Constitution Class Refit

[CptBenSisko]

So i started working on a new Refit Connie model to sort of supplant my Wicked Zombie version that ive been using the past almost 2 decades LOL.. I have been showing progress on Discord, but I wanted to show off progress here as well for folks that don't use it.

 

[CptBenSisko]

more wip pics...








So with this set of pics, the bridge and B/C Decks are complete

 

[CptBenSisko]

more pics... the other night I began building the lower planetary sensor array...





late last night, I actually finished a majority of the lower sensor array... but was too tired to post any WIP pics anywhere.. I still have some small details to work out.. and will post more pics this weekend.. next up is to close up the secondary hull deflector dish and shuttlebay doors.. and then on to torpedo assembly..

 

[Hath]

She looks AWESOME!

 

[Chiletrek]

Hello:
Those polies are not for the faint of heart

 

[Majestic]

Looking great she's going to be a monster on the poly count.

 

[CptBenSisko]

Looking great she's going to be a monster on the poly count.

Im shooting for 20K after its finished.. and then try to bring it down to about 15K or so with some optimization.

 

[Majestic]

Should look really good when done. Mine is about 5-6k. The extra poly's could make her look really good.

 

[CptBenSisko]

Couple of updates.. as promised.. got pretty much all of the lower sensor dome finished.. and began some basic mapping of the saucer just to see what kind of changes i have to make to my existing textures that were originally made for the Wicked Zombie Connie..




Sacuer mapping preview.. not too terrible actually.. the top is virtually spot on with the plans.. phaser banks are in the correct place as are the lights.. the bottom saucer I had to do both some slight mesh adjustments and mapping adjustments. have adjust the thruster locations on the saucer bottom texture to line up with the plans.. but overall extremely pleased that I will be able to recycle something ive worked so hard to make as accurate as I can get it..

(these are actually updated images compared to what I posted in discord last night - for anyone who is following progress in both places)



Note also - work has begun on the warp engines..


mapped the deflector and deflector ring as well just to give the thing some life.. starting to look like a starship

 

[CptBenSisko]

update for now - started some work on the warp engines based on some Wiley info, Whitmire suggestions.. and a tutorial i watched a bit of from a youtuber named Eric Reinholt. He posted a tutorial a bunch of years ago about a Phase II nacelle.. since the two engine types are extremely similar, it seemed like a good idea to take his basic idea and apply it to the Refit. The nacelle is basically a box with some cuts in certain places and then I used a subdivision surface modifier to round it out.. then it was a matter of adjusting the verts in edit mode.. and add more cuts where needed.. without going overboard.. right now its only using one level of subdivision and the entire mesh sits at 16,810 polies. now the engines are far from finished as they require a lot more of the details we all are familiar with.. but I wanted to show the progress of this because the bridge and lower sensor domes were my biggest victories.. but i feel i am well on the right track to gettting these engines as accurate as I can.

 

[Majestic]

UV mapping is sometimes the hardest part of modelling. I find it easier to map to a blank texture and make my own textures to suit,.

She's looking good with the textures. The stretch of the saucer edge I hope you can fix.

 

[CptBenSisko]

haha haven't even touched the saucer rim yet.. in fact i have to remap a section of the saucer rim to the top/bottom.. because it will be easier than trying to line them up manually

 

[Majestic]

haha haven't even touched the saucer rim yet.. in fact i have to remap a section of the saucer rim to the top/bottom.. because it will be easier than trying to line them up manually

That's going to be a tedious endeavour. Glad I'm not doing it. Hahaha. Lining up textures is a whole new board game in patience and frustration.

 

[CptBenSisko]

you wanna talk tedious?? try extruding, scaling and merging verts for almost two hours between last night and today doing the inner and outer warp grilles.. now THATS tedious

slowly but surely coming together.. still fleshing out the nacelles.. they are not finalized, clearly. I thought the bridge was the toughest part, and then the sensor dome LOL Wiley def right.. the nacelles are the true test.

(these are images from last night.. but I wanted to post all progress images.. so big update incoming!!











another update post coming immediately after this...

 

[CptBenSisko]

BIG Progress update.. the MOST challenging thing ive built to date..still a lot of work to do.. each nacelle weighs in at aprox 4800polies... now there are a lot of hidden faces and verts that need to be removed before mapping and such begins.. so im hoping to get that trimmed down quite a bit.. mesh as it stands is at 21,416 currently.. not shabby.. my goal was 20K before optimization..








this is shot is reminiscent of the shot from the TMP Drydock sequence


and just some beauty shots...

