Topic: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird  (Read 5704 times)

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Klingon Fanatic

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Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« on: October 29, 2003, 05:14:50 pm »
EDITORIAL NOTE:

This is MY perspective on the history of attempted Melak warbirds. In compiling this I tried to comment only on ships I was aware of and had actually seen. SovereignEmpire is to blame for my crusade his original posts on the OLD forums got me fired up about this ship. I even once asked Taldren staff how to get a copy of the Melak mesh used in the movie and was told to ask Interplay....No lead there.

After a chat with Chris Jones, I decided to post this very same thread at BCU.

Melak pics are attached there:

http://dynamic3.gamespy.com/~bridgecommander/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12478

BTW: I am reluctant to comment on Atheorhaven's latest kitbash of Azel's  Melak because first,  its not a finished ship and second I don't want to 'jinx' his efforts.

******************************************************************************************************************************************************
TMP Romulan Melak Warbird Request Challange to the SFC Community

For almost three years a large number of the mighty model makers of the ST: Gaming community that I personally know have tried and have been unable to make a super accurate, high poly Romulan Melak Warbird. If this warbird were the USS Excelsior we'd still be playing with the STOCK FDN USS Excelsior.

The doomed Melak warbird was only featured in the RTS Strategy game ST: New Worlds in the opening introduction movie. It was destroyed test firing a SHIVA weapon that created a spatial rift that brought a few star systems (from another dimension/universe) to the neutral zone. The general consensus of the folks I know is that the Melak is at least the size of a K' T' Inga at its smallest BUT definitely NOT even close to being half the size of a D'deridex. Also many of the folks who also want this model for BC/SFC2+3 feel that this is the most likely candidate for the warbirds that took out the Enterprise C...

Having said that, back to the model makers attempts.

This is a very difficult model to make and in a similar situation to the D'deridex warbird. Anybody notice that there aren't that many D'deridex warbirds compared to say TOS/TMP/TNG Enterprises? I am only aware of Noah Wallace's D'deridex, and ones in BOTF, BC, SFC3, and ST: Armada 1+2. These are the only non-3D mesh D'deridex models available to the ST gaming community that I am currently aware of.

The best model currently available of the Melak is one by Azel [and Atheorhaven (tweaking and lighting)] in the SFC community. Sadly, there is a slight mesh problem that scars its beauty and the warp engines are, well, wrong. Kleotol made an excellent high poly VARIANT but it never survived the mesh to MOD conversion process. SENSE OF HUMOR ALERT: The warp engines were, trash receptacle shaped and didn't make a harmonious warp field and so, it disintegrated in the mesh to MOD conversion process... Other attempts I have seen resemble a warbird made from LEGO bricks.

One additional peice of information is that NO SINGLE Model Maker has been able to make this ship from start to finish since Maggot made a SFC1 kitbash based on Noah Wallace's D'deridex about three years ago. Most model makers who take on this ship end up giving up out of frustration or have PC problems or the mesh will not convert for some strange reason. Spooky eh?

How can I help?

Dark Matrix has made a ton of screen captures of the Melak warbird that I now possess and will pass on to any serious model maker looking to make a TROPHY high poly TMP Warbird that really breaks the back of the 'CURSE OF THE MELAK'.

Qapla!

KF
 
« Last Edit: October 29, 2003, 05:48:00 pm by Klingon Fanatic »

Steelviper33

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #1 on: October 29, 2003, 05:44:19 pm »
Id love to have this ship made, once someone makes one ill try and make a coupla kitbashes of her.

Klingon Fanatic

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #2 on: October 29, 2003, 05:49:28 pm »
There's not much point in having a sexy uber poly Federation or Klingon ships without equally cool adversary ships IMHO.

Azel

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #3 on: October 29, 2003, 05:59:21 pm »
...Sorry man

I'll have to try again
 

Desty_Nova

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #4 on: October 29, 2003, 06:18:27 pm »
Hmmmm. This intrigues me. Curse of the Melak, eh?
Well, what the hell, I'll try to break it! Maybe I'll fail, but at least I want to try!
So where're those pics?

Klingon Fanatic

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #5 on: October 29, 2003, 06:40:31 pm »
Quote:

Hmmmm. This intrigues me. Curse of the Melak, eh?
Well, what the hell, I'll try to break it! Maybe I'll fail, but at least I want to try!
So where're those pics?  




The BC post has a .RAR file attached that has the Melak pics I selected that best covered the most important ship angles.

D/L the pics from here if you want them expediantly:

 http://dynamic3.gamespy.com/~bridgecommander/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12478

Qapla!

KF
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 pm by Klingon Fanatic »

Desty_Nova

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #6 on: October 29, 2003, 07:41:02 pm »
Thanks! I'll keep you informed of my progress.

starforce2

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #7 on: October 29, 2003, 08:07:47 pm »
we could still try an interplay petition for the release of the melek? lol. worst that could happen is they give us the cold shoulder...lol

Anyone know who the author of the mesh is? Perhaps we can get him directly. If the model u speak of was decent, then he must have made other stuff...right?

