New Original Series USS Enterprise

[scifieric]

I keep some if not all of my work scatter around a few computers, I have a backup drive, and I keep stuff in a cloud file (I get a lot of Microsoft space with my MS Office subscription). But I'll certainly look at what I'm leaving un-backed right now!

Smart man, and smart man!

Trauma like that (which I have also endured) is why I invested in several Samsung portable SSDs that I use for regular backups. I alternate the SSDs used for each backup and keep the backups off-site (i.e., not in my condo--what good is a backup if it also gets stolen or burned up in a fire?!)

Very good ideas. Excellent.

Man,

I know how traumatic it is to lose huge numbers of files! This past year, I just updated my iMac to a 1TB Samsung SSD drive, and that, coupled with my 2 tb external drive using Time Machine for backup, has already twice been a lifesaver!

I recommend it to everyone.

Sounds like a good idea!

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Let's get this party back on track. Talking about backups is reminding me of the depressing time I lost two months of work to a faulty backup.

Everything looks very screen-accurate so far on your pilot Enterprise with one very minor possible exception: you might want to check the diameter of the pair of triplet circular portholes/sensors/thruster nozzles/whatever the eff those round things are that are on the lower aft rim of the saucer at port and starboard--they look like they might be a tidge too large. Everything else looks spot-on so far. (And of course, if you're doing that deliberately just like I consciously departed in multiple areas from canon on my Enterprise, then please kindly ignore me and carry on!)

 

[scifieric]

Nice pickup! I shall indeed look at that this weekend, thank you. I'm going off of plans, so entirely possible to be off in size.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Let me guess: a combination of Alan Sinclair and Charles Casimiro's work, with a dash of Gary Kerr realness thrown in here and there? They're definitely the gold standard. I've also gone to the source now and then.

 

[scifieric]

Let me guess: a combination of Alan Sinclair and Charles Casimiro's work, with a dash of Gary Kerr realness thrown in here and there? They're definitely the gold standard. I've also gone to the source now and then.

Yes Siree Bob! And thanks for the link! There are a couple of images there I don't have!

There is also a fellow by the name of David Shaw who does some VERY good work with drawings. I'll use his from time to time as well.

 

[scifieric]

Did a little work on the warp engines last night. Fun!

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Hey @scifieric I just noticed something: The four inboard and outboard intercoolers at the rear of the warp nacelles should not sink into the nacelle casing along the z-axis. The dimpled inset "grille" area should remain the same height fore-to-aft along the entire length of the inset (if you really want to get anal, there are six rows of the pyramidal-shaped dimples along the entire inset). Reference image.

 

[Crusty]

I think there's a bit of variation in those parts. Here's an image of them on Ed Miarecki's bench in 1991:

On the leftmost part, it's fairly clear that it tapers from a bit more than six rows at the front to less than six full rows at the back. The one next to it appears similar, and the other two are a bit too fuzzy to see. If you look at the intercooler "handles" to the rear, you can see that the hand-sanded curvature is a little bit different on each of them, but the front (the two on the left are facing forward) is almost certainly a little bit taller than the back.

Here's another image showing one of the inserts:

It's fairly clear that there are six full rows at the front, and less than six at the back.

 

[scifieric]

Gentlemen, you are both right! I guess each one wasn't identical. I've been making it so that you lose a row. I'll try it with 6 all the way down and see how it looks. Thank you both!

 

[Professor Moriarty]

GAAACK! Great find, @Crusty, even if it did send my OCD into overdrive.

 

[Crusty]

I think the taper probably ought to be slightly less than one full row. There are about 94 vertical rows, and each row is about ⅛", making the strips about 11¾" long. Look at this:

This is almost certainly the strip that's on the extreme left of the second image that I linked to above, and fairly likely to be the strip on the left in the first image. The image shows about one third of the strip, fairly close to the front, with the top of the strip to the right. Although we're looking at about a third of the strip's length, the taper only appears to be about a quarter of a row, or perhaps a bit less.

