1. Lighting is EVERYTHING. Bad lighting can ruin a good model. Good lighting can hide a multitude of sins on a low-detail/poorly-textured model. 2. See #1. Edited to add: I think that's the first time I've ever seen someone come up with the idea to paint the leading edges of the pylons a different color to signify that the ship is of a different class/usage. Interesting idea, and a lovely image!
That's something I kinda came up with on the fly when painting the Saladin. The Enterprise's leading dorsal edge is a blue-green, and the marking on the underside of front of the nacelle is a neutral color. For the Saladin's nacelle, I had to take the inboard details of the stock Enterprise nacelle and turn them 90 degrees and point them downward. This interfered with that marking on the underside of the nacelle, so I then rotated the marking 180 degrees to point upward, where the dorsal meets the nacelle. The blue/green of the dorsal edge and the neutral of the nacelle marking clashed, so I decided to change the dorsal edge to also be that neutral color so the two matched. That then gave me the idea to experiment with different colors on subsequent ships. I'd already been planning on eventually depicting a Ptolemy-class bridge with yellow trim instead of the Enterprise's red/orange, so it made sense to paint the Ptolemy's exterior trim color this yellow as well. My boss, Thomas Marrone, modeled a TMP-era Kobayashi Maru for Star Trek: Online with this same yellow trim color a couple years back, so I also took some inspiration from that because I really like how he handled that design. Thank you! Having mainly focused on interiors for my entire career, it's been a learning experience learning how to light large objects in the void of space. As a kid I thought the FJ designs looked silly and am surprised as an adult I'm so hellbent on respecting their basic structure and silhouette and not making major deviations. But now that I'm playing with it in 3D I have much more respect for what he came up with. Sometimes 3 basic orthographic views don't do justice to how great these ships look in more dramatic angles.
oeirgoehg Thomas is very talented so you're certainly learning from the best. I did not realize you worked for Star Trek Online.
Yep! I've been on the Star Trek: Online team for three years now. I came on as an environment artist but moved to the ship team last October. I basically work on STO during the day then go home and work on my passion projects at night. Lots of modeling/texturing for this guy
You literally have my dream job. Envious. I guess from now on when I say keep up the good work! it will have a professional and personal meaning attached.
Oh, this thread (or maybe the TWoK one) was abuzz with discussion and congratulations when Donny got hired by STO.
I remember when everyone feared me getting hired on with STO meant I wouldn't be doing any more of this personal work. Ha!
I'm trying to decide out how I want to handle the registries of the containers. In the STTM, Franz Joseph has five different types of transport containers (Marks I through V) that are pulled by the Ptolemy-class Transport/Tug. Each of these containers has an base registry of NCC-x000, where "x" equals the Mark number of the container. Therefore: Mark I Containers (Liquids) start at NCC-1000 Mark II Containers (Dry Bulk) start at NCC-2000 Mark III Containers (Refrigerated Goods) start at NCC-3000 Mark IV Containers (People) start at NCC-4000 and Mark V Containers (Products) start at NCC-5000 However, since FJ made the manual in the mid 70s while TOS was the only Trek that existed and we didn't see any NCC numbers outside of NCC-10xx and NCC-17xx range, the above container registries conflict with ships we see later in the franchise, notably the Excelsior, which is at NX-2000 or NCC-2000. I figured it would be best to number the containers differently, as many other artists seem to have done so as well when depicting these containers. I've seen "NCC-xxxxC", adding a "C" at the end of the number string to denote "Container", which is what I've gone with in my WIP render. I've also seen "NCC-Cxxxx", adding the "C" at the beginning of the number string but after the NCC. I've then seen "Cxxxx", using a singular "C" (which presumably means "Container") and dropping the "NCC" completely, since this had traditionally denoted registries of actual vessels. Although I've used "NCC-xxxxC" in my WIP render from last night, I'm thinking of actually going with the later option and just have "Cxxxx" or "C-xxxx" to give containers an entirely separate registry designation from those of starships. This would also allow for the containers to have registries numbering in the tens of thousands without interfering with starship registries. I assume Starfleet would have perhaps hundreds of thousands of these containers in service, given how many would be needed to establish and resupply colonies and starbases throughout Federation space. Thoughts? Oh, no! I didn't mean it that way. I honestly thought it might dissuade me from working on my passion projects as well. I just think it's funny looking back, seeing how this job has had little impact on the frequency in which I work on these projects.
I'm with you on this one. I like C-XXXX, or even adding another letter to the front like TC-XXXX for transport container, rolls off the tongue with a little more familiarity.
I would agree with prefixing the number with a "C". That seems to be what some of the fandom seems to have embraced. The late Neale Davidson did a number of cargo pods using those kinds of registries. There were also these (not entirely sure what all the letters represented): ARM-XXXX : Armored Pod FDB-XXXX : Bulk Cargo Pod CSS-XXXX : Combat Support Pod HDZ-XXXX : Fuel Pod HMED-XXXX : Heavy Medical Pod HCCS-XXXX : Heavy Combat Support Pod HSCV-XXXX or SCVH-XXXX : Heavy Shuttle Carrier FGL-XXXX : Liquids Cargo Pod MED-XXXX : Medical Pod FGP-XXXX : Products Cargo Pod FRF-XXXX : Reefer Cargo Pod (refrigerated - not the other thing ) SCV-XXXX : Shuttle Carrier SLR-XXXX : Starliner Pod RLY-XXXX : Subspace Relay Pod These seem a lot to keep track of, which is why I'd just go the "CXXXX" route. Easiest to do. I have a lot of them online here if you want to peruse for ideas. All collected under "Container" listing type.
I like the "different prefixes for different pod types" logic myself. You might want to go with "NCP" for "Starfleet-owned Pod". "Starliner" strikes me as something for private-sector ship-owners to be hauling around, though.
The more I think about ship registries in Trek continuity, the more it reminds me of these used in the rail business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporting_mark
They were particularly important for rail designations, as many countries used different gauges when it came to rail width and were often incompatible with each other. In fact, during WWII, during the lend-lease program, rail cars that were sent over to the USSR had to all be converted from a US to Russian rail system. Was quite a pain in the ass from what I’ve heard.