USS Detroyat in Lightwave

[The Axeman]

Hi all, dragged back into the 3D arena by someone looking to get a ship made for an RPG. I thought I'd post here as it's been a while since I made anything Trek, and if it's nonsense someone here will gladly let me know why. The pics are on Flickr, here you go...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2566/4090798721_5beb7307c4_o.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2650/4091563956_03a1f1e983_o.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2694/4044867594_6255fe3c5e_o.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3531/4037788771_b6cec47d8d_o.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2590/4044867862_387888aa9f_o.jpg

The first two are 'ambient occlusion' pictures, designed to show the models detail without the clutter of image maps and textures. I've since modeled all the rest of the panel lines and docking bays, so I'll post finals once I've finished texturing tonight or tomorrow. I've also been making little test videos to try and get a reasonable looking warp nacelle effect. Here's the latest one, which is still wrong but getting there...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYfK9N8NpGw

I originally made the Detroyat using plans found at cygnus-x1.net, but that proved to be a mistake as the saucer was basically rather flat with a tiny, very plain bridge. When my mate saw it in the flesh, he asked for a more TOS style design to the bridge, but it jarred too much and I ended up making it from scratch again using different plans. My version also includes a small shuttle bay at the rear, since no plan or picture of the ship I could find had a shuttlebay on it. I thought that was a terrible ommision, and I also made a small shuttle test at my mates behest as well. This is a rough draft of the design he liked...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2636/3992173999_46de4bbc13_o.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2565/4008390632_1091600460_o.jpg

The brief was something like the TOS shuttle, but designed more as a troop transport or assault ship, hence the raised nacelles, side seating and large loading ramp, which meant the impulse engines had to be moved to the sides out of the way.

That's it for now, more after I get a chance to finish them tonight or tomorrow, weather permitting. Fire away.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Verah, verah nice.

 

[sojourner]

Excellent! On the shuttle, the cylinders holding the landing skids, is that finished? It looks strange, like it needs some detail.

 

[The Axeman]

The shuttle was just a rough, I did two or three different versions with nacelles in various configurations just to see what the guy liked. He liked this version, so once I've finished the main ship I'll start working on the shuttle.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

It's full of TOS era goodness.

 

[Rattrap]

Any chance the Axeman page will reappear? You had a lot of really nice stuff.

 

[Klaus]

Axeman! Great to see you back and the ship looks awesome...

 

[BolianAuthor]

^

Aye, glad to see you back 'round, Axeman! The ship looks great... I love the design.

 

[Kaiser]

Awesome Detroyat class goodies in this thread

you have great skills

 

[The Axeman]

Rattrap, I've bought a new domain with more space, and am in the process of building a new website. It'll take a while to get it up and running again, there's a lot of models that i need to revamp, as well as my newer stuff. Lots of Trek goodness as well as other nonsense.

 

[The Castellan]

I always liked that design. I have the model kit, but there's a problem...if I build it straight as is, the saucer's going to be pointing downwards a little...anyone got any ideas to remedy this?

 

[felixofgolden]

Looks great.
Can I ask, how did you do the rounded edges of the "box" on the bottom. Is that geometry or an edge shader?

 

[The Axeman]

I made the body and square sections using box modeling/nurbs, so it's all geometry. I tried using the rounder plugin to round off the edges, but I can never get it to work very well on more complex shapes. The saucer and nacelles were jmade using plines to draw the outline, then lathed into shape. Using plines for that lets me get the softer edges there as well, so there's none of the terrible razor-sharp edges that give away low-poly models.

 

[aridas sofia]

A great design by Mike Morrissette, who also designed the similar TMP-era Menahga. Mike suffered a rather serious heart attack two weeks ago, so my best wishes go out to him for a speedy recovery, and to the Axeman for his successful completion of this cool design.

BTW Axeman, did you save any images of your original build of the ship as blueprinted? It is an important design in the "Ships of the Star Fleet/Federation Reference Series" collection and I'd love to have an "in action" image for the website if one is available.

 

[The Axeman]

I should have the finished model somewhere, I just stopped at the point where it would have been textured and image mapped. I built this version from scratch, i didn't use any of the original since it wasn't that complex anyway. Here's a couple of pics of the first version I made during the build, this is as far as I got before leaving it to build the new version.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2793/4029826125_5aa0d0fd73_o.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2459/4029826311_c647179ae3_o.jpg

Sorry to hear about Mike's heart attack, here's hoping he makes a full and quick recovery. I'll be putting up this version of the Detroyat for download as well as the more TOS version, so anyone can use it to make images and animations. I plan on putting up a 'Spares & Repairs' page along with all the other model pages, where all my discarded or half-finished projects can be downloaded by anyone wishing to finish them or hack them to bits. It'll probably end up there.