 

[Chiletrek]

Hello:
That last pic is very sexy!

 

[CptBenSisko]

Some more progress from last night (Friday night)
figuring out what faces to cut and where to extrude was a bit of a challenge.. and then when i realized that all i had to do at the end was select the back verts and create a face.. that whole front-side grille assembly fell into place...






.... more to come... big engine and a sort of big texture update incoming on the next post.


edit: for anyone looking to build this ship.. i didn't realize until now that the aft end of the nacelle (from a profile view) IS NOT perfectly straight on the bottom.. just an FYI for anyone looking to tackle this..

 

[CptBenSisko]

First the sort of big texture update.. I mapped the entire bridge and B/C lounge area..




so my textures are based on Wicked Zombies work.. it makes it easier to map knowing what the textures already look like.. in some cases.. the BC deck required very few major adjustments.. i split it from the back and the two halves lined up almost perfect.. i am now into the dilemma of whether or not to cut the bridge lights in.. and whether or not to cut in the docking ports on the bridge/sec hull/torp launcher.. if i decide to.. its not too difficult.. i just wanna make sure that the mesh smoothing won't get all jacked up.

of course that last image spoiled the big surprise.. the forward vents are officially cut/modeled in!!!



now here is where my first idea was to cut the face out and build.. but when i studied some other models.. extruding the faces in actually made more sense.. so i rebuilt the faces and did just that.






a little beauty shot with the deflector in low power mode (ala leaving drydock)

And that's where we stand currently...

 

[K_merse]

I already said it and I'll say it again. If you are a Star Trek game modder, at some point of your modding career, you are going to make a Constitution Class This looks awesome!

 

[CptBenSisko]

Indeed.. Ive already built the TOS Connie... and a bunch of destroyers to go with it.. The refit and Miranda seem like the next logical step.. and of course the hardest part of both is the engines.. building the Miranda extension on to the ConnieR saucer is easy as pie.

 

[CptBenSisko]

Okay.. time for some updates.. all of the images are coming from my Discord, as im doing this at work.. so here we go!!!

The following are nacelle progress pics - finalizing the details and the major pieces..






Next up are the ventral fins and the side fins that house the RCS thrusters





I then began moving on to the Impulse Drive. It was a little tricky to get the shape right because of how its supposed to look.. but i think ive captured the angles quite accurately.







I also built the nacelle attachment joints i guess you could call them.




as it stands, the nacelles are about 5K a piece..so there is def some poly reducing that needs to be done..

On Friday, I got a lot of work done refining both the Connecting Dorsal and the photon torpedo launcher. still need to add the tubes and some of the greeblies..
But we are hitting the home stretch now.




final images of some of the sections that were worked on.. mapping/texturing of some of the bigger pieces is in progress or complete, such as the impulse engine, top/bottom of the saucer and most of the rim, at this point.




another post is incoming..ive hit the limit of how many images i can attach LOL

 

[CptBenSisko]

Heres where the aft section of the secondary hull stood at the end of the night on Sunday..
still needed to build the shuttlebay doors.. and map the aft rim where the name will go.. but the shuttlebay alcove and ventral hull alcove are now mapped. As well as the entire Impulse drive.





(Posted last night)

update for tonight! the entire saucer is mapped and textured.. including the rim. all the way around.. shuttle bay doors are added and mapped/textured. and I started working on the deflector sensors tonight as well. also, as per starfox1701 request, i added in the fifth color (green) to the saucer section.. i am currently waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayy over my poly goal by about10K.. soo there will no doubt be sections of the model that I am going to rebuild to try and conserve some polies somewhere before I decimate the mesh with a modifier.. but even if i go past 15k and say up to 17.5-18k, I think that will be okay.. the textures will be LODed down to a lower res anyway..

also started the deflector arms as well.. once they are fully fleshed out, theyll be duplicated and mirrored to the other side/bottom.









And that is everything up to this point.. id like to get the arms completed and mapped tonight and then the secondary hull will be about 98% finished.

 

[Majestic]

She's an impressive HP model. Should release the HP version for people like Jetfreak who likes doing renders. She'd look great in some high quality shots.

