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Post by tinker on Apr 8, 2021 11:06:42 GMT -7
Never been a fan of the Brenton or the Fat man, but you make them look pretty good!
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Post by SITZKRIEG! on Apr 8, 2021 12:46:53 GMT -7
Never been a fan of the Brenton or the Fat man, but you make them look pretty good!
Thanks! Though I'd be a jerk if I didn't point out that I only added a spoiler to the back of the fat man as an April Fools joke. I didn't make any other changes to CaptainMojo's model other than that. I did more tweaking though on his Brenton model.
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Post by SITZKRIEG! on Apr 11, 2021 13:44:47 GMT -7
Hey folks, Tycen/CaptainMojo recently updated his thingiverse model packs to include refit style shield grid/panel lines so I put together a version of my Brenton Jr. class (a Mk II!) using the newer more detailed components. I couldn't get it to 100% identical in shape with the original but the overall shape should be the same. If you're interested in downloading/printing it out, here's the link:
A while back I also previewed my D-10M and I finally fixed the model for printing and uploaded it for free download as well here:
Finally, I recently lost access to my preferred 3d modelling program as my student license ran out but I've been trying to brute force boomer my way through the free Blender program (even though I'm actually Gen X!). In order to practice, I've been trying to put together a model that I've had in my head cannon for a while that is now finally possible thanks to modern 3d modelling. Basically, I wanted to do a TOS style Ranger scout with a similarly atypical saucer. I decided to base it off of the Marklin instead. Let me know what you think!
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atolm
Commander
Posts: 857
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Post by atolm on Apr 11, 2021 16:21:38 GMT -7
I love your meshes mate! They are truly gorgeous.
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Post by SITZKRIEG! on Apr 11, 2021 16:40:44 GMT -7
Thanks but I can only take a small portion of the credit for them. Everything I build is using someone elses existing 3d models with the vast majority coming from CaptainMojo on thingiverse. I'm just a middle aged kid playing with his digital legos!
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Post by trynda1701 on Apr 12, 2021 11:35:04 GMT -7
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Post by SITZKRIEG! on Apr 13, 2021 16:24:27 GMT -7
Thanks! I was wondering if the decision to keep an unconventional saucer (i.e. one that doesn't have a central bridge like on the connie) would be unpopular. I really wanted to keep that aspect of the original Ranger in my TOS devamp (kind of like a revamp but de-evolution, lol).
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Post by captainmojo on Apr 16, 2021 14:58:56 GMT -7
The Marklin is a weirdly appealing design, especially since even the FASA sources gave us almost nothing to work with on her. I'd love to see more ships in that family. With the way Federation designers work, it's never a one-off.
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Post by trynda1701 on Apr 16, 2021 16:46:37 GMT -7
Thanks! I was wondering if the decision to keep an unconventional saucer (i.e. one that doesn't have a central bridge like on the connie) would be unpopular. I really wanted to keep that aspect of the original Ranger in my TOS devamp (kind of like a revamp but de-evolution, lol). That was definitely the way to go. To me, the central bridge module, plus deck 2/3 superstructure NOT being there always emphasized the smaller scale for this little beauty.
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Post by trynda1701 on Apr 16, 2021 16:49:57 GMT -7
The Marklin is a weirdly appealing design, especially since even the FASA sources gave us almost nothing to work with on her. I'd love to see more ships in that family. With the way Federation designers work, it's never a one-off. Agreed. Even that design not having an obvious bridge, it still looks like a cool design, older than the TOS Connie era saucer designs. Plus, welcome to the forum.
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Post by SITZKRIEG! on Apr 16, 2021 18:18:18 GMT -7
The Marklin is a weirdly appealing design, especially since even the FASA sources gave us almost nothing to work with on her. I'd love to see more ships in that family. With the way Federation designers work, it's never a one-off.
Welcome to the forum! Were your digital ears ringing?
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Post by captainmojo on Apr 16, 2021 23:02:06 GMT -7
LOL, yes, I've only ever lurked on here before, but decided I should sign up. Facebook's stark fist of removal could strike at any moment after all.
