Star Trek - Akira Class

[Rigel]

Sounds odd that it would change the order of your layers. I don't use Blender but it sounds like you missed an option somewhere, perhaps.

[Freak]

Could be.
I have not touched since I made the last post, as I am currently working on another Star Wars lego pic. But once I have finished that. I'll take another look at it.

[Rigel]

Another thought:

In Lightwave, when you put layers into one texture channel, you can then drag the layers to a different position on the list. I wonder if Blender might allow you to do the same.

[Freak]

It’s been a few weeks since I last worked on this, but I have gone back to it and figured out what was causing my issue with the additional textures.
I was placing them onto a Textuers layer that had already been set up for a different texter. Bit of a noob mistake but quickly and easy to fix.

With that done I was able to finish up the texture work and take the model into Blender compositor. I have added glows to the lights and the warp nacelles.
She needs some weathering done to her, but I can deal with that at a later date.
For the time being I will leave as straight out of factory clean.
I think she needs a read light under her, which won’t take long to do.

Anyway here are a few shoots of her in different angles.
I will be putting together new picture to add the asteroid collection I did at the begging of last year.

[Rigel]

I'm glad the problem with the textures was easily fixed. It certainly turned out nice!

[Freak]

Thanks.

With the Type 11 now done, it has give me the drive to go back and finish off the Akria.

[Freak]

I recently re-opened the file, and found that there where a number of things that I am not happy with. So I have started to correct these issues. First up, is the weapons pod.

Here is where I left it last; I have added the shuttle to show scale.



As you can see those torpedos launch tubes are way off scale. They are wider than the shuttle making for some big ass torpedoes. With the torpedoes that size you are not going to store too many in there.

There was also some issue with the pod itself, so I have remodelled this. It is now much cleaner than before. With that done it was onto the torpedo launch tubes.
These have been completely rebuilt. But before I started that, I built a proper scale model of a torpedo. Though none where seen during the run of TNG we have seen them in the TOS films and some have appeared in VOY. (The size has not changes.)
The size of them are slight larger than a normal person. (Spock was buried in ST: II TWOK.)

With that done I then started to work on the launcher, I could fix two of them into the old launch tubes. This means that the forward one now had 8 instead of 4. I have kept three in the lower section of the pod.
As for the rear launch tubes I never like the idea that they where set up in a semicircle, as this created a blind spot on the rear of the ship. I have corrected this by having them point to the rear. With that done, I had to remodel the housing for that set of torpedo launchers. Given this correction there was no need to add more launchers in there.

The weapons pod now has 17 launcher instead of 13, it might be over kill, but the Akria class is a warship and not an exploration ship. Even with the 4 extra launchers there is still plenty of room for a good number of torpedos to be stored in the pod.

The only thing that survived the original model was the gribbles at the top and bottom of the pod

[Nadesico]

I look at "campbeltown" and want to punch someone, lol, it's 2 lls. I know how to spell my hometown dammit! :P

She didn't look like much when you started, but she's come a long way, very impressive work so far. I'm liking it

[Freak]

LOL it might be spelt with 2 ll's down under.
But I named her after my mum's home town.

Campbeltown - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Campbeltown - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Campbeltown - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and also HMS Campbeltown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Campbeltown_(I42)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Campbeltown_(F86)

Thanks, yeah she has come along way. still a little more to go.

[nightfever]

I like the new pod and the detailed tubes.
17 tubes on a single pod ...
If an enemy destroys the pod, the warship would be rather teethless.

[Freak]

Thanks.

Not really, as on the original design it has another 12 tubes in the saucer.
On both side of the ship, where I have stuck in windows. The desgin had but in a set of 2 tubes on top and below the saucer on each side. As I said I have removed these and put in windows.
There is also another 4 tubes on the under side of the saucer hull at the front. I have kept these and put in another two rear faces tubes on the secondary hull.
This gives my version another 12 tubes. Giving the whole ship at total of 29 tubes.

Then there is the main phaser arry on top and below the saucer.
There is also a number of fighter and shuttles onboard. (Remember the Akira was desgined as Carrier/Missile boat to go up against the Borg.)

Even if she lose the wepaons pod she still has teeth. After ST:FC and the Dominion War we saw the Akria Class make an appearance in Voyager. She had two Definat Class ships with her as escorts. it would not be surprising if that became common given that both ship are warships. (it also stand pratice in today Navy that an Aircarft Carrier will have it own group of escorts ships.)

