FCSS Trilobite, a Federation Colonial Service utility ship

Thanks! I wanted to keep the loading door as one piece so that it can serve as a simple 'backbone' to the ramp that vehicles/supplies would travel on. The whole assembly will be rigged with telescoping pistons on either side of the ramp, which will hopefully make the idea of such a large one-puece structure look plausible.
The aft section, as you describe, are a series of cargo pods that can form a train of varying lengths behind the ship. I intend to model them properly, but not before the main ship is finished and textured

 

Brilliant!

 

Made some progress over the last week: Pretty much finished the loading deck, and the loading ramp is getting there too.

 

Beautiful modeling! And as someone who always had a weird fascination with trilobites (I blame Pokemon) I love the design!

 

Thanks, I hope that I can continue the trilobite motif as I move on to the texturing stage, which shouldn't be too far off now.

 

Thanks, the objects on the underside are phase cannon turrets. There are two on the underside and one on top. I chose not to put any photon launchers on it because I don't want the ship to have a heavy armament: the ship is quite small and it's internal space would be better served for fuel and storage, and also torpedoes are a consumable that might be difficult to replace at a fledgling colony.

 

Sexy, sexy details you got there

 

I had a bit of a break from this ship for about a week, but I've made some progress over the past few days. The model is now finished, and I'm now figuring out what texture/shader details to give it. The current hull paneling is just a placeholder (borrowed from my Reliant model), but it works well enough for me to get the shaders and masks the way I want it. Once the texture masks are done, I'll do a proper job of the texture maps.

 

looking solid...better than the disco stuff as a texture, as this is looking more unique and not just bashy

 

Thanks Atolm! Personally, I thought they did a rather lovely job of texturing the USS Discovery, I'm curious what it is that you find 'bashy' about it.

 

I spy Substance Designer's random tile generator

I'd like to get a closer look at what you've done with that piece near the front, sitting on top of the saucer above the docking port. What exactly is that structure supposed to be?

 

No Substance Designer used here! It's an old texture that has been adapted for different purposes. I originally made it for an old B5 model:

It then got revamped and was applied to parts of my Reliant early Earth starship:

And now I'm using it as a placeholder texture on the Trilobite. I like to recycle (or perhaps just very lazy...)

As for the section on the front, it's a bridge/cockpit module. As you can see from the screengrab below, it's not meant to be seen in close-up, but with textures and internal lighting added, it'll do the job well enough on mid to wide shots:

 

Good god that Reliant render is GORGEOUS! Sorry if you've already answered these questions, but what softwares do you use for modeling, texturing, and rendering? All my experience is with game engine rendering only so I've never done proper renders with things like iRay and the like. I should probably get around to trying it one of those days, even with my game-res meshes.

 

Your game-res Constitution Refit would hold up just as well, if not much better than the starship models that I make - my PC is getting a bit old and doesn't handle super-high polygon counts and huge texture maps without suffering from a bit of slow down. That being said, I don't feel too hamstrung by those limitations so I'm sure you could come up with some fantastic non-realtime images using your game-res meshes.

I use 3DS Max with VRay, and of course Photoshop for textures and post production. I keep telling myself I should learn Blender, as I think learning a new package with new ways of doing things would be good for me creatively. I've got to find the time for it though.

 

I can relate. I thought about learning Modo a couple years back but my art lead at work at the time urged me to just keep mastering Max instead of taking the time to learn a new package. It was probably good advice at the time, but I would like to step outside of Max eventually. I should really be practicing more with Zbrush instead though, since it'll help me develop an entirely other skillset.

I'll have to try messing around with VRay sometime once I get my Refit model finished. I'd like to create some nicer-than-Unreal portfolio images with it.

 

For various reasons, I haven't had much time to update this thread, however over the past few days I've been able to make some progress. The UVW unwrapping and masking is coming along well, and I've got a decent idea in my head of what the final texture maps will end up looking like. I've also started experimenting with how best to light the thing. Lighting is not something that comes as naturally to me as modelling, and this ship seems to be harder than most, what with its numerous flat surfaces that reflect unwanted light onto other parts of the model. However I think I'm starting to make some headway:

 

That's a beautiful shot! The lighting looks good to me (I have no clue when it comes to these virtual models, but I'm sure someone who does will come along and say it's looks great, too!).

 

Your lighting game is top notch. What kind of materials do you apply to that floor to give it that faint reflection? It looks great!

 

Thanks, I'm happy you like the look of it, and I hope to further refine it as the project progresses

That's very nice of you to say, but I wouldn't say I've made a top notch lighting setup quite yet - I work with a few people who are absolute wizards when it comes to lighting things. I'm learning a lot from them, plus I'm studying the shots done by Pixomondo for Discovery.

I'm not sure which bit you're referring to as the floor, but all the materials I make are VRay shaders. There are two main material types, a white one with a low index of refraction number, and bitmaps plugged into the diffuse, reflection level, reflection gloss and bump slots. The other material is metallic, so the index of refraction number is much higher, and the diffuse is much darker.

There is a black and white texture map that serves as a mask that dictates where the white material and where the metal material go on the hull.