Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP

[maudib]

I didn't know that about Turboquid. I see people making highly detailed and expensive resin "kits" and selling them, so I just assumed it was okay as long as you don't claim your product to be an authentic BSG item.

I thought of the celestial dome while modeling the top of the thruster section. Like Titon said, exactly where it goes is unknown. I can added it in without much bother once I know where it goes!

This model is full of such silly contradictions, that I end up just making up a good guess at a part and just have fun building this 3D behemoth and not stress out about being "canon" BSG. I might even do an optional Matador's version with an open-front landing bay pod.

My present "ridiculous" situation is that my only source for reference pics is the Kuhn photo sets. But no one bothered to take a photo of the greebles on the plate that covers the huge hole in the engine exhaust face!

https://www.modelermagic.com/wordpres...erence-299.jpg

Now I have to guess again. Makes the modeling go much slower than it should.

[Titon]

I thought of the celestial dome while modeling the top of the thruster section. Like Titon said, exactly where it goes is unknown

Watch the very end of Hand of God where the camera moves in from the outside of the Galactica and the dome is open. That is the neck of the Galactica on her right side....

The dome was supposed to be above the engine section...no biggie...

[maudib]

Well then I will add the celestial dome to its proper place. I believe Apollo said they were directly above the main thrusters. I'll work something up, but will keep it as a separate add-on part option. No good heaping on polys for something like that.

[Punisher454]

I've always thought it was supposed to be above the main engines someplace.

[gmd3d]

I remember that Apollo said the over the years there where a few of these celestial dome around the ship.. anyone else remember that?

[Titon]

Originally Posted by Punisher454

I've always thought it was supposed to be above the main engines someplace.

It was. We were not supposed to notice that.

[maudib]

Update 2-14-14

Try as I might for 8 hours today, I didn't finish the center of the exhaust section. One more day should do it, and then time to move on.





I managed to find ONE good reference photo of the cover plate greebles. This is what I based this version on.

[mikala]

Crazy pretty polys there maudib

[Matador]

Nice work man. I totally want to scrap my idea of laser cannons on the back and just go with your version instead. Much cleaner.

You really know where to put greebles and give them a natural functionality to them.

This is something I struggle with.

[gmd3d]

Originally Posted by Matador

Nice work man. I totally want to scrap my idea of laser cannons on the back and just go with your version instead. Much cleaner.

You really know where to put greebles and give them a natural functionality to them.

This is something I struggle with.

you are not alone

[maudib]

I agree also. But I am just following the reference pics as a guide. What I can't see, I take a good guess and make up something. In this area, I finally found a pic of the engine area with the pipe support hole cover on, so I used it as a guide

This pic was posted by Demoriel of his incredible professional work on two battlestars.


I use a few rules when deciding on what to model and what is rubbish.

1. I don't do rivets! Ugh. Victorian era technology!
2. I don't do exposed girders. More Victorian think.
3. It's much easier for a CGI artist to create something De novo than a physical modeler. They are limited by the kit parts they can bash together. In the case of the last pic, I used the train wheels as a start, and made something circular and round in shape, changed the details to an exhaust vent and added more detail. I recycled 2 greebles already made just like the physical modelers do, recombined them into a new configuration and saved many hours of work. Since this is the exhaust section, more vents look logical.

4. Keep the large greebles fairly faithful to the original, but ignore or modify the tiny gibberish since I have the design ability on a computer that physical modelers do not have.

5. Trade off surface detail for poly reduction. My target limit for this giant mesh is 20 million polys, so I have more room to play with than lower poly design and put more detail into exposed areas. In this area, I have chosen to put in the honeycomb grid in the exhaust. Since no one will care about looking for an authentic honeycomb grid, I did not round it excessively and saved hundreds of thousands of polys. For rendering, I will remove it and put a flat plate (2 polys) and set it to 100% luminosity as a glowing exhaust, like in the picture. In fact, I would remove just about all the greebles as well since the glare from the exhaust gas would obscure everything anyway. That would save about 2 millions polys in the renders.

