My ISD vs Enterprise Animation

[matus1976]

I realize there is a current thread on this and probably have been many, but this thread is particularly pertaining to my animation.

A few years back I made a highly detailed 3D model of a Star Destroyer in Ligthwave
http://www.matus1976.com/3d/sd/images/s ... oyer_6.jpg
http://www.matus1976.com/3d/sd/images/s ... oyer_4.jpg

and also a Tie Figther
http://www.matus1976.com/3d/tie_fighter ... hter_1.jpg

I enjoy Star Wars alot and used to like Star Trek, but not as much anymore. For a long time I have been planning on doing a short animation pitting the Star Destroyer up against the Enterprise from TNG

I have also always been very interested in science and physics and enjoy the technical comparisons on this site, turbo laser commentaries, etc. I think the analysis championed by Darth Wong is spot on, and even though the SW universe is clearly technologically more evolved, it doesnt detract from the enjoyment of either show.

I have also read the "Conquest" fanfic here a couple times over the past couple years and really enjoyed that, my compliments to Darth Wong for capturing the best of both Sci Fi universes and staying more true to the ideals than the producers themselves seem to do (especially regarding Star Trek)

So my general plot outline is the SD encounters a wormhole in the SW universe, and goes in. Meanwhile the Enterprise encounters a wormhole in the ST universe, suddently the SD comes plowing out. The SD fires a couple 'warning' shots and destroys the sheilds of the enterprise and damages the warp drive. Enterprise determines it has better sublight maneuverability and darts off under neath and past the SD, unleashing a volley of phasers and photon torpedos which hardly do anything. The SD takes off after it, launching Tie's and long range turbo laser blasts to disable the ship and investigate (I have a great interior model of the Tie Launching pay inside the SD all ready as well) En route the Enterprise gets heavily damaged and picks off a couple of Tie fighters with phasers, but the genuis engineers of Star Trek get their warp core back online and take off. The SD, in a different galaxy, cant enter hyperspace and cant track them. The enterprise is heavily damaged and re-enforcements are far off. They devise something to disable the SD (some high technobabbly blast from the deflector dish) or at least get it to leave the wormhole, and then to destabalize the wormhole (in classic trek technobablese) no clear winner, end of animation, but enterprise is heavily damaged. SD leaves. wormhole closes

Ok so, I would like to make this as accurate as possible to the reasonable differences in tech levels the different universes demonstrate, but also true to the best of both universes, and no I am not going to blow up the enterprise. Ultimately I would love to combine pieces into the animation of clips from the actual shows and movies to carry the plot, e.g. Picard says "fire" and then my animation shows the firing. Or do my own charachters with voice actors later, but the first version will be my animation only, no copyright dubious clips from the movies and shows, and no charachter animation yet. So I am looking for advice or ideas on how to convey some of these things clearly and visually only (e.g. devising a way to disable / defer the SD and shut down the worm hole)

I started putting together the 'rough draft' *low poly* version of the animation, you can see what is done of part I and II on my youtube page.

http://www.youtube.com/matus1976
as Showdown and Showdown II

This will probably be a long time in the making, so have some patience, I am not interested in starting any big vs debates up, just to get enough info to make a decent animation.

Thanks all

- Matus1976

[Teleros]

Well the animation certainly looks promising, but the plot may want looking at:

1. Why fight? All the ISD has to do is turn around and shove the Enterprise aside (or go through it ), and go home. For example, if said wormhole was near a civilian station and stray fire from the battle in the SW universe shot it up, then the Enterprise might fire first, starting this whole thing off.
2. Different galaxy, same universe = hyperspace should still be there. A different universe however might not have hyperspace (yeah it's probably just semantics unless you plan on mentioning this or something in the animation).
3. Remember that even the light turbolasers on an ISD will laugh at any ST shielding. Perhaps if its main guns were damaged (or similar) in the fight & it had to rely on TIEs? Another option would be if the Enterprise managed to remain in a blind spot (I think ISDs are faster but not as manoeuvrable).
4. To disable or weaken the ISD would require at least some knowledge of how said ISD works... which I doubt the ST engineers would have, and their power generation is quite simply pathetic by comparison, so brute force is out of the question too. It might be better however to have Picard outwit the ISD's commander or similar (perhaps finally have the Universal Translator figure out Basic and send a message explaining things) - which would avoid having to use silly levels of handwavium (or an ISD captain who left his brain back in the SW universe ).

