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Hydran 3D Sculpts
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Rags
Lieutenant JG


Joined: 07 Dec 2013
Posts: 29
Location: Australia

PostPosted: Wed May 24, 2017 10:42 pm    Post subject: Hydran 3D Sculpts Reply with quote

As mentioned over in General Discussion, I am attempting sculpt Hydran ships in a style similar to the existing Starline 2500 miniatures. This is something for my personal use and for the obvious intellectual property issues I won't be making the 3D models or the prints from them available. If SVC wants to use them for something official that is a decision for him to make, not me.

The light cruisers are my focus at the moment, as a way to refine the techniques needed before I attempt the heavy cruisers. The fusion armed Mongol is currently the sculpt nearest completion.



The engines and engine pylons still need to be sculpted and small details like phaser bumps added. However, it is sufficiently complete to give an impression of the style I am try to achieve. Adam Turner's beautifully rendered Hydran Ships from the covers of various Federation Commander products are a major inspiration.




The fusion beams and deflector array are a simplification of the style used by Turner. I wanted something that would be less likely to cause complications when 3D printed, but still be recognizable.



The launch tube scale to represent a tube to about 2.5m high and 3.25m wide. I have never worked out the purpose of the small domes Turner places either side of the launch tubes. They can't be navigation systems for automated landing, since the tubes are launch only. Observation domes for the launch officers? Repulser beam emitters to rapidly accelerate the fighters away from the ship? What I do like about the domes is they bookend the launch tubes and make one of the defining features of Hydran warships more prominent. I placed the shuttle bay doors beneath the launch tubes, presumably opening up into a hanger that is immediately below the deck with the launch tubes and connected to them with a pair of small elevators to raise the fighters to the tubes.


I primarily based the geometry of the hull on the three section view from the old painting guide for the hydran light cruiser miniature. In a few areas, like the rear of the ship, this does differ from Turner's model. The two small triangles above the impulse engines are the emitters for the tractor beams.


Among the panel sections I choose to make prominent was this section which represents the twelve meter hull extension that was added when the Horseman class plans were redesigned for the Mongol class. This detail, and a few other consistent difference in the sculpts, are intended to make it easy to visually identify on the table top if a particular light cruiser is Horseman based variant or a Mongol based variant.





Speaking of the panel sections that are raised for prominence, I initially made a model with all the panels raised. Hopefully this should allow me to keep the panel details consistent between variants of the hull. The panels are inspired by the pattern Turner created, but greatly simplified. In the same way existing command cruiser variants of the SL2500 heavy cruisers are differentiated by having a large number of raised panels, I will probably make an Apache class light command cruiser with most of the panels raised.When I make the hellbore armed Tartar the panels on the front of the wedge will be redesigned. The change to the panels adjacent to the hellbores should help prevent misidentification on the table top.

I am considering making the spine for the Hydran NCA a piece that can be printed separately and added to any applicable Mongol/Tartar variant. The spine would have recesses that correspond to the appropriate raised panels on the light cruiser to ensure the spine is properly located on the miniature.



A quick test of the uncompleted sculpt through the software for the STL machine is showing the file is fine to print, so it doesn't look like I have made any major errors yet. For those interested in the technical side of things, the printer I have access to is a Formlabs Form 1+. With the grey resin I intend to use it is capable of a layer height as small as 25 microns (pretty much 0.0001 inches for those more familiar with imperial measurements), however I suspect 50 microns will be detailed enough for my purposes and much quicker to print. The beam spread for the laser used to cure the resin is 160 microns.
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Jack Bohn
Lieutenant JG


Joined: 10 Aug 2009
Posts: 76
Location: Lima, Ohio

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2017 12:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

"I have never worked out the purpose of the small domes Turner places either side of the launch tubes."

Stand Clear lights for close traffic. Smile

On the filming model from the '60s they covered the screw heads that held on that panel; the effects technicians would remove it to refill the pellet gun that simulated launches. Very Happy

NCA addition keyed to the panels, brilliant!
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Lieutenant JG


Joined: 07 Dec 2013
Posts: 29
Location: Australia

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2017 2:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jack, thanks the background on the domes near shuttle bays. I am a little concerned the way I have currently sculpted the domes is too similar to standard way a phaser is represented on miniatures. It won't be a problem for my personal use, but if there were some further use I would probably replace the dome with a short cylinder.

Two other quick images.



A quick extrude and stretch to show my current thoughts for the engines. The Heavy Cruisers, Command Cruisers, Battlecruiser etc will have engine pylons with the swept back trailing edge that is typical in depictions of Hydran cruisers. However the various ships that are derived from the Horseman will have straight pylons, to represent those vessels as wartime builds that are being quickly constructed to meet the demands of an immediate emergency. The Horseman derivatives will also have a simpler Bussard collector at the front of the engine. In addition to representing a simplified construction the different Bussard is meant to suggest a different engine model, in line with the SSDs/Shipcards where the Ranger and Horseman have a differing number of warp boxes per engine. I will have some variation in the other exterior details of two engine designs, but I haven't decided on any exact details.



