Topic: Urban Legend Time: The Curse of The Melak Warbird

[Klingon Fanatic]

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]

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

[Klingon Fanatic]

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]

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]

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

[red_green]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Melak link

 http://www.nightsoft.net/starforce/SFC/SFC_melak.zip