Discovery class - diplomatic escort / light cruiser

posted on May 5th, 2009, 10:45 pm

I am, very sadly, only a modeller and cant make any decent textures let alone any that would get into fleetops. However i am willing to take a shot at modelling it, maybe that will help eople see the design better!

[Lt.Cdr.White]

posted on May 5th, 2009, 10:49 pm

Last edited by Lt.Cdr.White on May 5th, 2009, 10:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

As long as you have fun doing it, go ahead.

I had fun designing the Discovery back in the day... but that tool was also rather easy to use and if the model worked right, it could be used for rendering animations at once, as everything was from the same company and 100% compatible.

But when I looked at the full fledged tools of today, I got scared. Looked very complicated and time intensive.

However, here's a rough idea of what I wanted to do with the nacelles (difficult to see if it looks right in 2D, would have been a 10 minute thing in Neon 3D, I think...):

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posted on May 5th, 2009, 11:02 pm

So i'm guessing the top one is how you want it and the bottom is how it was? ok ill try and get that in. Autodesk Maya is a pretty good, no make that great tool to use for modeling. the latest versions DO cost thousands of dollars but you can get an older version off of ebay or something relatively cheap and the recent versions (i dont know about the older ones) come with nice video tutorials that explain how to use the interface and do basic things, and they also come with extensive documentation that helps you learn how to model.

posted on May 5th, 2009, 11:05 pm

Right, the top one would be the new version (despite the fact that the whole diagram is of the 1997/98 variant of the Discovery).

The goal is to get the bussard collectors to be visible from the front, i.e. not blocked by the saucer section.

If putting them lower instead of higher looks better, that's ok, as well.

posted on May 5th, 2009, 11:14 pm

oh trust me the modeling tools are quite complicated.  I have trouble making a ship as simple as the original 1701.  Not unlike rcix  I cant do much more than edit existing textures with gimp.  If you really want to do amazing modeling, and textureing, it will cost you a lot of money.

[Ozymandias]

posted on May 5th, 2009, 11:24 pm

Last edited by Ozymandias on May 5th, 2009, 11:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

oh trust me the modeling tools are quite complicated.  I have trouble making a ship as simple as the original 1701.  Not unlike rcix  I cant do much more than edit existing textures with gimp.  If you really want to do amazing modeling, and textureing, it will cost you a lot of money.

That's not strictly true, for a start modelling takes time and effort to get good at, At a guess I say you have to make somewhere between 3 and 5 ships before you get to a reasonable level but many, many more until you get to be 'amazing', unless your one of the gifted ones amongst us of course. As for it costing a lot some of the best modellers I know use milkshape 3D which is relatively cheap (I haven't checked but I believe it's less than £20/$40). I count myself one of the lucky few who have an old version of 3ds max and the advantages are only that it allows animation and the use of command nodes which can be worked around.

Edit: Probably should have read more of the thread before poking my nose in, it seems you were perhaps talking about modelling for 3d rendering in which case it will probably cost you a great amount, but for modelling for armada it's as I stated above ^

[Lt.Cdr.White]

posted on May 5th, 2009, 11:34 pm

Last edited by Lt.Cdr.White on May 5th, 2009, 11:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I just had a quick look and Milkshape 3D looks indeed not too complicated.

In fact, it has many similarities with the object editor of Neon 3D.

Things seem to have become much more accessible since I last checked it. Better GUI especially, which was one of the strong points with Neon 3D.

It might be that some time in the future, I'll take the time to get into Milkshape 3D, looks like fun to me.

At least I should be able to get something done with it. Putting shapes together, moving points etc. ... of course I did that before. Last time the problem was that many of those functions weren't as accessible with other software than I was used to.

But now I can imagine learning it "again".

posted on May 5th, 2009, 11:39 pm

Yah, i use milkshape, but it is limited.  I think it is actually $20 or less to buy it, so it is not that expensive.  It isn't too hard to use, but the others that are used to make money are very complex.

[RCIX]

posted on May 6th, 2009, 2:03 am

Last edited by RCIX on May 6th, 2009, 2:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

I've tried milkshape and while it seems nice it just doesnt have the modeling tools i need. Call me spoiled, but i like maya!  The really nice thing about maya is that it offers so much in the way of polygon modelling, more than you could imagine is possible. It just takes some getting used to!
@Lt.Cmdr.White: between all of the pictures you have and that video, i should be able to more than put together a nice model of the discovery. When i'm done ill post the model in this thread so that anyone who wants it can use it (FO team: hint hint )
Edit: after taking a potshot at making a decent saucer, i realized that A: my modeling skill isnt that great unless i have a while to mull it over and B: im thinking that you wont get much more than a low quality approximation (because im really not that good at modeling ships yet). However i will try and get to it as soon as possible.

[Lt.Cdr.White]

posted on May 6th, 2009, 9:52 am

Last edited by Lt.Cdr.White on May 6th, 2009, 9:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well, the saucer is easily made by taking a basic shape and doing a rotational body from it. Then stretching it on one axis to get an elliptic shape.

With Neon 3D, I drew a half cross section and rotated it to a disc shape.

I'm not at my usual PC right now, but I did a quick sketch in Paint to show how the shape should look before rotating (maybe a little less indention on the underside, but when I first made saucer sections, I used a shape like in the picture).

I think the final version of the Discovery had the underside almost symetrical to the top.

Perhaps I'll find some time at the weekend to check the trial version of milkshape to get something we could exchange.

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posted on May 6th, 2009, 5:38 pm

How about this as something to work off of

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[RCIX]

posted on May 7th, 2009, 4:51 am

Last edited by RCIX on May 7th, 2009, 5:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

*slaps forehead* why didnt i think of that? *goes off to test*... Cool. I whipped out my NURBS tools and in 15 minutes i had a nicely made saucer ripe for adding details. Off i go to study those pics. One other thing: i could use a front view pic to get a few details right; got any?
@Dircome: thanks, but i've made a sufficiently nice saucer now.

posted on May 7th, 2009, 10:10 am

I was planning to do a front view tomorrow or at the weekend.

At the moment, you'll need to use the reference pics on page one of this thread.

I have a front view of the original model (before I updated it with pulse phasers and a more detailed secondary hull), you can see a glimpse of it on this post:

Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations - Discovery class - diplomatic escort / light cruiser

I'll get a clearer image of it as soon as I'm at my regular PC, perhaps together with a comparison shot about the differences to the current model.

[Lt.Cdr.White]

posted on May 9th, 2009, 4:41 pm

Last edited by Lt.Cdr.White on May 9th, 2009, 4:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I probably won't find the time to do more schematics of the Discovery this weekend, leave alone start doing something with Milkshape.

Perhaps on tuesday (really , no reference to Generations).

But here's the comparison shot I promised including a better front view of the first model:

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posted on May 9th, 2009, 9:22 pm

Thanks for that pic! i'm still playing around with the saucer trying to get it's shaping right, then i'll add details.