I mentioned elsewhere that my original plan was to 3D print simple hull blanks and use more traditional sculpting techniques to add the finer details. For anyone curious, these are basic hull shapes I made. (L-R) Hunter, Buffalo Hunter, Lancer, Horseman, Ranger, Lord Marshal, Lord Admiral, and Paladin. The obvious omission is the Overlord Battlecruiser, which will need some additional research before I am comfortable with the exact shape of its enlarged forward hull section. The Paladin also needs additional research, since I am not remotely confident with its scale in relation to the other ships.
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Sgt_G
Commander


Joined: 07 Oct 2006
Posts: 529
Location: Offutt AFB, Nebraska

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2017 4:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In my mind, I see the Paladin being roughly the same length, maybe SLIGHTLY longer, as the Ranger/Dragoon or Lord Bishop/Lord Marshal as it adds bulk in width more than length. At least, that's my view.

All the command cruisers adds over the heavy cruiser is three Flag and one Trans , so the size should be almost exactly the same. With a smooth hull design, you would simple add one bridge bump on the heavy cruisers and two for the command cruisers. But you have all the artistic cut-lines, so I'm not sure how to make it work.
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Rags
Lieutenant JG


Joined: 07 Dec 2013
Posts: 29
Location: Australia

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2017 7:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree, the Paladin I have there is too large relative to the CA. I was working with lengths and angles taken from a few different sources, and taken together they didn't work. As for the length of the CC and CCH hull, I was fortunate to have firmer information. The description of a CCH in Module R5 makes a very definitive statement about the extension, it is 7.6m longer than a CC. Likewise, in Module C1 it is stated the CC is longer than the CA, however I couldn't find a stated length for the extension. If I remember correctly I eventually resorted to measuring the length of the top down view for a CA hulled ship and a CC in one of the R modules and worked out the ratio from that. The result was a very long CCH, so I am just going to assume Hydran Admirals and their staff officers enjoy a large space for formal dining and an equally large pantry for their stewards.

As for the panel lines on a lengthened ship, I normally assume there is a significant correlation between the panel lines and the underlying bulkhead. I try to choose a logical spot in panel lines where it seems additional bulkheads could be added without compromising something important. Generally the panel lines immediately either side of the extension will need to be changed and additional lines created for the extension. Beyond that the ship is unchanged. If you look above at how I tried to suggest the 12m extension in the Mongol with the panels, I also had the extension protrude forward on the flanks and aft in the center, to suggest the designer was attempting to avoid creating a point that could fail if force was applied laterally to the ship. I expect 99.99% of people wouldn't realize what I had in mind, but I enjoy the small details like that. When the Horseman is closer completion I will post a side-by-side of the area.
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Sgt_G
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Joined: 07 Oct 2006
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Location: Offutt AFB, Nebraska

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2017 2:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh, yeah. I was confused. I was thinking just CA -> CC, but you showed CA -> CC -> CCH. Silly Hydrans. They have two or three ships in each class, and it's next to impossible to remember what they name them all.

Also, you list the Horseman (CL), Ranger (CA), Lord Marshal (CC), and Lord Admiral (CCH), but there's an extra ship in the lineup. I presume that one (5th from the left) is the Mongol (CM). As the CM adds two more hull (14 -> 16) plus a third heavy weapon over the CL, I think it needs to be a little longer (but less than halfway between the CL and CA). And then the NCA will be the same length but wider.


All that said: Yes, by all means, if the officially published background information has hard data, use that.
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ecs05norway
Lieutenant JG


Joined: 09 Aug 2012
Posts: 87

PostPosted: Thu May 25, 2017 5:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very interesting to see this. I've tried some 3d modeling myself and still have a lot to learn.

What software do you use for the drawing? I spent a bunch of time in the old days fiddling with TrueSpace but I can't remember how to work that anymore; nowadays it's Google Sketchup.
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djdood
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Joined: 01 Feb 2007
Posts: 3412
Location: Seattle, WA

PostPosted: Fri May 26, 2017 2:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

One thing you could try with the domes next to the launch tube portals (which my "engineering-ese" explanation for is that they are magfield projectors and part of the launching system) is to make them shallow domes, with the center point of the radius buried below the surface of the hull (or the boss all those details are sitting on).

That's what I do for navigation lights.


They end up just-barley there, once 3D printed. Prominent enough to register, but shallow enough that (especially with the shallow "bezel") they can't be mistaken for phasers (which was a problem early-on in Starline 2500 development).
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Rags
Lieutenant JG


Joined: 07 Dec 2013
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Location: Australia

PostPosted: Fri May 26, 2017 3:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the suggestions Will, they give me a few ideas for improving launch system domes. I am travelling this weekend, so it will be Monday before I get the opportunity to make any changes.

ecs05Norway - I am using Wings3D. There would be far software available, however Wings is what I am most familiar with. If making 3D models is something you enjoy I suggest persisting with it. I taught myself and most of what I learned was through making mistakes along the way.
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djdood
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PostPosted: Fri May 26, 2017 4:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sketchup is a good place to start for beginners (and Google offers a somewhat-limited free version). Blendr also is free and is quite powerful, but has a steeper learning curve.
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Rags
Lieutenant JG


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PostPosted: Tue May 30, 2017 5:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The first draft of the war cruiser warp nacelles has been completed.





