Modelling and Rendering the TMP Enterprise

[wjaspers]

Did not notice the taper in your mesh untill you mentioned it, but the neck is not tapered. Some of the pictures of the model look that way, but that is because the DOF of the lens on the camera.
The maximum width of the neck is 6.86m , rest of the measurements I will PM you, too long to mention in this thread.

 

[Saquist]

The precision is remarkable.

 

[Science Officer]

Thanks Saquist, at times I'm moving points beyond what the edit controls in C4D will display! So it's precise alright, just a shame about the accuarcy!

Wil, thanks for the PM and I will get back to you properly about that. I want to set up an email address for trek related stuff. However your value of 6.86m is the magic number that has solved the current problems with the neck.

In the images below, I reverted back to a more primitive neck and adjusted the width to within a centimetre of 6.86m. The neck is now vertical with no taper. Better still the blue interface is now completely flat from the impulse drive to its termination at saucer ring #2. The purple interface is still the original one, but shows how far out I was.

The mistake I made started with that purple interface. I calculated some of the width information from the two innermost rings of the saucer. I then just created a smooth curve to the rim. In the one reference image you can see where the interface changes direction (marked by the dots). The second reference shows none of the blue interface curving outwards like the first wireframe of my previous post - I'd convinced myself it was a perspective problem, but clearly it's not.

I feel a lot more comfortable with this. Just means a lot of reshaping and stitching parts together.

Cheers,
S.O.

 

[Neumann]

Amazing! Lets hope for some progress!

 

[Science Officer]

Thanks Neumann,

Progress has been made, but boy has it been slow. It's been a bit like Raj and Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory trying to solve a problem by just staring at the whiteboard (with Eye of the Tiger playing in the background). A lot of staring at the screen has taken place!

The neck has been tricky due to trying to merge three objects into one to form the parson's nose. After a number of aborted attempts, I got one that works fairly well. It's smooth, but the surface curves a little too much above the red line. Below is a render and a wireframe.

I've now got to clean up the interface between neck and saucer and add some detail. God please let that be simpler!

Cheers,
S.O.

 

[AnyStar]

that part of the neck always infuriates me when i'm working on it too, what seems like such a simple union is maddeningly complex; and the shapes you "think" are there just dont work once you begin comparing to the original. best of luck to you!

 

[Science Officer]

that part of the neck always infuriates me when i'm working on it too, what seems like such a simple union is maddeningly complex; and the shapes you "think" are there just dont work once you begin comparing to the original. best of luck to you!

Thanks AnyStar,

Good to know it's not just me making a meal of it!

The image below is similar to the Leaving Earth scene in TMP. I chose it because it's probably the only scene where you get a strong specular highlight off the neck. You can see the curvature at play. It's a shame it doesn't quite flow into the grey wedge. Instead it sits a little too high and seems to flow around it.

But when a few textures area added to the area, I'm hoping it will break things up a little.

Cheers,
S.O.

 

[AnyStar]

btw, i just love that you're individually texuring each facet with materials rather than a full coverage texture, i thought i was the only one crazy enough to do this. :}

Each different version i have tried to recreate of this i always start trying to replicate the model, then morph it a little to fit the "interiors", then get frustrated and start over with one version or the other.

Right now i'm working on a pure 8' model re-creation, and the best help i can offer you is this: its NOT symmetrical, and there is hardly a straight line, or graceful curve, anywhere on the ship. your eye's are fooled most of the time.

Once you let go of control and start allowing yourself to move surfaces and shapes around outside the bounds of symetry, you will find these shapes and shadows you are trying so hard to replicate.

this is my experience anyway, hope it helps!

 

[wjaspers]

Put a preliminary texture on the neck (especially the bleuish part in the middle) and you can see if you have the shape anywhere correct. Anywhere, because you can not always get a shape exactly done in 3d as they filled and sanded it.

 

[Science Officer]

Thanks for the tips AnyStar and Wil,

Must admit I did frown as I looked at where the neck joins my cleaned up green interface. It does have a slight wobble along the join and I had to slightly taper the interface towards the "parson's nose". But there's something similar on the model, so it must be a good thing I was tempted to try and straighten it out.

Wil, I've flat textured it as you suggested and actually that curvature doesn't look too bad. The worst of it is above the grey wedge. Image below...

AnyStar - I actually think that applying materials direct to the polygons is easier. The alternative would require 10 alpha masks for each surface. Bitmaps are only as good as the detail in them and the memory available to hold them. I managed to squeeze a 4000x4000 pixel bitmap out of Photoshop for the saucer in the past and up close all you see are jaggies. I will need to use masks in some areas as the flow of the polygons is not the same as the model - the sensor array under the saucer, above the red line on the neck, and at the base of the neck where it meets the torpedo bay.

