A couple of weeks ago, I was approached by Michael Vourous from the Bridge Commander 2 team about designing a more modern version of Jonathan Archer’s NX class from Star Trek: Enterprise. Here are some of the candidates I came up with:
Here is the final set of orthos and specs for the Minotaur class Heavy Battlecruiser. She’s proven to be a fairly popular design, and I’ve had Kenneth Emerson of Bridge Commander 2 (an indie sequel to the Activision classic, based on the UE4 game engine) as well as Mike Bremer of the live action sim Starbase 400 approach me to use the design in their ship database.
There have been various projects in the works in recent weeks, including the completion of the U.S.S. Exeter and another new Starfleet ship, the U.S.S. Minotaur, among other things. I’ve also been picked up by the team at Bridge Commander 2, who are interested in using my Minotaur and Exeter class designs.
I’ve been working on polishing my Illustrator skills, which has yielded some interesting results in my effort to modernize the Enterprise-era NX class, and I hope to start developing some Master Systems Display art for my original designs. Another thing that just occurred to me is that I should actually start constructing an MSD kit for use by the Trek art community. All in all, I’ve managed to be quite productive these last few months.
Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, I’ve placed my Last Age projects on the backburner in order to focus on Trek-inspired designs of late, but I’m feeling the itch of the writing bug lately, so that may soon change.
Here’s a project at which I’ve been chipping away for the past couple of weeks. My premise is, due to the age and growing obsolescence of the Excelsior and Miranda classes, and later, the heavy losses inflicted upon their numbers at the onset of the Dominion War, Starfleet began work on a true replacement for the Excelsior line, which was intended to achieve the same sort of versatility and longevity where the Ambassador project had fallen short (In my head canon, this was partly due to the capture of the Enterprise C… I also wonder whether its “broken hull is on display in the Romulan capital”, as Tomalak would promise Picard 22 years later).
Some footage from an earlier version of Last Age: Guard Force Commander. This one contains some elements from my Star Trek: Stargazer mod. This version of the game was fairly advanced, but the coding was in UnityScript rather than C#, was very inefficiently implemented and it had a tendency to get bogged down under heavy loads.
I’ve decided to start chronicling the development of my Unity-based Last Age game, so here’s a test clip I threw together to showcase some new code I’ve been working to implement.
A stress-test of my Unity3D-based game project, Last Age: Guard Force Commander. This particular scene uses my own Constitution class and Saladin class models (Made in Blender3D), based on the New Paradigm Studios blueprints and the Saladin blueprints by L. Allen Everhart, Jr. found at http://www.cygnus-x1.net. This is a test of some of the following C# scripts I’ve written, including:
My very first Enterprise! It occurred to me last night that, in all these years of 3D modeling, I’ve never tried to make an Enterprise of any kind. I’ve made Federation starships, mind you, and heavy cruisers at that, but I’ve never just pulled up a set of blueprints and tried modeling the one that started it all. So here she is! Not perfect, and I took off the texture/bump (looks great from the top, but needs to be mapped from all angles), but it’s a WIP and I’m happy with it so far. Modeled in Blender3D using the New Paradigm Studios blueprints located here. For the texture map, I used the color orthos available here.
A few captures:
And a couple of animations:
Here is something from awhile back– my first 3D-printed model… This, like many of my other models, this ship started with a dorsal concept drawing. I then painted the texture in Photoshop, modeled and rendered in Blender and sent a refined version off to Shapeways to have it printed. I was largely ignorant of the requirements for 3D-printing, so this model was not smoothed and lacked even the limited amount of detail I could have created with a displacement map.
Digital texture paint:
A few Renders:
Some images of the 3D printed version:
A short flyby clip:
Did a bit more quick modeling today. I’m probably going to add more detail and do an animation, but this is what I’ve got for now…
The concept:
A render:
A short animation:
The Skybox I used– I’m telling you guys, try out Space Engine. It’s not complete, but it is an extremely useful tool for space artists:
Update: I recently uploaded the model to Sketchfab, so here’s a 3D version for your viewing pleasure:
https://sketchfab.com/models/3639df9d0886463380d0606d58d4ccad/embed
A Zynecherian drone, intended to be launched from a carrier or cruiser and act as a stealth escort to bomber and fighter wings. Extremely small and maneuverable in both air and space, the Corax drone is a force to be reckoned with, buying time for experienced pilots to carry out their operations and often racking up kills on their own.