So I am looking for advice or ideas on how to convey some of these things clearly and visually only (e.g. devising a way to disable / defer the SD and shut down the worm hole)

Well if you still want to disable the ISD, take a look at the animation of the Hoth ion cannon striking an ISD in TESB - be a good place to start I reckon. As for the wormhole, well Stargate's always a good place to start for wormholes . If you want to show it destabilised, have the "surface" fluctuate randomly or something.

[matus1976]

Well I am also going for a half way interesting animation here, not just SD blasts away and 2 seconds later the enterprise is destroyed. I am presuming, like in Darth Wong's fan fic, that the Empire would be interested in learning what this new ship was on the other side of a wormhole, so disable, not destroy. Also, by not being able to go into hyperspace I am referring to the fact that the SD does not have any navigational information for the area so entering hyperspace would be a dangerous thing to do.

I had 3 light turbolaser blasts from the SD take out the shields in the rough draft, and the fourth damaged the nacelle. Once in pursuit, I was going to depict even the blasts from the ties having a significant effect on the shields, but the enterprises phasers as able to take out a Tie fighter (but not much else) I cant even imagine a reasonably entertaining animation by making the tech difference any more extreme.

I am assuming that the Enterprise, because it is smaller, is able to accelerate and manuever faster (the cannon numbers might not support that) but the ISD will be able to attain a higher velocity, so the only time the enterprise has to repair it's shields and warp capabilities is during the short time it has accelerated away from the ISD.

I was imaging something along the lines of what you suggested, an ion cannon equivalent type blast that comes from the deflector dish and temporarily disables the ISD systems, it retreats limping into the wormhole and the enterprise then closes the wormhole

Question - the sheilds as established in the SW universe do not seem to extend outside the physical shape of the vessel, as it does in ST (like a sphere around a vessel) is there any place in the movies where they indicate the shield extends outside of the hull?

[Batman]

I am assuming that the Enterprise, because it is smaller, is able to accelerate and manuever faster (the cannon numbers might not support that)

Canon numbers for Impulse acceleration acceleration are hard to come buy so that's hard to tell. The only time I remember an ISD turning on-screen was ESB and that WAS rather ponderous (though it need not necessarily indicate an ISDs best).

but the ISD will be able to attain a higher velocity, so the only time the enterprise has to repair it's shields and warp capabilities is during the short time it has accelerated away from the ISD.

In space BOTH ships peak speed (assuming fuel holds out) should be near-c.

Question - the sheilds as established in the SW universe do not seem to extend outside the physical shape of the vessel, as it does in ST (like a sphere around a vessel) is there any place in the movies where they indicate the shield extends outside of the hull?

ANH TIE shield effects (I think) , and the Naboo fighter/Gungan shields and the Droideka shields in TPM come to mind, plus there's a number of mentions of extended shields throughout the EU.

[CaptJodan]

Question - the sheilds as established in the SW universe do not seem to extend outside the physical shape of the vessel, as it does in ST (like a sphere around a vessel) is there any place in the movies where they indicate the shield extends outside of the hull?

Beyond ground combat examples, I don't think so. The Naboo fighter example given I don't agree with, since those shields were not bubbles, but did hug the hull closely and followed its contours. It didn't just make a bubble.

[Batman]

Great. It's been 2 days since I saw TPM and I already can't remember the exact shield configuration of the fighter. I THINK they were bubble shields, but they were definitely NOT skintight.
I can't for the life of me find the quote right now but there is a comment somewhere in TTT about sitting close enough to another ship to hide under her shields.

[Isolder74]

Great. It's been 2 days since I saw TPM and I already can't remember the exact shield configuration of the fighter. I THINK they were bubble shields, but they were definitely NOT skintight.
I can't for the life of me find the quote right now but there is a comment somewhere in TTT about sitting close enough to another ship to hide under her shields.

The shields on the fighter were indeed hull hugging and it looked like they had a distance of 2 - 3 inches from the hull.

