Heh.
AndyP's Trek building thread
- Thread starter batboy853
- Start date
Heh.
The Ensign assigned that station had all the names on the Dedication Plaque memorized by the second week.
some smol updates.
I am going to be helping @Redgeneral identify some LCARS that have appeared in auctions over the years. But once I started it gave me some ideas for some more generic still frame lcars displays that I was able to utilize channel packing so that I can have 3 different displays in a single png image. I put them into the generic bridge.
I also had a few hours today to kill without my external drive where I keep my projects, so I modeled a Voy / Late DS9 type 2 phaser. There are a few issues in the handle that I need to address, but overall happy with it. I modeled it based off of the images of the prop in the auction that is going.
I am going to be helping @Redgeneral identify some LCARS that have appeared in auctions over the years. But once I started it gave me some ideas for some more generic still frame lcars displays that I was able to utilize channel packing so that I can have 3 different displays in a single png image. I put them into the generic bridge.
I also had a few hours today to kill without my external drive where I keep my projects, so I modeled a Voy / Late DS9 type 2 phaser. There are a few issues in the handle that I need to address, but overall happy with it. I modeled it based off of the images of the prop in the auction that is going.
Hey Guys, Two months of updates all in one post!
The Voy / Late DS9 type 2 phaser
After I corrected the smoothing issues on the handle, I am considering it finished.
Phaser Rifle: *New*
To go with that phaser, I modeled a TNG / DS9 phaser rifle, mostly happy with it, but I need to remodel the beam emitter. It's currently the fat head phaser rifle. I modeled it based off of one that was seen in auction.
Generic Starfleet bridge:
This set has been in a good enough for now state for a while now. If I wanted to, I could use it for an animation. I think the only thing added since last update was the set labels. Here are some semi final images:
Cardassian Hideki Class: *New*
I was feeling the urge to take a break from building set pieces and props, and work towards building something I can use for a weapons fx test (more on that later). I have a few Starfleet ships built, but no non-federation aligned ships. My animated short mentions that the ship will be heading to Cardassian space, so a Cardassian Hideki seemed like a good choice to put against a Nova Class starship. This ship was built over the course of 3 weeks, and I used the orthographic renders from the Official starships collection, as well as some images of the original filming model as reference. There are some areas that I feel like I want to remodel, such as the top of the "head" of the ship, but as I was building this for a FX test, it was modeled to the level of what would be noticed on screen in an animation. (The lighting on the images have less contrast in terms of lighting so that you can see more details on the ship.
Weapons FX Test: *New*
As mentioned earlier, I wanted to do a weapons FX test to post to my Youtube channel, as it's been a few months since I've posted any content there. This was a simple chase scene, so that I could more so focus on the effects. (Plus if these shots were in one of the shows from the TNG-ENT era shows the ships never really had too much movement other than fly-bys.)
I could probably type up a paragraph for each effect, and some of the effects had multiple components, with each effect in it's own render layer. Several of the effects I studied various tutorials on how other people achieved similar effects, then modified them for my own use.
Anyways a lot for one post, hope everyone is having a good summer!
The Voy / Late DS9 type 2 phaser
After I corrected the smoothing issues on the handle, I am considering it finished.
Phaser Rifle: *New*
To go with that phaser, I modeled a TNG / DS9 phaser rifle, mostly happy with it, but I need to remodel the beam emitter. It's currently the fat head phaser rifle. I modeled it based off of one that was seen in auction.
Generic Starfleet bridge:
This set has been in a good enough for now state for a while now. If I wanted to, I could use it for an animation. I think the only thing added since last update was the set labels. Here are some semi final images:
Cardassian Hideki Class: *New*
I was feeling the urge to take a break from building set pieces and props, and work towards building something I can use for a weapons fx test (more on that later). I have a few Starfleet ships built, but no non-federation aligned ships. My animated short mentions that the ship will be heading to Cardassian space, so a Cardassian Hideki seemed like a good choice to put against a Nova Class starship. This ship was built over the course of 3 weeks, and I used the orthographic renders from the Official starships collection, as well as some images of the original filming model as reference. There are some areas that I feel like I want to remodel, such as the top of the "head" of the ship, but as I was building this for a FX test, it was modeled to the level of what would be noticed on screen in an animation. (The lighting on the images have less contrast in terms of lighting so that you can see more details on the ship.
