JR Trek

[JR TREK]

The ship that is my current claim to fame - some may have seen it on Trekyards

I'm currently working on a TOS Romulan ship -

It started out as a Bird of Prey, but the wings kept getting longer and longer, so I'm going to say this is a redesign of FASA's Starglider instead. It's a much smaller and weaker ship, but it has charisma, and support ships are needed too! They can't all be a predator!

I've got a few more ships blocked out which I may post later.

 

[publiusr]

Perfect for the post TOS/pre TMP Lost Years look

 

[Professor Moriarty]

OOOOOOOOOH. NICE! (What's going on with that weird reflection/reverse shadow on the "01" part of the saucer registry in the first shot?)

How long did it take you to model and texture this beauty? Can we see her in motion?

 

[JR TREK]

publiusr - It was interesting seeing the Trekyards video about whether the TOS Bird of Prey still fits in canon or not. IMO it does, the Enterprise BoP is the one that's wrong. I like it, but it's clearly a Next Gen era ship.

Professor Moriarty - The saucer is picking up a light from somewhere. The shader needs work, and I need a faster computer to do the work.

It's hard to say how long it took to make the JR-Prise. I dropped it for a long time because I had too much work coming in. I would say it took at least a year from start to finish, but at least half of that time I didn't touch it at all.

I've got a short clip where I tested the navigation lights and the bussard animation -

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and a turntable done at an earlier stage of development -

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I'd like to do animation, but the JR-Prise is too heavy for my elderly rig. Well, too heavy to render using Cycles.

I might be able to do something with the Starglider, but don't expect much.

 

[JR TREK]

I've started a Trek specific account on Deviant Art which will have larger images than the ones here -

https://www.deviantart.com/jrtrek

Currently I only have a few images of the JR-Prise up, but more is sure to come!

 

[JR TREK]

Progress on the bird -

 

[publiusr]

When I first saw the FASA Winged Defender, I read it backwards. I thought it had forward swept wings...but the side view threw me. I thought the impulse was a side by side plasma torpedo emitter. (It was actually a Bird shape and pointed the other way.)

But having something like that--with the warp nacelles flipped to look like your design here might be something you could try.

 

[JR TREK]

A little weathering and she'll be finished!

Starglider with her entire crew complent of 130. I didn't realize the crew was that large, but it looks like they'll fit. She may not even be as cramped as the FASA manual says. These guys are spread out over five decks, counting the bridge deck and a space under the hanger deck.

Oddly enough, the proportions of my Starglider to the JR-Prise worked out similar to the FASA Starglider and the TOS Connie, even though I was thinking of the Starglider as a smaller ship. She's still fairly small, but imagine if you were an engineer and you had to crawl from one warp nacelle to the other! How many crew are usually assigned to the nacelles anyway? They're going to be in rough shape if they ever have to run for the escape pods. Maybe the bussard scoop can double as an escape pod if it's turned off and air is pumped in.

publiusr - The Winged Defender might be too perfect to change. I'm glad I'm working in the TOS era and not the TMP era.

 

[JR TREK]

Learning the latest changes to Blender's shading and compositing node system. I'm going to have to add more geometry in a few places, but I'm super happy with the way this is turning out. Is there a nicer TOS Romulan ship out there? JetFreak7 has great one but IMO the detailing looks more TMP era. Ships that copy TMP or TNG styling back to TOS don't count - they have to work with the TOS era design language.

Incidentally, what is the widest image this board can display? This pic is a little too small.

 

[Michael]

Incidentally, what is the widest image this board can display? This pic is a little too small.

The board software automatically scales large images to fit the width of the posts, which in turn fits the width of your screen. Clicking on a large image will scale it to its original pixel size. So the size of the image doesn‘t really matter. You should watch file size, though, as image heavy threads with lots of big files can really slow down load times for some users. Hope that helps.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Setting aside your question is there a nicer TOS Romulan ship out there? I'm curious what you would consider to be the "TOS era design language" because your Romulan bird of prey seems to color outside the lines of that standard. The ships we saw on Star Trek were simple geometric shapes that were easy for VFX modelers to build back in the 1960s. Your BOP features tapered warp nacelles (or whatever the Romulan equivalent FTL technology was back then) and aerodynamic struts that blend smoothly into the main hull. Your BOP also sports all sorts of lovely little details that would never have been placed on a physical studio miniature used for TOS, simply because no one would ever see them on the blurry TV signals broadcast back then. And apart from those constraints defined by technology, there's also the look you've achieved here. This is sleek, streamlined, and elegant. I would totally buy this as the latest in Romulan war technology... if this had appeared in an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. (Or maybe even in an episode of Strange New Worlds, if they figure out a way around some thorny canon issues!) But does this fit in with the established TOS aesthetic?

 

[JR TREK]

Setting aside your question is there a nicer TOS Romulan ship out there? I'm curious what you would consider to be the "TOS era design language" because your Romulan bird of prey seems to color outside the lines of that standard. The ships we saw on Star Trek were simple geometric shapes that were easy for VFX modelers to build back in the 1960s. Your BOP features tapered warp nacelles (or whatever the Romulan equivalent FTL technology was back then) and aerodynamic struts that blend smoothly into the main hull. Your BOP also sports all sorts of lovely little details that would never have been placed on a physical studio miniature used for TOS, simply because no one would ever see them on the blurry TV signals broadcast back then. And apart from those constraints defined by technology, there's also the look you've achieved here. This is sleek, streamlined, and elegant. I would totally buy this as the latest in Romulan war technology... if this had appeared in an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. (Or maybe even in an episode of Strange New Worlds, if they figure out a way around some thorny canon issues!) But does this fit in with the established TOS aesthetic?