[matus1976]

Canon numbers for Impulse acceleration acceleration are hard to come buy so that's hard to tell. The only time I remember an ISD turning on-screen was ESB and that WAS rather ponderous (though it need not necessarily indicate an ISDs best).

Seems reasonable enough to me to assume the much larger vessel, even though more technological advanced, is more ponderous in turning.

In space BOTH ships peak speed (assuming fuel holds out) should be near-c.

Of course, just assumed the ISD would be *closer* to c, and thus would be able to overtake the Enterprise

ANH TIE shield effects (I think) , and the Naboo fighter/Gungan shields and the Droideka shields in TPM come to mind, plus there's a number of mentions of extended shields throughout the EU.

Ok, so for the purposes of the ISD, as I dont recall the films ever indicating a shield extending outside the hull to any significant degree, I'll animate as though it is either really close to the hull or integrated into it.

[Batman]

Canon numbers for Impulse acceleration acceleration are hard to come buy so that's hard to tell. The only time I remember an ISD turning on-screen was ESB and that WAS rather ponderous (though it need not necessarily indicate an ISDs best).

Seems reasonable enough to me to assume the much larger vessel, even though more technological advanced, is more ponderous in turning.

Not necessarily. If it's propulsion is up to the job it's entirely possible for the larger vessel to be MORE maneuverable. Though as I said I don't think this is the case here.

In space BOTH ships peak speed (assuming fuel holds out) should be near-c.

Of course, just assumed the ISD would be *closer* to c, and thus would be able to overtake the Enterprise

Eventually. The ISD is going to take almost 3.7 hours to achieve lightspeed from rest and THEN has to make good whatever distance advantage the E-D has amassed.
Assuming 2300g for the ISD vs 2400 for the Galaxy and assuming a peak speed of .95c for the ISD vs .85c for the Galaxy, AFTER spending 3.5 hours acellerating to peak speed the ISD needs another 50 minutes or so to actually catch the Galaxy.

Ok, so for the purposes of the ISD, as I dont recall the films ever indicating a shield extending outside the hull to any significant degree, I'll animate as though it is either really close to the hull or integrated into it.

That seems to be the default configuration for most starships, anyway.

[matus1976]

Seems reasonable enough to me to assume the much larger vessel, even though more technological advanced, is more ponderous in turning.

Not necessarily. If it's propulsion is up to the job it's entirely possible for the larger vessel to be MORE maneuverable. Though as I said I don't think this is the case here.

Of course, for the purposes of this animation I'll leave the difference as something discernable, with the Enterprise / crew having the advantage in manueverability and cleverness, but pretty much nothing else

Of course, just assumed the ISD would be *closer* to c, and thus would be able to overtake the Enterprise

Eventually. The ISD is going to take almost 3.7 hours to achieve lightspeed from rest and THEN has to make good whatever distance advantage the E-D has amassed.
Assuming 2300g for the ISD vs 2400 for the Galaxy and assuming a peak speed of .95c for the ISD vs .85c for the Galaxy, AFTER spending 3.5 hours acellerating to peak speed the ISD needs another 50 minutes or so to actually catch the Galaxy.

Thanks for the pointer, clearly small differences in initial starting times and smalll differences in max acceleration rates can lead to a reasonable enough time for the Enterprise crew to come up with something. Though my animation will probably only imply a few minutes of time before the ISD gets close enough to start shooting it's long range turbo lasers

On a side note, I see alot of acceleration numbers like these, x1,000's of G's, practicality wise this is almost impossible for me to animate, the ship would be out of frame nearly the instant it starts accelerating. One would also have to consider the rate at which it's rate of acceleration increases though, obviously it can not instantly go from a rate of 0 for acceleration to a rate of 2,500 G's, the 2,500 G's acceleration must be the figure for max thrust. I forget the name for the rate of the rate of acceleration, is that impulse? Jerk?

[Teleros]

practicality wise this is almost impossible for me to animate, the ship would be out of frame nearly the instant it starts accelerating.

Just zoom out or blame battle damage .

[Batman]

practicality wise this is almost impossible for me to animate, the ship would be out of frame nearly the instant it starts accelerating.

