Yet Another TOS Battlestar WIP - Page 13

gmd3d · February 19th, 2014, 03:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

Same here.. I want to do some BSG models. but just no time

Merlin · February 19th, 2014, 08:25 AM

Your model is beyond impressive, the detail, what is the poly count ?

ivanhoejones · February 19th, 2014, 09:05 AM

OMG.... just got approved on the site here.... and all I have to say so far is wow! your model is amazing so far... and the detail superb! Don't stop however long it takes, I can tell it is an "Art" thing for you and a passion for something you love down to your bone marrow. Keep up the excellent work!

maudib · February 19th, 2014, 10:08 AM

Ah ha, but Larson and Dykstra are working in the American film industry, and in the US, the "mile" is the US survey mile (5280ft) not the nautical mile used in the US military. I don't think they were thinking of military terminology, just the ordinary civilian use of the word "mile" as used when driving along the freeways in SoCal. Maybe the British fans mistook the term "mile" to mean what they are familiar with in the UK? Just a thought. The difference to me is trivial. Like you said, just scale everything with regards to the vipers and call it a day.

Merlin, my G stands at 11.2 million polys.

Thanks for the kind words Ivanhoejones, yes... modelling this battlestar is an art project for me, so I don't really care about practical uses for it (eg. animating) so I don't limit my poly counts too much, but keep it within reason so I can at least render the thing for still pics. Poly reduction can always be done on it after its complete, and that's where my priorities are with the limited free time I have to work on it.

gmd3d · February 19th, 2014, 10:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maudib

Ah ha, but Larson and Dykstra are working in the American film industry, and in the US, the "mile" is the US survey mile (5280ft) not the nautical mile used in the US military. I don't think they were thinking of military terminology, just the ordinary civilian use of the word "mile" as used when driving along the freeways in SoCal. Maybe the British fans mistook the term "mile" to mean what they are familiar with in the UK? Just a thought. The difference to me is trivial. Like you said, just scale everything with regards to the vipers and call it a day.

I would not presume to say what Dykstra was working with!

but I would like to think it was the nautical mile and thats only based on my personal preference. but I think that the best way for any modeller/designer to approach the Galactica scale use the Viper and launch tube and work from there..

gmd3d · February 19th, 2014, 10:51 AM

but as I said above or somewhere .. I think it could go for another 100ft or so and all would be resolved with the Viper and tube. I hope to test that soon

Titon · February 19th, 2014, 12:04 PM

Figuring out the true scale of this thing is just in everyone's imagination. According to the books and articles it's considered to be a mile long but a 5,000 foot starship just does not make sense. This thing is big but who know's.

Having been assembling the cg model the scale is all over the place.

gmd3d · February 19th, 2014, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Titon

Figuring out the true scale of this thing is just in everyone's imagination. According to the books and articles it's considered to be a mile long but a 5,000 foot starship just does not make sense. This thing is big but who know's.

Having been assembling the cg model the scale is all over the place.

never a truer word spoken

Matador · February 19th, 2014, 03:01 PM

Thanks again for the tip Maudib... I'm doing the exact same thing... Just wanted to make sure I wasn't making this more work than necessary.

For filming I will have different versions of the big G... One for close-ups... Another for full scale beauty shots. Another for battle scenes.

Lightwave really seems to handle all those greebles very well. But to help with filming, I'm going to need the different versions.

Regarding scale...

I first built a viper to scale and then built everything around that myself... The Launch tube, hanger deck, and landing deck... It was all about the scale of the Viper...

I'm just glad I have a forum to go to, to brain storm all this stuff.

gmd3d · February 19th, 2014, 03:07 PM

Its a lot of fun getting back into it.. I must say..

the exchange of ideas is fun..

of course the main attraction is the model work

Punisher454 · February 21st, 2014, 02:00 AM

Quote:

I first built a viper to scale and then built everything around that myself... The Launch tube, hanger deck, and landing deck... It was all about the scale of the Viper...

If you do some searching, there are some blueprints available online of the original launch bay set. They even show the forklift used to lower the elevator.

Merlin · February 21st, 2014, 09:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Titon

Figuring out the true scale of this thing is just in everyone's imagination. According to the books and articles it's considered to be a mile long but a 5,000 foot starship just does not make sense. This thing is big but who know's.

Having been assembling the cg model the scale is all over the place.

I 100 percent agree!

gmd3d · February 21st, 2014, 10:15 AM

I agree 99.9 percent.. remainder just to be awkward.

Merlin · February 21st, 2014, 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taranis

I agree 99.9 percent.. remainder just to be awkward.

