Vehicle: USS Constitution

[DJ Bindhi]

Vektor,
I've known your Connie now for many months through Trekweb. I used to lurk there quite a bit. Your work is very impressive and efficient. Perhaps you should post some of the the other impressive views you did on Trekweb so people here could get a better sense of it.

Thanks and good work, I have the mesh and it was very informative.:beer:

[Vektor]

Originally posted by DJ Bindhi
Vektor,
I've known your Connie now for many months through Trekweb. I used to lurk there quite a bit. Your work is very impressive and efficient. Perhaps you should post some of the the other impressive views you did on Trekweb so people here could get a better sense of it.

Thanks and good work, I have the mesh and it was very informative.:beer:

Thanks for keeping an eye on the project, DJ. Ever make any posts on Trekweb? Just wondering if I might know you from there.

As for other views, how about these:

http://www.vektorsdomain.com/images/Connie/wip_185.jpg
http://www.vektorsdomain.com/images/Connie/wip_188.jpg
http://www.vektorsdomain.com/images/Connie/wip_190.jpg
http://www.vektorsdomain.com/images/Connie/wip_195.jpg

And here are some larger, more polished renderings I did of the fully finished model:

Image 1 (www.vektorsdomain.com/images/Flashback/RoaC_01_1024x768.jpg)
Image 2 (www.vektorsdomain.com/images/Flashback/RoaC_02_1024x768.jpg)
Image 3 (www.vektorsdomain.com/images/Flashback/RoaC_03_1024x768.jpg)
Image 4 (www.vektorsdomain.com/images/Flashback/RoaC_04_1024x768.jpg)
Image 5 (www.vektorsdomain.com/images/Flashback/RoaC_06_1024x768.jpg)

And finally, for those who are interested, a short fly-around animation:

Fly-Around (http://www.vektorsdomain.com/anims/NCC-1700_TestAnim_03.avi)

Please note, the animation will probably only be online for another week or so.

[jcjimenez]

Althoug I dont like the ST saga, I must recognize the images are cool!!! :) well done

[HCompston]

Very Nice. Nice model and texturing.

H

[gato]

impressive. It has the classical look. very nice texturing also. I think the interior of the spaceship needs more detail. Good work.:beer:

[Vektor]

Thanks for the comments, everybody.

This was the first really polished 3D model I ever made and I spent well over a year making it. I know that's pretty pathetic, but I had to learn the software from scratch and develop my own modeling and texturing techniques, and I had to do all of that in my very limited spare time. The texturing was especially time consuming and I went through at least five or six completely different texture sets for this model before arriving at the final version.

Gato, when you say the interior needs more detail, I assume you're referring to the shuttle deck? I never did put as much detail work into that as I intended, but it's complete as far as the blueprints are concerned.

The only other interiors are just inverted boxes behind the windows with a generic texture applied. Most people just texture the windows, but I built this model for animation work and I wanted the windows to have a sense of depth as the camera moves past. Watch the windows on the left rear edge of the saucer in the animation, for example.

[CGmonkey]

Awesome!! :) Even though I hate the design of the star trek movies and the ships, you made one hell of a good job!! :thumbsup:

[PureFire]

looks beautiful...excellent work on achieving this on your own...WD

[MacSlow]

Some very nice modeling and texturing job you have done there. The added detail behind the windows and the textures give a great sense of scale (read: "Gee, that thing looks really large!"). I would like to know how you went about in order to achieve this nice appearance of the metal-plates the whole hull seems to be made of.

Best regards...

MacSlow

[Vektor]

Originally posted by MacSlow
I would like to know how you went about in order to achieve this nice appearance of the metal-plates the whole hull seems to be made of.

Well, I don't know if you can use a 3ds Max file, but the mesh is available for download at Scifi-Meshes.com (http://www.scifi-meshes.com/area51/modelpages/meshes_start.php). It's listed as "Constitution" and I think you still have to register there to download meshes. Even if you can't open the Max file, you can at least have a look at the textures in raw form. Quite a bit of their appearance is dependant on material settings, but the maps themselves should be fairly informative.

I will say this: I went through at least five or six different versions of the complete texture set trying to achieve the effect you see on the finished model. Depending on the lighting, from most angles it looks like painted metal, but from some angles it is far more specular and has a kind of bare aluminum look, which is exactly the effect I was going for.

Also, the textures are quite large, well over 2,000 pixels square for the top and bottom of the primary hull. Memory requirements on this model are pretty high and the texture detail alone adds a good 30-40% to the render times, especially with oversampling. If I had it to do over again, I would have modeled more details and used smaller texture maps. As it is, though, the entire model weighs in at just over 46,000 polys, which I was fairly proud of.

Anyway, hope some of that is helpful to you.

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.