August 2014 I set out to finally learn how to use Blender. I set aside my beloved 3D Studio and dove in head first. My inaugural project was the TMP-era refit Enterprise. Those interested can see the WIP here and the finished project here.
Since completing that project, life has been more than a bit full and I had to step away from any focused 3D projects. Now things are starting to settle down and I’m getting back into the groove.
Last night I started project #2, the Reliant. The Enterprise project took 8 months and many, many gray hairs. Along the way I discovered many tricks after the fact and rather than reconstruct or even starting over, I choose to stubbornly plow through. This resulted in a finished project that ultimately looked pretty good but was a result of brute-force effort and not finesse or skill. This time will be different.
One of my greatest regrets with my TMP Enterprise was that I didn’t block out all of the major structures before starting detail-oriented work. These ships have some amazing complexity and they were modeled in the real so there are no concessions to 3D modeling limitations.
I’ve got all of the major structures blocked out and I’m ready to start refining and detailing. I am deliberately not recycling any part of my original model, with the exception of the window stencil to establish a common scale. This is a fresh start.
I’ve got a more detailed shape down for the upper decks. I intend to cycle through each subsection and do a pass to refine what I have and then repeat until I’ve got a satisfying result before proceeding on to shading. I’m hoping to keep any 11th hour surprises that require full rebuilds if at all possible.
It took forever the first time to get a satisfying result for the bridge section. The less said about the tears shed over the VIP deck, the better! I’m pretty happy with the project so far.
A very minor update today. I’ve spent the weekend fiddling with the saucer section. The details are temporary for the moment. I’m trying to force myself to hold off on any permanent detailing until the current pass is done.
Good discipline and focus on passes. It can save a world of pain and make for a much more consistent project. Also, nice choice. I love the Miranda class.
I am finally satisfied with the rough shape of the engineering/shuttlebay protrusion for the ship. The graceful transition from the saucer, especially the grooves along the rim pose a heck of a challenge.
Outstanding work! As a fellow sci-fi fan and Blender newb (just 14 months or so under my belt), I’m curious to know what method do you use to make the windows in the Relant saucer rim?
For my TMP-era Constitution, I would rotate copies of my window stencils around the perimeter of the saucer to the appropriate postion, then I would shift my view to align with the face (shift+numpad7) and then use knife project. It produced reasonable results but required a LOT of mesh cleanup afterwards.
For this model I opted to use the slice feature in HardOPS, a for-pay add-on for Blender. I am strongly considering adding the companion add-on Boxcutter (another for-pay but reasonably inexpensive add-on) that is purported to be even better at booleans but so far HardOPS alone is working well.
Do you have a tutorial included in your Constitution WIP thread, perhaps? Something that might explain just how you make those stencils you mention above?
Unfortunately I did not create a tutorial when I did my first project but I’ve typed up something quickly to give you a general idea. As I said before, I wasn’t terribly happy with the amount of work that this required. I’m sure that there are better methods that don’t require resorting to for-pay plugins but I know I haven’t found them yet :eyebrowlift2:
Sorry for the crappy image quality. Hopefully it gets the point across. The steps are listed below. When I finish the Miranda class ship I’m going to be working on some proper tutorials.
Creating a saucer (rough)
numpad 5 to turn on orth view
Delete the default cube
shift+a to add a plane, align to view
edit mode, faces
loop cut, bisect face along z axis
back to face mode
delete only faces
edge mode
Delete right half of box, plus edge along middle z axis
Sculpt mesh into a silouette of the saucer
Shift+a to insert an empty
Rotate empty 22.5 degrees on z axis
select saucer mesh
Add Screw modifier
Select empty as AxisOb
Enable wire view to better see the mesh
If mesh is acceptable, apply the screw modifier
Creating the window stencil
Shift+a circle, align to view
vertex edit mode
Select the right vertex, leaving the vertex on the z axis
move the remaining vertex to the left
apply mirror modifier
If the width is pleasing, apply the mirror modifier
vertex edit mode
select the top two vertex then hit “f” to join them
do the same for the bottom vertex
Scale the mesh (while still in vertex mode) until the size is correct
The wide window stencil is now ready
Cutting the windows
Move the stencil to the outer rim of the saucer mesh
Shift+NumPad7 while the stencil is selected to align your view to your stencil
Shift click on the saucer, both stencil and saucer should now be selected
face edit mode
In the tool panel, select Knife Project
The window stencil should now be cut into the mesh
i to inset the window face, select a pleasing thickness and depth
Observe that the result looks like crap and will need some cleanup
You can bevel the outer edge to clean it up or break down the n-gons to try for more quads.
Now you can rotate (make sure you put the pivot at the center of the saucer) the window stencil to the next window location and do another knife project.
This method will work with just about any pre-existing mesh, just be prepared to do a lot of cleanup after the Knife Project because it will leave your mesh riddled with n-gons that can cause pinching in the surface.
The empty at the beginning of the instructions is an anchor for the Screw operation that forms the saucer. You make a half silhouette and then spin it around the empty to form the whole structure. Think of the empty as a thumb tack at the center of the mesh. You rotate it a bit and the mesh creates an arc around that point.
I just wanted to follow up here in the thread where you’ve been so generous, to let you know that your tutorial worked as hoped.
Well done, and thanks for that.
The only hiccup I had was at the end where you applied a bevel (CTRL-B) to the new geometry to smooth it out. I couldn’t for the life of me get that bevel to work. Any tips?
Sorry for my lack of updates and for my late reply. I’m recovering from hand surgery (dominant hand, of course) and Blender decidedly requires two hands to master.
I’m making some progress on getting my hand back in action so I hope to get back to the model shortly.
Glad to read that my tips were of some help.
Without seeing the errors that you are having with the bevel I can only speculate as to what could be the problem. If I had to guess, I would look for instances where vertices are too close together on the edge or else there are details too close to the edge that are blocking the bevel from being expressed. Try sliding the vertices away from the edge or spacing them out a bit more depending on where they are located and see if that helps.
To be of any more help I’ll need to see a screenshot or two of the problem but I’m more than happy to help where I can
It’s been WAY longer than I had anticipated but I’m starting to get back into the swing of things. My hand is healing; the doctor says that the inflammation will be gone at 3 months (two weeks ago; he’s a well-meaning liar).
It probably doesn’t help that I left off at a particularly challenging piece of the structure. The engineering spine on the Miranda class is unlike anything on any of the Constitutions. It really doesn’t help that the ‘roll bar’ obscures it in nearly every shot except for the extreme closeups during battle.
I’m finally happy with my progress, even if I have realized that my fledgling VIP deck will need to be rebuilt due to the band around the middle being too low. I always intended to do this as a quick and dirty pass so as to not end up with a dirty abomination of a mesh like my (first) Constitution refit. Even so, it’s a bit disappointing to realize that they don’t meet up properly (yet). Oh well, I need the practice and the VIP deck certainly does carry quite a bit of the character for a TMP-era vessel.