 

[Irishman]

I know this is a tad off-topic, but I wasn't sure anyone (meaning you guys) would notice it if I put it in another thread, but this guy is a really good Blender modeler, and really good at making tutorials (sound like someone else we know?) His Youtube user name is Zerobio, and he showed a really simple and fast way to clean up funky faces after Boolean operations. He went into edit mode on just the affected faces, selected the faces and extruded it, and then tabbed back in to object mode. It seemed to do the trick! I'm looking forward to trying it, even though, as he admits, it adds polys.

https://www.youtube.com/user/zerobio/videos

Historically, he does hard-surface modeling, but not Star Trek focused. His most recent series of videos do focus on some late-TNG fan Nova-class interiors. One thing he did that I really appreciated was to reach out to the artist, in order to secure permission for using their artwork BEFORE doing it. Seems like a real classy guy.

 

[Tallguy]

I know this is a tad off-topic, but I wasn't sure anyone (meaning you guys) would notice it if I put it in another thread, but this guy is a really good Blender modeler, and really good at making tutorials (sound like someone else we know?) His Youtube user name is Zerobio, and he showed a really simple and fast way to clean up funky faces after Boolean operations. He went into edit mode on just the affected faces, selected the faces and extruded it, and then tabbed back in to object mode. It seemed to do the trick! I'm looking forward to trying it, even though, as he admits, it adds polys.

https://www.youtube.com/user/zerobio/videos

Historically, he does hard-surface modeling, but not Star Trek focused. His most recent series of videos do focus on some late-TNG fan Nova-class interiors. One thing he did that I really appreciated was to reach out to the artist, in order to secure permission for using their artwork BEFORE doing it. Seems like a real classy guy.

Nice. As we've all seen in other threads this is "Conversation we have while waiting for updates!" Was there a vid in particular?

 

[Irishman]

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In case Youtube doesn't save my pause point the time code at which he noticed the shading error was right at 11 minutes.

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Blender is definitely having a moment. If (when? ) LightWave is finally kicked to the curb, at least there will be a healthy open-source ecosystem out there, ready and waiting. I mean, damn. The list of third-party renderers available for Blender is as long as my arm. LightWave? OctaneRender, and some POS that hasn't been updated since the previous decade. That's it. Sigh.

 

[scifieric]

One thing he did that I really appreciated was to reach out to the artist, in order to secure permission for using their artwork BEFORE doing it. Seems like a real classy guy.

Yeah, I've seen this fellow before. He's interesting! Thanks!

Ah, an interesting and quick solution. I change the N-Gon to a Quad or Tri by adding edges or verts. Unique.

Nice. As we've all seen in other threads this is "Conversation we have while waiting for updates!" Was there a vid in particular?

Yeah, darned lunatics that take forever to post updates! Oh, wait, that's me! LOL!

In case Youtube doesn't save my pause point the time code at which he noticed the shading error was right at 11 minutes.

Yeah, I like it, it's just I've never seen that before.

Blender is definitely having a moment. If (when? ) LightWave is finally kicked to the curb, at least there will be a healthy open-source ecosystem out there, ready and waiting. I mean, damn. The list of third-party renderers available for Blender is as long as my arm. LightWave? OctaneRender, and some POS that hasn't been updated since the previous decade. That's it. Sigh.

I never thought I'd see the day, but more and more professionals are turning to Blender for fast solutions. I've seen presentations by freelance effects artists, I've read about architects who use it for presentations, it's getting wild!

 

[scifieric]

I'm fairly happy with tonight's experiment with my using shrink wrap to a modified cylinder for the grills. There's a lot more verts and edges in this grill, but it works well.

 

[Tallguy]

Wherever did that idea come from? (I haven't actually tried it on the TOS ship. It looks terrific!)

 

[Professor Moriarty]

Oh my, I agree with Bill; that looks terrific! Sure wish LightWave had shrink-wrap; I keep seeing Blender artists using it in all sorts of interesting ways that I have to do manually (or not at all). Grumble.

 

[Irishman]

Oh my, I agree with Bill; that looks terrific! Sure wish LightWave had shrink-wrap; I keep seeing Blender artists using it in all sorts of interesting ways that I have to do manually (or not at all). Grumble.

I use Blender, too, but usually I use an Array modifier for large grid-type objects. It's good to know there are many ways to skin a cat.