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Post by SITZKRIEG! on Jul 21, 2021 17:41:37 GMT -7
It's been a while but I was doing some tinkering this week on an offball idea... a Nebula style Excelsior. Any potential? It's a bit gull bodied compared with a similar kitbash centaur.
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Post by starcruiser on Jul 21, 2021 18:10:28 GMT -7
It looks quite a bit less "kit-bashed" than the Centaur class...that's definitely a good thing.
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Post by captainmojo on Jul 22, 2021 9:54:13 GMT -7
It's like the Raging Queen from DS9, only not terrible.
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Post by SITZKRIEG! on Jul 22, 2021 12:03:32 GMT -7
It's like the Raging Queen from DS9, only not terrible. I'm glad you like it... it's based on your parts after all! I wasn't familiar with the Raging Queen and had to look it up; it explains a recent design on thingiverse that I wasn't familiar with since apparently that was the basis for the model.
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Post by SITZKRIEG! on Jul 22, 2021 12:05:55 GMT -7
It looks quite a bit less "kit-bashed" than the Centaur class...that's definitely a good thing.
Thanks. It's definitely an ugly duckling regardless but I think it's a functional design overall. I just wish that the fasa FTWA stats had a bit more wiggle room on the warp table to make smaller designs. Obviously I can make my own FTWA-2 based on the various calculations out there but I try to stick with the Construction Manual whenever possible.
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Post by captainmojo on Jul 23, 2021 1:32:19 GMT -7
It looks quite a bit less "kit-bashed" than the Centaur class...that's definitely a good thing.
Thanks. It's definitely an ugly duckling regardless but I think it's a functional design overall. I just wish that the fasa FTWA stats had a bit more wiggle room on the warp table to make smaller designs. Obviously I can make my own FTWA-2 based on the various calculations out there but I try to stick with the Construction Manual whenever possible.
Ex Astris Scientia has a really good article on all the weird, and usually lazy, DS9 kitbashes: www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/ds9tm.htmThey're pretty rough. At least the Wolf 359 kitbashes used similar era parts. The Raging Queen, and the almost identical Curry, are pretty notorious. As completionist as I tend to be with my kits, I couldn't bring myself to include them or the three-nacelle variant in the Excelsior kit. Plus I was so burnt out on the Excelsior by the time I released that kit. Potentially amusing side story: Mark Breuer has spent maybe the most time outside of the original team at ILM obsessing over the Excelsior filming model. He knows it really, really well. After interacting with him on Facebook, he was kind enough to send me his painstakingly accurate three-view diagrams of the Excelsior to help me with the model I was making. At this point, I’d spent a month obsessively studying photos of the studio model when building my 3d model. I was essentially done with all three variants of the model, and I thought I would just validate my version against his diagram. However, every time I looked at his diagram, I would note a significant difference in my model. I would look at the model, his diagram, and the filming model photos, and realize every damn time he was right, and I was wrong. Frustrating, as you might imagine. It took another freaking month to finish, as I ended up redoing literally everything. That said, it’s probably the model I’m most proud of. I learned a ton, and I think it’s probably the most screen-accurate freely-available 3d-printable model of the Excelsior out there (how's that for a list of conditionals?). TL;DR: Your design is better than what the DS9 staff came up with, and I’m pleased you’re using my kits to do this.
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Post by SITZKRIEG! on Jul 25, 2021 13:39:59 GMT -7
Ex Astris Scientia has a really good article on all the weird, and usually lazy, DS9 kitbashes: www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/ds9tm.htmThey're pretty rough. At least the Wolf 359 kitbashes used similar era parts. The Raging Queen, and the almost identical Curry, are pretty notorious. As completionist as I tend to be with my kits, I couldn't bring myself to include them or the three-nacelle variant in the Excelsior kit. Plus I was so burnt out on the Excelsior by the time I released that kit. Potentially amusing side story: Mark Breuer has spent maybe the most time outside of the original team at ILM obsessing over the Excelsior filming model. He knows it really, really well. After interacting with him on Facebook, he was kind enough to send me his painstakingly accurate three-view diagrams of the Excelsior to help me with the model I was making. At this point, I’d spent a month obsessively studying photos of the studio model when building my 3d model. I was essentially done with all three variants of the model, and I thought I would just validate my version against his diagram. However, every time I looked at his diagram, I would note a significant difference in my model. I would look at the model, his diagram, and the filming model photos, and realize every damn time he was right, and I was wrong. Frustrating, as you might imagine. It took another freaking month to finish, as I ended up redoing literally everything. That said, it’s probably the model I’m most proud of. I learned a ton, and I think it’s probably the most screen-accurate freely-available 3d-printable model of the Excelsior out there (how's that for a list of conditionals?). TL;DR: Your design is better than what the DS9 staff came up with, and I’m pleased you’re using my kits to do this.
