U.S.S. TITAN -- THE WINNER!
- Thread starter Marco Palmieri
- Start date
Well after seeing the first two notables, I can see why the current design was chosen. But I love Phillip Ridings's design!
"CaptCalhoun" said:
In answer to your question... that is a very-long-range phased-array forward sensor beam. It's essentially the same, functionally, as the big fwd-facing element of the refit-Enterprise's underside-of-primary-hull sensor array, though with orders of magnitude more range and resolution. It was also intended to carry some of the design elements of Defiant and NX-01 into the general design concept. Additionally, I realized after I'd done a lot of the work on this design that I think I'd been subconsciously borrowing from the "Dreadnought class corvette" in the game "Independence War." I'd broken the primary hull up into three subsections... the central section has most of the mission-related elements, while the two outer "disk-shaped" elements contain crew quarters and crew support (recreation and so forth). Dreadnought had two semicircular habitation modules docked onto the central corridor... but those could actually detach and operate independently... and they were much smaller of course. Still, I think this was in the back of my mind as I was working up my general layout.
Hey, it's OK if you don't like the design... we all have our personal biases, myself included.
But... "ICK?" Sheesh...
Ick? ICK? Okayyyyyy.... haven't heard anyone say that since I was in grade school.
In answer to your question... that is a very-long-range phased-array forward sensor beam. It's essentially the same, functionally, as the big fwd-facing element of the refit-Enterprise's underside-of-primary-hull sensor array, though with orders of magnitude more range and resolution. It was also intended to carry some of the design elements of Defiant and NX-01 into the general design concept. Additionally, I realized after I'd done a lot of the work on this design that I think I'd been subconsciously borrowing from the "Dreadnought class corvette" in the game "Independence War." I'd broken the primary hull up into three subsections... the central section has most of the mission-related elements, while the two outer "disk-shaped" elements contain crew quarters and crew support (recreation and so forth). Dreadnought had two semicircular habitation modules docked onto the central corridor... but those could actually detach and operate independently... and they were much smaller of course. Still, I think this was in the back of my mind as I was working up my general layout.
Hey, it's OK if you don't like the design... we all have our personal biases, myself included.
But... "ICK?" Sheesh...
I still concur with the judges' decision but Mr. Ridings' entry looks a lot like the Anansi (Prophecy & Change) did in my mind.
Ick, you liked that one?
(Couldn't resist)
Posted by Doctor Phlox:
Ick, you liked that one?
I don't mind the saucer section, though it could use some tweaking. The body looks too "old school" for the Titan series. It reminds me too much of an Ambassador-class ship, and I was never a big fan of it.
Interesting... I had been trying to incorporate elements of Constitution, Sovereign, and Excelsior into the secondary hull (and make it look bird-like in the process), but I hadn't even considered Ambasssador. As I look at it now, I still don't see it. I'm interested in what elements of that remind you of Ambassador... I guess I'm too close to it to see it.
I also like the winning model the best. The others look pretty cool as well. I especially like James Corey Dukes' design with all those blue spheres on it, which i think would make a really cool science vessel. Riding's looks pretty sweet but a little too futuristic for the era IMO. I like Cary Brown's design too, but the saucer section really puts me off. The hull looks good but it looks like an excelsior saucer with a weird spear is just kind of thrown on top.
All look good though. Awesome job guys.
All look good though. Awesome job guys.
Out of the last 4 designs Sean's looks the most like a 24th century starship. Sean's isn't a bad looking design, it'll grow on me. Right now I don't really care too much for it, especially the pod on top. The pods always looked funny to me on starfleet ships when they were so seperated from the rest of the ship. When I first imagined the Titan after Nemesis I figured it would be an updated Nova class starship. So it will take a bit for me to picture Sean's design as the Titan.
Cary's design would have been my pick for Titan, if there were some subtle changes made to it. First, get rid of that hideous looking nose. That totally ruins the ship in my eyes. Second squeeze the nacelles closer towards the secondary hull. They are too far out. I realize you were going for a bird like look, but it doesn't work IMHO. Last, more color. I know your 3D renders are crude versions but right now it's pretty bland. The nice blue and red like on the sovereign's nacelles would look awesome.
