Viper's miscellaneous Star Trek projects
- Thread starter Viper
- Start date
Well, this one is more or less done. Missing a few small bits that I don't know how I want to tackle, but I want to move on to other things. For now this is in a good place to post. I might go back later and try a different texture look as it still came out too much like a studio model instead of a real starship.
As always, more views and larger resolution at my Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/NxzYoP
As always, more views and larger resolution at my Artstation: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/NxzYoP
No, the last time I touched was the pictures I already posted. I'll probably work on both of those ships, but I have some canon stuff I want to either complete or get further along with.
very nice well done 
I can sympathize.
I don't think it's your textures so much as the subject herself. The TOS Enterprise is a tough nut to crack as far as making her look "real" is concerned:- We have 50+ years now of seeing the Enterprise with a sleek and unblemished visage that predates the greebled, hyper-detailed look that started with 2001 and reached its zenith in Star Wars. Ever since then, our monkey hindbrains have been trained to think that starships have all kinds of shit glued to their hulls.
- Combine that with the fact that acres and acres of smooth, featureless surfaces devoid of imperfections are simply technology that is beyond anything humanity is currently capable of. Real-world objects made by 21st century humans have subtle flaws that our eyes perceive and recognize without even realizing it.
I can sympathize.
Sure, you can add surface detailing (grid lines, visible panels, little itty bitty antennas and probes, etc.) and "space weathering" to make her look like a 947-foot starship and not an eleven-foot model (or a megapixel CGI apparition), but then she won't look like the Enterprise anymore!
- We have 50+ years now of seeing the Enterprise with a sleek and unblemished visage that predates the greebled, hyper-detailed look that started with 2001 and reached its zenith in Star Wars. Ever since then, our monkey hindbrains have been trained to think that starships have all kinds of shit glued to their hulls.
- Combine that with the fact that acres and acres of smooth, featureless surfaces devoid of imperfections are simply technology that is beyond anything humanity is currently capable of. Real-world objects made by 21st century humans have subtle flaws that our eyes perceive and recognize without even realizing it.
That is certainly true. I think I more or less achieved my goal with the other ships I've done so far, but the TOS Connie is certainly harder. I'm certainly glad that I did this ship, as I always used to think the design is too simple, but once you start to actually work on it you realize that it's far more complicated than that. At the same time, I was a little deflated towards the end because I felt like some of the ideas I had would break the TOS look. I already skipped or altered several things that didn't make much sense to me, so that was enough.
I have been toying with the idea of building a version of this ship that applies many of the changes that the Discovery version did, but keeps the scale of the original intact, as a way to achieve my original goal a bit better. Another idea I had was to blend the refit into the original, but I didn't like what I came up with so far, heh.
So in keeping with the current theme of actually finishing projects for a change, I spend the weekend fixing a few things and then adding the finishing touches on my TMP shuttle. Missing RCS ports and the engines at the back plus a few small bits, but very close to done.
Very nice. This shuttle was one of the better things to come out of Star Trek V. Are you going to create an interior, as well?So in keeping with the current theme of actually finishing projects for a change, I spend the weekend fixing a few things and then adding the finishing touches on my TMP shuttle. Missing RCS ports and the engines at the back plus a few small bits, but very close to done.
Thanks. And yeah, I will build something for sure, but when checking for reference on Final Frontier I thought the interior was really shoddy and bare, so I might do my own take instead. Nothing too fancy, I just want something that looks a bit more Starfleet than what we got.
As Mariner would have observed, the Asimov has SEEN STUFF. Lookit the scratches on her hull!
That's a shuttle that looks like maybe it's survived more than a couple "Plan B" landings. 
Hah, love the Lower Decks reference
I'm going to do 8 shuttles with different variations of wear level. this is probably the worse it's going to get though.I had no internet yesterday, so I took the opportunity to finish the shuttle. There were some wrong things in the UV map, so I fixed those and added the RCS thrusters. That meant I had to retexture the entire shuttle, but I think it looks even better. Here are a few renders:
And then in a hangar setting, sort of:
nice shuttle. 
Bless me that is just frakkin' gorgeous. I don't blame you for wanting to get back to it, but honestly, what's left? She looks just about perfect as-is.
Thanks
I need to finish the cargo bay, build the interior for the hangar and there are a few other rooms I want to do. So it'll be mostly interiors.
