I doubt many remember, but about a year and a half ago I had done a small venture into the world of CG modeling and animation. The goals and motivations were pretty straight forward...
I was very aware of my limitations. First of all, I couldn't bring anything resembling clear guides into the program I was using, so much of the shapes were done by hand rather than matching the best shapes available. Second, I was starting from scratch with no previous experience in either 3D modeling or use of this application (Strata Vision 3D 4.0 and later Strata Studio Pro 1.5.2... both from 1994). So given that I would have to say that any shortcomings in what I produced were more a reflection on my lack of ability rather than the tools I had at hand.
The following movie is a pretty good representation of what I was able to make in the way of animation (and includes a model of the Republic and a K7-like space station).
Click to view
(Quicktime, 105 sec., 6.5 MB)
As with the original model of the Enterprise, one can hide deficiencies by choosing angles and lighting, so to give you a better idea of what the model I made actually looked like, here is a set of orthogonal images and a shot in the harsh light of day.
I was (relatively) happy with the results, and as such moved on to other things. But with recent research on the original models, I have been wanting to take some time to apply what I've learned into making some new models, and this time I was considering learning Blender for the task.
Unlike the previous project (with a strict time table) I'll be extending this one out quite a ways. And at the same time I'll be attempting to avoid errors that I was willing to forgive myself for in the previous project.
So in other words, what I just posted is a benchmark of sorts. And I would hope that anything I produce in the future will be better than what I've shown here. I don't think that is an unrealistic goal, and is far more reasonable than attempting to match the quality of the models of some of our members here (which in most cases even CBS couldn't do with the remastered episodes
).
- See what it took to actually do 3D modeling (so I could better judge what it was that I was seeing from others),
- See if I could make anything worth looking at, and
- Curiosity about how well this type of thing could have been done in the mid 90's (considering that most decent CG models of the TOS Enterprise didn't start surfacing until around 2000 or so from what I can tell).
I was very aware of my limitations. First of all, I couldn't bring anything resembling clear guides into the program I was using, so much of the shapes were done by hand rather than matching the best shapes available. Second, I was starting from scratch with no previous experience in either 3D modeling or use of this application (Strata Vision 3D 4.0 and later Strata Studio Pro 1.5.2... both from 1994). So given that I would have to say that any shortcomings in what I produced were more a reflection on my lack of ability rather than the tools I had at hand.
The following movie is a pretty good representation of what I was able to make in the way of animation (and includes a model of the Republic and a K7-like space station).
Click to view
(Quicktime, 105 sec., 6.5 MB)
As with the original model of the Enterprise, one can hide deficiencies by choosing angles and lighting, so to give you a better idea of what the model I made actually looked like, here is a set of orthogonal images and a shot in the harsh light of day.
I was (relatively) happy with the results, and as such moved on to other things. But with recent research on the original models, I have been wanting to take some time to apply what I've learned into making some new models, and this time I was considering learning Blender for the task.
Unlike the previous project (with a strict time table) I'll be extending this one out quite a ways. And at the same time I'll be attempting to avoid errors that I was willing to forgive myself for in the previous project.
So in other words, what I just posted is a benchmark of sorts. And I would hope that anything I produce in the future will be better than what I've shown here. I don't think that is an unrealistic goal, and is far more reasonable than attempting to match the quality of the models of some of our members here (which in most cases even CBS couldn't do with the remastered episodes
).