Klingon Fanatic

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #8 on: October 30, 2003, 05:11:15 am »
Starforce2,

I haven't been able to find an official "ST: New Worlds" site. I believe Interplay no longer supports this game after its most recent reorganization (Wasn't Interplay bought up?). Perhaps somebody else has another avenue to check?

It would be nice to have a few more Melaks out there to balance out all the TMP Feds out there.

BUMP because its the week of Halloween and 'curses' are 'in' this week, LOL.

KF
 

Desty_Nova

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #9 on: October 30, 2003, 05:22:56 am »
Erm, Klingon Fanatic, the RAR file containing the Melak pics seems to be corrupted. Tried downloading it twice now, both times no-go.  

Klingon Fanatic

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #10 on: October 30, 2003, 05:25:23 am »
Quote:

Erm, Klingon Fanatic, the RAR file containing the Melak pics seems to be corrupted. Tried downloading it twice now, both times no-go.    




Send me an e-mail and I'll get them to you as a zip file.

Klingonfanatic@hotmail.com

Qapla!

KF
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 06:00:00 pm by Klingon Fanatic »

Steelviper33

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #11 on: October 30, 2003, 06:02:45 am »
Quote:

Erm, Klingon Fanatic, the RAR file containing the Melak pics seems to be corrupted. Tried downloading it twice now, both times no-go.    




Well yup, now you KNOW shes cursed. She just doesnt want to get made.

Desty_Nova

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #12 on: October 30, 2003, 11:09:26 am »
lollerskates

Klingon Fanatic

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #13 on: October 30, 2003, 04:25:17 pm »
LMAO! Yes the curse is alive and well thanks probably to Halloween!

Desty Check your e-mail.

KF

sandman69247

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #14 on: October 30, 2003, 11:12:29 pm »
OK, got the .rar file, worked fine for me. I'm gonna see what I can do also. Someone will need to texture it if my puter don't blow up...knock on wood.

 

Klingon Fanatic

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #15 on: October 31, 2003, 07:23:36 pm »
BUMP for Halloween!

The Melak curse theme should still be good for a few more hours, LOL.

KF

Alidar Jarok

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #16 on: November 01, 2003, 11:00:50 am »
Someone at SFC3.net was making a really cool one, but I don't think it was ever finished (it was such a long time ago).

I wish this ship wasn't cursed  It was the only thing Interplay did right with ST: NW  

Klingon Fanatic

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #17 on: November 01, 2003, 02:04:54 pm »
My two favorite screen captures of the Melak from the ST: New Worlds Intro. movie.



This rear shot shows the 'W' sape the Melak has that makes it different from the later TNG D'deridex.



I want to again thank SovereignEmpire for bringing this ship to our attention to begin with. Mackie for hosting the first large set of Melak screen captures and to DarkMatrix for bringing us more of them.

Qapla!

KF

Ducttapewonder

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #18 on: November 02, 2003, 03:31:51 pm »
Back to the top with ya.  

Klingon Fanatic

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #19 on: November 06, 2003, 05:38:48 am »
BUMP

Klingon Fanatic

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #20 on: May 30, 2004, 02:30:54 pm »
I'm dusting this post off because I was recently asked about it.

I thought there were a few model makers working on this but I have heard nothing since Solid Snake's version was released by DarkMatrix several months ago.

Anybody have any news on an accurate Melak?

KF

Fallen_Warrior

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #21 on: May 30, 2004, 02:42:26 pm »
im still waiting on news myself but i could do the textures for her if anyone wants to make the mesh

Klingon Fanatic

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #22 on: May 31, 2004, 08:18:48 am »
Quote:

im still waiting on news myself but i could do the textures for her if anyone wants to make the mesh  




How about doing a retexture of Solid Snake's version?

I assume you have the screen captures of the Melak to do this?

Please consider giving it a shot.

KF

red_green

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #23 on: June 01, 2004, 08:48:40 pm »
Whoever takes it on. Get ready for the nit picking. The curse is the expectation. I mean who wants to spend 50 hours on a model only to have its engines compared to trash receptacles. I was going to do a kitbash once. I would have used modified Raven nacels, cause I thought the engines looked fairly generic. I quickly realized that my nash would be unacceptable so saved 40 hours of frustration by moving on to ships that have greater appeal to me.  Why do we need the Melak exactly the way it is, since its a non-canon ship. It doesn't make sense to me that strict guidlines be followed on a ship that made a brief fuzzy appearance in a game trailer.

KF if you need this ship to exact specifications perhaps you should pay a modeler to do it.

