Well, to be fair, those pieces were very easy to do. It also helps that I had most of the texturing figured out from the Enterprise. Some updates. I have the launchers set up in the pod now: And I also re positioned and properly aligned the windows to the catamarans. No more distortion now. This layout is final unless something bothers me. The inside panels are not finalized though, I still might change those.
I wanna see what's inside. 8-) (edit: there's somethin' weird goin' on with the lower left edge of the second porthole from the upper left.)
@Professor Moriarty damn, good eye. Some polygon issues. It's fixed now. Also, there will be plenty of interiors to look at later Work continues. I decided to bring back the green ribbing at the back. I made it wider and straightened it out so everything is equidistant. I also did the windows for the hangar control room. I tried having a separate structure but it wasn't working very well. This is cleaner. Notable omission is the bridge. Just not happy with what I had. I'll try designing something better in the coming days.
I would like to see the curve on the lower hull, you could still do the shuttlebay down there, but with just a slight curve at the back of the secondary lower hull to make it fit better in the Era. Just my opinion, man this is beautiful otherwise!
That might be more trouble than it's worth.The main reason I made that area flat is to make the detailing easier. Going curved introduces all sorts of problems. Big changes for this update. Thanks to some folks on Discord, and with a little help from some John Eaves concept art, I decided to take a completely different approach to the bridge and build a superstructure that spans all the way to the back. That also solved a previous issue with the control room. The new one feels better and with more clearance. I also reworked the hangar interior. It's going to be a big one: And here you can see the rails where the doors will slide on:
Did you try putting the control room on the rim of the saucer underneath the hangar deck? Seems like a good spot for it, and nothing else is there... I also liked imagining the area above the shuttlebay is a rec room or meeting area. Looks big enough for a gathering of a lot of people... even as far back as your custom window arrangement a few pages back, it looked like a meeting area rather than something for utility.
I'm going to put the ship's name there. I don't want to have any appendages on the rim or otherwise mess up too much with the original rim. It's not that big. And with the size of the hangar it'll require a few stations. I'll make it work Here's a small update. Testing the windows for the conference room at the back of the bridge: I also knocked this out in about half an hour. TMP version of the Saladin Class. It still needs some additional modeling, but it's basically done. I'll do the Akula as well and I might actually try a TMP version of the Kelvin. I'm doing these to have some background ships for different scenes.
Again, we strike similar paths. For the last week I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a TOS Saladin model after I finish up my TOS Pilot bridges! That looks great!
Thanks! And you know, great minds and all that The Saladin is actually a TOS ship as I recall. The actual TMP ship is the Akula, but that one has an extra nacelle above the saucer. I'll do that one as well, but I figured why not do both
Saladin is one of the first kitbashes in all of trek, showing up in the Franz Joseph Star Trek Technical Manual. The Akula I believe we're both thinking of comes from Klingon Academy. The photon pod is something specific in appearance, though in my own variants I use an upscaled Reliant photon pod.
That's really ugly, heh. I don't think I would do that ship like that. I'd have to redesign a lot of it to look better. Maybe a project for another time. Actually, I think it was in Starfleet Command as well. I don't think I'll do a different pod for that one. The one I did for the Saladin is generic enough for all the variants I have planned. Didn't do much today, but I finished the torpedo launcher and changed the decals for the ship. Calling it the USS Stalker:
Your modeling and rendering skills are enviable, Viper. The images of the Stalker look like frame grabs from a heretofore undiscovered TOS-era movie.
Taldren was the maker of awesome content for the TMP era, starting with Starfleet Academy. Every game since during that era just used the assets from the previous games and carried it forward into the next thing. One of the earliest additions there is, for instance, the TMP Romulan fleet. So it's something like; Starfleet Academy > Klingon Academy > Starfleet Command (I, II, Orion Pirates) > Star Trek Shattered Universe The Akula is in all of these except SFA. I think it's a natural evolution of the Saladin and a nice TMP counterpart. I wish it performed better than it did in all the games it shows up (some Frigates are better than the DDs in SFC). Anyway, all this is to gush about how awesome this lineage of TMP ships is, and how I feel they're worthy additions to Trek canon. About as worthy, if not moreso, as the FASA range.
I quite agree. I wish we could see more of her besides these static shots; she's fantastic and I want a TV show built around her!
Of course. Remind me if I forget. I'm doing multiple projects at once, easy to miss these things. A job well done then You know, someone had suggested I do these as a way to have different ships to use as background objects. At first I was skeptical that they would look good. But they do and are actually fun to do. It helps that I had the Constitution ready, but still. I hope my own original designs will fit in LOL, well, I can't help with the TV show, but I'll try to do some proper scenes of these variants. Animations will come eventually. Just hard to find time where I can let the computer alone to render for several hours. Amid the current work for the Kusanagi, I did a quick concept of how the pylon on the Akula will look like: It actually came out quite thick. I might do some windows there. I need to figure out what to do with the dome in the impulse engine. I'll either delete it and do some other detail, or I might do a cover on top of it.
A couple of things; 1. The design you have now looks more like the Apollo-class from Star Trek: Legacy. It's clearly inspired by the Akula, but in essence it's just your lower pylon mirrored across the saucer. 2. The Akula-class as designed from KA has a very distinct 2-step upper pylon and a fat lower pylon that connects to the photon box. The "canonical" design has a blunted rear end, but I can't see why this unit can't be swapped out for an oversized miranda module, where the rear deck could be used for rear photons and mine laying. (Why I bring this up is because the Akula design is pretty distinct and is one of my favorites. If it's rendered, I'd like to see it rendered accurately over being an Apollo).