Cary's design would have been my pick for Titan, if there were some subtle changes made to it. First, get rid of that hideous looking nose. That totally ruins the ship in my eyes. Second squeeze the nacelles closer towards the secondary hull. They are too far out. I realize you were going for a bird like look, but it doesn't work IMHO. Last, more color. I know your 3D renders are crude versions but right now it's pretty bland. The nice blue and red like on the sovereign's nacelles would look awesome.
Posted by USS_Akiraprise:
For anyone interested in what "horrible nose" is intended to be, well... here's the explanation given in my submission document:
Other things that are absent on the 3D model include many of the surface details (about 1/3 of the escape pods, all the transporter emitters except the "big two" on the primary hull underside, the surface sensor pallets, etc), the windows (except on/around the Bridge deck), about half of the maneuvering thrusters... ANY of the hull markings... and the list goes on.
So there WILL be more color. However, it will not be done in the style that it sounds like you're asking for. My goal is to make the overall appearance more subtle. You've probably noticed this in real-life, but may not have consciously acknowledged it... you don't see as much variation in color from a distance as you do when right up against the thing you're looking at.
So, if you're building a plastic model, as an example, and want to "scale" it more effectively, you mute the differences between the various colors, and the end effect is to make it look more real. Paint it the exact colors of the original, and you get something that looks like a toy. The original Enterprise (r) model was done this way... the differences between colors used in painting were so minor that you could just BARELY perceive them... and it gave the model a sense of scale.
Paint it in crayola-primary-colors, on the other hand, and it would have been clear that it was only a few feet long.
So, while I do plan to add more color to it, I actually plan to make the overwhelming majority of color variation EXTREMELY subtle, moreso that what you see here in fact.
Thanks for the input. Eventually, once I have a bit more free time, I am going to get back to work on finishing this up. I haven't had time to play in Maya for weeks now...
Well, it's apparent right now that this is a fairly common sentiment. It IS something that is different from most of what we've seen, although both Defiant and NX-01 have very similar elements. I did not just want to have a bland saucer, I wanted something unique, but recognizable. I needed the underside to be flat (to make it practically landable) and the curvature of the top would have to be convex (most modern Trek designs), conical (nothing we've seen before), or concave (Original Enterprise). I wanted it to be round because that just makes more sense from a design standpoint (barring any aerodynamic influences, all vessels would be made in the simplest possible shape... cylinder, sphere, box, cone. OK, we have "warp dynamics" as an excuse for different shapes... but that's trek-no-babble, after all! It's clear that a number of people simply see an Excelsior primary hull, though it's really nothing like that except for the fact that both are circular and both are convex. Hey, I think that if this had won, people would have come to accept it. Still, I know this is constructive criticism, and I'll take it as such.
For anyone interested in what "horrible nose" is intended to be, well... here's the explanation given in my submission document:
One of the things that always annoys me about Star Trek fannish design is how reality gets left behind. Look closely at the forward view, and you'll see why the engines HAVE to be that far out. If I moved them in, the bussard collectors would be shadowed behind the primary hull. I could always move them up, or down, but I had decided (as a matter of style, not of technical necessity) that I wanted them co-planar with the primary hull edge. Why? Because no starship design we've seen so far has been like that. If I moved them up and in, it would look more like a classic Constitution. If I moved them down and in, it would look more like a Galaxy. This way, it looks unique.
Well, two things... first, my 3D render was far from complete. My bussard collectors, for instance, are definitely intended to be glowing reds and ambers, but the renders were of "works in progress." As a matter of fact, I still haven't gotten around to writing a shader that I think would work properly to do what I want (something more akin, in "feel," to the original Enterprise effect). Hey, I'm an engineer, not a computer-graphics-professional! Learning Maya is something I'm doing on my own time, and at my own expense, after all!