 

[aridas sofia]

Thanks. That's very cool. I think you are among the first to build it as originally designed -- until the plans were posted, people only had the available physical models to go by, and they were all much closer to your rebuild. So the CGI models ended up following that look.

As always has been true with the Axeman models I've seen, both of these versions are in a class by themselves. I like the texturing and detailing on the first, and very much like the composition of the second image you just posted. All in all, very cool indeed.

 

[BolianAuthor]

A great design by Mike Morrissette, who also designed the similar TMP-era Menahga. Mike suffered a rather serious heart attack two weeks ago, so my best wishes go out to him for a speedy recovery, and to the Axeman for his successful completion of this cool design.

BTW Axeman, did you save any images of your original build of the ship as blueprinted? It is an important design in the "Ships of the Star Fleet/Federation Reference Series" collection and I'd love to have an "in action" image for the website if one is available.

Aye, here's to hopin' he gets better quickly. The Menahga was always one of my favorite film-era fanon designs.

 

[Kaiser]

A great design by Mike Morrissette, who also designed the similar TMP-era Menahga. Mike suffered a rather serious heart attack two weeks ago, so my best wishes go out to him for a speedy recovery, and to the Axeman for his successful completion of this cool design.

BTW Axeman, did you save any images of your original build of the ship as blueprinted? It is an important design in the "Ships of the Star Fleet/Federation Reference Series" collection and I'd love to have an "in action" image for the website if one is available.

I hope he gets better

 

[The Axeman]

OK Kids, here's an update. Spent the evening making more image maps and tweaking them. It's been a while and I always sucked at Photoshop stuff anyway, but here's the 99% finished product.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2791/4122870099_727cc8e29b_o.jpg

Comments always welcome. As long as they're really nice and complementary, of course.

 

[Nascence]

Hi Everyone!!!
First time here at the BBS.
Glad to see a resurgence in my designs.
I have been very tired of late, but I am recovering slowly from my stay in the hospital.
Aridas put me wise to this thread and what you've been doing with my designs
Axeman, you've done an awesome job with this.
I am truly impressed.
There has only been one other CGI modeler who was fairly true to my original design. I thought those were good too, but what you've presented here in the thread is just plain awesome and cool.

Axeman, I would really like to see a completed version of my original design. Would you consider the doing?
I would really like to see a completed version of the original.
I like what you've done with some of the changes, but there are reasons for the original design.
I agree on that having a small craft hanger would be a good idea/upgrade. I later decided/envisioned that this class of vessel should have a small compliment of smaller shuttles/repair craft /fighter craft/life craft. So, this is a welcome change. The interior layout would need to be changed/updated to reflect this.

I really like what you did so far with the original design CGI. This design was never meant to be a completely TOS feeling design.
It's an intermediate design bridging the time frame between TOS and STTMP incorporating some design details from the STTMP E. The more eleborate gridding, manuevering thrusters,etc.
I also had a fixation on keeping some critical elements flush to surfaces rather that sticking out of the ship.
The impluse engine exhusts are supposed to be flush and not have the same look as the TOS E.
While there are no clear bubble areas for the sensors.The sensors are located in the same location but have a very low profile or flat clear dome for the sensors to work through. I used the very same idea for the Menahga class.
The primary hull is what I designed and was never intended to have a saucer design based on the Constitution class.
The nacelles were also more simplified and streamlined in my design as a design and functional improvement on the "standard nacelle"
This nacelles have minimal exposed hardware meaning much of the standard nacelle details are incorporated internally and more easily and reliably accessible for
maintenance, repair and/or replacement. This design is more in concert with Mr. Matt Jefferies design philosophy that anything mechanical on a starship needs to be inside NOT
outside of the ship as it's made by man and WILL, inevitably, break down making maintenance, repair/replacement more dangerous and problematic.
The back of the nacelles have recessed panels that act similar to the end nacelle balls on the TOS E. One change I made later to the nacelles is that there are 3 of these recessed panels on the end of each nacelle. The one on the bottom of the cowl that is already in the design but I enlarged it and 2 side by side that are fairly large elliptical shaped and located in the top part of the cowl. There is no ball at the end. The only exposed hardware was the intercooler on the inside of the nacelle and in a later design of the nacelle I lowered its top view profile some.
I also included the intake/exhuast vents (as you did) to the nacelle struts. Plus there are P/S running lights at the high point of the nacelles.
I hope you can do a completed original design in CGI.
What you did so far with the original design was impressive!