Just zoom out or blame battle damage .

Zooming out to the point where the ships are still in the same frame means you have to zoom out so far you can no longer SEE the ships.

[CaptJodan]

This would have been posted earlier had the internet not failed me.



I'd call those hull-huggers, but that's me. I'd agree with Isolder's analysis of the distance.

As for the EU having bubble shields...yeah well...I have no doubt of that. What else is new?[/img]

[FedRebel]

So my general plot outline is the SD encounters a wormhole in the SW universe, and goes in. Meanwhile the Enterprise encounters a wormhole in the ST universe, suddently the SD comes plowing out.

Interesting, but why not the reverse?

The Feds are the curious ones after all

The SD fires a couple 'warning' shots and destroys the sheilds of the enterprise and damages the warp drive. Enterprise determines it has better sublight maneuverability and darts off under neath and past the SD, unleashing a volley of phasers and photon torpedos which hardly do anything.

flying underneath the ISD is a bad idea, there are turbolasers aplenty there. Plus there's the risk of getting ensnared in a tractor beam.

The SD takes off after it, launching Tie's and long range turbo laser blasts to disable the ship and investigate

Use Ion cannons, the 'long range' TL's are the heavy hitters

(I have a great interior model of the Tie Launching pay inside the SD all ready as well) En route the Enterprise gets heavily damaged and picks off a couple of Tie fighters with phasers, but the genuis engineers of Star Trek get their warp core back online and take off. The SD, in a different galaxy, cant enter hyperspace and cant track them. The enterprise is heavily damaged and re-enforcements are far off. They devise something to disable the SD (some high technobabbly blast from the deflector dish) or at least get it to leave the wormhole, and then to destabalize the wormhole (in classic trek technobablese) no clear winner, end of animation, but enterprise is heavily damaged. SD leaves. wormhole closes

You can do whatever you want, but my two pieces of copper are....

1. Do the reverse. have the E-D enter the SW galaxy

2. Have the damaged E-D run and hide in a nearby nebula where repairs are conducted

3. The E-D makes a mad dash for the wormhole receiving damage in the process, barely surviving it limps through the wormhole and detonates a tricobalt device which destabilizes the wormhole destroying the ISD in the proccess

So I am looking for advice or ideas on how to convey some of these things clearly and visually only (e.g. devising a way to disable / defer the SD and shut down the worm hole)

1. The E-D has to run away from the ISD as soon as hostile intent is confirmed, and I mean in the completely opposite direction.

2. There must be a funky anomaly/hiding place nearby. in straight acceleration the ISD can do 2,300g. There are no official canon figures for the GCS, but the Tech Manual lists a design goal of 1,000g

3. In Trek Tricobalt devices have been mentioned as being able to destabilize wormholes, Voyager had these devices on its first mission, so the E-D should have these on hand.

[matus1976]

So my general plot outline is the SD encounters a wormhole in the SW universe, and goes in. Meanwhile the Enterprise encounters a wormhole in the ST universe, suddently the SD comes plowing out.

Interesting, but why not the reverse?

The Feds are the curious ones after all

I think in that case they would send through a probe of some sort, the Empire would be confident enough in their technological and numerical superiority over pretty much any one they have encountered that I figured they would just arrogantly plow right on through it.

The SD fires a couple 'warning' shots and destroys the sheilds of the enterprise and damages the warp drive. Enterprise determines it has better sublight maneuverability and darts off under neath and past the SD, unleashing a volley of phasers and photon torpedos which hardly do anything.

flying underneath the ISD is a bad idea, there are turbolasers aplenty there. Plus there's the risk of getting ensnared in a tractor beam.

crap, good point. that doesnt make any sense at all, any rational reason why the SD would hold off on firing (and surely) disableing the Enterprise even if it tried to flee? I was thinking that in Wong's 'Conquest' it was established that the underside of the Star Destroyer was the least armed part of it, even so, the little armament on the underside would still easily cripple the Enterprise.

The SD takes off after it, launching Tie's and long range turbo laser blasts to disable the ship and investigate

Use Ion cannons, the 'long range' TL's are the heavy hitters

True, well its a pain in the ass to animate an entirely different weapon for the time being, so they'll just tune down the long rangers and aim for 'glancing' blows for now.

