simply an exercise in the latest design trends, if there is such a thing, of starships? We're all curious as to how you would describe and/or categorize this latest effort? Thank-you. :thumbsup:
Seraphim, if you head over to the following links, you should be able to find the answers to all of your questions (well, at least regarding this little beauty) http://www.sextondesign.net/ussgrandeur/html/joinproject.html http://www.sextondesign.net/ussgrandeur/poll/ http://forums.ussgrandeur.org/
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Y'all are gonna crap your collective pants when you see this. ;D Here, for the very first time in the nearly three year history of this project, a brief glimpse of the Grandeur in saucer separation mode! This, too, is just blocked out; further refinements to come.
I think this actually looks better than the Enterprise-D's stardrive section. Nice work, Vektor! :thumbsup:
^Wow! This is indeed a good ship! She looks good even in separated mode! It would be interesting to see where exactly the plane of seperation actually is, because it's not immediately obvious like in the Galaxy Class.
I made some decent progress on the secondary hull in the last couple of days. I'm building most of it as a single Sub-D object, as you can see from the following sequence of images: I stuck a 6' human figure on the fantail as a scale reference. Originally, I thought the hangar deck opening looked like it wasn't tall enough but it's actually more than 26' high. Also, I think the fantail is jutting out there a bit too far so I'm probably going to shorten it by about half. In case you're wondering, the hangar deck control booth is going to go in the box directly above the hangar doors. Neither the doors nor the details on the fantail are final.
And here are a few more views to show how the rest of the secondary hull is coming along: Obviously, I still have more work to do, especially on the "head" area which still has way too much segmentation, among other problems, but things are coming along fairly quickly now.
I actually kinda like the extended fantail. I think it might help balance the saucer segment left attached, though I reserce judgement till ve haff nacelles to zee az vell.