Hmm . . . the V-! Starglider is an older type than the V-8 Bird of Prey, but is it old enough to be Enterprise era? I'm not sure what's going on with FASA's timeline. I don't understand how their date system works, and it looks like they have TOS and TMP style ships entering service within a few years of each other.

I think of the Jeffries designs as initial sketches that he would have refined and detailed if the time and budget had been there. I doubt the models were left undetailed due to the limitations of the tv screens of the time. I grew up with those tv's, they're not that bad (o.k., compared to a 2021 TV they're pretty bad, but they weren't bad enough to make TOS ship models look good!). So I think it is fair to add detail to the models. The Discovery Enterprise is a good example of an updated TOS look. It would have been better if they hadn't swept the warp pylons back like the refit ship, and hadn't flattened it down, and a few other things could have been done different, but I'll buy it as a TOS era Connie.

The scalloping on the top of the TOS Bird of Prey -

- comes from the golden age of aviation -

- so I think it's fair to use other pinstripes and color patterns from planes of that era. I believe the stripes I used on the black nacelle are regurgitated from something similar I saw on the cowling of an Me-109. Here's an Fw-190 with a similar eagle head on the side - http://kitsunesden.xyz/Rifts/Rifts-Earth-Vehicles/Technowizard/TW_Fw-190-TW_Fighter.htm

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Now isn't that an interesting photo! You know what jumped out at me immediately? The script on the tail just forward of the "NC11044" registry looks VERY much like the hand-drawn script used for the lettering of shuttlecraft names.

Hey, I'm in complete agreement with you as far as adding detailing being fair game (my own TOS models are loaded with micro details that you can't see unless you get super-close or render at 4K or better). I just keep circling back to how your gorgeous takes on the Enterprise and the Romulan Starglider look like what we will see in a few months on Strange New Worlds--modern interpretations of 1960s classic designs. If that is what you're going for, you've hit the target.

 

[JR TREK]

TOS ships look unfinished to me. I don't think think they would have looked like they do if not for the time/budget limitations. Artists knew about detail back then too. I'm trying to add in the details and refinement I believe they would have added if given the time.

It'll be interesting to see what Strange New Worlds comes up with. It looks like the licensees aren't liking what they're seeing, although Secret Hideout has been trending in the right direction in at least a few ways. I appreciate the way Lower Decks has embraced canon.

Well Blender has kicked my butt tonight with the defocus node. I can get it to work over short distances, but not for anything the size of the Starglider. I really hate software sometimes.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

I design software for my day job. It’s the devil’s naughty bits sometimes, so you have my sympathies.

 

[blssdwlf]

Well Blender has kicked my butt tonight with the defocus node. I can get it to work over short distances, but not for anything the size of the Starglider. I really hate software sometimes.

You could always scale the Starglider down to a much smaller size (but it'll look like a small model then) on a tiltshift camera

 

[F. King Daniel]

It looks like the licensees aren't liking what they're seeing

YouTubers have been saying shit like that for clicks for years

 

[JR TREK]

I think this one is done now, unless I need close up shots. Somehow the bussards have brightened up. I like it but it may be too distracting. They've become the focal point in the above image.

Here's a version with self illumination on the wing symbols. I'm not sure if I like it or not. Should self-illumination be a Federation-only thing? It would be ironic for me to use self-illumination on a Romulan ship when I don't use it on the JR-Prise, but I thought I would try it.

A few more views. I ought to do something different with the glowing ring around the edge of the deflectors, like the Galaxy class. I ought to . . . but there are other ships to work on.

I design software for my day job. It’s the devil’s naughty bits sometimes, so you have my sympathies.

I almost went into software design - I'm glad it's there but Blender changes so fast it's a different program every time I go back to it.

I figured out my blur problem - the fstop had to be turned down below 1, which was a surprise. I don't think I've ever done that before.

You could always scale the Starglider down to a much smaller size (but it'll look like a small model then) on a tiltshift camera

I wonder where all the equipment from DS9 went . . .

YouTubers have been saying shit like that for clicks for years

I can't think of any JJ movie stuff I'd like to have, other than possibly the Franklin. I like some of the Discovery ships though.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Oh my that's very sharp. And I mean that literally--those warp nacelle intercoolers look like daggers!

What a shame that your rig isn't up to animations... this beauty deserves to swoop! Very well done, @JR TREK.

 

[JR TREK]

There will be swooping. I've played around with Blender more and between the improvements to 2.92 and me figuring out how to work smarter, I believe I can manage it. I won't be rendering 40 minutes of 4k video, but I can manage to render smaller segments at 1080p. With Cycles. With Eevee, who knows? I've barely looked at it and don't understand it's limitations and how to work around them, but it is incredibly fast. There are surely shots that could be done with Eevee.