The nacelle is symmetrical, to avoid needing individual left/right nascelles if I ever need to make them as separate components. The size was taken from the old HCL painting guide 3 section view, with the Mongol assumed to have the same aft beam as the Horseman. The upper/lower surface of the cowling currently looks very bare in comparison the rest of the model, so I will probably add some small detail. The cowling and internal cylinder were made as two separate pieces then joined. The necessary Boolean functions were very much an afterthought in Wings, so I exported the pieces into a CAD program to make the union before importing back into Wings. I am not entirely happy with the Bussard collector and will probably try a couple more variations.

I was very conservative with how the cowling is cut in around the "exhaust nozzle" at the rear. I limited the cut to only the inboard side of the nacelle, trying to avoid any issues that might arise from the unsupported walls and also the narrow gap that may occur between the wall and the internal cylinder (if the gap is smaller than the resolution of the printer the two faces would be joined). Both Formlab's preprint software and Shapeways indicate no problems, so I will try a slighter deeper cut around the entire circumference of the cylinder on the revised engine. For similar reasons of printer limitations the fins towards the rear of the cowling are quite thick, to prevent them collapsing under their unsupported weight during the printing process. The little line of grey dots that can be seen along the blue vector line are a test of the phaser bumps.



While I was checking the nacelles in the software for the SL printer I got curious about how it would handle different scales. The larger ship is scaled at 1/3125 and the smaller at 1/3788.
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Steve Cole
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PostPosted: Tue May 30, 2017 3:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice work. We may want to consider putting those in the store.
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ecs05norway
Lieutenant JG


Joined: 09 Aug 2012
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PostPosted: Tue May 30, 2017 5:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rags wrote:
Thanks for the suggestions Will, they give me a few ideas for improving launch system domes. I am travelling this weekend, so it will be Monday before I get the opportunity to make any changes.

ecs05Norway - I am using Wings3D. There would be far software available, however Wings is what I am most familiar with. If making 3D models is something you enjoy I suggest persisting with it. I taught myself and most of what I learned was through making mistakes along the way.


I downloaded Wings and took a look at it and couldn't quite grok the design paradigm, but it might just be the way I'm used to approaching these sorts of things. Meanwhile I continue to progress with Sketchup, whose main issue is the rather careful way you have to approach doing anything at all with curved surfaces.

Here's a sample of my recent work, building on a design FASA created for the Klingons but never released a miniature for:
http://i.imgur.com/MMOvpY8.png?1

(Hrm. Image doesn't seem to want to insert. Changed it to a link so as not to distract from lovely Hydrans.)
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Lieutenant JG


Joined: 07 Dec 2013
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Location: Australia

PostPosted: Wed May 31, 2017 6:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice work on the Klingon ship. I have never had the opportunity to play FASA's Star Trek game, so I am only familiar with their Klingons through the pictures I have seen on the web. The wedge shaped hull is definitely something I associate with the FASA Klingons. I like what I can see of the nacelle, it has what I think are the essential elements while still keeping it very clean and simple. Was there any artwork published for the ship or is this based on a written description?

Wings can be a bit non-intuitive at times, at least for me. I will know that logically there has to be a way to manipulate something in a particular way, but can't see an obvious way to do it. Fortunately there is always a guide somewhere that explains how. One nice about Wings is, as a box modeller, the model is inherently manifold so that is one less potential problem for 3d printing. I haven't used SketchUp. I did consider it several years ago but at the time it lacked a simple way to export as the file format I needed at the time. From what I have seen it looks like a very accessible program that with some experience can be used to make very decent models. After seeing your Klingon ship I was curious about what can be made in SketchUp. I did a quick search for other starship models made in SketchUp and there are some nice models.
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djdood
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Joined: 01 Feb 2007
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PostPosted: Wed May 31, 2017 7:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

One thing any software used to build things like SFU ships really needs to have is some good surfacing capabilities.

There are quite a few packages out there that are very easy to learn and can quickly build things lots of people want to model (buildings, kitchen counters, brackets, etc.). Really geared to rectangular shapes and modifying those.

Some starships in the SFU are really curvy - the classic version of the SparrowHawk being a prime example. That ship would be impossible to build in some software, without crutching it with additional programs.

As I was trying to work up my setup, I tried and failed with a couple programs. The one I put the most time into before giving up on was GeoMagic (formerly known as Alibre). It's a great CAD platform, but it's lack of any real surfacing tools crippled what I wanted to do. It includes a license for Moment of Invention, which is a nifty little freeform (NURBS) shape modeler but you have to build stuff in MoI, export it, then import the isolated surface into GeoMagic. Way too much hassle.

I'm glad that the gap between "easy to learn/use" and "has good math/makes watertight models" has finally started to close. For decades, there really weren't any programs that were both.
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