Blssdwlf's TOS and TOS Movie Era ships
- Thread starter blssdwlf
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This is going to be my official JR-Trek reason for why the Romulans adopted the saucer hull -
The Tal Shiar got ahold of the spore drive data, and the Romulan Emperor of the time, who might have been as sane as Babylon 5's Emperor Cartagia, decided all future Romulan combat ships would be equipped with the spore drive. But the Romulans couldn't make it work, and when the Federation dropped it the Romulans decided to cut their losses and adopt the Klingon-style hull configuration instead. Probably they had to have a technology exchange with the Klingons because they'd lost too much time trying to develop the spore drive.
The Enterprise-era Romulan Bird of Prey almost wrecks this theory, but its shape is more of a rounded-off triangle, so I think it still works.
That two-pronged shape gets used a lot though. Just in Star Trek, there's the Vulcan warp sled from TMP.
I think I've done that in the past. If I didn't have my Cintiq I might be more inclined to model instead of texture. Also, my head is stuck in the early days of gaming when poly count was more important than it is now. I've been doing things with textures that I'll be using geometry for in the future. I'm not putting lights in the textures anymore, for example. It's a lot easier to deal with them in compositing if the geometry or shader can be given its own ID. I don't think there's a way to give different portions of a texture different IDs for compositing (at least in Blender), and any workaround I can think of is clunkier than using geometry.
LOL, everytime I see Discovery's spore jump I think of this:
I think if the spore didn't rely on flying off the top or bottom of the screen it would look better. Now I just think of Batman's "Little Dipper" Backfist moves.
Yeah 2 prongs are common but having them at the same level as the cockpit/crew area is not so. The Vulcan warp sled has the two prongs underslung relative to the cockpit whereas the La Sirena and the Gladius have their prongs at the same level.
Are you doing multiple render passes for compositing lighting and shadows, etc?
Well, the Spore Drive is there now. I've become more accustomed to it than the idea of Romulus being destroyed by a supernova that was not even in its own star system.
I haven't been doing multiple render passes for the model shots, but I'll have to do the background separately for scenes.
I haven't been doing multiple render passes for the model shots, but I'll have to do the background separately for scenes.
You might suggest that as the Astral Queen if Warped 9 doesn’t do it as Unseen TOS.I got around to doing a rough arrangement of what the Starfleet Cadet Starship version of the Class J would look like with upgraded warp nacelles. Just need to add some landing gear to both versions and textures and they'll both be complete
The nacelles are a bit jarring...but it would look Romulan if it were more aesthetically blended.
Here is an idea: the craft from “The Starlost” made more sense to me as a multi-species vessel. I can see your flowing no-nacelle version replacing the Agro-domes to either side of the main bus. That spine would have nacelles above and below it...or paired off above with a cluster of dishes in the front of a ventral com-pylon below the spine.
Or have this ship (whose aft lends itself to docking) be the detachable nose/command section in the spines’ bow with much smaller excursion craft to either side of the spine. The tiny saucer MJ came up with that had a downward pointing cone similar to Barlow’s EXPEDITION...except with a rim?
It would resemble lifeboats and scream out “liner” though the real reason would be to preserve the prime directive. The main ship will take you to exotic locals...but you cannot wander too far...the warp drive unit only on the main hull.
Each saucer is its own stateroom with limited travel capability so as to limit cultural contamination while maintaining privacy and unique climatic conditions for passenger comfort.
There would be six to either side...explaining the dozen favors the captain owed Kirk during a rescue.
Thanks
I have ideas for the Astral Queen and I'm sure whatever Warped9 comes up with it will be cool.Actually those nacelles are based on the space cruiser Aurora's nacelles.
Right now I'm just trying to figure out subdivision modeling.
Thanks @Professor Moriarty 
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Fair warning: it’s a deep, dark hole. But once you get the hang of it, it makes it possible to do things that would be difficult or impractical/impossible to do with traditional poly modeling.