Don't start me on interiors. I look at some of the work on this site and can't figure out how they have the time to do it. I wouldn't want to change the shape of the ship to accomodate interiors, which means a wholesale resize from 305m. One day I did place a 6ft figure at the saucer rim and saw that two decks was being a bit optimistic. I think Andy Probert had the deck separation at the rim at 10ft in one of his sketches. Richard Taylor talked about airlocks with 12ft diameters. I wouldn't dare guess a figure because someone might scream canon violation! OK probably 450m

By the way Wil, I noticed that TB has been working on his TMP Enterpise over at Sci-fi Meshes to which you've been contributing. Gob-smacked by the speed and quality of TB's work as ever - kind of makes you want to throw in the towel! One question - is the sensor array and dome at the bottom of the saucer a tad shallow? I noticed that everyone wants TB to get it accurate and that's one thing I saw. I've got to redo the dome on mine because it's the wrong shape.

Cheers,
S.O.

 

[AnyStar]

quick question, on the channels for the grid; do you color them darker than the basecoat for the hull? i usually just let the shadows take care of the darker texture for me. its hard to tell from reference (because of all the years of dust etc.) whether or not they were actually darker.

here's an example on my old saucer (new one isnt textured yet):

 

[Science Officer]

quick question, on the channels for the grid; do you color them darker than the basecoat for the hull? i usually just let the shadows take care of the darker texture for me. its hard to tell from reference (because of all the years of dust etc.) whether or not they were actually darker.

here's an example on my old saucer (new one isnt textured yet):

Hi AnyStar,

Currently I use a darker colour RGB=64,64,64 to fill the base of the channels. The sides are the same as the hull plates with the matte basecoat colour at RGB=250,251,252 and the glossiest colour at RGB=230,241,242. However I'm likely to change this for something lighter, but still darker than the hull plates.

Looking at "recent" reference images for NCC-1701-A, it looks like the channels on the saucer might be a tad darker, but as you pointed out that could be dirt and dust. Around the rim, the story looks the same - I cannot see any evidence of darker paint. I don't know if you have the B&W images of the model in its NCC-1701 guise (originally from the Cloudster site). One of them STMPent39.jpg is a closeup of the top of the saucer where the USS ENTERPRISE decal is and the light catches the topmost channel with what looks like a strong specular reflection. That might suggest a darker but glossy colour or it could be an area where light bounces around in the channel a lot.

There are reasons why I'd colour darker.

There is the question about what the grid channels are - some say they're part of the shield system. If so then I'd like to think there is a different (superconducting?) material at the base of the channels. It may be that we're looking at the underlying skin of the ship and the grid represents expansion joints, but again I'd like to think a slighly different colour would be appropriate.

Next I've got 5cm wide channels, which may be a bit too wide and therefore the grid can vanish depending on the lights position. I tend to find that small scale features look like they're exagerrated or widened by the renderer. Afterall you've got this large saucer (what 100m plus) and the grid is very obvious. So having grid lines come and go depending on light positions is something I'd want to avoid to some extent. I'd prefer some hint that they're there. Thinking about it, I might use one of the darker glossy hull plate colours in the channels and see what happens.

Hope this helps.
S.O.

 

[wjaspers]

Wil, I've flat textured it as you suggested and actually that curvature doesn't look too bad. The worst of it is above the grey wedge. Image below...

Didn't know in the previous post what you meant, but now I see it.
You were on the right track a few posts back "stitching parts together".
Whenever you try and recreate a physical model in CG, you will need to know, or give it your best guess, how they made it with their hands.
In case of the neck, there is only one possibilty how they could have made it, and that would resolve the issue with the part above the grey wedge.

Don't start me on interiors. I look at some of the work on this site and can't figure out how they have the time to do it. I wouldn't want to change the shape of the ship to accomodate interiors, which means a wholesale resize from 305m. One day I did place a 6ft figure at the saucer rim and saw that two decks was being a bit optimistic. I think Andy Probert had the deck separation at the rim at 10ft in one of his sketches. Richard Taylor talked about airlocks with 12ft diameters. I wouldn't dare guess a figure because someone might scream canon violation! OK probably 450m

12 ft airlock diameter, hmmm, can see Scotty and Kirk board the shuttle, think 9ft airlock (outside) would be better.

Made some interiors, and most of them fit, give or take afew feet

By the way Wil, I noticed that TB has been working on his TMP Enterpise over at Sci-fi Meshes to which you've been contributing. Gob-smacked by the speed and quality of TB's work as ever - kind of makes you want to throw in the towel! One question - is the sensor array and dome at the bottom of the saucer a tad shallow? I noticed that everyone wants TB to get it accurate and that's one thing I saw. I've got to redo the dome on mine because it's the wrong shape.

There is more wrong with his model, going to be a nice model to do some renders, but for reference purposes absolutely not usable.

What do you mean with a tad shallow?

 

[wjaspers]

quick question, on the channels for the grid; do you color them darker than the basecoat for the hull? i usually just let the shadows take care of the darker texture for me. its hard to tell from reference (because of all the years of dust etc.) whether or not they were actually darker.

Why don't you take the reference when the model was new?

And I don't mean the B&W cloudster pictures

 

[Science Officer]

Hi Wil,

On TR's model the spotlight/sensor assembly and dome look like they need to be stretched slightly in the y-axis with the dome slightly more spherical. It's like the bottom of the spotlight housings are too close to the saucer's hull. On mine I went slightly the other way to improve the chances of illuminating the saucer from the actual spotlight locations.

