2024 (05 – Little Fiddle time)

So.

Was going to pull the trigger and upgrade my rendering system and start migrating to Blender. Well…

I decided on a loaded Dell G16. I have had 5 personal Dell systems and 2 from work, the Dell just works great. I discovered they were having a 40th Anniversary sale (the day after it ended!) and they sold out of the configuration I wanted. The expected delivery date is May. I’ll just have to wait a little more. (poor me) It was a toss up between the Dell and MSI. The MSI had a less robust processor and I just keep reading that their support, if you ever need it, is poor. I expect this machine will last about as long as the last one I had so I’ll probably be quitting modelling by then.

First world problem.

In the meantime, Trek X work continues.

I keep mussing around with the textures so it has been slow. I’ve settled on the base coat and diffuse levels but have not worked out the specular settings yet. The file is getting big and my poor system is starting to struggle with editing. I do not want to move this to Blender and start over.

Anyway…

2024 (04 – Tangent pt 1)

So, Trek X is sidelined for the moment as I workout details on textures. I’m looking at adding some contemporary approaches to color details. I’ve seen some excellent drawings and renders by artists that focus on Trek. Really, my tangent should not be a surprise to anyone. I have more virtual ‘shelf Queens’ (physical modeling term for unfinished models) than I care to share.

However…

This slight pause has given me time to consider another project I have wanted to do for a long time since helping on the Starfleet Museum book (by Dan Carlson). I have actually been working on it for some time as I have grown my collection. Until I really get it fleshed out more I hesitate to discuss. Suffice to say, I have some major components done and am eager to get it to a sharable point.

To that end, I needed the Museum M/AM demonstrator ships (Mk I and II). I built both eons ago but they were VERY basic. They are not difficult designs to replicate so I whipped together the Mk I to start. The model did not take very long and has some nice details to it that the first relied on texture tricks to accomplish. I also made correct impulse fairings to the drawings. Most models out there (my first as well) just used halved and stretched spheres. The drawing clearly shows they are more oval but not symmetric.

Here is the model done:

I worked on the textures today (3/12) and got pretty far along. I’m noodling the specular maps now and have a couple of thoughts on how I want to go. The whole model is using a 6K map size that is sliced down to the components. Any larger and I’d break my old machine. I was lucky to find a very good version of the George Petty calendar girl drawing that adorns the Mk I. The drawing looks great (some PS tweaking) and the basic MS brush script font is close to the one Masao used in his original drawings.

Hope to have this buttoned up in the next few days and then on to the Mk II!

2024 (03)

I’ve gone back and forth on texture ideas but the main three are pretty set now. I’ve applied the base versions and now can start adding detail.

FYI, this ship is about 438 meters in length so it’s a big’un. The textures need to try and reflect that.

I tweaked the one greeble element I had on the model. The first one was a quick placeholder I made in Max using a plugin. I exported that into Wings and made a custom one that looks better if you got close enough to the ship in a render. I also made a new nacelle. The previous version with the big indented plasma vents was clunky.

Just have to finish textures now.

2024 (02 Changes afoot)

As I often complain, whine or otherwise excuse myself about my antique 3D tools and computer – I have decided to catch up with the current state of technology.

At the time, my computer was pretty state of the art and included a first generation multi-core processor and first generation dedicated high-end graphics card. They’re both laughably inadequate today (>15 years old).

I hope to acquire a new laptop in the next couple of months (I don’t want a desktop anymore). It should have an Intel i9 processor with 32GB memory and a GeForce GTX 4000 series GPU. I don’t expect to play games online and my computer time is only a few hours a week. As such, the laptop should be perfect. I will get a cooling plate for it in any event and hopefully a widescreen monitor (my current one is great but is DVI which isn’t supported on latest GeForce cards).

I also expect to move over to Blender with the upgrade. While I love Autodesk (3D Max) I cannot abide the license fee model. I’ve spent thousands on Autodesk but always justified it because I owned the license. This annual ‘stick it to you’ model is s&@t and Blender is a standard now. I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately on Blender and see that the interface has been revamped over the years in a positive way.

Not as leery as I once was of moving over to it.

Of course, in 15 years I’ll probably be whining again…

2024 (01)

Been offline awhile and have not worked on much. The family decided to take turns getting sick with various winter aliments one after the other. Really sours the mood to do anything that is self satisfying like playing on the computer.

I also ran into a number of issues with my most current two projects. The ‘Series X’ (as I’m calling it) starship was giving me UV unwrap fits. As I have repeatedly stated, my computer is old and the tools I have are antiquated. The native and third party unwrap tools I have just could not give me want I wanted for the hull shape on my model. Mostly because the portholes would stretch or deform radically and sometimes a hull section seam would wander off oddly.

Ultimately I realized that if I cut in all the portholes I would be able to use my standard unwrap tools.

So, weeks later I’ve cut in all the darn portholes! I first tried boolean cuts but the result was a huge mess. I ended up hand cutting them all in. Lots of vertex beveling and vertex deletions were required and the scale from one series of windows to the next is off by 2-4% but I don’t think it will matter.

I’m also considering redoing the warp engine. Not in love. The texture hurdle has been resolved with the cut outs completed.

I think I’ll focus on completing this ship before moving on. Hopefully no new issues, of any kind, will get in the way.

2023 (25 – Interruption)

And now, for something completely different!

An artist I follow on DA just dropped a really fun design for a TOS era ship inspired by — pliers! I saw this and just had to take a whack at it. Yes, stopped me from texture work but you all know how I am.

The drawing, which had a few views, did present some challenges which I run into often. Some design aspects sort of step on others when you model out the drawing. The warp drive / deflector housing sort of had two different sizes so I compromised between the two and it kinda ran into the planetary sensor which would make it useless. Same issue with what appear to be impulse engines (port / starboard). The engine housings exhausted directly into the warp drive / pylons. I moved engines directly aft.

I’m gonna ask the designer if there is anything to tweak (given my assumptions and changes) before finishing. I also need to get a sense of size since some (assumed) port holes on it seem large (started to cut some in but they were so big the ship seemed like a runabout).

All in all, this is a fun design. Lots of recognizable TOS elements but with a fun twist. I’d love to add it to my seldom seen series.

Enjoy

2023 (24 – Texturing Pt 5)

Found a little time to work on texturing. Small stuff but much closer to getting complete (less bump maps).

it is hard to see much difference over last update. Hope to get it done soon.

2023 (23 – Texturing Pt 4)

More texturing work. The nacelles did turn out to be just a quick carry over (see previous post) as the Shackleton texture should have just gone on. I ended up importing the Shackleton body mesh over because I had used an unwrapper and did not want to try and replicate that. More tweaks on the existing textures as well.

Additionally, I started another project. This has been stuck in my brain for awhile now and I had to doodle that out. I have most of the main parts wired out but need to figure the nacelle / impulse strategy out.