6. Throw in minute detail in key visible areas to give a sense of the large scale of the design. This is why the physical modelers paste on all the plastic squares on the G's hulls. It gives your eyes something tiny to scale and focus on while you look at the overall design. It makes you think the ship is huge. You don't need to saturate every square millimeter with tiny greebles ( looks like surface dermatitis to me) to achieve the effect, just enough to do the job at eye trickery.

The end result is that if you look at my version, it appears at a distance to be a detailed, accurate TOS battlestar, but if you scrutinize it closely, the small parts vary from the original, or are absent. To faithfully recreate the G part for part would take 100 million polys by my guess.

I always keep these things in mind while working away on the big G. Just my two cents

[gmd3d]

Originally Posted by maudib

I agree also. But I am just following the reference pics as a guide. What I can't see, I take a good guess and make up something. In this area, I finally found a pic of the engine area with the pipe support hole cover on, so I used it as a guide

This pic was posted by Demoriel of his incredible professional work on two battlestars.


I use a few rules when deciding on what to model and what is rubbish.

1. I don't do rivets! Ugh. Victorian era technology!
2. I don't do exposed girders. More Victorian think.
3. It's much easier for a CGI artist to create something De novo than a physical modeler. They are limited by the kit parts they can bash together. In the case of the last pic, I used the train wheels as a start, and made something circular and round in shape, changed the details to an exhaust vent and added more detail. I recycled 2 greebles already made just like the physical modelers do, recombined them into a new configuration and saved many hours of work. Since this is the exhaust section, more vents look logical.

4. Keep the large greebles fairly faithful to the original, but ignore or modify the tiny gibberish since I have the design ability on a computer that physical modelers do not have.

5. Trade off surface detail for poly reduction. My target limit for this giant mesh is 20 million polys, so I have more room to play with than lower poly design and put more detail into exposed areas. In this area, I have chosen to put in the honeycomb grid in the exhaust. Since no one will care about looking for an authentic honeycomb grid, I did not round it excessively and saved hundreds of thousands of polys. For rendering, I will remove it and put a flat plate (2 polys) and set it to 100% luminosity as a glowing exhaust, like in the picture. In fact, I would remove just about all the greebles as well since the glare from the exhaust gas would obscure everything anyway. That would save about 2 millions polys in the renders.

6. Throw in minute detail in key visible areas to give a sense of the large scale of the design. This is why the physical modelers paste on all the plastic squares on the G's hulls. It gives your eyes something tiny to scale and focus on while you look at the overall design. It makes you think the ship is huge. You don't need to saturate every square millimeter with tiny greebles ( looks like surface dermatitis to me) to achieve the effect, just enough to do the job at eye trickery.

The end result is that if you look at my version, it appears at a distance to be a detailed, accurate TOS battlestar, but if you scrutinize it closely, the small parts vary from the original, or are absent. To faithfully recreate the G part for part would take 100 million polys by my guess.

I always keep these things in mind while working away on the big G. Just my two cents

I think that is the way to go.. I look forward to more and more and well you guessed MORE

[maudib]

update 2-15-14

Done! With the exhaust section that is

See, lot's of exhaust vents make the place look busy without adding a lot of polys. No trusses and girders or rivets.



Lining up for landing approach to the starboard bay.

[gmd3d]

massive

[Tenement]

The most amazing Galactica I've ever seen but you're going to need a computer with the processing power of V'Ger to animate it. Can't wait to see this lady complete.

[Matador]

Thanks for the tip Maudib. Always good to get helpful advise.

"The sleeper must awaken"

[martok2112]

Simply eye popping with the attention to detail.

