Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

My God - I think you finally got this right. Or are getting it right, I should say.

By that statement, I mean that I've seen a lot of attempts at modeling this thing and, while elaborate and good and worthy attempts all in their own right, they've always seemed a little "off" to me.

This...I think this is the new gold standard.

Seriously.

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

it will be a monster to animate .. rendering images would be easier. along with folkrm´s model is magnificent work ..

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

Thanks for the good and bad reviews. I am learning as I go along. I haven't had much time to work on the mesh this month. I'm in the middle of building a 1937 Herman Hauser classical guitar reproduction in my workshop and doing a lightwave mesh for a prototype 13 string classical guitar so that I can play J.S. Bach and L. Weiss music as originally written for the 13 course lute. This image is a mesh I made of a Rodgers single tuner used for my 13 string guitar design.

http://thethirteenthcolony.com/yahoo...182518_std.jpg

I know this has nothing to do with BSG or SciFi, but I wanted to explain the dead silence lately. I originally said that this project would take 2 years, and I meant it :D Oh, and about this mesh being a monster to render... yeah but it will be released here and available for FREE with no restrictions. Kit bash it all you like or use as is if you've got the resources to render it, I don't care. I hope to finish the sides of the front section soon.

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

wow . nice work on the guitar.

regarding the animation time etc .. that the price payed with such a stunning build that your doing ..... and if as you say it will take 2 years... by then .. PC may make short work of a couple of million polys easily:)

that been said it fun to watch your updates :)

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

Being super high on the polycount wont be a deal breaker for me when the time comes.
It would certianly take some time, but it would be totally possible to do some poly reduction here and there.
Perhaps divide up the ship into layers,based on detail size, and within the layers group the components according to their geographic locations on the ship. That way you can hide/unhide layers and objects groups that are unseen in any particular camera shot.
Taking that a step further you could duplicate some layers and do polygon reduction either procedurally or by hand for distant shots where you have massive numbers of polys that are completely sub-pixel. Basically an LOD system.
There are several modelers here that have the capability to do this, while maintaining the integrity and majesty of this incredible model.
Plus as Taranis was saying, two years from now (assuming we have not had a major apocalypse) PC's will have a lot more rendering power. Consider also that there are also some high speed rendering engines out there too.
Anyhow i'm not worried about the multimillion polycount at all, it can be dealt with.

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

well said ....

I have at times reduced poly counts of a few converted models with no loss of appearance. recently I did it for a trek fan film and the model turned out fantastic .
I build a simple hanger bay for some scenes where it was required to have one.
personal super computers are on there way I am sure where polys counts will mean very little ..

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

Updates?

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

Hoping to see updates of this soon.

Jim;)

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

Small update 11-27-10

It's been 6 months... been very busy in my free time working on guitars and pen making as gifts... sorry about the delay! I started on these side greebles, and then next the greebles in the little coves. Hope to get these finished during the holiday season. Cheers. :)

http://thethirteenthcolony.com/yahoo...5805_large.jpg

http://thethirteenthcolony.com/yahoo...2400_large.jpg

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

While it is great seeing regular updates on this it is your project...post 'em when you got 'em :)
Glad to see she's not dead in space.

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

hate to repeat myself .. ahh what the hell

"Stunning"

there I said it :)

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

Great to see this is still being worked on. This thing still knocks my socks off when I see it.

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

Nice update, found these ref images sometime back. Hope it will help you.

http://www.modelermagic.com/?p=4124

http://www.resinilluminati.com/attac...5&d=1208745093

http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.co.../tam35297d.jpg

Jim

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

I'm using the pics from the modelermagic website, didn't know about the resin illumanati pics. Thanks for any good reference material :salute: For any new viewers to this thread... my goals for this build were not to be dogmatically fussy in duplicating the original studio model. My build differs in the "filler" greebles used. However, I have tried to maintain the overall layout and proportions from close scrutiny of the reference images. As for the asymmetry of the original, I am making only 1/2 of the model along the lengthwise axis, then mirror imaging the mesh to complete the other half. That means I only have to build 1/2 the model! Saves huge amounts of time to complete the build.

http://thethirteenthcolony.com/yahoo...1308_large.jpg

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

I think it makes perfect sense to vary from the studio modeld on the smaller greebles. You are working at a much finer scale than the physical model was intended for. What I like is that at far and medium distances (like the original was filmed at) you cant really tell any differences on your model vs the studiomodel. But if you zoomed in on the studio model very much (especially now days with high definition) you'd see glue spots, and plastic parts that didnt fit the hull exactly, all sorts of UNWANTED details. The fine scale of your greebles would easily allow camera zooms starting at extreme distance and moving all the way into people in the windows or individual hatches.
Dont get me wrong, I have total respect for physical models, but there are some things they just cant do. To try and duplicate them TOO closely would cause the CGI model to inherit the same limitations.

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

Your detail work is awesome...

Are all the components created seperatly then attached. Or are you molding that into your model as one piece.

I've been trying to figure out if I want to mold the componenets into the model or create them seperatly, then just attach them.

The benefits to attaching them, is that, say I wanted to animate an explosion, I can have the components, like the water tank looking things, fly off. Or have damaged pipes and so on.

Either way, your work looks awesome...

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

I work in Lightwave 3D. I use both techniques depending on the situation. The small greebles are modeled separately and simply applied. Welding them on to the hull increases the poly count dramatically. The hull platings are welded to the basic shape since there is no poly penalty for not doing so, and rounding the edges requires a completely enclosed shape for the Rounder app to work. Rounding all the edges consumes 80 percent of my time.

I have done explosions in Lightwave 3D using both welded and non-welded meshes. It's a big job either way to create a broken mesh ( you have to build 2 meshes) to use in the explosion sequence where various parts are flying away leaving the damaged surface exposed.

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

Excellent approach and keep up the good work!

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

Nice detail work. Keep it up.

Re: Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP
 

Update 12-6-10

I changed some of the greebles and started adding the pipes. Starting to look like something...

http://thethirteenthcolony.com/yahoo...0109_large.jpg

http://thethirteenthcolony.com/yahoo...0123_large.jpg