Horatio

[Thomas P]

For a change of pace I have started a project based on a post by Stu in the WIP area. He has submitted a few interesting designs but this one was a PRE-TOS ship, the Horatio. It exists around the time of 'Enterprise'. I was actually looking to do something somewhere between a 'mesh-madness' project like Kenny_z and one of my own texture ladden models.

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/hhfront.jpg
http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/hhside.jpg
http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/hhpert.jpg

STU's post - http://www.3dgladiators.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10802

[thomas7g]

I like!

May I suggest maybe perhaps you should add just a slight curve to the hull. Nothing that stands out. But just enough so it doesn't look mathmatically straight. A subtle curve would really push the saucer section. And maybe curve the edges a little. :D

This is going to be great!

[Masao]

How adorable!!! That Stu is a good draftsman. Should be interesting.

[skyhawk223]

I agree about adding a slight curve, although Stu's posts do not appear to have curvature.

[Thomas P]

Thanks guy's. I had been toying around with this one for a while and had considered some 'tweaking' but had not thought about curving the hull. But in the end I decided I would keep it as close to Stu's design as my skills will let me.

[skyhawk223]

You know what? I liked the design so much that I think I will try it myself. Thomas, you have provided inspiration. Here is my effort, although I think that in the future I will post in a separate thread so as not to make my many errors even more noticeable when compared to Thomas' mesh.
Just started today...
http://hometown.aol.com/~skyhawk223/horatio_1_29.jpg

[Thomas P]

Well one of us has too much or not enough time on his hands! :D !

Looks like you will finish way before me laddy. I am looking at only 4-5 hours of 3D time for the next few weeks :( I'll stay tuned.

[skyhawk223]

I wish. Trust me, I have 1, maybe 2 hours a week if I am lucky. I just had some spare time yesterday to be able to do some work. This will probably take several months to complete. And then there's texturing...

[Masao]

I think we need some of our 2-D guys to get off their asses and start designing some more ships.

Hey, why's everyone looking at me?!?!

[skyhawk223]

Masao, think you could do something from the Enterprise era?

[Masao]

"The Enterprise Era"?!?! What's that? I know about the Romulan war era and the Daedalus era, but as far as I know, there ain't no Enterprise era! :)

Seriously, while I think this new-old Enterprise has its good points, I looks more new than old.

Anyways, I need to get back to drawing ships, anyway. I've been trying to come up with a good small cruiser design, but keep running in to similar designs other people have done.

[Thomas P]

Okay, I burned my hour for the week last night :).

Here is the beginning of the primary hull which has a way to go. Stu has not yet done a rear view so I'll likely have to guess. I think he did not update it because no one jumped to model it. I'll send him an email with some 'shots' and maybe I'll get lucky.

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/hh2perb.jpg
http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/hh3perb.jpg

[thomas7g]

I think its a neat design, but I swore to myself I will never ever do another scaloped secondary hull. I always add beveled edges. And doing that to the engineering hull drives me over the edge!

Sorry...post traumatic TOS mesh stress syndrome has been my nemesis. :)

[Masao]

But scalloped engineering halls are a hallmark of TOS ships! They all have to have them. If you don't like modeling the ships, you could start designing them (in 2D) and leave all the heavy lifting (3D modeling) to others.

You know, this ship sort of reminds me of Paul Cargile's Hyperion. I think it's the deep, noncircular front profile.

[Thomas P]

Okay, UPDATES -

Stu provided a rear view and I've done some additional work:

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/update203_01.jpg

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/update203_02.jpg

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/update203_03.jpg

Now for those pesky warp nacelles!

[Masao]

Looks nice!

That impulse deck looks kinda "Excelsiorish" and, therefore, slightly anachronistic, even with the NX-01-style Lightning superchargers. But I guess that reflects the changes in our world after "Enterprise"! (No bitterness, here!)

Are you going to taper laterally the end of the secondary hull?

[thomas7g]

may I make a suggestion? Connecting those bricks next to the deflector dish to the secondary hulll is a pain in the ass. But if you boolean a shape like your brick but with a curve that matches the circular surface of the secondary hull, it will merge nicely. :)

Not quite cannon, but alot easier.

[Thomas P]

Masao, I asked Stu about the engineering / secondary hull as he has conflicting pictures. I may have gone too far on the hull to change it without going back a way in the revision's (or Imight be too lazy :)).

Thomas, I admit to being tired and, well, slow on the uptake. What exactly do you mean about 'bricks'? This is prety much the way Stu has it and I generally go with what the original owner drew (well, most of the time).

I admit that generally this thing could do with some adjustment but it really looks cute to me as it is so far. But please keep 'em coming. I still want to know about the brick. :D

[thomas7g]

hehe... I guess I'm being obtuse. :)

I call those square blocky things to the side of the deflector housing "bricks" for lack of a better term. (I call the warp things on the aft top "handles")

The original TOS E hull had a bulging out curve which allower you to make the shape to merge the way it does. But its a hard shape to join with the hull where it meets. :)

[thomas7g]

http://thomas7g.3dgladiators.net/posted/bona54a.jpg

If you look on these pics you can see the bonnie's bricks have a curve to the outer surface. I could have joined them up to the main body smoothly but decided against it. It would have been too far out and would have made the brick rather wide.

But you might think about curving your bricks. Its just a thought. Consider worth a grain of salt.;)

[Thomas P]

Thomas - I get it now (rubs lump on head).

