Donny's Refit Enterprise Interiors (Version 2.0)
- Thread starter Donny
- Start date
Yeah, those are recessed behind doors. Maybe the travel pod could get in there, but not the shuttle.
You know, I bet a Discovery shuttle could fit into the saucer ports as well.
Isn't that the magic of tractor beams?
Finished up painting the Aztec details on the underside of the saucer tonight. I'm going for the pearlescent look of TMP, but not quite sure I'm hitting the mark. Since Unreal doesn't allow for standalone specular color maps, it's harder to do than I imagined. (Unreal uses a metal/roughness workflow for it's materials and the color of specular highlights is driven by the color of the diffuse map, rather than a spec/gloss worlfklow that allows diffuse and specular colors to be different). I keep tweaking values but I need to just finish getting all the patterns painted and then go back and tweak. Anyway, here's the latest:
On the other hand, the reflections are looking quite nice:
On the other hand, the reflections are looking quite nice:
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Looking good dude! And yeah, the material is quite hard to get right. I'm doing my own interpretation of it, instead of going for the exact same look, but I've been tweaking the roughness and color maps a lot to get a good look and be comparable to the original. I'm also working on the aztec for the underside of the saucer as we speak.
Looks like we're neck and neck! Speaking of the neck, I'll be starting on that tomorrow
Looks like we're neck and neck! Speaking of the neck, I'll be starting on that tomorrow
LOL, yeah, we are close. Although, I've already started on the neck and torpedo area. Only missing decals on those parts and maybe a few tweaks
Yeah, I'm still gonna have to work on it a bit. Once I complete the mountain of a task of painting the actual pattern across the ship, it will be easier for me to tweak values until I hit that sweet spot. Anyway, I do appreciate your honest feedback. It helps!
I can't quite be sure if you got it or not, it's a very subtle detail, but the "landing feet" on the bottom of the saucer aren't just one color, and aren't part of the aztec pattern, but have a ))) or >>> pattern of stripes on them. They look softer-edged than most of the panels, maybe they were airbrushed. This facebook post has several photos calling them out.
One big problem that we have is that the reference for the materials on the ship are all over the place in lighting conditions, but also in the condition of the ship itself. If you are going by the photos of the model, then your's look quite similar. But if you go by the look in TMP, then I think the panels need to be more subdued. Of course, there was a lot of post in TMP to get that look so you could possibly tweak post settings in Unreal to achieve it. In the following movies they started to alter the paint a lot to get rid of highlights so that altered the look as well.
If you go by original description of how the ship is painted, you need a white base and the iridescent panels painted on top of that.
If you go by original description of how the ship is painted, you need a white base and the iridescent panels painted on top of that.
No, those are located closer to the sensor dome. It's my understanding that the smaller panels are the landing pads, and the larger panels next to them have no called out purpose as far as I know.
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Ah thanks for that! I hadn't noticed that pattern in my other reference files.
I've been taking into account all of those things, but I disagree that I need to be more subdued if going with the look in TMP. I would argue that I need to be less subdued / have more contrast in the panels:
The colors of the Aztec panels in the film (and as the ship was intended) are far more visible than they were in following films, and I'm trying to capture that colorfulness.
Anyway, it's tough because how you light the model can drastically change how it looks.
So much of it has to do with lighting and camera. That's why I added that caveat to my previous statement. "OR it could be your lighting isn't creating the results I'm expecting and everything is fine."
Donny, the thing with TMP was the way the azteking would be totally hidden and then as the angle of the light / camera shifted it would show up plain as day. Yes, that was toned down or eliminated in subsequent films.
I'm sure you'll just go along matching screen grabs and then make it look JUST LIKE THAT. Y'know, like you do.
Donny, the thing with TMP was the way the azteking would be totally hidden and then as the angle of the light / camera shifted it would show up plain as day. Yes, that was toned down or eliminated in subsequent films.
I'm sure you'll just go along matching screen grabs and then make it look JUST LIKE THAT. Y'know, like you do.
Didn't the model get painted plain white for TFF and then when it came back to ILM they had to re-apply the panels for TUC?
A couple of times the model was partially painted white or grey by a third party and they had to repair it. I took the time to read Memory Alpha's history of the model the other day:
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Constitution_class_model_(refit)
Thing is, with the research I'm doing, this is going to be near impossible to pull off in Unreal 4. As great an engine as it is, it does have it's limitations. I just did some tests in Painter and I'm able to pull off the proper effect with a specular/gloss shader, which unfortunately is incompatible with Unreal's metal/roughness shader. This is much to the chagrin of many artists who feel that while metal/roughness is more realistic, it also is limiting to doing things that are outside of what's considered "realistic". There is no proper support for going outside the box, like with artificial interference paints that flip to their complementary colors when the light shifts, like used on the 8 foot Connie model.
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