Star Trek Discovery Enterprise - Scaled Build WIP

    Edymnion

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    So, I recently put up a mini type 6 shuttlecraft that I built mostly as a "How small can I make a shuttle and still have it be functional?" quickie, but with the intent of eventually using it as a scale reference to build other ships around. Started out with building some shuttlebays, piddling with logic, and finally got the urge to build a scaled ship around that shuttlecraft.

    First question I had to answer, what Federation ship was I going to build? Well, lets just be honest, of course its going to be an Enterprise. But which one? Newer, older, A, B, C, D, E? Then it hit me, I'm gonna build the sexiest Enterprise of them all.


    And since I don't use mesh importers (I consider that cheating), I'm building this all by hand, the old fashioned way baby! Figured some of you might be interested in seeing how I do it, so I'll put up step by step instructions so you can see how to do it by hand.

    First thing I did was make scaled orthogonals.
    2.jpg

    I had to make these myself based on a mesh I downloaded a while back. I used my art program of choice (Corel's Paintshop Pro) to resize all of the views to exactly the same pixel dimensions, and then looked back at the shuttlecraft I was using for working scale. I wanted the shuttlebay to be able to house 2 shuttles, given 11m width of the shuttles, some wiggle room on either side, and scaled the entire image down so that 1 pixel = 1m = 1 block.

    After that, it was time to trace.
    3.jpg

    Green pixels are actual blocks, red lines are mirror axis. Used a lot of copy/pastes to make sure all the various sections were perfectly scaled to each other. Once we take out the layer with the ship itself, its much easier to see.

    4.jpg
    (note the 11m shuttle by the bay doors for scale)

    5.jpg

    The advantage here is that the green pixel skeleton gives you the exact placement for your blocks in game.
    6.jpg Here I've used the zoomed in section to get block counts to start the dome on the top of the bridge.

    7.jpg
    Once the + skeleton is in there, then its just a case of using the build tools to calculate out the rings at each level.

    8.jpg
    Blocking it all out in standard gray armor, wedging it all to get the basic shape down, and then just keep repeating that process as it moves down. To make the egg shaped section under the done, the front half was just circle build tool, then the back half was using the ellipse tool with a height of 1, and using the green pixel art to get distances.

    9.jpg
    Here's where I've mostly finished the bridge module, and went back to replace the dome with some ice and white light, and done some cutouts for the viewscreen.

    I'll put more up as I complete more.
     
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    Edymnion

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    Skeleton for the saucer, what can I say other than "Thank the cat god for the fill tool!"
    starmade-screenshot-0000.jpg

    Now for the long and boring part, wedging and filling in the flat surfaces.
    starmade-screenshot-0002.jpg

    That saucer is precisely 397m in diameter, if anyone was curious.

    After everything is enclosed, next step will be to cut a bunch of it back out again to install the impulse engines , all the decorative raised hull sections on the aft dorsal of the primary hull, and the fore cutouts for the registry lights.

    Going to do the bulk of the detail work as I complete each section. So all the saucer, then all the secondary hull, then the nacelles. Because otherwise I'm kinda afraid I'll get all the basic shapes down and go "Gah, this is too much work to go back and detail it all now" and never finish it.
     
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    Edymnion

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    Do you use grey hull or standard armor?
    Standard armor.

    I hate hull, it doesn't tile. The only thing I ever use it for is literally tile, as in flooring. Or sometimes as damage indicators (put a layer of bright pink hull under the armor so you can readily see when there is a hole due to battle damage).
     
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    Edymnion

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    Man, this'll make your eyes cross if you do it too long!
    starmade-screenshot-0001.jpg

    Of course, the real annoyance this whole time is the trading guild. They keep sending ships out here that get caught in the saucer's ribs like flies in a web. I swear I have to /destroy_entity_dock on at least two or three of these ships every time I have a build session.

    starmade-screenshot-0002.jpg

    But hey, least the top and rim of the saucer are fully wedged. If you look at it side on its actually starting to look like something!
    starmade-screenshot-0005.jpg
    You know, long as you can't see how much of the flat surfaces are still missing...
     
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    Edymnion

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    Saucer is fully enclosed, fully wedged, and I've cut in pretty much all of the various lights.

    starmade-screenshot-0004.jpg

    starmade-screenshot-0005.jpg

    starmade-screenshot-0003.jpg

    I think I'm going to enlarge the phaser nubs though, make them large enough to put actual beam outputs into. Or better yet, see about making them into disguised turrets...
     

    jayman38

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    Any chance of distributing the ship as a flying saucer before adding the rest?
     

    Edymnion

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    Any chance of distributing the ship as a flying saucer before adding the rest?
    Ha, I had actually just finished the majority of the saucer and saved it off to it's own file so I could use it for kitbashing later on. Sure thing, I'll get that uploaded by itself here later today.

