StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I know this may not be the best forum to post this little thing in, but since there's an animation of a ship firing weapons involved, I though someone might like to see it. I've whored it around a couple of Trek forums and now it's your turn.






Animation - Vigilant firing both barrels - DivX - 1107kb

This was a little shape I had sitting on my hard drive, and for some reason I came across it last week and was possessed with the sudden urge to turn it into a little Trek ship. It's not quite finished yet, but near enough now to post it. Still needs some detailing, more thrusters, nav lights, cargobay doors, decals, image maps, etc. It has a detailed shuttlebay behind the shuttle doors that I can add in for pics and animations, and the whole thing is 180m x 48m x 34m.

I basically made this a little frigate that can do a few things, I gave it enlarged sensor pallets on the sides that are I suppose the Trek equivelant of side looking radar/infra red. This allows it to do the science thing or be a border patrol or ELINT ship, gathering info and intercepting ships as needed. It has nine decks, 8 phasers and recessed twin photon launchers front and rear. It will have landing feet as well since it's small enough for easy planetfall, and I'll probably stick in an access ramp as well. Whaddya think, not Star Wars enough?[/url]

Hm, looks like an Intrepid.

I like it, despite that the angular look isn't to my personal taste.

It's got the clear line of sight between nacelles that Rodenberry called for, too.

Groovy.

Well, I certainly don't see anything inherently non-Trek about it. I kind of cringed when I opened the thread but after looking at the full-res images it started to grow on me. All you'd have to do to make it look like typical -if slightly generic - Trek is to make the front end and the shield dish more round. Doing that wouldn't produce a bad looking design, but you might lose the feeling of a small, tough ship with a unique character.

The armor plate covering the torp launchers is a bit odd, I'm not sure what I think about that. Those aren't very big phasers - I'm guessing, then that this ship relies on the torps for any kind of offensive punch. Considering that the launchers probably take up a significant fraction of the volume of a ship that small, that seems reasonable.

Got a nice, menacing look when it fires.

I like it, especially the angular appearnce: and despite the fact that few Federation ships are angular (especially TNG-era ones), this is still instantly recognizable as a Federation ship.

From underneath and the front (like your second shot), the ship's hullform reminds me slightly of the USS Incursion, the ship from the game Star Trek: Away Team (sans the nacelles, of course).

Dalton
I suspect it reminds you of an intrepid because of the size, the front cut-out for the windows and the overall small size, 100 metres smaller than the intrepid in fact but still smaller than the stuff we usually see in Trek.

Frank Hipper
I have always found the nacelles the hardest part of any Trek design. They are major elements that can date a ship right away, make it look sleek or make it look dumpy instead of graceful. I can honestly say that I think these nacelles are the best I've come up with, although I haven't actually made that many I suppose. If I were making a bigger ship I'd have gone for softer lines, but I though this shape suited a small, easily build tough little ship.

Alan Bolte
I figure that the most powerful weapons they have in the Trek-verse are their torpedos, so as this is a 24th century Destroyer style ship I figure I'd give it some major punch by installing some serious torpedo launchers. I had some debate about hiding them behind armour, but I figure that it saves the ships lines from being spoiled and is an extra defence against any heavy phaser fire they might incur while closing to decisive range for a broadside, as Nelson used to say. It also means it's got something to animate when making little movies.

Ma Deuce
Never seen that ship before. Apart from the nacelles it looks a very hard little ship. I need to get myself one of these new fnagled console things and have a look at some of this stuff.

The first thing to come to mind when I saw the frontal view was the Excalibur from Wing Commander III.

kheegan wrote:The first thing to come to mind when I saw the frontal view was the Excalibur from Wing Commander III.

That's funny, the first thing that came to mind when I saw the rear view was the TOS romulan BOP...

i like it a lot. I like the ruggedness of it, and I really like what appears to be massive impulse engines dominating the stern.

I like it. It looks like a solid little ship that can dish out as much as it can take and still keep going. The angular lines give it a certain hardened aesthetic too, one that I like.

Good work.

It reminds me of a lambourghini, with the lights and everything, and it certainly looks better when you look at it close up.

The thread title is fucking funny too, brings back nostalgic memories of school.

Well, I think I'm pretty much done with the actual modelling for now, so i'm going to post a little (big) picture of the thing as it stands right now without decals or any image maps at all. In a few days I'll hopefully have the final shots and maybe a flyby animation of the completed model, decals and all. The observant amongst you will now see the addition of cargo bay doors on the lower rear sides, panel detail added to the large areas, collision and formation lights all around, detailing added to the bridge area and flush vents added to the nacelle pylons along with rear facing thrusters built into the nacelles too.

It actually looks like a blend of Cardassian and Federation designs, but with more emphasis on the former than the latter... with a Fed texture, of course.

I like the derivation you got going... kind of like the path Fed ships might take shortly after the current setting (after Voyager...

it looks like the ST equivalent of a Oliver Hazard Perry FFG.

The Federation needs to have a crapload of those ships, to
fill in their mix, they can't ALL be Galaxy class, etc

Commodore Perry had no FFGs. Guided missiles did not exist until well after his death.

Ok folks, here's a few rough pics of the decalized and partially textured Vigilant. The decals you see here were done roughly last night, you can see they need some tweaking regarding size and placement, but they're not so far off as to be completely wrong. I think you're right about it being the equivelant of something like an Aegis missile cruiser, a picket ship with lots of guided photon torpedos for packing a punch ahead of the main fleet, or for border patrol duty.

I've rigged it up with lights and so forth ready for animating, so once I get the look finalised tonight I'll start knocking out a couple of animations with it. The collision lights blink, etc and it took a grand total of 5 linear lights (thats 25 point sources), 3 spotlights and 10 point lights to rig the ship as you see it now. I was thinking of a flyby, a shuttle launch sequence and a requested scene with it torpedoing a Bird of Prey. Here's the rough pics in the meantime

Vigilant 3/4 view from top
Vigilant 3/4 view from underside
Vigilant shuttle launch sequence

Very awesome.

Some great details with the shuttle bay picture.

Extremely slick, you've got a winner there.

stick a fork in it... it's done! Just rendering some animations with it now, I'll post them in a day or so. I can only churn out about 3 or 4 hundered frames a day, so dont expect war and peace.

...and here's an animation of it swanning around in space.

USS Vigilant drops from warp - 2Meg DivX avi file

Ooh, purdy! It's so detailed, it looks like it could be straight from an episode of DS9 or Voyager.

I require a Battle Sequence! RRAAAGH!

It's in the works. Someone wants it totalling a Bird of Prey, and who am i to say no?

How in the hell did you create such a beautiful masterpiece?!

How the hell do I even answer that question?