Donny's Refit Enterprise Interiors (Version 2.0)

[Spaceship Jo]

Waiting for the wide shot of your model where we can see the dental mirrors.

They really did a fantastic job simulating the self-illumination, but it wasn't even close. With modern techniques (mainly size of precision materials, etc), I have little doubt somebody could make it happen, and certainly digitally I think you could get pretty dang close to screen accurate with working self-illumination. Of course when I say you, I don't mean it in the generalized way Somebody could pull it off, but you specifically Donny. We have faith in you.

 

[Donny]

Waiting for the wide shot of your model where we can see the dental mirrors.

They really did a fantastic job simulating the self-illumination, but it wasn't even close. With modern techniques (mainly size of precision materials, etc), I have little doubt somebody could make it happen, and certainly digitally I think you could get pretty dang close to screen accurate with working self-illumination. Of course when I say you, I don't mean it in the generalized way Somebody could pull it off, but you specifically Donny. We have faith in you.

Well, lighting in CG is almost entirely done by cheating (being that the physical geometry of a light and the light emitter itself are different objects, and often are not positioned in the exact same points). But I'm going to try my hardest to make it work without having the light emitter in a wildly different position from its geometry.

But if I can’t make it work without cheating, none of you will ever be able to tell

 

[Viper]

The Aztec pattern is separate geometry from the rest of the model, with high-contrast colors (blue, red, green, and yellow) set to it via simple blinn shaders. It is baked as a series of color ID maps onto the same UV space as the model. The Aztec pattern geometry is exported as a separate model, and doesn't have/need UVs since it only features single-color shaders. It is simply used for baking/generating the color ID map, which is used as a mask within Painter, and is not output into the final textures. The geometry isn't used for anything other than baking this color map and is not part of the final model. Does that make sense?

This is a common way of generating color ID maps used for masks within Painter and Designer, except that usually the colors are applied to the same model used for baking high poly information. I'm simply exporting the Aztec geo out as it's own model, and when I bake this color ID map in Painter, I just change which model the baker is referencing from the high-poly model to the Aztec geometry model.

Yes, of course. Totally forgot about importing the high resolution model. I keep forgetting you are making a game ready model, heh. Since mine is already high resolution I forgot about it. But I managed to make a similar workflow for mine. Thanks for the explanation

 

[BK613]

Incorporating any ray tracing yet?
https://devblogs.nvidia.com/introduction-ray-tracing-unreal-engine-422/

 

[penguin44]

Awesome work! I was just watching tmp last week and saw the vulcan shuttle dock. It shows that the docking port was right above the observation windows. Looking like they made a scaling error!

 

[Donny]

Awesome work! I was just watching tmp last week and saw the vulcan shuttle dock. It shows that the docking port was right above the observation windows. Looking like they made a scaling error!

How so?

 

[Viper]

Awesome work! I was just watching tmp last week and saw the vulcan shuttle dock. It shows that the docking port was right above the observation windows. Looking like they made a scaling error!

How so?

I think he means this shot:

It does make it look like the docking port is closer to the windows than they are.

 

[penguin44]

I think he means this shot:

It does make it look like the docking port is closer to the windows than they are.

Yup that's the shot. I thought maybe they cut away but it makes the docking sounds. I think it was a vfx error. I like yours better Donny!

 

[David cgc]

I think it's more a matter that they couldn't put a film camera inside the model, so they cheated it a bit. The exterior shot, just before, is a matte painting of the bridge that has the same too-steep-saucer as the infamous one from the end of the film, but the angle downplays it. That probably also happened because the camera was too big and the model too small to get the shot they wanted.

 

[penguin44]

Donny I'll take your Enterprise any day of the week. You really have some talent mate.

 

[Maurice]

I think it's more a matter that they couldn't put a film camera inside the model, so they cheated it a bit. The exterior shot, just before, is a matte painting of the bridge that has the same too-steep-saucer as the infamous one from the end of the film, but the angle downplays it. That probably also happened because the camera was too big and the model too small to get the shot they wanted.

I don't think that's the case. All they needed to do was get the lens into to the open end a few inches. You needn't get the camera inside the miniature to get that shot. I think they just decided it looked better not to have the whole shuttle leave the shot.

Oh wait, you mean the angle down on the engines? Yeah, they're cheating by putting the lens over the bridge since they probably could not get it down in the position of the officer's lounge and get the required angle.

 

[blssdwlf]

I always thought this shot looked wonky because you can see the tops of the nacelles. The observation lounge isn't that tall is it?

I think he means this shot:

It does make it look like the docking port is closer to the windows than they are.

 

[cardinal biggles]

Only one way to find out -- for Donny to stick a camera in the VIP lounge of his model and see what happens.

 

[Jesse1066]

Only one way to find out -- for Donny to stick a camera in the VIP lounge of his model and see what happens.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Alright, this has given me a wild hair - I will make this easy. Using Big Jim Slade's schematics to build an in-scale A/B/C deck, I pulled in Jackill's "Atai"-class Heavy Shuttle and scaled it with the bridge's aft docking ring. Placing it in-line with the main side view, we can easily see, at minimum, the front 1/3 underside of the shuttle would be fully visible from the O-Lounge while completely docked. Lines up pretty nicely, actually.

Q.E.D.!

 

[ashleytinger]

Beat me to it LOL

 

[Donny]

Man, this is a blast from the past! This was my original attempt at creating the Reft interiors with Unreal Engine 3 back in early 2013!

I should note that this exterior model was created by another artist (I forget whom) and was a third-party download available for the game Star Trek: Bridge Commander. I used it with permission, of course. To be honest, the thought of modeling an entire exterior model of a starship was super intimidating for me back then, as my texturing and modeling skills weren't up to snuff for such a project. And while this model was great for it's time and as a smaller scale model for Bridge Commander gameplay, it doesn't quite hold up for the real-world scale museum quality vibe I'm going for now. Which has prompted me to create my own higher-res model.

And because modeling the Refit exterior has always been a dream of mine

Anyway, I digress. Yes, this is the proper view of the nacelles from the VIP lounge. To be sure, I'd have to check out these old files to see if I did in fact scale up this model properly. In any case, once my new model is finished I can plop it in and see how it compares.

 

[blssdwlf]

Alright, this has given me a wild hair - I will make this easy. Using Big Jim Slade's schematics to build an in-scale A/B/C deck, I pulled in Jackill's "Atai"-class Heavy Shuttle and scaled it with the bridge's aft docking ring. Placing it in-line with the main side view, we can easily see, at minimum, the front 1/3 underside of the shuttle would be fully visible from the O-Lounge while completely docked. Lines up pretty nicely, actually.

Q.E.D.!
View attachment 8914

It's like the top of the B-C structure needs a landing pad or skid plate to prevent from getting all scruffed up by dodgy self-docking computers

 

[Donny]

Alright, this has given me a wild hair - I will make this easy. Using Big Jim Slade's schematics to build an in-scale A/B/C deck, I pulled in Jackill's "Atai"-class Heavy Shuttle and scaled it with the bridge's aft docking ring. Placing it in-line with the main side view, we can easily see, at minimum, the front 1/3 underside of the shuttle would be fully visible from the O-Lounge while completely docked. Lines up pretty nicely, actually.

Q.E.D.!
View attachment 8914

Damn. That’s a tight fit! Such low clearance underneath any given docked spacecraft, if they can even dock at all at the bridge level.

 

[Mytran]

Par for the course with the refit. What about those docking ports on the underside of the saucer?