Topic: Dakota WIP

[Wolf2525]

Here's something I've been working on lately.  It's slow going, but coming along.  I had to start from scratch after I recieved some scans from Bernard Guignard(Thanks, by the way!) and realized the bottom of the ship was WAY off.  Fortunately, the pizza box hull makes it faster to build.

 

It's not great, but it's only my 4th model, and I'm still learning Max.  Still needs a few of the details added in, bridge, impulse engines, etc., and needs quite a bit of cleaning up.  Don't ask me why I did the bays, lol, because I have no idea either.  I'll most likely remove them before I'm done.  The nacelles aren't the greatest, but I'm pretty pleased with how they came out.  I'm hoping to have it done by sunday or so, depending on how long it takes me to interpret what I'm still a bit fuzzy on.  Texturing is another thing, however.  I'll have to make my own, which means it will take a while as I relearn PS.  So, that should only take forever, lol.

Anyway, thought I'd toss this out.  Not too exciting, but I thought someone might get a kick out of it.

     

[sandman69247]

Hot damn!
That's really good! Now please, send me info on how you did the nacelles. I have been trying for months to figure those damn TMP nacelles out and my best is many orders of magnitude worse than yours.

Keep up the good work!

 

[Rod O'neal]

Don't be in too big a hurry to 86 the open bays. I can see the justification for open bays during combat, which is the way we'll be flying it in game. It gives you the opportunity to be creative with some interior modeling too. maybe some ready racks, ftrs, even crew. Maybe that's too hard though, I don't know? I've never tried to model anything. But, I can picture it  

[Wolf2525]

Thanks guys!

I'm not too sure what I'll do with the bays yet.  I had thought about doing the interiors on them with a few micromodels, but I know that will blow the poly count through the roof.  I'll probably make two versions, open and closed.  I don't know if it will be playable when open, if I add detail.  I'll just have to see what the final count rounds out at when I'm done with the basic model.  As it stands right now, I'm a bit higher than I'd like to be, but not too bad.  I should be able to clean it up a bit.

But that still makes more textures I'll have to draw, and as I've never drawn any textures yet....

Well....

Umm....

Let's just say, it should be interesting....    

[Bernard Guignard]

Hi Wolf2525
    Its looking pretty good if your interested in doing the fighters might I suggest the jackills killer bee and its associated
ships I can send you scans when your ready for the project. There's also the talon fighter that would be a good addition.
something to think about for later.  
 

[Terradyhne]

 
cool now someone has done this big carrier from Jackill's SF ref manual and did you use those schematics??
   

[Wolf2525]

 I used those schematics you have in your post, and a couple of scans Bernard Guignard sent me.  The ones he sent me contained the bottom view which was really screwing me up, as I had no idea what it looked like.

Heh, you guys are egging me on to throw in the shuttles.  Successfully, I might add, lol....

[Wolf2525]

Almost done.  Just a couple more quick things to add, and it should be good to go.  It's still higher in the poly count than I'd like, but not as bad as I was starting to think it would be.

Take a look....




   

[Klingon Fanatic]

"Klingon Intelligence has learned that several Dakota Class Carriers are under construction. There can be but one purpose for this type of ship. War! The Klingon Empire must not stand idle while the Federation and the Romulans enlarge their fleets to prepare for War."

General Raast Molkatha's address to the Klingon Academy 2291.

[Marauth]

"We have recieved reports from our ambassador to the Klingon empire that a group of 'hawks' - warmongers in the Klingon navy believe that the recent renovation of our defense fleet is infact a preperation for war. Chief amongst these is one General Raast Molkatha a high ranking veteran in the Imperial Navy, I do not believe it would not be in our interests if the General were to encounter an 'unfortunate accident' within the next few weeks."

Fleet Captain Lestat's address to the Admiralty 30th August 2291

Seriously, Wolf, the ship looks uber cool, keep going man, the TMP nacellles look pretty good compared to some *cough*stock-FCA*cough* Excuse me I have something in my throat.

[Wolf2525]

^^^ LOL....  I have something I'd like to scan in from an old Nexus magazine and post that would really apply right about now, but I don't know if it would be kosher to do.   I assume it wouldn't be, so I won't.

Thanks for the encouragement!

Anyways, I did a dummy, and ended up with a bunch oddities I can't remove, or don't know how to remove.  I have to rebuild the hull, but I have all of the other parts saved in seperate files, so it shouldn't take very long at all.

If anyone has the gumption to try to texture it when I'm done, give me a holler.  I'm going to try to draw some up, but that will resemble something akin to a monkey trying to hump a football.  I'm having trouble just trying to aztec the saucer, lol...

Anyways, I'm not done with it, but I sure as heck not going to give up.  I still should have it done by tomorrow, if not tonight.  The model, that is, not the textures, lol...  

[starforce2]

looks like a mining freighter from armada in a way, except the cargo is in the sides instead of on top. Good work sof ar.

