My ISD vs Enterprise Animation

[Bluewolf]

Btw Matus, have you ever played Star Trek Bridge Commander? That roll was reminiscent to it.

[matus1976]

Nice work. I love how the E-D did a barrol roll. The close up shot of the ISD's side guns was good too. The shield affect is nice and that naclle is nicely done.

Thanks! I want to refine those rolls and dodges more in the final version, this is just to work it out conceptually. The premise here is that the Enterprise can (somewhat) dodge long rangs shots from the ligth turbo lasers, but once it starts picking off TIE's the SD gets pissed and starts to aim / open up with the mid size guns (those are 2.5m d barrels)

I hope to work on the Enterprise model more this week

[matus1976]

As a nitpick though, have we ever witnessed the ENT-D exhibiting such agility?

Nope, I assume that's because the effect would be too expensive since they were using physical models. I also assume they are doing something like that whenever Picard says "Evasive manuevere alpha zeta 1" or whatever

[MagnusTheReD]

Nope, I assume that's because the effect would be too expensive since they were using physical models. I also assume they are doing something like that whenever Picard says "Evasive manuevere alpha zeta 1" or whatever

Yeah, ok.
I still find those maneuvers pretty cool though - it would be awesome if the actual ST ships would exhibit such abilities in the movies/series!

[matus1976]

Nope, I assume that's because the effect would be too expensive since they were using physical models. I also assume they are doing something like that whenever Picard says "Evasive manuevere alpha zeta 1" or whatever

Yeah, ok.
I still find those maneuvers pretty cool though - it would be awesome if the actual ST ships would exhibit such abilities in the movies/series!

In earlier post someone said the Enterprise D design goal was 1,000G that leaves plenty of room for rapid manuevers like barrel rolls and pitch / yaw changes. It's too bad they very rarely depict these types of manuevers.

[Bluewolf]

Its a good move that does not rely on technobabble or wank.

[matus1976]

I've been working alot lately on my Enterprise D model for this animation, here are some current progress animations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdqkYse2KlQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtc6cHPnf-I

[Darmalus]

Looks like it is coming along nicely, looking forward to the final product.

In earlier post someone said the Enterprise D design goal was 1,000G that leaves plenty of room for rapid manuevers like barrel rolls and pitch / yaw changes. It's too bad they very rarely depict these types of manuevers.

Could the 1000g be for forward acceleration only? It sure doesn't seem to be able to turn like that.

[matus1976]

Looks like it is coming along nicely, looking forward to the final product.

In earlier post someone said the Enterprise D design goal was 1,000G that leaves plenty of room for rapid manuevers like barrel rolls and pitch / yaw changes. It's too bad they very rarely depict these types of manuevers.

Could the 1000g be for forward acceleration only? It sure doesn't seem to be able to turn like that.

Yeah I would think so, the main impulse engines point rearward, but you wouldnt need much acceleration just to rotate something quickly.

I read recently in the technical manual that a main reason they never depicted any fancy manuevers was because the model mounting and moving system for the show was not very agile and so couldnt actually move the model in any way besides simple gentle curves.

Thinking about the way these battles would play out, in vehicles that could do accelerations of thousands or tens of thousands of G's, any visual depiction must be essentially a super slow motion version. These battles would just be blurs with an explosion at the end if we were standing there watching them.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Here is an update to part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkqsorin8Ys

Anyone have any numbers of reasonable relative bolt velocities to the parent ship and ranges? I am presuming the larger turbo lasers would have higher bolt velocities and longer ranges, being obsessed with internal consistency I was putting together a compliment chart, but im sure someone here has the cannon compliment off the top of their head?

I have some numbers I was going to go with, the smallest turbo lasers on the ISD would have 1 m barrels, velocity? Well 100km/s seems reasonable, with a range about the same, but these wouldnt show up if I tried to animate them, 10 km/s might.

TLs/blasters pretty much always take the same time to reach their target, regardless of range. TLs in particular have to according to the "ramp-up" beam-theory of TLs.

[matus1976]

For anyone interested - I uploaded some pictures of the current progress of my Enterprise, been working hard on it, can't wait to start working on the full animation.

http://www.matus1976.com/3d/Star_Trek/E ... prise.html

[Pint0 Xtreme]

I also want to voice my enthusiasm for the full animation. You've got some awesome looking models with a good animation framework for the video. I certainly can't wait to see the end result.

[matus1976]

I also want to voice my enthusiasm for the full animation. You've got some awesome looking models with a good animation framework for the video. I certainly can't wait to see the end result.