[nightfever]

Okay, I see the Akira has some more punchy arguments than one pod.

[Rigel]

I started playing Star Trek Online a few weeks ago, now that it's free to play. My character is currently using an Akira class; great little ship. Not as many weapons in the game as you have here though.

[lonewriter]

Originally Posted by Rigel

I started playing Star Trek Online a few weeks ago, now that it's free to play. My character is currently using an Akira class; great little ship. Not as many weapons in the game as you have here though.

Now its free? I paid for it and didn't like it. Maybe it got better since I stopped playing it.

[Rigel]

Originally Posted by lonewriter

Now its free? I paid for it and didn't like it. Maybe it got better since I stopped playing it.

Free to play; meaning you get most of the game for free, pay for the uber goodies. I like it, although it has less variety of game play than WoW does. It's way better than Eve Online was when I tried that many ages ago.

[Venom]

It IS way better than EVE-O I play ST:O at the moment... just i fly with a Prometheus class escort... with a full borg weapon array and engines it's tons of fun and the storyline is not that bad

[Freak]

I have not played ST:O. Though it looks like a good game, it's not the game I normal play. I tried DC: Universe on the PS3 and could never get on the severs.
When I could it was just crap.

I am not surprised that the Akira in the game has less weapons than the offical model.

Does anyone know how many Trop Tubes the Nebula Class weapons pod has?
It never been shown in action on screeen.

[Freak]

With the weapons pod finished I have now moved onto the rest of the ship’s weapons.
Again there was issue with scale with the torpideo launchers. So I have gone in and remodelled these.
For the forward laucnhers I had two, but on the concept art there are four. So I have now corrected this to match.

On the offical ship there was no rear launcher. I had installed two on the secondary hull to fix the blind spot. With having corrected this issue with the remodelling of the weapons pods, there is no real reason to keep them there now. But I remodelled them to the correct scale. I might pull these out and put in a Tracter Beam emitter. But we will see.

As for the Phasers, there was nothing wrong with them. all I have done is corrected a few setting so they look better than they did before.

[Rigel]

It looks nice.

[Freak]

Thanks

[lonewriter]

looking good.

[Freak]

Thanks, I have now moved onto the nacelles.
Expect an update next monday.

[Freak]

With the weapons finished, it was time to look at the Nacelles.
There where a lot errors in the Meshes, so this has meant a complete rebuild.
The meshes is now cleaner than it was before. I have saved a few items for the original version namely the blue glow bits.

I have added some RCS that where missing before and some other little bits of details.
I think this has turned out far better than the old version.
All that is left now is to add textures to them.

[starship]

Magnific work!

[Freak]

Thanks

[Freak]

Not much of an update, reason for this is that over the last two weeks. I have been trying to cut grid lines into the hull. This is would have been easier if I had not collapse the Subd on the Meshes and also cut in the windows.
However I have been very unsuccessful. So I might have to do a part rebuild of the secondary hull.
Anyway while I decided how to proceed I have add some more details to the secondary hull, I have also rebuilt the deflector dish.

I have also started to add some panels to the saucer but not sure if it working.
What do you guys think?

[Rigel]

The windows and details look great.

Just out of curiosity, how are you trying to cut in the grid lines?

[Freak]

Thanks.
I was tiring to use an edge loop to cut them in or just extrude a face and then resize it.
Alas it was not working. (It’s how I have done panels in the past.)
So I have decided to go in and clean up the meshes.
This meant I have to remove all the windows, but I wanted to cut them down as I felt there was way too many. It’s a war ship after all.

So now I have just as basic meshes. This mean that I can now put in more details then do the panels and then re-add some of the windows.

I have posted up wire frames of what the meshes looks like before and after I cleaned it up. You can see in the old version that the main area that was giving me a headache was the front area as the edge lines would turn back on themselves. This gave me some odd looking panels, which is not what I wanted.

[CAClark]

Looks pretty cool, only unfortunate thing is that you made the main saucer a relatively low number of sections meaning you can see distinct segmentation around the perimeter, which is a real shame.

Cheers!

[Freak]

Thanks.

seeing as I am redoing the secondary hull, I might do the saucer as well.