ok so you may have seen this ship in phase 1, i know theres a ton of things wrong with it, but mostly im concerned about the textures on it. Its in rough shape and i think im going to start over and make a new ship…
id say this was pretty good for my first non-tutorial model in any 3D program but im not happy with it as a WIP, think ill scrap it…
can i have some pointers on what to do differently on my next attempt?
any comments on any of it are welcome, go easy on me as im a complete noob
Right you should probably set the green globes smooth cuzz I think I still see faces in there. Allso I guess they are windows so they should be transparant :d
Next you did something wrong whilst making the saucer bit of it (the bottom). It’s distorted so or you screwed up the vertexes —> restart or try to fix it vertex at a time. (Or you should recalculate the normals (but if it’s that your texture would have been ruined I think wich isn’t so))
Next up is the galvanised steel you are using, not really something to cover a spaceship in.
And you should try to add details, you are a Star Trek lover so you should have plenty of pictures with details. And details are what make a model look good.
So your new to this, no problem try and try and try again till you succeed, so don’t loose confidence
I think you got the main section and the nacelles pretty good, but the saucer is kind of bugging me. I think it’s in large part because the shape looks too organic, especially on the bottom where it wrinkles and such (I’d have to see the wire to know the problem, but as snelleeddy suggests it probably has to do with a few vertices crossed or out of place). But also, I think you could do the saucer perfectly well without any subdivision surfaces, but just set smooth. That would give you a harder edge around it too, and make it look more constructed rather than organic.
As for the texture, I would think that more of a simple matte gray with more detail (like seams, sensor arrays, ports and windows, for example) would work better. Look at a battleship or aircraft carrier for example. It’s painted to protect the metal, and I think the creators of the Star Trek ship took naval vessels as their inspiration right down to the hull finish.
the body of the ship looks fine, besides the texture. For the saucer, the top and bottom of it resemble two deformed cones, each at the end of a realy flat cylander.
to achieve this effect, I would probably start out with a cone. if there are two center vertecies (eg, if you’re looking at it from the top of the point), remove the one.
Then subdevide the edges leading to the center vertex (but not the perimeter edges), then add the subsurface modifier, do the usual organic mesh editing to get the desired effect, and then apply the modifier (so you have a normal mesh with alot of faces). Repeat the process so you have two separate halves, join the two objects, and then add frames to join the perimeters of both cones, and recalculate the normal (ctrl-n)
Then ofcourse join that object to the mesh of the body of the original ship, and connect the two by hand.
This way gives you alot of control, but involves alot of mesh editing… maby there is a better way?
As for the texture, the ships tend to have a light gray color with lots of panels and lights.
