my take on the TMP-E

I've been constantly drawing, drafting, modeling the Refit for well over a decade now. its hands-down my all time favorite model/vessel (from any genre)
this latest version has gone through many many evolutions, this is still a WIP so far created all in AutoCAD. i had been wanting to get it into Max for quite a while, but was having endless conversion difficulties

that is untill last week! i finally had someone here at the house who actually knows modeling and was able to help me get it properly transitioned

here's a couple quick renders of the new Max version






i originally planned this to be a complete 3d-cutaway deck plans and all, but that was back before i discovered CTM's thread and his attempt at the same thing! i think i'll just let him finish first!!!!! haha

 

I am always green with envy over the 3D art skills on display in this forum.

 

Looks good, though the parallel projection on the 3/4 views makes it hard to evaluate. Do you have any images rendered from a perspective camera?

 

^ i can certainly render some up in the AM tomorrow! the kid's overtaken the good compy for playin WoW at the moment

 

Good Job! Is your CAD model a solid or a mesh?

You have a good starting point to flesh out the interior - using the opposite approach from mine (though it is the more standard approach). My next build will go from the outside in.

Though, in truth, my next build will be a Locknar

 

There can't be too much refit Connie around.

 

Who's first born do I have to kidnap to get the .dwg for that? ;-)

 

Excellent first renders! I can't wait to see more. If you were looking to render interiors, perhaps letting the windows have actual interiors while leaving the rest to CTM would work.

 

^ beautiful stuff

 

thanks guys. i model in solids, dont do much mesh-work. and this version is already built with interiors in mind. the type of layout i wanted to do was an as-built construction profile, rather than focusing on detailing what rooms where what or where, but how it was built, and the "spaces in-between spaces" haha

i have some old renders showing this, i'll dig them out in a little while when i do a few fancy new renders over in max.

 

here's the new promised renders. i took a few from familiar vantages from TMP just remember, this model is only about 50% complete

here's "Spock's arrival"


and one of my favorite views, from the officers lounge (well, standing on the hull above it)

and looking across from the same vantage


finale shot


about to go to first warp


the belly shot at departure


and a few more miscellaneous views to cover the bases!






and here's a couple cutaways of my working design for hull buildup

 

Awesome stuff

 

The classic refit Enterprise has always been my very favorite (and to my mind the very best) incarnation of the Enterprise. Your work has certainly paid off. I especially like what you did with lighting effects on the hull.

 

WOW!

Once again, another person on this forum makes me feel totally inadequate about my artistic skills.

Awesome work!

 

Looks awesome!

I hope you keep the blue detailing. It gives it an almost Excelsior type color scheme.

 

Good Stuff in putting thought into the hull and flooring.

 

Looks good.

How hard was it to convert the file over from autocad? My Uncle has a bunch of Autocad files, that I wanted to convert, but didn't think it would work too well.

 

thanks for all the kind words guys!

oh it is going to have much much more! many more shades of greys blues purples... SOOOOOOO many of the colors washed out on-screen, but i plan to replicate them all.

every time anyone has had opportunity to photograph the model the lighting and the condition of the model has been different, so its always hard getting accurate palette matches. this photo has yellowing age issues and some of the colors blend, but the contrast is great for showing the level of detail i want to achieve!


i dont plan to have any new work on this model untill probably spring i am currently juggling 3 other projects...

before i start wading into the murk of this one i want to get a good start into the actual deck-plans of my Ent-D project. get my 3d drydock finished, and get a little work on my SS x-wing done too.

 

it really depends on the actual objects in the files, the more lofts and booleans you get in your CAD 3d, the harder it is to get a smooth object into Max.

the level of optimization and smoothing required to get this puppy into Max created a real beast: super-high polycount. even this 50-60% completed model is over 100megabytes in Max. we were well over 100 curve steps (in the importing dialogs) before we began to see decent results with this model.

i just opened it up and looked at the details:
verts: 1,300,604
faces: 2,420,441

i can live with that if the detail keeps holding up, and just keep modeling in CAD, then use Max for the rendering. but future projects will definately be modeled in max first.

 

You know, you can optimize ship components that are lathed (saucer and engineering hull) if you just import their outlines into Max, and then use the Lathe tool to revolve them into their full shapes. The tool has an option for how many segments you would like to use, and at what angle you want.

Now, if you want to really optimize Lathed parts, I'd suggest splitting your outline where the hull panels are (especially on the saucer), and adjust the number of lathe segments according how how smooth you would like those areas to be.

This is something I learned from Vektor, and the advantage of doing saucers and hulls in that fashion is that you can have a smooth saucer edge without wasting polies in plain or feature less areas.