I now agree 100.1 percent, just to even things out, again! : )

And... i triple stamp a double stamp, and then ... triple dog dare anyone to change it!

Senmut · February 21st, 2014, 06:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matador

Thanks again for the tip Maudib... I'm doing the exact same thing... Just wanted to make sure I wasn't making this more work than necessary.

For filming I will have different versions of the big G... One for close-ups... Another for full scale beauty shots. Another for battle scenes.

Lightwave really seems to handle all those greebles very well. But to help with filming, I'm going to need the different versions.

Regarding scale...

I first built a viper to scale and then built everything around that myself... The Launch tube, hanger deck, and landing deck... It was all about the scale of the Viper...

I'm just glad I have a forum to go to, to brain storm all this stuff.

Has anyone done the same with a BaseShip's landing bay?

Punisher454 · February 21st, 2014, 09:57 PM

I think trying to design the Baseship landing bays according to the info we have (Hand of god) woould be more confusing than the galactica's. The matte painting used in the show didnt make much sense at all. Certianly not a practical design to hold 300 fighters.

I would build 10 identical landing bays. 5 on the upper saucer and 5 on the lower. I would keep all the deck orientation facing the same "up" direction, just because thats the way i think they would have done it in the late 70's ( 2 dimensional thinking, emulating terrestrial designs that fans would understand).
I would have the central core hangers (2 of them) be a hub for moving ships from one landing bay to another or to a maintenance hanger. The fighter elevators would be here along with perhaps Cylon support ships as well (they have to have some sort of shuttle type ships).

Really the cylon base ship would be fairly easy to layout the interior compared to a Battlestar. Other than a few special compartments (throne room, command center etc..) you can mostly just repeat the same pie slice of the ship many times.

maudib · February 27th, 2014, 10:48 PM

2-27-14

No update today, just playing around with scale and testing out the mesh. I sized Lawrence's shuttle so that the G is 1.5 miles long. Looks pretty good, but I still like the 2 mile scale better.

test 2-27-14g.jpg

This is also a test to check how LW is handling my large meshes. 2 battlestars and 6 shuttles and Taranis' landing bay mesh (30 million polys). Render time was 8 min 35 sec with 19 passes and radiosity on. Some area on the side of the engine sections looking pretty barren, gonna have to work on that later.

gmd3d · February 28th, 2014, 01:00 AM

1.5 MILES.. cool..

there is a lot about my bay I would rethink .. that on one of my back burners for the moment

Punisher454 · February 28th, 2014, 02:49 AM

the problem is we have too many back burners. Right now I'd like nothing more than to just spend several days modeling, unfortunately I only get a few minutes to browse the forums and such.
During my last free modeling period I was just staring to learn to use dDo and nDo (incredible tools). So anxious to get back to that.
Maudib's model is is like hardcore modeling pr0n for me.

gmd3d · February 28th, 2014, 02:50 AM

yes.. that is so true

maudib · February 28th, 2014, 11:37 PM

Update 3-1-14

Having problems with these strange splotches showing up on the textures. Anyone know what is causing this with LW?

test 3-1-14a.jpg

Several hours of work to make this large greeble. It's a bit disappointing to see renders like these.

Senmut · March 1st, 2014, 12:01 AM

Could be alot worse.

Punisher454 · March 1st, 2014, 03:08 AM

Dont know about lightwave, but in Max something similar will happen when ray-trace rendering is done with a setting of too few rays being calculated. Notice it shows up in the corner areas that should be darker due to ambient occlusion.
But of course LW and Max are different, so I may be way off.

Looks good anyhow though.

gmd3d · March 1st, 2014, 03:36 AM

what camera are you using too..

Titon · March 1st, 2014, 05:09 AM

Are you using nodes? Ambient Occlusion will do that in areas if using nodes.

Also in some cases when you use radiosity and an occlusion shader this can happen. I would check for poly error's in that area as well.

maudib · March 2nd, 2014, 01:35 AM

Spent 6 hrs chasing down this irritating corruption. Giving up and moving on with modeling. Not using any texturing, only a basic image applied for rendering so I don't have to look at flat grey all the time. Thanks for all the suggestions from the LW and Max users. Nodes look like fun, maybe a chrome plated Galactica is in the future!

maudib · March 3rd, 2014, 03:32 PM

Is this object in the middle of the pic, what I think it is? Looks like a soda pop bottle cap!big g bottle cap.jpg

I'm NOT modelling a bottle cap

gmd3d · March 3rd, 2014, 03:44 PM

Lol..

gmd3d · March 3rd, 2014, 03:45 PM

Oh my 5000th post..

Now I am a Major

all hail me!!

Senmut · March 3rd, 2014, 10:14 PM

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