 

[CptBenSisko]

texture and subtle model updates incoming.. stay tuned

 

[CptBenSisko]

Update time!!! reworked some textures.. finished building the navigation sensors.. and pretty got the entirety of the nacelles textured.








an absolutely epic update to the impulse crystal.. changes the entire look of the top of the impulse deck.. totally never realized that I had it wrong before.

man.. when this thing starts to see renders by the experts, as opposed to a novice like me.. its going to look absolutely incredible




also cut in the bridge lights


photon torpedo detail added

redid the entire deflector housing textures from scratch as well as the sensor array.. using Wileys and WZ45 textures as my guide





scratch made new sensor lights


to be continued....

 

[Majestic]

Beautiful work make mine look atrocious hahaha.

 

[CptBenSisko]

Beautiful work make mine look atrocious hahaha.

different modeling goals my friend.

 

[CptBenSisko]

@Majestic my guy.. I never want you to feel like your work is not excellent and appreciated.. you are far better low poly modeler than I am.. I start off with a goal in mind and it ends up ballooning waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay past my intentions. LOL My D7 is the only one where i was able to keep it in the range i initially intended.. The Connie is sitting at almost 33K. LOL I have a lot of work to do on it to get it ready for Armada.. Textures are easy.. the entire model is mapped to only two textures.. Saucer/Neck/SecHull on one.. and then the engines and pylons on a second.. so that part is easypeasy.. but i went overboard on some of the details on the engines..so when i start decimating it in blender.. i have to hope that the mapping isn't totally destroyed LOL

 

[Majestic]

@Majestic my guy.. I never want you to feel like your work is not excellent and appreciated.. you are far better low poly modeler than I am.. I start off with a goal in mind and it ends up ballooning waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay past my intentions. LOL My D7 is the only one where i was able to keep it in the range i initially intended.. The Connie is sitting at almost 33K. LOL I have a lot of work to do on it to get it ready for Armada.. Textures are easy.. the entire model is mapped to only two textures.. Saucer/Neck/SecHull on one.. and then the engines and pylons on a second.. so that part is easypeasy.. but i went overboard on some of the details on the engines..so when i start decimating it in blender.. i have to hope that the mapping isn't totally destroyed LOL

I know mate, was just looking at the quality. Very aware it's a large poly count. Just hope you can reduce it. Perhaps rebuilding sections and making a lower poly version is the way to go, and that way you have the higher poly version for screenshots and the lower poly for gameplay. Either way it's an amazing job.

Yeah I do try to keep mine low, it's a personal preference as I hate framerate and lag issues and due to working with games like Sins in mind, you often don't see all the detail so I feel the work to put it in isn't always worth the cost for me. I admire people who make high quality models as the work in itself is certainly no a small endeavour. It takes me days to model a lower poly model depending on the model.

Certainly keep up the great work, great to see you entering the 3d modelling arena. I still need to learn blender myself, I'm still on MS3D but it does what I need atm. Which is usually under 12k normally around 6-8k.

 

[CptBenSisko]

well its been almost a month since I posted any progress here..although work has continued, it also spawned a second project in the form of the Miranda Class aka the U.S.S. Reliant from WOK. I am going to post images of both.. and going to keep them in the same thread so as not to create another. Here are more progress images of the Enterprise since Jan 30th (A LOT has happened)

As far as modeling goes, the Enterprise hasn't changed much... but what has changed is tweaks to the saucer rim deflector grid and scratch made pylon and secondary hull textures.

These were placeholder textures using Wileys as my example to get the correct placement of the elements...

I did add some extra detail to the Deflector array though by cutting in some of the panels into the hull..

Before

After.
all those little edges around the deflector housing.. are now extruded in..


So Wiley provided me with templates that are used on physical 1/350 scale models so that I could mask off and create the aztec patterns on the outoard and inboard nacele pylons.
Inboard pylons done.. a couple of small details to add still

...and the outboard

..and a shot of both.. have to add the panel detail to the vents still.. like i said.. a lot of small details


Now since I built a from scratch model.. might as well go all the way with the textures right? Well... incoming are secondary hull textures.


updated the light placement to be more accurate by adjusting the texture itself as well making some subtle tweaks to the mapping to get the flow of it right..




next up is some adjustments to the pennant/starfleet delta size and position and added the text in as well


Aft secondary hull dorsal phaser banks.. keep in mind, the secondary hull still needs its colored aztec applied as well..


.. but thats all for the Enteprise for the moment.. might do more work on it today.. or work on Reliant..

and speaking of James T. Kirk's greatest enemy.. progress on Reliant is soon to follow today!! Stay tuned.