[gmd3d]

HEY Steve you need to pop they eye back in.. could cause an accident

[martok2112]

I knoww I knoooooowwwww... but darnit, every time I see a new work by the likes of maud'dib, or matador, or yourself, and many other talented artists here at the fleets, my eyes just pop out. And then I gotta crawl all over the floor, looking for them to put them back in. And I can't just fix them in place with duct tape or eyepatches, because then I wouldn't be able to see the models at all.

Sigh.... 'tis a small price to pay for the enjoyment of observing far more talented folk.


Now....when I sing high notes at the Famous Door... er... let's not go there, shall we?

[gmd3d]

Originally Posted by martok2112

I knoww I knoooooowwwww... but darnit, every time I see a new work by the likes of maud'dib, or matador, or yourself, and many other talented artists here at the fleets, my eyes just pop out. And then I gotta crawl all over the floor, looking for them to put them back in. And I can't just fix them in place with duct tape or eyepatches, because then I wouldn't be able to see the models at all.

Sigh.... 'tis a small price to pay for the enjoyment of observing far more talented folk.


Now....when I sing high notes at the Famous Door... er... let's not go there, shall we?

I am humbly grateful to be added to the list of talented artists,, but you have left another out.. yourself..

[martok2112]

I am honored, Ger, thank you. I am in good company. But believe me, my work is very amateurish compared to what you all have done. (My eyes are in no danger of popping out at my own works ).

[Merlin]

maudib, can you post some images of your entire model, I would like to see the whole thing ... : )

[maudib]

Not much to see from a distance. I discourage looking too closely at the general layout since I change things often while working on a particular area. The middle section is subject to drastic revisions as I have not even bothered to look at these area yet. I often find that my initial work from years ago needs adjusting. Only after all the greebles are on is a particular area deemed finalized. But here you go.
https://www.colonialfleets.com/forums...1&d=1392679525

[Matador]

Maudib... How big is your CG model... Since Lightwave works on "real-world" light physics... I want to make sure I'm scaling my lights correctly.

My Galactica Model is very small... I did it this way because when I was using 3ds Max... I couldn't model anything too large cause it would cause the program to crash, or at least that was my experience with max.

If I was to scale my Galactica to "real-world" size... I think it would be something like 3218 meters or 2 miles... something to that.

Currently my model is about 5 meters or 196.85 inches.

Regards,
Matador.

[maudib]

Matador, my G mesh is 5280ft (1 mile) long. So you could say that I am building a battlestar full-size part by part like Evan almighty building his ark. When I get to the landing bay pods, the G will be resized to 10,560 ft (2 miles). I still work with such small dimensions even at the overall scale of 1 mile ( I round parts with a radius as small as 5mm on some hull plates and greebles), I sometimes have to enlarge a particular mesh 100 times in size just to be able to work with it, then return the finished mesh to it's original size and paste it on the main mesh.

Starting on the bottom panel of the engine section
Attachment 6001

[gmd3d]

Awesome work, stunning

I used the Nautical mile for Folkrm's model, instead of the Terrestrial mile

[Matador]

Thanks for the tip Maudib...

When you attach your greebles to the main mesh, do you use "align" or "rotate to object tool?

I've been doing it manually and was hoping for something to speed it up. A new feature in 11.6 is the "Place Mesh" tool.

All my Greebles are on another layer... The downside with Place Mesh, is that you have your greeble in the background... The click on the target object or mesh in the fourground. Wa-la, there it is. But, it puts the greeble on the same layer.

[Punisher454]

I use the Nautical mile as well. The statute mile makes the launching bays a little cramped. the distance between the launching bay to the end of the launch tube is short enough, then if you assume that that is a viper elevator behind the roll-up door behind the vipers, you just run out of room. 6080' is workable for me, the landing bay opening seems to scale to the shuttle just right at that length, and the vipers fit the launch tube diameter acceptably at that scale as well.

I sure do wish I had more free time right now, the pure awesomeness of this Battlestar model inspires me to want to work on some of my BSG models so bad right now.

cant wait to see whats next.