    That said, the impulse engine housing is complete.
    starmade-screenshot-0000.jpg

    And with a stroke of luck on my part, the actual ship model includes... wait for... an honest to god HATCH in the back of the saucer for direct physical access! Yay, I don't have to cut holes in the hull to add a physical door to the thing after all!

    starmade-screenshot-0001.jpg
     
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    I love this handmade-replica-producing craftsmanship process you described.


    Beautiful work so far! (y)


    I just wanted to give a little tip, because it seemed in one of the sceenshots that you do the tetra-hepta-ing with heptas first and tetras later... I found that it's a much less tedious process if one places a tetra-hepta pair first, copies them, and continues by pasting them in pairs :)

    This way you can also have the wedge constantly selected on the hotbar, while the tetra-hepta pairs wait in the "Paste" clipboard.
     
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    Edymnion

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    I just wanted to give a little tip, because it seemed in one of the sceenshots that you do the tetra-hepta-ing with heptas first and tetras later... I found that it's a much less tedious process if one places a tetra-hepta pair first, copies them, and continues by pasting them in pairs :)

    This way you can also have the wedge constantly selected on the hotbar, while the tetra-hepta pairs wait in the "Paste" clipboard.
    Heh, I do so much of it on this that I'm constantly changing HOW I do it just to try and keep it interesting!

    Any chance of distributing the ship as a flying saucer before adding the rest?
    As requested:
    https://starmadedock.net/content/star-trek-discovery-enterprise-saucer-shell-for-kitbashing.7811/
     
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    Edymnion

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    I love this handmade-replica-producing craftsmanship process you described.
    Welcome to Edy's Artisanal Starships, where we make each and every ship by hand, just like momma used to do.

    That said, the neck is done, as is the main deflector. She's actually starting to look like the Enterprise now.
    starmade-screenshot-0000.jpg

    starmade-screenshot-0002.jpg

    starmade-screenshot-0000.jpg

    starmade-screenshot-0001a.jpg

    And of course, what good would it be without her registration...
    starmade-screenshot-0001.jpg

    Although I might need to slide that down a bit. Might even be able to get away with making it all even bigger, will have to play around with it a bit.
     
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    This already looks like the best Trek build in the history of Starmade. Say what you want about DIS, but they absolutely nailed a perfect Enterprise. It looks amazing.
     
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    Edymnion

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    Okay, got the forward half of the secondary hull mostly done.

    starmade-screenshot-0001.jpg

    The lights are looking pretty cool on the shadow side.
    starmade-screenshot-0000.jpg

    starmade-screenshot-0002.jpg

    Not entirely sure how I feel about the pinstriping and the chevron on the hull. On one hand, it feels naked without it. On the other, I kind of would prefer a darker or more muted red and yellow as they look kind of cartoony to me. I dunno, I feel like there's a better way to do it that I'm not seeing right now...

    But more importantly, I'm officially at "the hard part" of the secondary hull. The front half of the hull is mostly symmetrical top to bottom, but now we're at the point where the top half and the bottom half follow two very different shapes. Which means wedging seems won't line up vertically anymore (so we'll end up with say the bottom half contracting faster than the top half) and I'm going to have to do a lot of playing around to find a way to make it look good.

    I mean, I know the outline it needs to have, the overall shape of the secondary hull top-down is the same as the top half of the hull, so the top half gets to be the "master" section, and I just have to figure out how to curve things around to make the bottom line up with it.

    Oh well, I'll figure it out!

    And I did move the registration down a bit, looks much better.
    starmade-screenshot-0000.jpg

    Now if they'd just show us the inside of the new Enterprise, I kinda want to make the bridge!
     
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    Very, very nice job so far. For the inside, we see a little bit when burnham get in in one of the first episodes of season 2. Only corridors if i remember correctly... i'm looking for some pics now...
     

    Edymnion

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    So what I'm doing right now is using the Ellipsis tool to give me the ability to dictate height and width separately, while keeping depth at 1 to make a flat disk.

    starmade-screenshot-0000.jpg

    Tracing out the outer edges of the disk to make ribs, and then filling in between them to make surface.

    Thing is, I'm not overly happy with how the results look due to the differences in the squash rate and having to marry them to different planes on the top half.

    starmade-screenshot-0003.jpg

    It just looks... messy to me. Even given that I've gone off-plane to smooth it out some already.

    I'm debating on if I want to keep using the same system of relying on the build tool helpers and smoothing the transitions between them, or if I want to just go full on freehand with all of it and hope I don't wind up with any weird squaring issues. Because right now, I don't think that looks clean enough to accept.

    Kinda thinking I'm going to redo it with the sides from the top half, and just fix all of the different row stuff on the bottom where its less visible.
     
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    Follow the lines of the shell (bottom) onto the for recesses you'll get straight lines and smoother look
     

    Edymnion

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    I'm still not 100% happy with it, but its better than it was at least.
    starmade-screenshot-0000.jpg

    Still think I'll end up revisiting that in-between section and seeing if I can't round it out a bit more. But at least all the rest of the secondary hull will be easier.
     
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    I think it looks great, but I get that creator eye you're having.