StarshipGenerator.com free web app to design your own ships

[canadaisaniceplace]

Hi, I created a web app (free) to let me quickly explore the design space of starship hulls and layouts. There are 50 predefined ships and you can modify them, save your designs locally, and export STL files to 3D printthem. Feedback welcome. I would consider it under the category of Fan Art since the intent is to enable non experts to design in 3D their own ideas for ships to share.

https://starshipgenerator.com

DpACWyn

 

[Michael]

Welcome to the board, @canadaisaniceplace! (Nice screen name!)

Sounds like an interesting tool you’ve created. Please be aware, though, that normally we don’t really allow people to just promote their websites, services, fundraisers etc. without also contributing as a regular poster. It’s also not the best look that you already posted this same info twice on the board, which we tend to see as spam (which is of course against the board rules you agreed to when signing up).

However, I’ll let this open for now, as what you’ve created sounds like a cool fan resource. Please try to understand that we would rather have you as a contributing poster than just someone advertising what they’ve created off-site. To start with, what would be cool is if you could maybe post some example creations you made using your tool.

Also, I’ve just tried taking a look at your tool, but I get a pop-up asking something I have never before seen any site ask: “This site uses local storage to save your ship designs and uses traffic analytics. Click [Cancel] if you do not consent.” I can’t say I really understand this message and I hope it’s not something that prohibits people from tying it out.

 

[canadaisaniceplace]

Welcome to the board, @canadaisaniceplace! (Nice screen name!)

Sounds like an interesting tool you’ve created. Please be aware, though, that normally we don’t really allow people to just promote their websites, services, fundraisers etc. without also contributing as a regular poster. It’s also not the best look that you already posted this same info twice on the board, which we tend to see as spam (which is of course against the board rules you agreed to when signing up).

However, I’ll let this open for now, as what you’ve created sounds like a cool fan resource. Please try to understand that we would rather have you as a contributing poster than just someone advertising what they’ve created off-site. To start with, what would be cool is if you could maybe post some example creations you made using your tool.

Also, I’ve just tried taking a look at your tool, but I get a pop-up asking something I have never before seen any site ask: “This site uses local storage to save your ship designs and uses traffic analytics. Click [Cancel] if you do not consent.” I can’t say I really understand this message and I hope it’s not something that prohibits people from tying it out.

Thank you, please feel free to close or remove the thread in accordance with the rules. I will post again at some point with your recommended format.

The popup is like a cookie permission banner as required for places like the EU and attempts to be transparent about what data is stored or collected, in this case, it uses browser local storage (i.e. on the user's device) to save their custom ships, and has some google analytics for general usage data associated with it.

Thank you so much for the welcome to the community!

 

[Michael]

Nah, I’ll leave it open. Thanks for the explanation about the pop-up. I think it was just the wording of “using my local storage” that tripped me up. Clicked accept now and gave it a try. Looks like a ton of fun. Not to mention like a lot of love and work put into it. Kudos!

 

[Michael]

@canadaisaniceplace, I now had some time to dabble a bit more with your starship creator and I must say I’m just super impressed. It’s just SO much fun to play with! And I hope others are going to give this a go as well. I think there’s some super interesting use cases for this, like quickly prototyping / testing starship design ideas that artists can then use as a reference for their fan art, like in comics for example. Or people could 3D-print their model and then use their model making skills to paint this as a perfect custom starship design. And it’s perfect for people like me, who have maybe tried their hand at 3D-modelling their ship ideas, but have never quite mastered it. The entry level for using this couldn’t possibly be lower, and I love that about it. Thank you so much for developing something like this and making it available to others. What a genuinely awesome thing to do!

Since you asked for constructive feedback, I’ve jotted down a few notes that you can of course take or leave. I truly think this is super cool as is, but here’s some thoughts that I think would make it even better …

• I would love an undo button to quickly return to a setting I had before. It can sometimes be hard to relocate that sweet spot on a given setting.
• I think something that most starship enthusiasts would love would be if there were preset views for orthographic perspectives, to view your design from the side, the front etc.
• Maybe this is just me, but I would love if there was an easy way to turn the designed ship I’m working on upside down.
• A minor detail, but I think it would be awesome if people had the option to name their ship and class. Bonus points if that name actually shows up on the ship texture. (Edited to add: Just noticed that I can actually give my ship a name. Sorry about that. )
• I love that you included the functionality to easily download screenshots. So thoughtful! What I think you should maybe doing, though, is adding a watermark to the screenshots including a note that it was created using your tool. You deserve all the credit for something as cool as this.
• This one is probably the hardest to implement, but I would love if there’s more options to influence the design of some ship details like Bussard collectors or the deflector. And I just know there’s a large chunk of Trek fans who would love to add stuff like phaser emitters, photo torpedo launchers, impulse engines and a shuttlebay to their designs.

Again, this is just my personal wishlist and you should feel free to ignore all of this.

Here’s the ship design I created earlier today. I love that I was even able to make the bridge appear on the underside of the saucer. So frickin’ cool!

 

[B.J.]

I've seen this before on reddit I think, and it's pretty cool for something relatively simple. Easy way to create a rough ship concept.

EDIT: Looks like there's been a lot of new options added since the last time I looked at it. Nice!

 

[Michael]

I’m having way too much fun with this. Here’s another design I did …

Also, I just had a look through all the preset designs, some of which are hilarious and very well-made. Were these made by fans or did you all do them, @canadaisaniceplace?

 

[canadaisaniceplace]

@canadaisaniceplace, I now had some time to dabble a bit more with your starship creator and I must say I’m just super impressed. It’s just SO much fun to play with!

Thank you, fun is the whole idea of the designer, and I am really glad to see you creating a design right away with a underslung zeppelin-style bridge. I hope you saved the ship locally using the Utiliies>save ship menu item. It will be stored in the local browser storage and show up on the top o fthe ship list when you go back to the site with the same browser later on. Or you can export the ship parameters and paste them into another browser to share. I should really do a tutorial.

I just tested the STL file export in Blender, so it looks like an initial design can be imported then further refined with whatever details a motivated designer would wish to add in a 3D program. Personally I am loving doing 3D prints as wall mount "Conference Room" half-models in gold filament.

That is great feedback, thank you!

 

[canadaisaniceplace]

I’m having way too much fun with this. Here’s another design I did …

Amazing, love the single nacelle designs.

Yes all the default designs are ones I made in the designer over the years and then added to the predefined ships. That said, many are attempts at replicating existing designs as a starting point, which was then hinted at in the ship names.

This all started a long time ago when I was at Star Trek Las Vegas, and was speaking to designers like J.E. who said that all designs need to have an engineering/physic basis. I went back to the original design rules of M.J. back in the 60's, and implemented the designer based on work I had done in "DNA" based design in school, which is similar to how almost the same DNA can form a hand or a paw or a whale fin or a bat wing. In this case, all ships in universe have a sort of structure where there is a primary and secondary hull connected with a neck, and nacelles connected to engineering via pylons, kind of like how insects have 3 body parts and 6 legs. Anyways, its more of a biological/engineering tool. All the geometry is generated by equations, not made in Blender, so you could export an entire hull design with a DNA number string and a set of equations.

 

[canadaisaniceplace]

I've seen this before on reddit I think, and it's pretty cool for something relatively simple. Easy way to create a rough ship concept.

EDIT: Looks like there's been a lot of new options added since the last time I looked at it. Nice!

Yes! I dusted it off this winter and added features I really wanted like load/save/export, improved pylons, multiple skins/textures and Bussard animation. There is even an Easter Egg in the nebulas in the background. The textures I especially like.