The Horatio is a very angular ship and the bricks are an extension of that. The orginal drawing has a variety of extruded items and no real blend to it. I have actually, well I think, softened it some already.

BTW - I just love the Bonnie!!

[thomas7g]

hehe! Thankies :)

I like your work on this ship too! I can't wait to see her finished. I thiink it will be a star when your done :)

[Thomas P]

So here is the nacelle cap - Now I have to work on the center section.

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/hcap01.jpg

[skyhawk223]

Beautiful, Thomas. It's coming along nicely.

I just started on the impulse section last night.
Looks like you are on track to be done light years ahead of me. :)

[Thomas P]

Could not get to sleep last night so I burned a few hours on the nacelles. Still a lot more work to do but I'm thinking that I will have an easy job when it's time to texture.

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/engines.jpg
http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/hper.jpg
http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/hper2.jpg

[thomas7g]

Looooking reeeeeaaallllly good. :)

[Masao]

Very nice!
Are you going to use a standard pre-TOS texture or a new-fangled NX-01 type texture?

[Thomas P]

I am not a big fan of those 'Aztec' patterns so it will likely be more on the TOS side (but like I do now). I 'might' get this all modeled tonight.

[Thomas P]

Well here is all I have had time for in the last week or so. I have had to figure the mapping out a few times on the saucer. I'm trying to get away with only 3-4 defined textures. So far this is my largest model at 5MB, my last was the Ursus at about 3MB.

anyways...

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/hper3.jpg

[thomas7g]

LOOKING PPURTY!!!!!

[skyhawk223]

Very nice, Thomas. There is going to be a discrepancy between your panelling lines and mine since there was a discrepancy between the top and side views in the reference pictures.

[Thomas P]

Yeah, the drawings had subtle changes from view to view. I kind of picked on Stu over that :).

I finally had to make decisions on things to get it right. One version he has the upper saucer / bridge offset biased towards the bow. It made for too complicated a material for me and then I saw a view where he had centered it. So now it's centered.

Stu likes to do swoopy Voyager / Dauntless style designs and this was his only TOS'ish design.

[Thomas P]

Some more texturing done -

http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/hper4.jpg

[Masao]

Looks great! I especially like that "classic" front view. I think all ships should be designed so they look good from that angle. If they can't (like Voyager, maybe), they aren't "real" Starfleet ships. This little guy would fit right in with my Museum ships.

As far as Aztecking, Vektor's TOS Enterprise at the main forums uses a very subtle pattern that's mostly differences in reflectivity.

[Thomas P]

Masao - thanks for the good words. Yeah, it's my favorite angle too. You are absolutely correct, if it can't pass the mustard at this view it should be tossd out :D.

[Thomas P]

Well it's 99.9% done - which means I won't do much else to it cuz I'm bored :D

Sorry - the pics are sort of washed.

Pic 1 (http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/h1.jpg)

Pic 2 (http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/h2.jpg)

Pic 3 (http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/h3.jpg)

Pic 4 (http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/h4.jpg)

Pic 5 (http://www.concept40.com/galleries/sciartpost/10182001/h5.jpg)

[thomas7g]

itsa gorgeous mesh. I think you can be proud of yourself. :D

[skyhawk223]

Fabulous work there, Thomas. Excellent images.
I will be posting some more of my updates as I get time to work on the ship.

What font did you use for the hull?

[Thomas P]

It's the Amarillo font that Masao pointed out to me so long ago. It is my standard TOS font.

[Masao]

Gee, I thought everybody knew about this font by now! I found AmarilloUSAF several years ago via an article in Finescale Modeler magazine (November 1999), which is the top magazine for plastic modeling. I rely completely on this font and even named one of my ship classes after it. There are two versions, Regular and Pro. Regular is sharware (payment by honor system) and can be downloaded for free from this page (http://www.tlai.com/med_des/modeling.html), but pro costs a few bucks to download but is actually slightly more accurate for 1960s style lettering. You can probably find free versions around the web.

So Thomas, when can we see some scenes with Horatio?

[Thomas P]

I put a couple up at my site and referenced in ths thread -

http://www.3dgladiators.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12902

Again, this font has been the best and I can't thank you enough for pointing it out.

[Masao]

Don't thank me, Thomas. Thank Finescale Modeler for featuring it in their article and thank TC Lai for creating the font. You can show your appreciation by sending in the licence fee for the shareware or purchasing USAFAmarillo Pro. Guilt-ridden, I paid up after using the shareware for free for about a year. I encourage all of you to support font creation by paying licensing fees!!

[Thomas P]

Good point - I'm such a slacker.

[Masao]

Shame! SHAME!!!!

[thomas7g]

well I think I posted around here the version I made. Its pretty close, And its free. :D

[skyhawk223]

Thomas, do you model your panel lines, are use texture maps?

[Thomas P]

Maps sir, just the maps:D They need to be big though. Ursus and Horatio, for example, have saucer maps about 1024x1024 and the bump maps are twice that size.

[skyhawk223]

I see. I have to model just about everything in because I don't know how to use the UV unwrapper that came with the app and I don't have a good 2d paint program.

[Thomas P]

Try this out, maybe it will help -

http://www.geocities.com/lithunwrap/

Only problem is this tool is so popular that the guy's site exceeds the freebie bandwidth and becomes unavailable from time-to-time. A lot of mod sites recommend this and I almost got it (or I would have just sent it to you - it's free). Max 4.2 has an unwrapper utility so I never got it.