[maudib]

Matador, I manually position each greeble with the main hull frame in layer 1 while the greebles are built in successive layers. I maintain separate layers and copy each layer to a separate reference file for safe keeping. The greebles are never actually applied to the main hull framework, except during rendering in LW Layout where each layer of greebles contained in separate files are added to a reference null object so all the greebles in each file maintain their original alignment and orientation with other. When I move the null object during rendering, all the separate greebles remain slaved to the null object and move with it.

Taranis, I didnt think about the nautical mile. Oops! When I break dimensions down into inches and feet, I assume that I will be using the US Survey Mile. I forget that the rest of the world uses other systems of measurement. maybe I should convert my G to metric system? Sorry about that.

Punisher454, I agree about the scaling issues. I decided long ago that Larson didn't much care about engineering accuracy as opposed to simply producing a TV show. So I just model away.

[gmd3d]

Originally Posted by maudib

Taranis, I didnt think about the nautical mile. Oops! When I break dimensions down into inches and feet, I assume that I will be using the US Survey Mile. I forget that the rest of the world uses other systems of measurement. maybe I should convert my G to metric system? Sorry about that.
.

Hey lots of people have done the same, cough er like me when I started trying to work out what works. it was only when I had Folkrms mesh I was able to scale the models, Galactica, Vipers, Shuttles, etc to see how things would line up.

I think the most important aspect for establishing scale is the Viper and Viper tube!! and settle on the scale of the Viper..

The studio Viper scale was 28.5ft as far as the link below discusses at some length, I don't know what the scale of the miniature is so I used
the high end scale of 30ft I think.

But I believe that the Miniature scales should be used and not the studio mockup.. but thats just me.

The full scale mock-up of the Viper was 28.5 feet long, however this mock-up is proportionally shorter than the filming miniature. I currently don't have any information as to the difference but in the visual effects shots, the Viper should normally be considered to be longer. For these measurements I will be using the 28.5 foot length however.

Here is some added information,, just to really mess with your head

First some information as to where these camps come from:

2000 ft - This measurement comes from an article from Starlog, August 1978, by Richard Meyers who supposedly got the number from the production staff. The British BSG Annual in 1979 also has this figure contained in the article. This size is also stated on the Revell/Monagram model kit. I don't have access to these articles (but I do have the model kit) in order to give an exact quote but I will trust the sources I got this information from.

6080 ft - This measurement comes from an article in a British magazine by one of the three owners of the Galactica Archives and estimated the scale of the model to be about 1/960 scale (1 inch = 80 ft). This measurement is roughly supported by Glen Larson (Producer) and John Dykstra (VFX supervisor) who say the ship is about a mile in length. The extra material on the DVD also says the ship is a mile long. This measurement is exactly one nautical mile. Again I don't have the article and will trust this scale was stated.

2-3 Miles long/random measurements - In an issue of Fantastic Films (February 1979) James Delson interviewed Ken Swenson, a model maker on Battlestar Galactica. In the interview he says "They called them battlestars because they were so huge...It's the size of a small city." (Personal note: He also says the ship with the three film cans is the livery ship.)

Fantastic Films (April 1979) shows a blueprint with the Galactica's dimensions and showing the length to be 3280 d.m. (whatever a d.m. is...)

In the magazine Science Fantasy (October 1978) James Burns writes "The 'Galactica', which is supposed to be two to three miles long, has been built down to scale..."

In a related note and one that I will use eventually to do some measurements, The Battlestar Galactica Scrapbook mentions that Dykstra's team extrapolated the length of a the shuttle from the size of the windows to be 110 feet. For practical purposes, the art director arbitrarily cut the scale in half and a 33 foot long section of the shuttle was built..

Source https://ravensbranch.allen.com/galacticasize.html

Recenlty I have reconsidered that the 6080ft scale should increase by another 100ft (approx) or so to have enough room for the Vipers.