[Wolf2525]

It's taking longer than I expected.  But, I should be done later today.  I decided I wasn't happy with the Impulse drives(And if you saw them up close, you'd know why, lol...) and had a heck of a time trying to figure out how to make them look decent.  But hey!  During that process, I figured out a few more things in Max, lol...

It's coming along, however.

[Marauth]

Don't worry about it dude, it takes as long as it takes, the longer you work on it the better it (and you) will get, just don't make us wait as long as we were/are waiting for Duke Nukem Forever

[Magnum357]

Hey, now THAT is one carrier that coudl carry a TON of Fighters into combat.  I mean, it could probably carrly a hundred into combat with that much capcity.

I would like to make one suggestion though on the design.  I know that you are going by the tech schematics on this, but have you noticed that your warp Engines might not work on the design?

What i mean is that Shuttle bays 10 and 12 seem to take up any space for your plasma conduits to move energy to the bottom Warp engines.  You might want to remove those shuttle doors to indicate that the ship has more of an engineering section onboard and the ability to send power to those warp nacelles.
 

[Bernard Guignard]

Quote:
Hey, now THAT is one carrier that coudl carry a TON of Fighters into combat.  I mean, it could probably carrly a hundred into combat with that much capcity.

I would like to make one suggestion though on the design.  I know that you are going by the tech schematics on this, but have you noticed that your warp Engines might not work on the design?

What i mean is that Shuttle bays 10 and 12 seem to take up any space for your plasma conduits to move energy to the bottom Warp engines.  You might want to remove those shuttle doors to indicate that the ship has more of an engineering section onboard and the ability to send power to those warp nacelles.
 

Hi Magnum357
    He could also move the engines and pylons back a bit this will give him room I'm assuming that the Back bays are
seperated from the other  bays another option is to run slightly thicker part under the bottom of the hull where the warp
plasma run to a central position  this would show up as a slight thickerhull in the bow and aft view of the ship. also what is missing is the antimatter bottle ejection area this could be incorporated in the latter design easily.  

[Wolf2525]

According to the spec sheet, it carries 257 shuttles.  Out of those, 61 are assault shuttles, 29 Killer Bees, 29 Fighters, 29 Heavy Fighters, and the rest are various utility and admin shuttles.


I can cant the upper portion of the lower nacelle pylons more towards the center of the hull, and reduce the depth of those bays.   Or as Bernard said, run the hull thicker between the pylons.

As for the antimatter bottle ejection area, you just completely confused the heck out of me, lol....

But, there will be some reduction in the level of detail, as I'm trying to keep this playable.  I don't have a whole lot of time in Max, and there are probably a zillion things I'm not doing that could reduce the polys, so I have to stick to less detail.  Some things I'll have to take some liberties on, such as the four things(I really don't know what they are...) which are attached where the hull meets the saucer, 2 on top, and 2 on bottom.  I don't have a great view of those, and I haven't the slightest idea of what they are, so those may end up being a guesstimation.

I'm much happier with the impulse drives I built this time.  The top is more square than the schematic, but the shape is better.  The dome looks pretty good as well.  I had problems with the originals, mostly because I don't know how to change the way the poly dividers attach to the vertices.  Actually, there's a lot of things I don't know how to do, lol.  But the first drives were really bad when you moved them around in the perspective view.  The nozzle face was really screwed up.

All in all, it should come out pretty good.  This version will be considerably more basher friendly, if anyone should have the desire to use the parts.  

It's just about done.  Just have to build the bridge, attach the nacelles, and put in the bays.  And, if I'm feeling saucy, make a couple of simple shuttles to put in the bays.  

[Bernard Guignard]

hI Wolf2525
    On tmp ships  matter and  antimatter is in a series of canisters that are behind blow away panels on the ship. in the case
of the Reliant class those blow away bottles are set up as a ring right under the impulse engine deck in this case by
Thickening the hull between the bottom pylons you can place extra bottles this ship is going to need a good size quantity
to power 3 warp engines.      

[Marauth]

They're on the TMP ships aswell, you can see them in the cut-away diagrams of ships like Voyager, the Ent-D and Ent-E etc. BTW Bernard, where are they on the Connie refit? Just out of curiosity, I never could figure out where they are, and I don't have any fancy blueprints with all the tecchy stuff on them.

[Wolf2525]

Ok.  I'll have to figure out how I'll model them.  Might just borrow some ideas from the Reliant.  Those scans show the matter/antimatter storage facility just forward of the lower impulse engine, and rear of the pylons.

Edit:  Crap.  There's nothing I'd recognize as such in the schematics.  Just a series of small square panels just behind the dome on the lower Impulse.  There's also a series of small rectangle panels running the length of the raised spine on the lower hull.  I'm completely in the dark regarding that now.

Lol, oh well, back to building.  If anyone has any ideas that won't inflate the poly count too much, let me know.