Can't tell you how excited I am for this to happen.@starfleettanner: Well... nothing's confirmed yet, but it might be my very next commission once I'm done with the Frontier.
3D interiors in Blender
- Thread starter Rekkert
- Start date
I'm thinking it might be the Allegiance class? It's very cool - and also might make one of my current projects a bit redundant. The various Ascension classes (so many fan ships with overlapping names) I'm seeing don't really fit the bill of Galaxy + Sovereign.
My mistake, Allegiance was its name
I think that's the nicest chair pedestal I've seen for anything star trek recently.
@SCE2Aux: Indeed, it's a great bridge between aesthetics they've chosen for this bridge, I'm quite happy with how it's turning out. And yes, as @Spaceship Jo and you pointed out, it would be a nice fit for the Allegiance, I quite like that design.
@Michael: I'm super exited and nervous to start work on it haha
@Norsehound:
I quite like the Disco Captain's chair pedestal myself. 
@Donny: Thanks man, it's been quite a ride getting this one together, and still some way to go before those final renders!
They're not totally done, I've still gotta tweak the shapes a bit and finish the armrests, but they're well underway. They do look rather flat but that's true to the chairs on the Enterprise-E.
@Michael: I'm super exited and nervous to start work on it haha
@Norsehound:
I quite like the Disco Captain's chair pedestal myself. @Donny: Thanks man, it's been quite a ride getting this one together, and still some way to go before those final renders!
They're not totally done, I've still gotta tweak the shapes a bit and finish the armrests, but they're well underway. They do look rather flat but that's true to the chairs on the Enterprise-E.
Hmm. Looking at reference images of the chairs, while the leather cushions are relatively flat compared to other chairs, I think you could go a bit further with rounding the edges a bit more and get it closer to the reference. I understand the frustration with this kind of modeling, and I'm not sure how it's done in Blender, but when facing similar problems in Max, I find it useful to go back to a pre-smoothed state and push out the center faces of each individual "cushion" a bit before re-smoothing so there's a bit more roundness in the cushions. I might experiment with a few different levels of "push" until I get a result that looks right. Again, I dunno how Blender works or if you can go back at this stage and adjust things without having to completely rework the chairs, but it may be worth a shot if it's easy to do something like this.@SCE2Aux: Indeed, it's a great bridge between aesthetics they've chosen for this bridge, I'm quite happy with how it's turning out. And yes, as @Spaceship Jo and you pointed out, it would be a nice fit for the Allegiance, I quite like that design.
@Michael: I'm super exited and nervous to start work on it haha
@Norsehound:
@Donny: Thanks man, it's been quite a ride getting this one together, and still some way to go before those final renders!
They're not totally done, I've still gotta tweak the shapes a bit and finish the armrests, but they're well underway. They do look rather flat but that's true to the chairs on the Enterprise-E.
You may also benefit from messing around with some actual leather material scans to get a more realistic result with your leather texture (or are they meant to be more vinyl?). I dunno if you have access to Substance Painter or Quixel but getting some actual simulated leather or vinyl grain could go a long way into making those chairs pop.
This is all meant to be helpful constructive criticism and feel free to ignore any of it. As I've said before, your work is outstanding but I figured I'd give my advice if you might find it helpful!
Yeah, I've sculpt them a bit more and gave them some more volume. The material being used here (which is supposed to be the same as on the Enterprise-D Captain's chair) is a lot less leather-like then the Ent-E ones, so that kinda doesn't help haha.
As for Substance Painter or Quixel, I've experimented with them a bit, particularly SP, but I don't feel quite comfortable using them as they aren't FOSS (I like to keep my workflow entirely open source, I'm a bit passionate about that ). Blender's next major development push is supposed to be to get feature parity with Substance, so I'll just have to wait a bit to get that. 
I more than welcome the constructive criticism mate, it is what pushes us to be better after all.
In the end, I've mixed in a slight AO shader into the material (something @Viper suggested). That plus the tweaked shapes of the back cushions resulted in chairs I'm quite happy with now.
As for Substance Painter or Quixel, I've experimented with them a bit, particularly SP, but I don't feel quite comfortable using them as they aren't FOSS (I like to keep my workflow entirely open source, I'm a bit passionate about that
). Blender's next major development push is supposed to be to get feature parity with Substance, so I'll just have to wait a bit to get that. I more than welcome the constructive criticism mate, it is what pushes us to be better after all.
In the end, I've mixed in a slight AO shader into the material (something @Viper suggested). That plus the tweaked shapes of the back cushions resulted in chairs I'm quite happy with now.
Something that's bothered me: Why does the Captain get armrests to prop himself with but the First Officer and second officer chair not? Never understood that, because I would assume arm rests would be somewhat of a safety feature for all crewmembers in case of attack.
R.H.I.P.
But, I mean, if we really wanna go with this, ALL crew chairs should have some sort of safety feature built in. It's an argument that's been around since TOS, and which they addressed in TMP with all the bridge chairs having those safety restraints demonstrated during the wormhole sequence. But some things, since it's a TV show/movie series, are decided just becaue they make better sense aesthetically or to communicate things to the viewers. Having the captain's chair have armrests while the other do not help sell that this is where the highest ranking officer sits.
I'm just waiting for some hapless ensign to bark his ankle on that corner at the end of the horseshoe and get a stern look from the captain when he interrupts an important communication with his "OW!"
Great minds think alike
I have an unfair advantage though, we are members on another forum. I'm much more active there.
Haha. What forum?Great minds think alike
I should really post there. I have years ago but always get overwhelmed with having to post in more than one forumscifi-meshes.com. I'm one of the admins there
You are more than welcome of course
We also have a Discord channel now. I mostly post there actually as feedback is quick. I actually have a bunch of projects in planning phases that I haven't posted on either forum, but I post on discord all the time.
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Don’t leave!
Oh no! I didn't mean I would leave TrekBBS. I could never! I mean I would just have to commit to keeping up with posting here AND there if I started posting on scifi-meshes.com!Don’t leave!
Sorry, @Rekkert, didn't mean to hijack.
Haha, no problem.
I imagine it's mostly down to having some sort of console or screen close by. The two officers on the side chairs have those swivel consoles, so there's no need for the armrest controls. I agree that ergonomically everyone would be better off with armrests though, which is why I quite like the seating on the TMP and TUC era bridges.
I remember reading that, when creating the new Enterprise bridge for TFF, Zimmerman was originally gonna just reuse the chairs from the refit Enterprise on the Ent-A bridge, but the actors (and Shatner specifically, as the director) requested more "normal" chairs, as it was hard to act out a scene while remembering to strap/unstrap yourself. I can't find the source for it though, so I might be miss-remembering.
Haha, yeah, I though about that, but then again the original shape of the horseshoe is kinda a tripping hazard on its own; this modification at least leaves more room for people to walk.
I imagine it's mostly down to having some sort of console or screen close by. The two officers on the side chairs have those swivel consoles, so there's no need for the armrest controls. I agree that ergonomically everyone would be better off with armrests though, which is why I quite like the seating on the TMP and TUC era bridges.
I remember reading that, when creating the new Enterprise bridge for TFF, Zimmerman was originally gonna just reuse the chairs from the refit Enterprise on the Ent-A bridge, but the actors (and Shatner specifically, as the director) requested more "normal" chairs, as it was hard to act out a scene while remembering to strap/unstrap yourself. I can't find the source for it though, so I might be miss-remembering.
Haha, yeah, I though about that, but then again the original shape of the horseshoe is kinda a tripping hazard on its own; this modification at least leaves more room for people to walk.
