Age of Warp - CartoonAge of Warp - Cartoon

[mavek]

I would like to share some of my work in progress. I have been toying with an idea for a Star Trek show fan film for years. I was always interested in a trek cartoon, until last year that hadn't been heard of in 40 years.

Any way, I have been playing around in Blender for years, but never modelled any thing. I wanted a toon looking trek ship for ages. There are some interesting shaders and using freestyle to get a fun look. However trying to back convert an existing mesh into something freestyle friendly is almost as much work as starting from scratch, so I did that instead.

My in world head canon is that there was a trek cartoon tv show attempted in the early 90s, after Star Trek VI, called Age of Warp. It is set between the movies and next generation, because I love those ship designs. The goal is to achieve a toon look that is consistent with what cartoons were like then (as opposed to now) so Ulysses31, G.I Joe, Transformers, Akira, Batman Animated series etc etc. The main ship is the Cassiopeia, which is a Constellation Class Starship.

 

[mavek]

Here is a video showing the ship is all rotations:

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[mavek]

And here is some interior work:

 

[BK613]

It's no doubt that the Constellation class is the poster child of 'Franken-class' kitbashes but your marvelous renders almost make me like my least favorite starship class.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Those are REALLY nice!

 

[Burning Hearts of Qo'nos]

Very nice! I like how you've unified the interior and exterior designs by accent colors.

 

[tesral]

Indeed. Nicely done. I beat my head on blender every once in a while. Any good tutorials out there?

 

[XCV330]

I really like the style of this.

 

[mavek]

@BK613
What no constellation love? I feel the constellation class is the most Star Wars/ILM ship they ever did, they tired to make the ship a bit more interesting to shoot by gluing on extra bits. It works for me, I feel it is a ship that gets work done and has interesting angles. The EnterpriseD is still famous for its sweeping lines but there are a limited number of angles that it works.

@Burning Hearts of Qo'nOs
Thanks. Yes I am trying to limit the palette, red and blue seem to be the colors that come up again and again so I decided to lean into them and see what works. I did have a version of the corridor where they were a bit more primary red and blue.

@tesral
There a loads of tutorials blender and youtube are completely riddled with them.

However if you are like me, just getting started was actually the block. The gateway for me was a guy called Chris Kuhn and his Enterprise B model, just playing with that, looking at how he used mesh lights, UV, mirroring really opened my eyes to how it all worked. The rest of his models are a treasure trove for students (in my opinion). He even had a course online for 30 bucks, that I paid for, which was so worth it, alas it doesn't seem to be available any more.

After that I still struggled until I understood what and how edge loops worked. How to do a bevel right. How to use the knife and also how to use 'knife project'

Another thing I tried a lot of was experimenting with model importing, so taking a model from max and bringing it into blender and learning how to texture, or in this case retexture, David Metlesits over on deviant art and posted probably every trek ship imaginable, the quality is variable (some will look great in the distance, but will struggle up close), but handy it you are also looking to pad out your background, which I will.

Any way the best advice is find a reasonable challenge and start, keep hacking at it. The TOS enterprise is a bit famous in the 3D community as it is the right level of basic to get started and achieve a decent look early on. I do this for every tool (inkscape, gimp, blender, audacity, shotcut) even by the end of the project you can probably do in 2 minutes what it took you 10 minutes to do at the start, it is a struggle but i love building up that skill set.

 

[BK613]

What no constellation love? I feel the constellation class is the most Star Wars/ILM ship they ever did, they tired to make the ship a bit more interesting to shoot by gluing on extra bits. It works for me, I feel it is a ship that gets work done and has interesting angles. The EnterpriseD is still famous for its sweeping lines but there are a limited number of angles that it works.

I had the opposite reaction. It has a slap-dash quality to it i just can't get passed. Nevertheless that doesn't prevent me from recognizing that your art is doing the class justice.

And, it's a bit belated but welcome to the BBS.

 

[137th Gebirg]

I always got the impression that was the whole point. The Constellation was THE deep-space exploration vessel of its age. It was designed to have redundant systems, self-sufficient and far-and-away from any Federation starbases for long periods of time. I attribute many of the extra greebles on the hull to be in-the-field modifications that were required updates along the way, as they had no drydock facilities with which to make more elegant refits. It's big, bulky and ugly and perfectly serving the purpose for which it was designed - pure function.

For the record, I don't much care for the design aesthetics of the Constellation class, either, but I appreciate why it looks exactly the way it does.

 

[Santaman]

Well done, I like the Constellation class, but I like all kinds of kitbashes, like the frying pa.. eh Freedom class and also the Sydney class which is one of my favorites.

 

[tesral]

The Constellation* is ugly enough to be good. It is one of two 1/1000 models I have on the shelf, most are 1./2500. (And it has caused the most trouble.)

*Be very careful spell checking Constipation, er Constellation!

 

[137th Gebirg]

 

[mavek]

So this is Chris Khun's model of the EnterpriseC/Ambassador class. I wanted to see how easy or hard it is to convert a mesh over to the toon style. Chris works in blender too, so that meant that things like the edge loops were still preserved, which makes it very easy to select edges you wish to mark. That all been said I still have to do some significant rework, the whole saucer is redone and never all the textures had to be reselected and reassigned, but I think it turned out great.

If you are interested here is the same model in the same position, but rendered in cycles, which took over 8 hours to render, the toon image comes in in under 4 minutes, with freestyle edges to boot:

 

[mavek]

Sadly TrekBBS doesn't do embeds, this link will bring you to a nice image slider that overlays the two images.

 

[Shawnster]

early 90s, after Star Trek VI, called Age of Warp. It is set between the movies and next generation, because I love those ship designs.

Very nice! I, too, have an idea for a Constellation Class ship and crew set between TUC and TNG.

Tell me, what is your interpretation of all the different bays around the ship?

 

[tesral]

Tell me, what is your interpretation of all the different bays around the ship?

I think the one at the front isn't. It's the deflector.

 

[mavek]

@tesral No the front is the main bay, bay 1, you can see it being used in these pictures which was a model done by @evilgenius:

You can dispute canon etc etc, but this is the look I will be aiming for, with the caveat that that bay is too small for my needs so I will probably have it twice as deep as that.

@Shawnster I haven't worked out all the long term details of the world the Cassiopeia lives in. I have an idea for two stories, they are both independent space stories, they don't explicitly involve a planet or a Starbase, just ships.

I notionally have an idea that a ship like this has all the bays because it has a squadron of light interceptor ships. A bit like the Gryphon or Valkyrie class fighters, but aged back a bit, as these are both Next Generation style vessel, I feel like there is a design between these and the type 5 shuttlecraft that I want to model out.

Also I feel like the Cassiopeia is a engineering support ship, it is involved in testing of the next generation (? huh) of starships, so engine testing and the like is part of its remit, and that it is attached to a starbase, I have been working on that model, I hope to share it soon.

 

[tesral]

I do not feel compelled to do as others have done. Use it as a bay of you wish, but too many bays. How much ship is left of the ship?