Star Ship Polaris

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Oh, I agree - I'd been assuming that interior areas of the vessel were something for other folks to work out as we got to them, based of course on any concept art you want to contribute. And we really do want to move forward with the ship exterior animations pretty quickly. Everyone's excited about working with this design.

And I neglected to say how cool the detailing of the pod bay area is right now. What you do is never what I expect. This thing really looks like it could work IRL.

 

[Vektor]

I do give a fair amount of thought to how these things would actually function in addition to how they look. Helps to maintain the suspension of disbelief.

I'm making steady progress now that most of the detailing has already been worked out in 2D. I know you guys are chomping at the bit for it and I'm trying to squeeze in as much work on it as my other obligations will allow.

Should have more updates posted by tonight.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

So are you guys going to have "pod bay doors"?

 

[sojourner]

You need to add a mat that says "welcome".

 

[Vektor]

Actually, that would be kinda cool. Based on the script, I can think of a couple of crew members who might find it amusing to paint "WELCOME" on the deck outside the pod bay.

Or not.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Howie might do it for laughs.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I'm reminded of Joss Whedon's comment about Zoic, where he'd ask them for a ham sandwich and they deliver a whole pig.

 

[Vektor]

Lots of added detail, cleanup and refinement of various parts:

 

[reanimatedfish]

The amount of detailing is bordering on preposterous. I wonder if Captain Logan can slip her into STO on the sly somehow?

She's completely gorgeous. I love the mola mola type ship orientation. I can't wait to see this in action.

 

[Psion]

Does anyone remember the old Gilligan's Island routine where the castaways would hear something on the radio and one would react and wonder aloud about it and then the voice on the radio would answer them?

So I was looking at the first picture and marveling at the well-crafted detail. "I wonder," I whispered to myself so no one else could hear, "what's supposed to be under those panels?"

I then scrolled down to the second picture and there was the answer. I kind of chuckled, but the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Well done, Vektor, but ... cut that out.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Gorgeous.

Uh, what's the poly count now?

 

[Vektor]

Current poly count is 315,446.

However, some of the most poly-heavy objects like the "sails" and the engine housings are still unoptimized Sub-D objects. As I freeze those and start cleaning them up, I can typically chop out anywhere from 25-50% of the polys. There are also a lot of polys in places that aren't visible that still need to be deleted, like the portions of the main saucer that are enclosed along the top and bottom edges.

Also, don't be misled by all those filleted edges. I'm using some smooth shading tricks to achieve that effect that don't require a lot of extra polys. It's nothing proprietary to 3ds Max, though, and should work exactly the same in Lightwave as long as the smoothing groups translate correctly.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

That's not a troublesome size at all. Thanks.

 

[Vektor]

 

[Vektor]

And yes, I know the pod bay has been covered by the orange stripe. It was just easier to model everything symmetrically front-to-back. I'll fix it in the next round of WIP images.

 

[Patrickivan]

I didn't like this very much at first. But it's really grown on me. Especially as you've continued to trick it out. Can you include Anything for a sense of scale?

 

[Vektor]

Windows will be added soon.

 

[Vektor]

What, no Mac or Linux jokes?

 

[Santaman]

No... now show more of the pretty stuff..

 

[TheSeeker]

Windows will be added soon.

Noooooooooo!!!!!!!!