Other things that are absent on the 3D model include many of the surface details (about 1/3 of the escape pods, all the transporter emitters except the "big two" on the primary hull underside, the surface sensor pallets, etc), the windows (except on/around the Bridge deck), about half of the maneuvering thrusters... ANY of the hull markings... and the list goes on.
So there WILL be more color. However, it will not be done in the style that it sounds like you're asking for. My goal is to make the overall appearance more subtle. You've probably noticed this in real-life, but may not have consciously acknowledged it... you don't see as much variation in color from a distance as you do when right up against the thing you're looking at.
So, if you're building a plastic model, as an example, and want to "scale" it more effectively, you mute the differences between the various colors, and the end effect is to make it look more real. Paint it the exact colors of the original, and you get something that looks like a toy. The original Enterprise (r) model was done this way... the differences between colors used in painting were so minor that you could just BARELY perceive them... and it gave the model a sense of scale.
Paint it in crayola-primary-colors, on the other hand, and it would have been clear that it was only a few feet long.
So, while I do plan to add more color to it, I actually plan to make the overwhelming majority of color variation EXTREMELY subtle, moreso that what you see here in fact.
Thanks for the input. Eventually, once I have a bit more free time, I am going to get back to work on finishing this up. I haven't had time to play in Maya for weeks now...
After seeing the runners up all I can say is: meh.
None of them look all that great. They look like some of the fan designed ships of seen on the internet. Often not a ringing endorsement. It all makes me even more glad we got Sean's wonderful design.
Of course all of this is just my opinion. Your mileage may very.
Aaron McGuire
None of them look all that great. They look like some of the fan designed ships of seen on the internet. Often not a ringing endorsement. It all makes me even more glad we got Sean's wonderful design.
Of course all of this is just my opinion. Your mileage may very.
Aaron McGuire
I think I looked at Sean's design for the Titan the same way I looked at the design of every starship since the original Enterprise--"let me think about it for a moment."
And the more I do think about it, the more I really love the design. I like the idea of the Luna-class being a "little sister" to the Sovereign-class in the same way the Mirandas were to the Constitutions.
I could see the Luna-class finally replacing the aging Mirandas and ultimately being a something of a workhorse design or a maybe just a commonly-seen ship class in Starfleet in the future.
Belated congrats to Sean...
:thumbsup:
And the more I do think about it, the more I really love the design. I like the idea of the Luna-class being a "little sister" to the Sovereign-class in the same way the Mirandas were to the Constitutions.
I could see the Luna-class finally replacing the aging Mirandas and ultimately being a something of a workhorse design or a maybe just a commonly-seen ship class in Starfleet in the future.
Belated congrats to Sean...
:thumbsup:
Finally found a second to check out the runner-ups...
Sean's ship easily beats out the competition for me.
Cary's ship is pretty attractive, is probably guilty of the overly derivative complaint that's been lodged at Sean's design, but he seems to admit that freely enough...
The sideways nacelles are a little off to me, but it's a matter of taste. The saucer section looks like someone left Deanna Troi at the helm of the Defiant while it was racing through the drydock that was building this one. The nose deflector worked on Defiant because of the way she was designed, it works against my really enjoying this ship asthetically...
Yeah, yeah give me all the technobabble you want to justify it, it just doesn't look good.
James' ship just doesn't work on any level for me, way too many "bubbles" every where. Maybe if this ship were presented in some other way, I'd find something to like, but it leaves me scratching my head...
Phillip's ship sort of reminds me of how they planned out the Enterprise for the Star Trek revival series that never happened but led to the first movie...
I like the look to a degree, but I'd have a hard time placing her in Trek's timeline. It doesn't look like a line that would've been designed prior to the Dominion War but it doesn't look like anything that would've flown immediately after the war years either...
I see it like I see the triangular redisign of the Enterprise: it's an interesting concept, but I'd start a new sci-fi series to put it into...
All good tries, Cary's is the closest thing to workable, but Sean's design is clearly head and shoulders over the others...
Nice to see some of the possibilities though...
Later!
Ali
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