It's cool that you got to consult with someone with such detailed knowledge of the on screen original! I did notice the detail you put into it FWIW. When I was blowing up the parts into separate pieces like you taught me in blender, I saw that the saucer had tons of internal supports like the ship actually would have instead of just being a single main hollow shell or maybe an upper/lower piece combo.
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Post by captainmojo on Jul 25, 2021 17:51:18 GMT -7
It's cool that you got to consult with someone with such detailed knowledge of the on screen original! I did notice the detail you put into it FWIW. When I was blowing up the parts into separate pieces like you taught me in blender, I saw that the saucer had tons of internal supports like the ship actually would have instead of just being a single main hollow shell or maybe an upper/lower piece combo.
More likely those pieces are the shield grid lines that I just left extending into the saucer. Honestly I don't put any effort into the insides of the model or try to simulate internal structure, so when you're breaking them apart you're going to see some of my sloppiness. At some point I have to go back into the Excelsior and fix the shield grid to be inset like I've standardized on all my other Fed kits.
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Post by SITZKRIEG! on Aug 29, 2021 11:56:53 GMT -7
Just a quick update with the weekends tweaks...
I was admiring JAFisher44's fully textured model of the Thufir Class Destroyer ( link)and it reminded me that I've always considered that core design as one of the more adventurous FASA ideas that worked but not entirely for me asthetically. I appreciate that they took risks with it beyond the more common Connie kitbash cut and paste but it just seemed too elongated. I'm not familiar with the use of sketchup so I tried converting the model into the more familiar to me STL format and most of it came through intact (except for the wings on the back edge of the saucer?). I tweaked the destroyer making the saucer more prominent relatively and further aft and shortened the secondary hull. Thoughts? I think it still has the same feel as the original with similar design cues but the proportions feel a bit more appropriate to me personally. My tweak is on the top and the original is obviously on the bottom.
edit: I've successfully used a different program to import the dae file and export an STL and it looks like the flares/wings on the back of the saucer made it intact this time unlike with blender! I should have a v2 of this sometime this week as I tweak it again.
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Post by SITZKRIEG! on Aug 30, 2021 7:24:53 GMT -7
And here is the overnight rerevamp now with 100% more wings! I definitely need to be more careful with exports and try various programs in order to get as close to the original to start working with as I was surprised blender's DAE export was so flawed.
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Post by SITZKRIEG! on Sept 9, 2021 13:21:38 GMT -7
Well, this is Atolm's fault. His posting of a multi-boom D-7 variant he did up as a physical model got the idea stuck in my head and I had to come up with a ship of my own that utilized the feature.
I used Captain Mojo/Tycen's TOS Klingon parts to come up with this thicc TOS era battlecarrier for the Klingon Empire. I've got some fluff already made up in my head regarding why it has twin booms/command pods as well as why the design feature never caught on.
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Post by brickwall on Sept 9, 2021 17:46:36 GMT -7
Well, this is Atolm's fault. His posting of a multi-boom D-7 variant he did up as a physical model got the idea stuck in my head and I had to come up with a ship of my own that utilized the feature.
I used Captain Mojo/Tycen's TOS Klingon parts to come up with this thicc TOS era battlecarrier for the Klingon Empire. I've got some fluff already made up in my head regarding why it has twin booms/command pods as well as why the design feature never caught on.
You can blame me for originally posting the links to the photos of the " Two-Headed Beast". Guilty as charged. I just hope it will spur your imagination on to greater feats of glory!
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Post by SITZKRIEG! on Sept 10, 2021 7:19:09 GMT -7
Thanks and it did! Next time I will properly assign the blame/glory.
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