Thanks! I'll be working on refining the shots from the animation soon too, I want to have that all worked out by the time the models are done, then I'll just plug everything in and render!

[wjs7744]

Looks good. I'm curious as to why you made the nav deflector red, however, I always thought it was blue.

Also, if I may ask, what particle configuration are you using for the turbolasers?

[matus1976]

Looks good. I'm curious as to why you made the nav deflector red, however, I always thought it was blue.

It is actually red (you made me double check though) I just have it lit up way too brightly. These surfaces were just assigned simple properties to faciliate modeling, I havent refined any surface settings or lighting yet. Once I dim the red lighting the blue will be the prominent color, but the physical deflector appears to be red.

[matus1976]

Also, if I may ask, what particle configuration are you using for the turbolasers?

no idea - what are my options? I was just going to make them bright green and really powerfull.

[Darth Servo]

Looks good. I'm curious as to why you made the nav deflector red, however, I always thought it was blue.

The shit they shoot out of the thing is blue.

[wjs7744]

Ah, I see now. I forgot what it looked like, or maybe confused it with the beam thingy, or maybe the connie refit? Anyway, from those pictures, it seems to be blue and orange stripes, rather than a plain red fill. As for the turbolaser bolts, I was just wondering how you did them. I tried using a particle spray when I was making some, and it didn't turn out too well, so I switched to modelling the bolts and I much prefer them (If you're interested, you can see the images in this thread here). Your bolts seem to look better, and I was curious, since you mentioned that you were using particles.

[matus1976]

Looks good. I'm curious as to why you made the nav deflector red, however, I always thought it was blue.

The shit they shoot out of the thing is blue.

Great image! There is another episode where a bunch of smaller beams dance around the periphery of the blue area. I based the size of the sections right of the published blue prints, but the inner blue ring always comes out larger in these images. Perhaps after I add the glow and dim the red it will look right, but I might enlarge the thickness of that ring.

[wjs7744]

Great image! There is another episode where a bunch of smaller beams dance around the periphery of the blue area. I based the size of the sections right of the published blue prints, but the inner blue ring always comes out larger in these images. Perhaps after I add the glow and dim the red it will look right, but I might enlarge the thickness of that ring.

I would if I were you. Official blueprints are notorious for being inaccurate. And like I said before, it looks to me more like a reddish orange rather than plain red.

[matus1976]

Ah, I see now. I forgot what it looked like, or maybe confused it with the beam thingy, or maybe the connie refit? Anyway, from those pictures, it seems to be blue and orange stripes, rather than a plain red fill. As for the turbolaser bolts, I was just wondering how you did them. I tried using a particle spray when I was making some, and it didn't turn out too well, so I switched to modelling the bolts and I much prefer them (If you're interested, you can see the images in this thread here). Your bolts seem to look better, and I was curious, since you mentioned that you were using particles.

Ah, my apologies! I thought you were referring to some debate on the nature of turbolaser bolts, not how I did the actual 3D effect. Yeah I was using the built in particle emitter in lightwave, and then cloned a turbo laser bolt object to each particle. The bolts also have lens flared lights in them, the motion blur smooths them out. Thats a good star destroyer model in that image you used.

[matus1976]

I would if I were you. Official blueprints are notorious for being inaccurate. And like I said before, it looks to me more like a reddish orange rather than plain red.

Yeah, the blueprints often contradict the technical manual, and those contradict things in the model used in the first few seasons. A larger model was made for the second half of the series, which was different in alot of other ways. And then an entirely new model was made just for the Generations movie, and that was different in other ways. So what does it 'officially' look like? lol.

When I get to surfacing and lighting I'll post pictures up here for constructive criticisms, I am sure there are things I missed.

[wjs7744]

Ah, my apologies! I thought you were referring to some debate on the nature of turbolaser bolts, not how I did the actual 3D effect. Yeah I was using the built in particle emitter in lightwave, and then cloned a turbo laser bolt object to each particle. The bolts also have lens flared lights in them, the motion blur smooths them out. Thats a good star destroyer model in that image you used.

Cloning objects onto particles, huh? I've tried to find that in the manual, but never been able to. It would give better kinematic control than what I do now, which is use the graph editor to set the 'post' behaviour to linear. Which version of LW are you using?

[Darth Servo]

Great image!

Thanks. However, quoting pictures usually isn't a good idea.

[matus1976]

Great image!

Thanks. However, quoting pictures usually isn't a good idea.

Ah, I will keep that in mind, the internet does seem to be running low on bits lately...