 

Klingon Fanatic

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #24 on: June 01, 2004, 10:02:55 pm »
Quote:

Whoever takes it on. Get ready for the nit picking. The curse is the expectation. I mean who wants to spend 50 hours on a model only to have its engines compared to trash receptacles. I was going to do a kitbash once. I would have used modified Raven nacels, cause I thought the engines looked fairly generic. I quickly realized that my nash would be unacceptable so saved 40 hours of frustration by moving on to ships that have greater appeal to me.  Why do we need the Melak exactly the way it is, since its a non-canon ship. It doesn't make sense to me that strict guidlines be followed on a ship that made a brief fuzzy appearance in a game trailer.

KF if you need this ship to exact specifications perhaps you should pay a modeler to do it.

 




Time to put this in perspective:

Do not misunderstand my personal emthusiasm for this Melak warbird to mean I'm an UBER-bad critic. Myself and other fans of the model makers who frequent these forums are merely saying, "Look we have all these super accurate Canon and Non-Canon Feds ad nauseum out there, lets do the same for the adversary races."  When the first Excelsior and Constitution ships came out for these games, man the nitpicking was FAR worse than what it would be today.

As for hiring a model maker to do this, I wish I could.

None of the big names here in this community I have approached are really interested in doing so or certain ones have left the SFC Community entirely. Atrahasis' D2 RBB was really the closest we got to a Melak unitl Azel made his. To his credit, Azel created a Melak within two weeks, something that hadn't been attempted in about TWO YEARS here.

Melaks, aside from being much smaller, are nearly identical in physical form to the D'deridex warbirds. IIRC, Three years ago, I even attempted to contact Interplay to get a copy of the Melak mesh used in the ST: New Worlds introduction movie but was unable to locate anybody there to assist me/the SFC community acquire such a mesh.

If memory serves, there is a very steep technical/skill related  issue regaring making the curved warbird hulls. Very few model makers can make a D'deridex warbird which is why, aside from Noah Wallace's version, we have mostly ST: Game model D'deridex's from BOTF, Elite Force, SFC3 and ST: Armada I/II.  Not too many D'deridex's have been made since the SFC series appeared. This task will probably require new talent looking to make a big impression on the gaming community.

I won't be beating this 'dead horse' for awhile now.

Qapla!

KF
« Last Edit: June 01, 2004, 10:07:35 pm by Klingon Fanatic »

red_green

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #25 on: June 01, 2004, 10:27:42 pm »
Well it has been done at least. There are far more tmp ships than any other era IMHO.  As far as the wings of the melak. I think its not that difficult to get the look. Polycount might been an issue. But I seen the engines getting picked over. Those are real basic. Even if they looked like dumpsters they could be shaped into the right shape with maybe 4 more polies. Who ever takes it on best do so cause they want the ship in game themselves.

Another point I have is Romulans would be 3rd in number of ships. Behind Feds and KLinks. What about Uber ISC, Gorn, Mirak, Hydrans, Lyrans?  

Mariner

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #26 on: June 01, 2004, 11:26:50 pm »
Perhaps someone could "boolean" the right shapes into the back of the warbird hulls? That might solve the meshing problem. It's been done before to solve numerous curving problems on high-poly Connies.

ModelsPlease

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #27 on: June 03, 2004, 04:32:03 am »
I'm no expert on modelling but, what if someone built the Melak as 2 ships the upper hull being ship one and the lower hull as ship 2 then bash them.  That would eliminate the curve porblems wouldn't it, each ship would only require 1/2 the curve at the seem.As for the Narcelle, it reminds me of an intrepid narcelle on it's side.Maybe using that would eliminate that issue. And F_W  why not try a retexture on the existing model in the meantime and see how that fairs.
-MP  

Fallen_Warrior

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #28 on: June 03, 2004, 01:24:50 pm »
well in the morning im taking my hard drive and throwing it to pc world to get the begger sorted out after a year of nothing but unstablility so that should be a couple of days but after that i will have a go any surgesstions will be welcome but nothing super picky

SovereignEmpire

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #29 on: June 03, 2004, 02:45:21 pm »
This truly has become a curse.  When I posted the Melak so long ago, I only thought it would be cool to have in game.  I always thought this would be the class of Warbirds that destroyed the Enterprise-C.  Now there is a Crusade out to build one.  I?m not sure if there was an original mesh for this ship, since it was only seen in the intro.  I don?t really remember, but I thought Maggot had done one before.  But Maggot would have done it a long time ago, and it would have been for SFC1.  If anyone could find it, they could make corrections to the Mesh and make it more accurate for SFC3 status.  Has there ever been a Bridge Commander version that could be ported?  I can only think of ideas here, lol.  If I could I would model it myself, but I?m afraid my skills reach as far as the programs I have to model; which is none, lol.  In all honesty I thought P81 could do one, but it?s been a while since I?ve seen him.  Well, let?s keep this alive until the day the Melak flies out into our lives, Disruptor Blazing!

Kaenyne

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Re: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird
« Reply #30 on: June 03, 2004, 03:15:44 pm »
IIRC Atheorhaven made a really nice Melak a while back. If my computer comes back wih an intact hanrd drive, I can check, as I'm sure I have two versions of the Melak for SFC.

ModelsPlease

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