Akira Class (Blender)

[lewisniven]

I've had a thread going on Sci-Fi meshes for a while now but figured I'd post here too. My Akira class, also my first 'proper' 3d model. It's nearly there in terms of where I'll leave it and move to something else, although I am going to model interiors because the emissive windows aren't working for me at the moment. I'm also working on some animations and composites, anyway;

 

[Tallguy]

Gotta say, that's gorgeous. Now we need wireframes, modifier stacks, workflow, the whole nine yards. (Please?)

 

[lewisniven]

Thanks
Some wireframes below, the last shot shows the panels on the underside and you can see the modifier stack of how they're sticking to the hull. All the panels were done this way, just a 2D plane, shrinkwrap, solidify, bevel, which makes them easy to adjust.

 

[Tallguy]

Thank you!

That is an annoyingly clean looking mesh.

I apparently missed the multi colored wireframe feature added in 2.8. Nifty!

 

[scifieric]

Holy cow! This looks amazing!

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Outstanding! And I'm with @Tallguy; I envy your tidiness.

 

[Mage]

Well damn, that's a great model of one of my favorite designs!!

 

[lewisniven]

Thanks for the kind words guys. I worked out fairly early on that I'd need to keep the mesh as tidy as possible otherwise it becomes twice as painful once the cutting in of windows starts and all that. Been working on adding some very rough interiors just to make animations stand up a little better, as well as some extra spotlights and other detail bits to make it look a bit more 'alive';

Lewis.

 

[USS Firefly]

They are looking great!

 

[Tallguy]

Are the windows simple booleans? It's been a long time since I've done windows and TOS ships are a whole different critter than "window-palooza" of TNG. But I haven't tried this since n-gons were introduced. So, forever.

 

[lewisniven]

Are the windows simple booleans? It's been a long time since I've done windows and TOS ships are a whole different critter than "window-palooza" of TNG. But I haven't tried this since n-gons were introduced. So, forever.

Yeah the windows are booleaned in slightly larger than they should be, then inset to get them to size, then extruded in. Then it's just the mind numbing task of cleaning up the mess, so once done they look like this;

 

[Tallguy]

Oh Great Bird! One at a time?

 

[lewisniven]

Good grief no! I did one deck at a time more or less.

So for the saucer I'd create a curve and then create an array of windows round that curve. Apply the array modifier and delete all the un-needed windows, the boolean them in. For horizontal decks, ie the catamarans, a similar approach; Using arrays, create a huge grid of windows spaced correctly deck wise. Delete all the un-needed ones, boolean them in.

The underside ones around the deflector hull were a bit tricker because they work round a curve in both directions. I could have used a shrinkwrap modifer but I was keen not to have the windows distort in anyway so I made some large planes intersecting the hull to represent decks, then once I had my big grid array of windows, I had to manually go round and line these up so they sat tangent to the hull properly.

The images below show what I mean with using a plane for a deck, with the array of windows ready to go.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Sounds similar to what I do in LightWave. Say, I asked this on your YouTube channel, but what renderer do you use? Cycles, or one of the third-party dohickeys?

 

[lewisniven]

Everything is in Cycles so far, not really payed with any others.

 

[scifieric]

Oh Great Bird! One at a time?

Bill, that made me LAUGH OUT LOUD! I love it and may have to start using it!

 

[lewisniven]

Been playing around trying to get more interesting lighting, also tweaked the hull material;

 

[USS Firefly]

Been playing around trying to get more interesting lighting, also tweaked the hull material;

We want more....we want more!!

 

[lewisniven]

We want more....we want more!!

As you ask so nicely. I'm working on the interiors at the moment so the underside windows will all be lit soon.