Untitled Capital Ship WIP

[JediCharles]

Given my username you can tell I am an avid Star Wars fan so of course it is only logical that I would attempt to make my own starship in SketchUp. Well, this would be my second ship. My first ship served as a proof of concept that I was actually capable of designing a ship. This one is proving to be a monster and SketchUp is struggling a bit alrready. The hull has taken shape recently after a long time creating the interior layout. It is lacking a lot of detail but the main structure needs to be finished before I get there.

You can see the progress on ship from the beginning on my blog at http://jedicharles.com/

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Front View:

Rear View:

Top and Bottom Views:

Front and Rear Parallel Projection:

Escape Pods:

Observation Tower and Hangar Entrance:

Starboard Docking Ring (no ring yet):

[Krisidious]

awesome... the Force is strong with this one...

[JediCharles]

awesome... the Force is strong with this one...

Thanks, that's the plan. Live long and prosper... I mean, use the Schwartz, Lone Star! Wrong again...

[Roidsan]

Charles,

It is such a kick to be gone from the forums for a couple of months and come back and find something so great like your ship. It is wonderful for sooooo many reasons...the complexity is so exciting, the anticipation for the detail you will accomplish is intense, and the joy, I am LOL, because it is so great that someone has the time and the deep inspiration and appreciation of a sci fi story to do that model. Hurray!! and I look forward to more posts of progress. Oh... and your blog is also great. It is such a pleasure to be able to follow the development of projects like yours.

You go guy!!!!

Lloyd

[aaronfeld]

That's pretty awesome! The blog showed the interior but can we get some close ups here? Seeing your skill I would assume you know but if you have everything in groups/components you can and should put stuff in layers. It'll help you keep your frame rate up and make it easier to model. I have a model with over 274000 polys and with everything properly layered I run like I was modeling with only a few thousand. Nice job!

[aaronfeld]

That's pretty awesome! The blog showed the interior but can we get some close ups here? Seeing your skill I would assume you know but if you have everything in groups/components you can and should put stuff in layers. It'll help you keep your frame rate up and make it easier to model. I have a model with over 274000 polys and with everything properly layered I run like I was modeling with only a few thousand. Nice job!

[JediCharles]

Charles,

It is such a kick to be gone from the forums for a couple of months and come back and find something so great like your ship. It is wonderful for sooooo many reasons...the complexity is so exciting, the anticipation for the detail you will accomplish is intense, and the joy, I am LOL, because it is so great that someone has the time and the deep inspiration and appreciation of a sci fi story to do that model. Hurray!! and I look forward to more posts of progress. Oh... and your blog is also great. It is such a pleasure to be able to follow the development of projects like yours.

You go guy!!!!

Lloyd

Thank you Lloyd, I better get to work on it then!

[JediCharles]

That's pretty awesome! The blog showed the interior but can we get some close ups here?

Most of the interior is still set to default material but this will give you an idea of what it looks like. You will noticed that everything is aligned to a grid of 4'x4' squares 6 inches apart. I did this to make the ship completely modular in the interior.
Entry:

Corner Detail:

Landing Bay/Hangar:

Bulkhead Section Doors:

Corridor:

Seeing your skill I would assume you know but if you have everything in groups/components you can and should put stuff in layers. It'll help you keep your frame rate up and make it easier to model. I have a model with over 274000 polys and with everything properly layered I run like I was modeling with only a few thousand. Nice job!

Yep, everything is component-ized but not in layers. Now when you say put stuff in layers, do you do it so only the part of model you are currently working on is active? I always have the rest of the model hidden when working on components, is that not enough? I have 1,084,145 faces, is that a lot?

[aaronfeld]

Yeah thats a lot by SU standards. What I normally do is group the similar thing together. My first one I almost always do is Deco. I throw everything that isn't needed and is just to make things look nice into that. It's sorta hard to explain but you can "layer" everything into the layers (sorry if I just confused you). I mean that you can make the outside one group and then within that group have the interior. You could then make a layer that hides only the exterior. This way when you move the exterior the inside will come with you. I'm pretty sure that wasn't the best way to explain it but... Layers are just a fast way to hide stuff and it still comes with the computational benefits of just running a normal hide command.

[JediCharles]

Okay, I understand what you mean, it's what I thought but I didn't want to assume. I do have a pretty fast CPU and 12GB of RAM so maybe that's why it is only beginning to slow down. I do have a lot of geometry that isn't shown that could be removed. Every component and group are solid shapes so I guess removing the back sides of the objects that are not seen could help. I'll have to test it out to see if there is any benefit.

[aaronfeld]

Removing the back faces could help but it may not be the most efficient use of your time. Layers are the way to go however, the benefits are far greater then going around deleting back faces. Thats not to say that you shouldn't do it, just pick the right thing to spend your time on. Oh and 12gb of RAM is absurd so you should be fine.

