Worked on the Prospero again today, and got a lot of work done on the textures. I think it's pretty much finished. I'm not sure what else I can do to it - I'm more or less at the limits of my present skill level. I decided to go with a UESPA color scheme I saw at the Starfleet Museum rather than Starfleet just to be different. As always, comments/suggestions/complaints welcome.
Thanks. I used Hexagon 2 for the basic modeling. Carrara 5 for the finishwork, UV Mapping, and rendering. Paintshop Pro 10 for creating the textures.
Great details on those images, especially the nacelles and that dish-pod. If you're interested in trying other designs/shapes/takes-on-the-Daedalus, Masao's Starfleet Museum site has some interesting ideas. One that I'd like to see tried would be an adaptation of the Wasp-class cruisers. Here's an idea: instead of using three nacelles, maybe the third wing could be mounted with your dish-pod. You could call it the Hornet. Would you also, perhaps, be interested in revisiting the Mann-class starship from the Chronology? I could think of a great possibility for a distorted sphere-shape there. Imagine a spherical primary hull that's somewhat "squashed" like the Mann or Masao's Moskva. (Let's call it the Mars-class.) Now imagine a smaller "stinger" pod like the Wasp situated on the aft of the sphere/saucerette. Your excellent warp nacelles would be placed on wings to shoot straight out from the sides of the "stinger", 180 degrees horizontally opposed to each other. Most of the way out on each wing, near each nacelle, would be a dish-pod built-into each wing. These dish-pods and the nacelles would have to be far enough out on the wings to clear the saucer. I think that would have made a great alternative to the Akira-prise, but that's just me.
I've decided I need to learn how to make better textures. Can I get some expert advice please? How do you guys get those nifty Azteced shiny metallic hull plates? In what way do I modify the Shine, Refraction, Highlight channels? I probably need a better Aztec texture for starters. Can someone perhaps donate something to the cause?
This almost-ortho makes me want to see a rollbar-free variant with that sensor pod mounted Kelvin-style off the top spine...
That sounds pretty simple and quick to do. Maybe I'll try that. Meanwhile... Fiddled a bit with the metallic hull texture and came up with this. Full size: http://merknet.com/stpmaforum/prospero/prospero_vortex_1600x900.jpg
Thanks. Hexagon 2, Carrara 5, Paintshop Pro 10. The black hole is actually a picture of the Crab Nebula, tweeked and twisted and colored in Paintshop Pro.
One last render of the Prospero... Full size: http://merknet.com/stpmaforum/prospero/prospero_saturn_1600x900.jpg
Ok, here we go. http://3d.merknet.com/free/prospero/prospero.html The Carrara version is the one you see in the renderings. The Vue version turned out good. The Poser version is a little tweeked, but it's beyond my skill to fix it (or even to know what exactly is wrong). The OBJ version is untextured, but all texture files are included in the zip. Free for use. No credits required.
Ummm....just a nitpick...it looks like the rollbar module will slam right into the back of the sphere when it fires.