Ringship

[Herkimer Jitty]

Mine's not really meant to be the Enterprise predecessor. I think I'm taking it out of the Star Trek universe altogether.

Or it could have been the 22nd century's version of an old-school Popular Mechanics "ship of the future". Somewhat feasible, but for the most part, just fanciful speculation.

I mean, it resembles all the ringship concepts, but it's larger and much more stylized. Could be that some magazine came up with this pimpomatic for an article about what starships would be like in 15 years when the XCV 330 rolled around.

Just a random, sleep-deprived thought.

 

[RichMerk]

Lol, that could work too. It's the article right before the one about flying cars and after the one about domed cities. I want my flying car, dammit!

 

[Clawhammer]

That retro metallic color was just the default modelling color used by Hexagon. Those weren't renders, just raw screencaps.

If you are taking it out of the Trek universe: Really try to use a metallic material that comes close to the viewport/default material in the renders as well. It looked so Art Deco.

The huge, now empty, front area: it depends on what this ship will do, but I would house a couple of facilities there. Including the bridge/command section, 2 small bay doors for shuttles/repair drones, a simplified panoramic dome. (much smaller ofcourse) Perhaps some vip quarters as well, and if the ship has any armament: 2 forward defensive devices. :P

Here is (perhaps) some more inspiration; work in progress images of the SOTL entry.
http://www.ewe-squad.com/xcv330/

 

[Avon]

what if the decks were rotated 90 degrees from usual, so the front bubble could be the massive glass roof of a huge command centre.

 

[sojourner]

^Then he'd have to go back and redo all the windows.

 

[Avon]

spin the ball 90 degrees.. and the other windows could be turbolift shafts with a view.

 

[RichMerk]

If you are taking it out of the Trek universe: Really try to use a metallic material that comes close to the viewport/default material in the renders as well. It looked so Art Deco.

I'm just afraid it will look like a pewter ship model from the Franklin Mint.

The huge, now empty, front area: it depends on what this ship will do, but I would house a couple of facilities there. Including the bridge/command section, 2 small bay doors for shuttles/repair drones, a simplified panoramic dome. (much smaller ofcourse) Perhaps some vip quarters as well, and if the ship has any armament: 2 forward defensive devices. :P

I'm building a whole shuttle bay pod opposite the sphere. Maybe a giant anime gun like from Starblazers Actually, you guys gave me an idea.........

Here is (perhaps) some more inspiration; work in progress images of the SOTL entry.
http://www.ewe-squad.com/xcv330/

Those are beyond supercool. Thank you very much.

what if the decks were rotated 90 degrees from usual, so the front bubble could be the massive glass roof of a huge command centre.

I shudder at the thought of having to model an entire giant command center... But I like the idea of rotating everything 90 degrees.

^Then he'd have to go back and redo all the windows.

Well, if I'm retexturing to make it look retro metallic, I might as well redo the windows while I'm at it. But yeah, all I'd have to do is just rotate the sphere.

GR's "Starship" concept had the crew flying around the galaxy as some sort of ecological disaster recovery team, or something like that. Hence the name of the ship. So what if, in keeping with this green spirit, we flip the decks 90 degrees, change the big bronze dome into a glass bubble, and place a small forest or green space underneath it. Sort of like Silent Running.

 

[Santaman]

Thats a really large ship then..

I do like it though, including the metallic paint.. hmm, if you ever feel the urge to aztec it then you can put it back into trek again...

 

[SonicRanger]

Aztecing doesn't -- and shouldn't -- equal "Star Trek" ship. I wouldn't call the brilliant version of this ship in SOTL "azteced" because those panels look more like something on the shuttle or space station rather than TMP-style squares and rectangles everywhere.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

There are lots of different metallic effects you can try. The dark, "lead-like" color of pewter isn't what you want, nor is "plain carbon steel" for that matter. I've found that aluminum is the best-looking appearance if you want an "in-scale" metallic appearance. You can play a bit with a specular map on top of that to get subtle "panel effects" without going with the whole (frankly, pretty silly-looking) "Aztec" character that Trek ships took on... carrying the subtle TMP-era appearance (intended to represent very subtle paneling) to excessive levels.

FYI, the ship you see in my avatar is done in a modified aluminum effect.

 

[Santaman]

I just very much like the TMP refit, as an in universe ship AND as a work of art as a physical model, its indeed not overdone on the model, to me it always has been something that gave the ship its science fiction feel.

I think it would have worked on Ent D in the D's darker blue/gray.

On topic again, I like the size of it, gives it both a sense of being large yet still a little fragile although thats too strong a word.

Do carry on.

 

[sojourner]

^Yeah, more "elegant" than fragile.

From a model perspective, I don't like the idea of turning the decks to match the direction of travel. It will make the windows break up the art deco lines of the ship instead of enhancing them.

 

[RichMerk]

I've found that aluminum is the best-looking appearance if you want an "in-scale" metallic appearance.

Ok, good to know. I played around a bit with metallic textures, but apparently I was using ones that were way too reflective. There's not much to reflect in outer space except black, and it made the ship look just... black.

From a model perspective, I don't like the idea of turning the decks to match the direction of travel. It will make the windows break up the art deco lines of the ship instead of enhancing them.

I'm not sure if turning the sphere would ruin the effect, but definitely the big central pod needs to have its windows running the long way. Another possibility would be to have the various pods in orientations different from each other. I am already tilting my shuttle bay pod 90 degrees so that "up" is to the port side. Maybe we can tilt the sphere so that up is to starboard. For the two cylindrical pods, up would remain up, and for the forest dome, up would be forward.

Meanwhile, here is a shot of the boom/pods connection. The idea was to make it look extruded.

 

[Psion]

Is that a hatch on the nub behind the pods where they meet the boom? And what's the cable/pipe under the boom for?

 

[RichMerk]

Is that a hatch on the nub behind the pods where they meet the boom?

Yes.

And what's the cable/pipe under the boom for?

Visual interest. Here's a closer shot.

And a new shot from the front, showing the new metallic hull. I'm learning all about HDRI tonight.

And a shot comparing turning the sphere this way and that.

 

[RichMerk]

Two views of the port side and the landing bay pod. It is rotated 90 degrees relative to the central pod so that "up" is towards the ship's port side. There are 5 landing pads on the roof and 2 large hangar doors.

 

[Avon]

i bet its hard to carry a cup of coffee through the transition between gravity orientations!

 

[RichMerk]

Velcro booties and funky curlycue intersections.

Or something like a revolving door, except vertical instead of horizontal.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

A suggestion... I've played with "high reflectivity" effects as well, but that level of reflectivity is a killer of the sense of scale. Even with a highly reflective surface (the glass in an office building), you get a lot more scatter than that.

You need to dial down the reflectivity to somewhere between 10% and 30% of what you have now, I think. That will add significantly to the sense of scale for your model.

 

[Gepard]

It's not so much the level of reflectivity that's a problem, but how crisp it is. At that scale, there's going to be a lot of little warps and ripples in the hull that would break up the reflection. Look at any high-rise office building and you can see how much distortion there is over large sections of something even as smooth as glass.

A procedural bump map combined, perhaps, with some reflection blurring can help with that effect. It would also be beneficial to control the reflectivity based on viewing angle, so the surface is more reflective around the edges and less so on faces that face the camera. Read a quick explanation here and here.