[JediCharles]

Removing the back faces could help but it may not be the most efficient use of your time. Layers are the way to go however, the benefits are far greater then going around deleting back faces. Thats not to say that you shouldn't do it, just pick the right thing to spend your time on. Oh and 12gb of RAM is absurd so you should be fine.

Thanks.

[JediCharles]

I worked on the Docking Rings and the Landing Struts and decided to try the free version of Maxwell for SketchUp. I might just buy the paid version. Keep in mind I'm new to rendering. Check it out:

[jason_maranto]

Cool stuff, if you want to get a space look you can try an Image Based Lighting environment using a star HDR or EXR image -- or for a quick and dirty approach I like to use a Sky Dome Environment set to nearly black (for horizon and zenith) and enable the sun... this will mimic space in direct sunlight (which is pretty harsh).

I've used a star HDR for this project:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?p=304138

Which I got from here (it's not the greatest, but it is free):
http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html

However if you are looking for more variety to choose from you could buy this:
http://www.doschdesign.com/products/hdri/Space.html

Maxwell uses the "Spherical Map (Latitude-Longitude)" format, so make sure any HDR/EXR images you use are in that format.

Best,
Jason.

[jason_maranto]

You might also find this Substance to be useful:

http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/561105

It can generate thousands of variations of a spaceship hull very quickly to get exactly the look you want.

To use it you will need to download the free player here:

http://www.allegorithmic.com/products/player

This will allow you to create and output any variations you may want for use in SketchUp or Maxwell (or both).

Best,
Jason.

[JediCharles]

Thanks for the information Jason, that will help me a lot.

[JediCharles]

Here is the first weapon for the ship. It is a heavy turbolassr cannon based on the ones from a Venator-class Star Destroyer. I might scale up the size of the barrels a bit. It is going to be manned by a trooper.

[JediCharles]

Bigger Barrels, Better!

[Daniel]

Bigger Barrels, Better!

Careful, Charles. According to a well-known little green Jedi master, one shouldn't judge by size! The model is looking good.

Rebellion for dummies.gif

[JediCharles]

Careful, Charles. According to a well-known little green Jedi master, one shouldn't judge by size! The model is looking good.

Rebellion for dummies.gif

Correct, you are, correct, you are! But, the gun did look silly considering, the main weapon for a 280 meter ship, is it. Yes, hmmm.

[JediCharles]

I decided to change the engine layout and the way they are mounted to the ship to make it more consistent with Star Wars style ships.

[Roidsan]

Young Mr. Jedi,

Do I have this right? The change in engines is to put them on a level position and make them both the same size (they looked different in size to me on the original configuration)? Just curious if I understand you.

Another small question – if I come straight down on the turbolazer cannon will it be able to elevate to meet my attack? It looks like about a 10% blank spot in the barrel elevation angle. Wouldn’t want you discover that AFTER launch.

It is good to note (Daniel) that in this case big means “bigger projectile, or beam or whatever” which I would prefer in armed conflict, not having the mental powers of the Yoda. Side note: I’m making different titles for my Dummies Manual to put on and sit around where people can see me. Toooo… funny.

The ship looks better, and more formidable. all the time

Lloyd

Thinking about ship weaponry, have you ever read David Weber's Honor Harrington series? Possibly the most unbelievable deep space fleet battles in Science Fiction. I will never forget the unfortunate and awesome destructive power of "bomb pumped lasers", yeow!

[JediCharles]

Do I have this right? The change in engines is to put them on a level position and make them both the same size (they looked different in size to me on the original configuration)? Just curious if I understand you.

Yes, I decided they should be level with each other. The reason for the change is to make the "wings" flat because the old ones looked too Romulan and I though I also like Star Trek, that's not what I am going for. I also wanted a trench on the leading edge that would match the rest of the ship. Before, the two innermost engines had an additional segment which made them 20 feet longer than the other two. I decided to make theme all the same now because the ship doesn't need to be so long.

Another small question – if I come straight down on the turbolazer cannon will it be able to elevate to meet my attack? It looks like about a 10% blank spot in the barrel elevation angle. Wouldn’t want you discover that AFTER launch.

Good point... I'll fix it.

Thinking about ship weaponry, have you ever read David Weber's Honor Harrington series? Possibly the most unbelievable deep space fleet battles in Science Fiction. I will never forget the unfortunate and awesome destructive power of "bomb pumped lasers", yeow!

I haven't heard of that but sounds cool. I have a lot of Star Wars audiobooks but they seem to deal mostly with planet side battles.

[JediCharles]

Now it can fire straight up. The gunner will love that...