Concerning the neck, I felt that the neck below and above the red line is a single piece. A section was removed from (or grafted onto) the front of the neck to accomodate the wedge shaped \_/ nose. These were blended together with filler and sanded. The curved section at the leading edge of the neck was a third piece added on and the same process of filling and sanding done.

In my post from January 22 2011 05:24 PM, you probably saw two of those parts in the first two images and how they combine. What I then did was remove the points and polys on the parts of the objects hidden by the others and stitched the whole lot together. That created a disruption in the surface, which had to be smoothed out. I did that by averaging out point postions (P2 = (P1+P3)/2, P3 = (P2+P4)/2 and so on down the neck until Pn == ((Pn-1)+(Pn+1))/2) and repeated the whole process a further 2 times.

I think the difference between my model and the physical one is that there is an angle change at the red line. It might explain why in the "Leaving Earth" scene the specular reflection changes (unless the paint is different of course). There is also the case of saucer curvature - mine is a bit different, which impacts where all these objects fit together.

On the scale - what really? You can pack the interiors in there (or theres about)? I always thought it was too small to work. Oh well that's that then!

I won't ask about the nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say no more message to AnyStar!

Cheers and thanks for the feedback.
S.O.

 

[wjaspers]

On TR's model the spotlight/sensor assembly and dome look like they need to be stretched slightly in the y-axis with the dome slightly more spherical. It's like the bottom of the spotlight housings are too close to the saucer's hull. On mine I went slightly the other way to improve the chances of illuminating the saucer from the actual spotlight locations.

Had a look at your spotlight/sensor assembly, and still didn't know what you meant. So I had a look again at TR's model, and then I saw it. I think he has overdone it BIG time. The way you have it is good enough for me, wouldn't change it, maybe the dome if you feel it needs work, but hey, let the real deal be the judge:

So what do you think?

 

[wjaspers]

Concerning the neck, I felt that the neck below and above the red line is a single piece. A section was removed from (or grafted onto) the front of the neck to accomodate the wedge shaped \_/ nose. These were blended together with filler and sanded. The curved section at the leading edge of the neck was a third piece added on and the same process of filling and sanding done.

Yes, but let me show you how I think it can be done best, if I was a model maker. Sorry for the amount of big pictures I'm going to use

I would start with the front edge leding up to the saucer and determine the surface on the bottom and top:

From this I would make the front and back:

Then I would fill up the trapezium shape,

and cut of the point of the front, from the center of the curvature I need (magenta line):

From that I would have a cross section, the yellow and magenta colored plane:

This plane I then could use on a CNC machine and make a nice rounded shape:

From that shape I could take the piece I needed for the curvature:

From that I would get a plane to elongate a beam:

So I would end up with this:

Now if I would stick that part in a saucer I would get this:

That is, if I was a model maker.

Made in AutoCad, print screens, so expect it to be better when rendered in a 3d program.

 

[Science Officer]

That Wil looks like a MUCH better approach and thanks for your time putting up all those screenshots. I just never thought to exploit the neck itself to generate the nose.

I guess it must also produce a completely smooth surface as long as you cut into the neck at right angles and connect the "torus" section correctly. The resulting mesh would have no discontinuities.

I must go back a few iterations and have a go at this because it's a useful exercise in how to do things properly. Hopefully (given my model's neck shape) it will produce a nose that integrates nicely with the existing surrounding objects.

Thanks again.
S.O.

 

[wjaspers]

I just never thought to exploit the neck itself to generate the nose.

I guess it must also produce a completely smooth surface as long as you cut into the neck at right angles

When you do this in AutoCad, you NEED to exploit the neck, no other way to do it, and you're right, you need to cut at the right angle, which is a line from the center of the curve you want, maybe not that easy in your modeler, but easy in AutoCad.
So some things, go easy in max, some in AutoCad, some in TS or C4D

 

[AnyStar]

S.O., you're absolutely right about those channels, when you get just the right angle on them they will wash out completely unless they are darkened. i did a few test renders just to see; using the darker blueish color of the engraving around the saucer rim it came out too dark, but when textured with the primary darker color of the first aztec coat it looks just perfect.

as to the reference Will mentioned, he's talking about the Kerr plans made for the Polar Lights model. I couldnt find any reference to color on those, just size. Nor could i find any on the Probert website. I was happy to see that on Andy's site in the Q&A section he mentioned that "scaled up" his channels would be 4" and thats exactly what mine are now, as i'm modeling in full scale this time :}

anyway, i'll quit hijacking your thread! i plan to start posting to my old constructing a connie thread in a couple weeks when i get back from vacation!

as to that neck, i've always had incredible troubles trying to create it in autocad, but in max i find it much easier. on either approach i always overworked it in a similar buildup fashion, and just used the saucer to cut the extra portions off too.

i always start my neck, by referencing the Phase 2 parts and plans on these 3 pages:
http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/jefferies-phase-II.php
http://probertdesigns.com/Folder_DESIGN/P-2_Enterprise.html
http://probertdesigns.com/Folder_DESIGN/TorpedoTubes.html