Designing a good starship

[gbierl]

I have been using Lightwave, purely as a hobbyist, for about 10 years and my interests have always gravitated toward the modelling of spaceships. The sad thing is that in all that time I have yet to create anything with the quality that I find here on a regular basis. My designs lack that certain "Umpfh!" that would make them seem realistic.

My question is this, how do I best go about designing a spacecraft? I know that is kind of a broad request but I'm not looking for basic hull design or anything like that. What I am looking for is where do the ideas for all the little "techy" greebles and nurnies come from that makes a basic hull design actually look like a functional spacecraft. Where do guys like Coolhand (luv your models dude!) get the ideas for all the mega-detail they put into their models? I can do the modelling but I fear I just do not have the necessary imagination to come up with all that detail on my own.

If this hasn't been too rambling a post, I hope someone here can point me in the right direction.

Greg

[Freak]

First off welcome to the site.

there are two ways you can do this. First is do what phyical model maker do. take part form other model added it to your own to make some technical do-hicky. Back in the old days before CGI, this is what alot of model makers did, you look real close to the DeathStar or some other ships, you would see parts of WWII tanks and aircraft. the way they put them togther made them look like something else.

You second option is look around the world around you. look at any engine or pipe work on a building to give you ideas.

There is also one other optoin. Go into the download section here and download the greebles packs that member have created and use that to make your greebles . But remember if you do it this way, you have to give credit to the autor of the greebles .

Hope this helps.

[Animaniac]

Yes, check out Jedilaws Greeble-Pack, that has helped me to design own Greebles & Tech-Stuff.

[chrono]

Originally Posted by gbierl

My designs lack that certain "Umpfh!" that would make them seem realistic.

My question is this, how do I best go about designing a spacecraft?

Realistic in what way? Physical Model realistic or Mass Appeal realistic?

There is 2 main ways for designing. One is through careful study and selection of shapes and ideas to get the design your happy with. Lots of books and research to be done (ugh!). The second is to Draw, Draw, and Draw some more until the design is refined enough that you are satisfied with it.

[Falin]

Originally Posted by chrono

The second is to Draw, Draw, and Draw some more until the design is refined enough that you are satisfied with it.

Disclaimer: you will never be satisfied, something will always be wrong to you, you'll just get to apoint when it feels good enough to smile.

[chrono]

Ah, the varying degrees of the English language.

Though Falin brings up a niche point that is very valid on both accounts!

Sometimes you will get to the point where it's mostly finished, but you want to keep tweaking this or that. Well when you get to that point, and it's a hard one to see because you are so close to the subject, you need to stop and just walk away from it calling it 'done'. Then maybe in a year or 20 come back to it from a different perspective. This is why it's important to not throw away sketchbooks & scribbles!

[MaxxRush]

Originally Posted by chrono

Ah, the varying degrees of the English language.

Though Falin brings up a niche point that is very valid on both accounts!

Sometimes you will get to the point where it's mostly finished, but you want to keep tweaking this or that. Well when you get to that point, and it's a hard one to see because you are so close to the subject, you need to stop and just walk away from it calling it 'done'. Then maybe in a year or 20 come back to it from a different perspective. This is why it's important to not throw away sketchbooks & scribbles!

I can definitely agree with that last point. I've got a design knocking around in several sketchbooks over the past (literally) two decades. It started out as a slight modification of a design from a poster I picked up in England 20+ years ago, and over the years, it's changed significantly, though it still bears some resemblance to the original. I've done paintings of it, built a physical model of it, and modelled it in 3D. I'm still not happy with it.

On the other hand, there's someone with a piece in the WIPS forum that has a real world-style ship, using kitbashed parts from 2001, Babylon 5 and I think BSG, that looks really awesome. What he's doing is kitbashing done right, with some of his own minor mods to improve it even more.

[gbierl]

Thanks for the advice guys! I have downloaded the greeble files from the "Downloads" section and it has given me some ideas as to how I might want to improve the models I do. I have decided to begin making my own greeble collection in my spare time which I will share here once I have put a few together.

In the end I think Falin makes a good point, the things I design may never be "good enough". But that, in the end, will be the driving force toward gaining additional skills and abilities with the software and with my designs.

Thanks again for the help,

Greg

[NanoGator]

Research. Head to Flickr or webshots etc and do searches for existing vehicles. Observe the little details. Someties it's signage. (Don't stand here!) Sometimes there are vents or cables or whatever. Try to capture real details. One of my favorite examples of this is the Millineum Falcon. It has vents on the back, but they look just like the vents you see on window AC units, complete with the broken bands. That stuff'll get you a lot farther.

[tobian]

To be honest, I wouldn't really recommend using many of the greeble packs. Most people who are good modellers don't, though they may well build up an archive of their own greebles. They are only so useful because they are laid out as grids, and you're not likely to find that useful on your model, you'll have to break them up at the very least in most circumstances.

To be honest there are 2 other keys to making great ships (other than drawing!) getting the outline right, and getting the scale of detail right.

The outline is a key aspect. Think of iconic ships (Various enterprise, Starwars ships etc) they have an immediate and utterly recognisable profile, and despite any uber-detailed finishes, they have a very clean outline. If you look at most feature films or TV series, the ships have immediate impact and recognition, you can tell it's them at full screen or 10 pixels whizzing by. Beyond this the ships often have recognisable parts, which helps with the recognition too. In most bad films you don't have a clue what you're looking at (unless that's the point, for plot reasons of course hehehe)

Scale of detail is also the other major essential. To nail a ship it has to look like it is the scale it is. You need to have visual cues to let the viewer understand if it's epic scale down to personal scale, and the types of detail you use have to reflect this. I.e. if you have a ship the size of the executor, don't put a fan on it that takes up a 1/3 of the ship, it would look awful LOL. Also keep your scale in mind when you design everything, and keep it consistent and logical.

I find it really horribly hard to come up with detail, and keep a consistent visual language, but it's the best way to help viewers identify your ship, and make it look 'right'. Don't be afraid to throw stuff away if it's just not working. It doesn't mean you have to trash your model, just strip it out, maybe keep it for another project, and do something else! It always amazed me when i followed one of my artist friends how many changes he made to an image, and I mean utterly massive "WTF happened to the painting?!" changes, but it was all a process to him, and sometimes making the wrong decision, or just not liking it and doing something else, is the best way to go. Especially if it's a hobby, it's not like there's a time limit!