Modified TOS Enterprise

INTRO ANIMATION UPDATED AGAIN!!!

Into Fly-by (1.8MB, DivX 5.0.2 required).

Two things have been updated:

1. I tweaked the bussards even further and I'm really pretty happy with how they came out this time. In this scene at least.

2. I recompressed the audio using MP3 (I think). Turns out the audio accounted for almost two thirds of the file size on the last version. As you can see, this one is much smaller.

Opinions on the new bussards?

[Hito]

Originally posted by Vektor
[B]2. I recompressed the audio using MP3 (I think). Turns out the audio accounted for almost two thirds of the file size on the last version. As you can see, this one is much smaller.

Vektor, could you please pop down to the film & entertainment forum and make a post explaining how u pulled this off?

thanks

Well that's pretty amazing, all things considered. I like the bussard effect more each time I watch it.

Now I know you're going for authenticity, but couldn't there be a version where the ship actually moves more... I dunno, realistically? I'm pretty sure the creators intended for it to look more dynamic... well anyway, looks good.

Originally posted by Hito
Vektor, could you please pop down to the film & entertainment forum and make a post explaining how u pulled this off?

Pulled what off? Converting the audio to MP3 or the whole scene in general?

Originally posted by Proximo
Now I know you're going for authenticity, but couldn't there be a version where the ship actually moves more... I dunno, realistically? I'm pretty sure the creators intended for it to look more dynamic... well anyway, looks good.

Are you asking for the ship to move more realistically or the camera? It's a simple fly-by and there isn't much more for the ship to do. By modern standards, however, the camera is very static. If this scene were to appear in a modern Trek series, the camera would most likely pan to follow as the ship glides by, but to the best of my knowledge, panning was never done in any F/X shot in the original series. It was a motion control limitation of the day, but it has become a signature characteristic of those visuals and I'm reluctant to change it.

On the other hand, I'm thinking about doing two complete sets of F/X shots: One for a cleaned-up but authentic look and another one with a much more modernized look and style. In the latter case, I would still want the shots to fit in with the non-F/X footage, mainly in terms of contrast levels and at least some film grain.

Oh I know its a signature thing, and you'ce caught it really well. The problem is the Enterprise always looked like she were sliding along on her arse toward the camera. Her nose always looks tilted up away from her direction of travel. Perhaps its just the shape of the ship and the angle of the view, but that's always the impression I had.

[Hito]

Originally posted by Vektor


Pulled what off? Converting the audio to MP3 or the whole scene in general?

yeah the mp3 audio thing.

Finally, I have a few more WIP images to share.





These are mainly refinements to the inner-side details of the nacelles and support pylons; the grillwork is now all in place. On the bow view you can also see the L-shaped panels flanking the impulse accellerator have been added, as well as the remaining windows in the command module and the port and starboard top running lights.

Getting a little closer all the time.

To paraphrase the immortal words of Billy Crystal (channeling Fernando Lamas), "She looks MAAHHvelous!"

I would love to know how you managed to get the grille area of the inboard warp nacelle to merge into the nacelle casing in a perfect semi-circle at the stern end of the concave area. On my model the arc of the merge area isn't 180 degrees--the plane of that aft taper makes it so. Vat's your secret??!

Originally posted by Scott Gammans
I would love to know how you managed to get the grille area of the inboard warp nacelle to merge into the nacelle casing in a perfect semi-circle at the stern end of the concave area. On my model the arc of the merge area isn't 180 degrees--the plane of that aft taper makes it so. Vat's your secret??!

I'm guessing from your description that you created your cutout with some type of boolean operation. That's actually the same method I used on my Constitution model, but it doesn't work too well on the Enterprise as you have discovered.

The method I used was to shapemerge the outer boundary of the cutout into the side of the nacelle. I then extruded it inward the proper amount and started scaling the vertices of the inner boundary inward until they lined up with the spline template I was using. That still left me with a semi-circular aft end on the inner boundary, so I just did some simple vertex editing to line them up in a straight line. Voilla!

What you have to understand is that the sloped plane at the aft end is not truly a flat plane, it winds up with a slight outward curvature, and the edges at the top and bottom are not as sharp as they sometimes appear to be, especially in diagrams. That result is fairly easy to create with shapemerge, extrusion and mesh editing, but nearly impossible with a boolean, not without putting a counter productive amount work into the boolean object to begin with.

Another thing I didn't mention is that I had to do quite a bit of vertex cleanup after the initial shapemerge, but that's pretty much unavoidable.

Hope that helps.

Originally posted by Vektor
What you have to understand is that the sloped plane at the aft end is not truly a flat plane, it winds up with a slight outward curvature, and the edges at the top and bottom are not as sharp as they sometimes appear to be, especially in diagrams. That result is fairly easy to create with shapemerge, extrusion and mesh editing, but nearly impossible with a boolean, not without putting a counter productive amount work into the boolean object to begin with.
...
Hope that helps.

It helps a lot--you confirmed my suspicion that the aft taper is not a flat plane (it couldn't be; otherwise, it would look exactly like the way my model looks right now). Unfortunately, in POV-Ray it's all about CSG operations, so there's no such thing as a shapemerge tool. Fortunately, I have figured out other ways to skin the pixellated cat, so now that I know it's not a flat plane I can proceed with a fix that should work. Thanks Vektor!

Originally Posted by Vektor

Well, I went back and completely overhauled the bussard collectors one more time. I think I finally figured out a way to achieve that transluscency effect:



Obviously, this is the same TOS-style image I created before but it's been updated with the new bussard effect. I'm still tinkering with it and hope to have more to show soon.

I have to say Vektor, that your work never ceases to amaze me.
True detail. If they ever decide to redo the sfx for TOS, you'd have to be on the shortlist.

[Sean Kennedy]

Looks Great!!!!!!!!!!

[gmd3d]

Fantastic looking .....