2022 (4)

Back from a long break.

Traveled east for a fair number of weeks to visit family. No computer (and it is rude to spend time playing). Came back and spent a couple of weeks working on a new Honor Harrington universe ship. Did not turn out so well. I modeled it in WIngs3D and it has lots of details and a fair number of polys, the ship looks very nice. My (very old) computer cannot handle the scene when imported to 3DMax 😦 . It takes literally minutes to do anything in the viewer. So, shelving it.

So, happily, back to Trek stuff. I built a new ship for my ‘seldom seen’ series of Federation ships (below). As yet unnamed class but it is a precursor to the Intrepid (Voyager) class ships. It is a very early TNG era ship design.

This is in the ‘texture queue’ now (we all know what that means!)

I’ve also started to finish one of the Star Fleet Museum ships I have sitting around. One day I’ll get to most or all of them. Here is the Quetzalcoatl class. This started a long time ago as a filler ship for the Museum model I’d built so it was very low poly (better suited for a game). I’ve started the textures on it as I feel pretty good about the model. The textures are all 4K as that’s about the limit I can go without render station fits.

As always, thank you for visiting and taking a glance!

2022 (3)

I completed the Aymara class, wow, a model done and in record time for me.

I did this test render to check a few things out because I am using transparent Bussard collection domes. I had to do a few tricks to get this to work on this image. I want to do a scene with it now as opposed to ‘just another model’ image.

This little ship fits in well with my seldom seen / small ships of the Federation theme I have been on.

One more, almost done, ship in my queue and then I am thinking of doing something a little different.

2022 (2)

Progressing on the Aymara class. Pretty confident in the mesh being done (uh-huh) so texture application under way. The center section of the hull will be a tad of a challenge but I have an idea for it. I have an unwrapper but it is a bit wonky and I have the whole thing scaled out for a certain map size.

I’m doing this with a specular map layer as well. So…

Also.

I was working on this for a while late last year. This is a Conestoga class colony ship. It uses a Federation adaptation of the Vulcan warp ring. It has everything a startup colony needs to get going and, in my little version of Trek, stays on station for about 1-2 years until the colony is up and running.

I recently revamped the ring. My first version was kind of odd as I started adding textures. Just did not like it. Once this gets textured it will, in my mind, be better.

2022 (1)

Whew!

It’s been awhile. I won’t bore you with the details (because you know ya don’t really want to know 🙂 ). Suffice to say I was pretty busy with other stuff.

And… Truth be told, I sort of got blocked creatively.

I had a few things in the pipeline (one below) and was revisiting my Harrington ships project. More on that some other time. With the new year and all my not mentioning stuff out of the way, I’m back to noodling around in my sandbox.

Still, slowly, working on SFM ships. A fair while back I built a bunch of low poly museum ships for a scene with ships in a distance (never finished – SHOCK). Some of these are now in my queue for updating. The most current is the Quetzalcoatl class. It’s cool because you can fill it full of shuttles and fighters!

I have tried to add some tweaks while also staying true to Masao’s original design. The textures are also big so it is taking some time to get it finished.

I have also started a new Atolm designed ship I found digging through his archives. I’d never seen it before but it fits in nicely with my small ships series I have been doing. It’s an Aymara class scout / corvette size ship. I’m gonna have to ask to be sure. Anyway, here’s what I threw together the other day.

I think I pretty much have it done. His original drawing was perspective only (last image is pretty close). I sized it out roughly and had to guess on a few bits. I like it.

More to follow 🙂

2021 (6)

Another item I have meant to finish for a long time.

I was looking through my Star Fleet Museum files as I wanted to update my Amarillo and Krechet Class ships that were rendered as smaller screen sizes. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost my Krechet model files but did find this incomplete Amarillo wreck model.

I had done a wrecked alien ship a long time ago as a scene but was not happy with it. I always wanted to try again hoping to improve the result. Don’t know why this was sitting there because this was better.

I had only needed to add a background to this and do some minor post work. The post file for the model has about twelve layers and then a few more in Photoshop.

Kursk demise

The scene is the UES Kursk adrift after having her missile bays blown away in combat with a Cabbage class Romulan cruiser. The Kursk inflicted heavy damage on the larger vessel before meeting her demise. The wreck would later be salvaged by the Romulans giving insights to Earth warp technology.

2021 (5)

Continuing to clean out my backlog.

Here is my take on a Gorn cruiser circa TNG. In my Trekverse the Gorn entered into a treaty with the Federation after the Cestus III debacle of 2267. While not as expansionist as the Federation and not interested in membership, the Gorn were able to secure borders and growth territory with their new neighbors.

The Gorn realized they were mostly at parity with the major races of the Federation and did not feel there was much to gain in technology transfers. They did, however, appreciate some of the efficiencies found in Star Fleet ship designs. The Glaashi’khass (Of Honor) class was designed incorporating many Star Fleet design considerations.

Gorn cruiser

A few more fun items to finish. I’m also trying to clean up multiple drive libraries full of incomplete or duplicate models. Hopefully I’ll finally get organized.

Who am I kidding.

2021 (4)

I recently completed my own version of a Star Trek BOP. It was influenced by 2D drawings created by Atolm and the one seen in Enterprise. I posted the WIP a fair while back but with fancy nacelles. I eventually abandoned those because they looked like the ones in Enterprise which are to advance looking for the era.

This ship is slightly smaller than a TOS BOP and would exist between TOS and TNG. This is a large patrol ship used within the Empire to maintain order.

The scene / render had to show that I did take the time to add the required signature bird emblem along the lower hull. Always fun figuring that out.

This was also a mesh I wanted to do with smooth flowing lines using as few elements as possible. Final count was 6 total elements.

This is in the gallery but I never added a final update.

Bird of Prey

2021 (3)

A refresh.

A number of years ago I built a Gorn heavy assault cruiser that was designed by Atolm. The only ‘post’ of it was on my now defunct personal website. It was only at 1024×768, had two ships flying by a big orange gas giant. Was nice at the time but too bright and toy looking.

As I complete other projects I look at older archived items and consider updating them. This one got moved to ‘refresh queue’ and I only needed to render it at a higher resolution. The original textures hold up pretty good to 4K rendering for the post production source layers.

Funny story, this is not from one of Atolm’s drawings you will find on the net. Rather, this is patterned after a mod he built for the old Star Fleet Command game. I downloaded the mod and converted it to 3DS format to only find it was a mess. I rendered out 3 views of it to build my own version. I shared my WIPs of it on a 3D site we both belonged to and he commented that he forgotten about this and was not a fan of the mod. It was only a kitbash of parts of other Gorn ships he had.

He did provide ideas on textures and graphics to the finished model. Ultimately he liked it after it was done as a high poly model.

Gorn Assault Ship by Atolm