Enterprise M.A.C.O

Apologies for the lack of updates recently. I've shifted focus in the last week or so as I've started work on the 'Star Trek: Enterprise M.A.C.O' mod as part of their team. My main duties are mapping and lighting, and as I've never done anything in this engine before, I'm having to learn a lot of new bits a pieces. I'll post what I can though as media releases are made, here's a few teasers;

Lewis.

More Intrepid progress...

Things are coming together nicely with the Voyager bridge now, done a few basic material tests too. The most time consuming part so far has been the console along the back of the room but it's getting there slowly, update shots below.

Lewis.

Intrepid Class Bridge...

As well as the Defiant that I'm working on, I wanted to try my hand at something more complex. The Enterprise D bridge has a hell or a lot of organically curved surfaces and I'm not feeling quite up to that one yet, so I went for the Voyager bridge.

Working from T. Weimann's excellent floor plans (as I did for defiant) I started fleshing out the basic structure, and just built from there. Same procedure as before, I'm just basically using hundreds of screen grabs (I get all these from trekcore.com) and working as best as I can from those. Here's some renders showing how things have progressed up to now.

(I did get a bit further, and had fleshed out the rear wall console and the lit floor panels, then the file corrupted itself and I had to revert back to an earlier backup)

Lewis

Some Renders...

I've completed the ceiling sections now, with just the view-screen and the rear of the room left to complete. I did some quick renders to show it off a bit more...

Lewis.

Geometric Madness...

This one's been a pain, a right royal pain. SketchUp simply doesn't do complex curved surfaces, and owing to the complex nature of the nav panel, I've taken to using a plugin called 'Soap Skin Bubble', which basically stretches a skin over a pre-defined shape. So I outlined the shape itself, then skinned it. The plugin works pretty damn well considering what it has to do, but a bit of coaxing and tidying up seems to be required. Still I think I've had a pretty good result here:

Lewis.

Tea, Earl Grey, Hot...

Carrying on with the rear section of the room, today saw the addition of the replicators. I had to modify the thickness of the walls for that section as they were too thin to accept the replicators as they were. Consequently I had to adjust the wall thickness for where the doors are, which took a fair while.

I also made the doors a smidge wider as they didn't look right. Again today has seen a lot of geometry being tidied up, its amazing how much scruffy work there is buried in all the little nooks and crannies. I also trying to keep it tidy behind things, even though you can't see it, it makes it easier to work with/modify if its all nice and clean.

The carpet also saw it's stripes arrive today, and I've re'coloured most of the model to make it a little more accurate. During the course of DS9 this set was lit in so many different ways season to season that to be very honest there's no 'real' colour set, so I'm just going for what looks right to me.

I also finished the plaque, but removed it from the model for now as there's so much geometry there it makes things run noticeable slower, and also upped the file size a fair bit. I'll stick it back in at completion.

Lewis.

Dedication...

I've spent a lot of time today cleaning up errant geometry, just little bits and pieces that have been annoying me for a while. I did find the time to add the spot lights in though, and made some quick decals, just to add some detail to the thing.

I've also made a start on the back of the room now, with replicators etc going in soon. I figured that I'm far enough along to start a dedication plaque too, couldn't resist!

Lewis.

And Progress

Progress has resumed with the Defiant bridge, namely that I've found a great plugin for Sketchup that lets me push/pull on curved surfaces, which solves the problem of the lit panels around the top of the ceiling.

I've spent a fair bit of time tidying a lot of little bits and pieces that were bugging me too, and it looks like I'm going to have to re-model a large part of the ceiling structure, but there we go, something I'll have to deal with.

Also managed to get back on the purple/dark blue soft cushioning round the edges of the consoles, this parts tricky because of the profile but I think I've figured out a way of doing it.

Lewis.

Getting Warmer...

The last few days have seen the model really progress. at the moment I'm tidying up the ceiling sections and I'll finish the cut outs for the lights round the edges. I also knocked up a quick Photoshop just to test my shading skills and also to put something a bit arty out there. I'll do another one when the model is complete obviously.

Lewis.

So far so good...

I think I'm getting the hang of this now, it's certainly coming together anyway. Still wresting with a few of sketchup's little foibles but nothing I can't handle. That blue cushioning round the edges of the consoles is a royal pain though, I'm leaving that for later...

Lewis.