Ugh. I reached a point where I found it very difficult to add portholes to my subd model. Rather than get bogged down, I capitulated and froze the mesh and then stenciled in the portholes
Okay, posting up latest progress... cleaned up mesh, froze it, stenciled in portholes, cut out cargo bay doors and modeled in a basic cargo bay. The cargo bay is split into 3 bays. A shuttle can sit in one of the side bays and launch or land sideways while the inner and opposite bay stays pressurized. Next is to model in the landing gear.
In case you didn’t plan to include them, FYI the nacelles on the space cruiser Aurora had domes on the fronts.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_XNPD380Ip...rA/0u3RRcnwPPg/s1600/P28_14_AuroraTholian.jpg
Thanks @aridas sofia for the reference images to the restored prop. I originally was going to put domes on but upon watching my DVD version of "The Way to Eden" I am struggling to see the domes on the nacelles. The Aurora makes a close flyby of the camera and all I see at the front of the nacelle is what appears to be an indention and small protrusion in the center of the indention.
I thought maybe the domes were somehow cut when the FX people matted the ship but the front of the nacelle passes over the main hull at the closest approach and a nacelle dome still isn't obvious to me.
I searched a bit and found this page https://modelermagic.com/tos-tholian-and-mudds-aurora-studio-model-restorations/ that talks about the restoration but I couldn't find any images of the prop pre-restoration. Would you happen to have any images of it or bluray screengrabs of the Aurora to look at?
Thanks @aridas sofia for the reference images to the restored prop. I originally was going to put domes on but upon watching my DVD version of "The Way to Eden" I am struggling to see the domes on the nacelles. The Aurora makes a close flyby of the camera and all I see at the front of the nacelle is what appears to be an indention and small protrusion in the center of the indention.
I thought maybe the domes were somehow cut when the FX people matted the ship but the front of the nacelle passes over the main hull at the closest approach and a nacelle dome still isn't obvious to me.
I searched a bit and found this page https://modelermagic.com/tos-tholian-and-mudds-aurora-studio-model-restorations/ that talks about the restoration but I couldn't find any images of the prop pre-restoration. Would you happen to have any images of it or bluray screengrabs of the Aurora to look at?
This is a slightly better image. When you zoom into the nacelle on the right, you can see the curvature of the dome. It’s a different shape than what it would be were it just the nacelle cylinder.
https://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/3x20hd/thewaytoedenhd0002.jpg
Thanks! I'm still searching for more of that fly-by in HD. On my DVD I can see the shape of the FX cutout on that nacelle (port-side) seems to be cut differently. But it doesn't really change the look of the closer nacelle (starboard) as the dome isn't visible even close-up.
It could be an oddball scenario where the Aurora has a dome on the port nacelle and the starboard nacelle doesn't. A little weird, but in-universe it could be normal or the crew messed something up or perhaps the ship was stolen while under repairs and only the port nacelle is actually working...
Then again, the no-dome look is growing on me.
I suspect the curved surface of the domes are bending light and creating that bright center that makes it look like the raised bump you’ve modeled. That “lens effect” is what makes an unlit lens look lit.
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Hmm. FWIW, if you look at the 3 StarTrekPropAuthority.com reference images in my comparison, the 2nd image where the nacelle dome is dark I think close approximates the lighting conditions in the filmed scene. The 1st and 3rd images where the nacelles are white with the dark parts at the top (resembling an indention when viewed head-on) are when a flash illuminated it. So if the domes were filmed a bright light, we should see a whitish dome even close up on the starboard nacelle. If they were filmed with lighting closer to what we see in the 2nd image we should see a dark dome with white highlights/light reflections near the top of the dome. We're not seeing either one.
I guess I'll find out when I do some test renders at a later time.
I'm with @blssdwlf that starboard nacelle cap looks like Tycho Crater.
^^^ Form follows function!