You can do whatever you want, but my two pieces of copper are....

1. Do the reverse. have the E-D enter the SW galaxy

I don't think the Enterprise would be so adventerous.

2. Have the damaged E-D run and hide in a nearby nebula where repairs are conducted

3. The E-D makes a mad dash for the wormhole receiving damage in the process, barely surviving it limps through the wormhole and detonates a tricobalt device which destabilizes the wormhole destroying the ISD in the proccess

The same problem remains, how does it plausibly get away?

1. The E-D has to run away from the ISD as soon as hostile intent is confirmed, and I mean in the completely opposite direction.

I was going to have it dart forward and underneath because that is much quicker than turning around, and it would force the ISD to turn around and make it take longer.

3. In Trek Tricobalt devices have been mentioned as being able to destabilize wormholes, Voyager had these devices on its first mission, so the E-D should have these on hand.

Good I'll remember that plot point.

[Lord Poe]

I liked the gun zoom-in! When will be see a fully rendered test?

BTW, could you blunt the end of the ISD a bit? I see a lot of people model these meshes where the ISD comes to a little point. Check this out, from the Avenger model:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v685/ ... sdnose.jpg

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I should point out that the Enterprise-E displayed bubble shields in First Contact, and conformal in Nemesis (as did the Romulans and Remans); presumably advances in special effects allowed this change.

[matus1976]

I liked the gun zoom-in! When will be see a fully rendered test?

BTW, could you blunt the end of the ISD a bit? I see a lot of people model these meshes where the ISD comes to a little point. Check this out, from the Avenger model:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v685/ ... sdnose.jpg

Thanks! The gun zoom in is my little tribute to the Battlestar Galactica animators / directors. Im not sure if anyone has done that particular effect before in order to expand on a plot point, but for a way of quickly conveying a good amount of information visually (that the SD is now targeting the Enterprise) I don't think there is any better way it could have been done.

Yeah I have gone to the displays of the ISD model at the various star wars shows in NYC and other places and took well over 100 pictures of it, I plan on doing some heavy overhauling to it, the model on the page was basically winged and free formed, I want to redo the trenches to actually reflect the real compliment (x nubmers of light turbo lasers, y numbers of heavy turbo lasers, etc)

I havent decided yet if I want to do my own Enterprise D 3D model, I have a free highly detailed one that was available on the web, but i dont think its detailed enough for my tastes. If I do my own model it make the rest of the project take longer, but I really want to redo the trenches on the SD and touch up some other parts (including the nose) before using it in the animation. So like I said, it'll take some time.

[matus1976]

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.

[Wyrm]

You'll want the turbolaser bolts more evenly spaced. First there's a bunch of bolts coming from port, and then coming from starboard. You'd think they'd be more random.

Also, one of those phaser beams doesn't end when the Enterprise emerges from below.

[Argosh]

A few years back I made a highly detailed 3D model of a Star Destroyer in Ligthwave
http://www.matus1976.com/3d/sd/images/s ... oyer_6.jpg
http://www.matus1976.com/3d/sd/images/s ... oyer_4.jpg

and also a Tie Figther
http://www.matus1976.com/3d/tie_fighter ... hter_1.jpg

Wow! Nice pics, looking forward to the finished animation.

[matus1976]

You'll want the turbolaser bolts more evenly spaced. First there's a bunch of bolts coming from port, and then coming from starboard. You'd think they'd be more random.

Also, one of those phaser beams doesn't end when the Enterprise emerges from below.

yeah unfortunately the built in emitter in lightwave has a random component to it, I cant get even blasts withouth buying a $300 plugin and I wont be keyframing every individual bolt, so the little bit of randomness will have to stay.

Also these shots are just to work out the concept and camera angles to, so don't pay too much attention to things like when the phaser beams turn off.

[matus1976]

I have a small update to the animation, here is whats worked of the next part so far:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwoaUJQdH-k

Also started modeling the Enterprise D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTz9os0I_H8

[Bluewolf]

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.

[MagnusTheReD]

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.

I second that.
And I really liked the render of that nacelle, looks really good!

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