Weapons FX Test: *New*
As mentioned earlier, I wanted to do a weapons FX test to post to my Youtube channel, as it's been a few months since I've posted any content there. This was a simple chase scene, so that I could more so focus on the effects. (Plus if these shots were in one of the shows from the TNG-ENT era shows the ships never really had too much movement other than fly-bys.)
I could probably type up a paragraph for each effect, and some of the effects had multiple components, with each effect in it's own render layer. Several of the effects I studied various tutorials on how other people achieved similar effects, then modified them for my own use.
Anyways a lot for one post, hope everyone is having a good summer!
@batboy853 - I had another look at the cool weapons test after work and was curious if you had based the shield effect from "The Tholian Web" as I don't remember see that in TNG/Voyager series.
@blssdwlf I was mostly going for the TNG/ds9/ voyager aesthetic, but I added some ripples to the effect to try to give it an energy dispersement effect.
@Santaman thanks!
Also not sure if it's because I just uploaded the video and it's still processing, but there seems to be an issue where certain shots have some major pixelation going on, or just sections where the video has a bunch of squares... If it's still an issue tomorrow, I'll reupload it.
@Santaman thanks!
Also not sure if it's because I just uploaded the video and it's still processing, but there seems to be an issue where certain shots have some major pixelation going on, or just sections where the video has a bunch of squares... If it's still an issue tomorrow, I'll reupload it.
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Looks great. Some of the shots had a weird parallaxing effect that didn't look quite right and was distracting, but it's not in all of them, so I don't know if you used different methods between them or why that is.
@Lt. Washburn so every shot, including the still images above utilizes a lens distortion node to give the images a shot by a real camera look, something that I picked up from @Rekkert . I wonder if you are referring to the "dust" effect that is on all but the first and last shot. This was something I added to give the shots more motion to it. This is a similar effect to the warp streak effect I did in this video.
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I think the "dust" or moving mid-ground effect is needed for these kind of space scenes otherwise they do feel very slow and static. Youtube's compression seems to have trouble with all the movement though because it seems to add compression square artifacts into anything below 2160/4k when I'm viewing it 
Looks great at 4k though. 
Looks great at 4k though.
Nice work on all this! I think the "dust" is a bit too much, especially with such a dense star field as background. It just becomes noise after a point. Maybe have half or even a third of what you're having now. Less is more sometimes.
One thing I noticed is at around 0:50 the ship's movement as it turns is very choppy, you're having it rotate too fast for the amount of time/frames you're using, I'd see about extending the length of the shot a couple seconds and use that extra time to extend the arc the ship does.
One thing I noticed is at around 0:50 the ship's movement as it turns is very choppy, you're having it rotate too fast for the amount of time/frames you're using, I'd see about extending the length of the shot a couple seconds and use that extra time to extend the arc the ship does.
Thanks guys! All really good feedback. I'll cut back on the dust effect, lessen it or make it not so bright. If the speed at which it flies past the camera was cut back, would it be less distracting? Currently it's just a noise texture on some 2d planes with it's mapping node animated.
The reason why I added it, was due to the the shots originally looking like models standing still. I did not get the sense of movement because the starfield in the world settings did not appear to move from the camera's perspective.
The reason why I added it, was due to the the shots originally looking like models standing still. I did not get the sense of movement because the starfield in the world settings did not appear to move from the camera's perspective.
I think before I permanently post any content to youtube, I shall post the video as unlisted so that I can have people check for errors. When I posted the VFX test there were a number of things that I should have fixed before posting it publicly. That being said, even with the issues of a few frames where the torpedo vanished, along with the movement of the ship in the final shot, I am still pleased with how the VFX parts turned out. I may tweak some things in the future.
I've started working on another interior. This time it's a galaxy class bridge! I am building this based off of the Star Trek Experience blueprints that are available. A lot of the set measurements I've needed to eyeball, as they are not legible on the available blueprints. I still need to model the egress door area that leads to the head / conference room. And I may need to modify the placement of the alcoves for the rear egresses.
I've started working on another interior. This time it's a galaxy class bridge! I am building this based off of the Star Trek Experience blueprints that are available. A lot of the set measurements I've needed to eyeball, as they are not legible on the available blueprints. I still need to model the egress door area that leads to the head / conference room. And I may need to modify the placement of the alcoves for the rear egresses.
