First off, this is my first time uploading one of my designs to this forum. I am a huge fan of the Cage and WNMHGB style, so I've tried to incorporate that as well as some DSC influences. This space-vehicle is the USS ZELL, an Atlanta-class long-range exploration vessel. It has a crew of 836. Width: 1,602 feet from the edges of the saucer. Length: 3,442.5 feet from the end of the nacelles to the forward edge of the saucer. It has 23 decks, with each deck being ten feet tall and with five feet between decks for service tunnels, the space-frame, etc. I don't know if links are allowed, but this is a link to the IMGUR page where I've got more pictures that I can post here.
Nice design! Next time you make a saucer, increase the number of segments in your segment count. Before doing anything else, select the Circle tool, click anywhere on the canvas with it, and type s followed by your preferred amount of segments. SketchUp creates a standard circle of 24 segments (if you look at your saucer, you can see it's made up out of 24 segments - 12 per half). Personally I always work in powers of 2: s48, s96 or s192. Keep in mind that if you do it this way, SketchUp will create every circle for the rest of the current session with that number of segments. When you restart the program, it becomes the standard 24 again. If you already made a circle and want to increase the amount, you can also right / context click it and hit Entity Info, where you can then adjust the amount in the Segments box, third from top. Keep in mind you can only adjust the segments as long as you didn't edit the circle, so no scaling or use of the Push / Pull tool before you decide you want a smoother saucer! If you want to, head over to the 3D Warehouse and download my Subutai; you'll notice very soon what kind of impact this makes. Keep in mind that the higher the segment count, the heavier the model becomes. You don't want to make a bolt, for example, with 96 segments if it's barely visible when rendering...
Thank you so much for this information! I admit I didn't research it, but I thought the free version of SketchUp only allowed for 24 segments! Are there any tips you can give for speeding up connecting the segments, or is it just something to hunker down for?
I'm not entirely sure what you mean with "connecting the segments"? If you mean the way an inclined wall connects a smaller, lower circle to a larger top circle, there's Follow Me for that. If that is what you're looking for, SketchUp has a handy tutorial page on it!
Honestly, to get everything out of SketchUp you need tutorials and plugins. You're not using Web, but Make, right? If so, head over to sketchucation.com, register for an account and download stuff that you think might make your life easier. Tools on Surface by Fredo6 springs to mind, as well as Weld (which welds loose segments into one whole, especially important when you're Push/Pulling or Follow Me'ing stuff).
I agree but the whole needs to be more angular in that case as well, right now the aesthetic dictates that it has to be smooth. The nacelles of the Disco ships could fit with more angular saucer shapes too.
I downloaded the program, and updated the model. I also added pods onto the struts since it looked really bare. Being able to make the saucer smoother really helps the design.
That is seriously nice! Another way of making the nacelles more visually appealing is by adding stuff like vents.