3D interiors in Blender

[The Librarian]

I'm glad you enjoyed your time away and had an opportunity for some recreation.

Great work! I really like the unique console configuration and the chrome railings.

Is that Helm up front with Ops and Tactical side-by side in front of the command chair? Or is that a big Tactical console in the back with the MSD?

Helm up front and then tactical and ops in the middle. The rear station will be for mission ops, and the XO when the ship starts shaking. The general idea for this bridge is that the ship (which is for an RP I'm starting up) was refit around the time of the Dominion War or immediately afterward, and while the new helm was added and the software upgraded, most of the original fittings were left in place because the yards had better things to do than completely redesign the bridge.

 

[Rekkert]

Adding in the LCARS for the perimeter consoles. This is the first time in almost two years that I work with the Ent-C style consoles, so I did some tweaks and improvements to both the geometry and the LCARS to bring them up to standard.

 

[SCE2Aux]

Looking good, as is customary for your work! Do you create all you LCARS panels in photoshop? Is there a particular process that you follow/particular reference photos that you like to use?

 

[137th Gebirg]

I think this is my favorite bridge design of yours to-date.

 

[valkyrie013]

Nice to hear you had atleast a decent break
Looking good on the new one!!

 

[Jedman67]

@Rekkert fantastic start, welcome back!
Just a quick thought - I'd make the metal floor pattern smaller and more subtle.
And you keep forgetting the Coffee replicator next to the captains seat !

Helm up front and then tactical and ops in the middle. The rear station will be for mission ops, and the XO when the ship starts shaking. The general idea for this bridge is that the ship (which is for an RP I'm starting up) was refit around the time of the Dominion War or immediately afterward, and while the new helm was added and the software upgraded, most of the original fittings were left in place because the yards had better things to do than completely redesign the bridge.

I love the concept! What type of RP are you conducting, if you don't mind me asking?

 

[Kamil Konrad]

I really like the LCARS systems from Nemesis.

 

[Rekkert]

@SCE2Aux: I do create all my LCARS panels, on Inkscape (I only use open source software on my workflow). As for process for making them, whenever I can get a hold of photographs or scans from the original panels, I use them to design over them; however when I can't find those kind of sources I try to get as many screencaps as I can and then just slowly reproduce the look. At this point I already have so many panels done that it's fairly quick for me to do new ones.

When doing ship graphics I try and find orthographic renders of the most accurate 3D model of that particular ship, and use it as a base. On the particular case of the Ambassador though, I used Gustavo Castillo's 2D schematics.

Here's the MSD for the ship:

 

[Gibraltar]

Looking great! I really like that diamond-plate pattern on the metallic portions of the deck. Sharp looking MSD, too!

 

[The Librarian]

@Rekkert fantastic start, welcome back!
Just a quick thought - I'd make the metal floor pattern smaller and more subtle.
And you keep forgetting the Coffee replicator next to the captains seat !

The coffee replicator is through the port rear door, along with the emergency gear and a toilet

I love the concept! What type of RP are you conducting, if you don't mind me asking?

It'll be a play-by-post game, once it's ready to go.

 

[Rekkert]

@Gibraltar: Thanks! It's based on the similar looking floor patterns from the Enterprise-A, B and Excelsior; though as @Jedman67 correctly pointed out they were too big before, as I was using the UV map from my carpeted bridge floors rather than the correct, smaller UV map from the Constellation/Fontana.

Here are the finished renders of the Omaha, plus some at red alert:

 

[Jedman67]

Oooh perfect!
Well, I'd probably try to make it a little more subtle, but that's just me. Absolutely frakkin' awesome!!!

 

[Rekkert]

So... remember how when I first showed the Cerberus bridge like a month ago, I mentioned I had started working on the Excelsior-Class main shuttlebay, for the USS Potemkin?

I had been trying to make a shuttlebay for a long while, mostly due to the wish of using my existing shuttle meshes more. After some failed starts with other classes, I finally managed to get a clear picture in my head of how the Excelsior one could work.

The outer shape is based on the Excelsior mesh from Chris Kuhn, though of course it's smaller to accommodate for the thickness of the outer hull. Said shape ends up being very inefficient due to the large space doors. A lot of space near them is pretty much unusable. I also had a hard time finding a good parking spot for the shuttles, given the curved walls, I had at least a dozen revisions with different number and location of shuttles; it might still change if someone has a better idea.

Of note is the fact that due to its location at the tail end of the Excelsior's secondary hull, it's not possible to add a lift to the deck below for maintenance. The deck below is very short and a Type-7 won't even fit.

I've been able to reuse some meshes that I had done for Stage 9's shuttlebays, like the tractor beam emitters (which will be on rails) and the aforementioned shuttles. I did spend a lot of time optimizing my old meshes though; I'm embarrassed by how extremely overdone they were. The Type-15 had 60k polys, now it's at 30k, arguably still too much.

Still, I'll have to model some new stuff, particularly cargo containers of different designs to make the room busier. The control room on the deck above will feature existing consoles from the other Potemkin sets, just with new LCARS. This is to mirror the Enterprise-D main shuttlebay control room as featured on the official Sternbach blueprints and as we reproduced on Stage 9.

Ignore most textures (particularly those ugly patterns on the space doors) and materials, everything's just grey for now, and will change. Same thing for the shuttles, I'll have to modify them to be turned off, plus come up with names for them all. Lighting will likewise increase heavily as I model more sources.

Comments and suggestions more than welcome on this one.

 

[SCE2Aux]

Even with the space constraints caused by the curving walls, that's still a lot more room than I imagined there would be.

"By God, that's a big ship!"

 

[Kamil Konrad]

It's probably the first shuttlebay you create?

 

[The Librarian]

Nice! I'm surprised you can make it useful for actual shuttles, like you say the shape is kind of a disaster for useability.

 

[Rekkert]

@SCE2Aux: I imagined it would be bigger, but in the end, it's usable, if not optimized.

@The Primeval: Indeed! Nice new avatar, by the way.

@The Librarian: Yep. I thought about having the Type-15 in little balconies at each side, similar to how the shuttles are placed on the Kelvinprise shuttlebay, but it ended up being too "expensive" for a TNG era set, at least in my view.

Some more work done, particularly in the control room. I made it a bit smaller than before, and decided to go with standing consoles rather than the TNG bridge style ones, just to make it look different than the Enterprise.

I've also added in some cargo crates. These were originally done for S9 but I had no copy of them; fortunately they were still on the old repositories and Jeff_the_Sloth was able to send them my way. Also, as you can see the shuttles are now powered off.

 

[Nays]

Absolutely love it! You should make the pool table surface bright white like it was in ST4. Just for Laughs. lol

 

[Kamil Konrad]

This avatar is your work. I hope you are not angry?

 

[cardinal biggles]

Nice! I'm surprised you can make it useful for actual shuttles, like you say the shape is kind of a disaster for useability.

Would you expect any less from the same people who brought us the Oberth class with its separate secondary "pod" or the mushroom-headed Spacedock with its cavernous interior?

Actually, Rekkert, looking at this photo of the Excelsior model (after it was modified for Star Trek VI), could you possibly have a little extra room to play with for your aft shuttlebay?



edit: Or, you could use the original version of the structure as it appeared on the NX-2000 and various TNG ships prior to 1991: