Stardate 3000 Orion heavy cruiser

[nyrath]

Every since I was young, I loved the little metal miniature starships produced by Valiant miniatures.
Stardate 3000 Spacecraft for use with Your Favorite Sci-Fi Game Rules! (http://www.veltd.net/stardate.htm)
Especially the heavy cruiser.
So I'm trying to recreate it in Blender.

As it turns out, the original miniature master was constructed out of glued together HO steam locomotive parts. The top of the cruiser's dish is the nose of the locomotive.

Work is slow, since I have no blueprints, and my eyes are not as strong as they used to be. I'm currently using a jeweler's loupe at about 15x magnification trying to get a clear view of the details.

[Beowulf]

damm nyrath, that is pretty small..
The model looks good, however as a fighting ship, it has a awful lot of exposed areas....
just saying....
However, very impressive.

[nyrath]

The model looks good, however as a fighting ship, it has a awful lot of exposed areas....
just saying....
Oh, if you think that's bad, you should see the metal miniatures of the alien ships. Big exposed tangles of wiring and plumbing.

I guess they use powerful force fields. Yes, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Meph]

veeery intruiging design :)

[nyrath]

veeery intruiging design :)
It is off-beat, isn't it?

A friend of mine likes to kit-bash the metal miniatures into more elaborate designs.
Yahoo! GeoCities - lenoch2000's Home Page (http://www.virtualscratchbuilder.com/valiant.html)

[Meph]

Sweet designs, It's very interesting to see these, they immediatly conjure up images of blake7/the black hole/buck rogers/old battlestar galactica etc etc... It just oozes pre-cgi sci-fi :thumb:

ow :confused: just try saying "pre-cgi sci-fi" 10 times in a row, very fast :devil:

[nyrath]

More WIP images here:
Stardate 3000 Gallery 01 (http://www.projectrho.com/stardate3k/stardate3kCGI01.html)

[Aethernaut]

Neat! You're sure pulling a lot of detail out of that tiny little model. The particular look of the 1970s and 80s with all the heavy greebling and weird shapes was a fun time in sci-fi design. Especially in gaming! It's nice to see some of that here.

[nyrath]

Neat! You're sure pulling a lot of detail out of that tiny little model.
You just need a jeweler's loupe with strong magnification. ;)



The particular look of the 1970s and 80s with all the heavy greebling and weird shapes was a fun time in sci-fi design. Especially in gaming! It's nice to some of that here.
Yes, I'd like to discover the name of the artist who sculpted these things in the first place.

[nyrath]

Apparently the original masters were sculpted by an artist named Rodney Carter back in the 1970's.

I'm about finished modeling (73,000 verticies), it's time to start thinking about texturing.

[nyrath]

Again, Blender can make some surprisingly nice quick-n-dirty blueprints.
Hi-res versions of blueprints can be found here:
Stardate 3000 CGI Gallery main page (http://www.projectrho.com/stardate3k/index.html)

[nyrath]

I'm not happy with the texturing. I'm still fiddling with it.
Hi-res version can be found here:
Stardate 3000 Gallery 02 (http://www.projectrho.com/stardate3k/stardate3kCGI02.html)

[Dallidas]

they look great! definately shows the basis of greebleing is alot of diferent primitives!:thumb:

[Tovette]

whoa very cool! I like the rendered fake 2d stuff. I've been trying to figure out a way in LW to do that.

[nyrath]

whoa very cool! I like the rendered fake 2d stuff. I've been trying to figure out a way in LW to do that.
I use "Toon" textures, set Blender to trace outlines, and use an Orthographic camera.

[Elowan]

That's the ugliest sumbyatch I've ever seen! I love it!!

[nyrath]

That's the ugliest sumbyatch I've ever seen! I love it!!
I'm just trying to make it accurate. The first post on this thread has an image of the original metal miniature.
I admit the ugliness was increased by the rusty texturing.

[Beowulf]

might be ugly, but it is damm cool...

[Elowan]

did you miss the fact that I said I loved it?

[nyrath]

Yes, I heard you. I'm just saying that your admiration should be directed at the artist who made the miniature. I'm just copying it. ;)

[Elowan]

Sigh! I guess I should send flowers to my mother-in-law.:p

[nyrath]

Sigh! I guess I should send flowers to my mother-in-law.:p
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[nyrath]

The good thing about modular starships is re-usability. I managed to convert the Orion heavy crusier into the Perseus cruiser with about fifteen minutes of work.

[Dallidas]

can you show us the 2 different ones side by side?

[nyrath]

can you show us the 2 different ones side by side?
Ummm, could you be a bit more specific? I thought the images I posted were already showing the two different ones side-by-side.

[Dallidas]

oh, my bad...lol

[Beowulf]

any more on this?

[Tachyon]

interesting design. what powers the ship?

[Ozylot]

Fascinating!

[nyrath]

Sorry, I got distracted from that project.
Leif Gallery 14 (http://www.projectrho.com/SSC/leifGallery/leifCGI27.html)
Leif Gallery 15 (http://www.projectrho.com/SSC/leifGallery/leifCGI28.html)
Leif Gallery 16 (http://www.projectrho.com/SSC/leifGallery/leifCGI29.html)

In the wargame ALPHA OMEGA, which uses the Stardate 3000 ships, they are described as possessing something called a "hydrogen drive.". To me this suggests some sort of advanced nuclear fusion propulsion.

But no matter what, those engines are freaking huge. About the same cross section as a skyscraper.
(Engines are 45 meters long by about 13 meters wide, according to the arbitrary scaling I assigned to it. This means I placed it next to a mesh of the ST:TOS Enterprise and scaled it until it looked right to me. ;) )

I have to finish the rest of the Federation ships, then I'll tackle the alien Drove ships. Those are a pain, with tons of exposed cables.
Yahoo! GeoCities - lenoch2000's Home Page (http://www.virtualscratchbuilder.com/valiant.html)
(scroll to the bottom)

[Beowulf]

Sorry, I got distracted from that project.
Leif Gallery 14 (http://www.projectrho.com/SSC/leifGallery/leifCGI27.html)
Leif Gallery 15 (http://www.projectrho.com/SSC/leifGallery/leifCGI28.html)
Leif Gallery 16 (http://www.projectrho.com/SSC/leifGallery/leifCGI29.html)

In the wargame ALPHA OMEGA, which uses the Stardate 3000 ships, they are described as possessing something called a "hydrogen drive.". To me this suggests some sort of advanced nuclear fusion propulsion.

But no matter what, those engines are freaking huge. About the same cross section as a skyscraper.
(Engines are 45 meters long by about 13 meters wide, according to the arbitrary scaling I assigned to it. This means I placed it next to a mesh of the ST:TOS Enterprise and scaled it until it looked right to me. ;) )

I have to finish the rest of the Federation ships, then I'll tackle the alien Drove ships. Those are a pain, with tons of exposed cables.
Yahoo! GeoCities - lenoch2000's Home Page (http://www.virtualscratchbuilder.com/valiant.html)
(scroll to the bottom)


Cool!!!

[dfox2]

Apparently the original masters were sculpted by an artist named Rodney Carter back in the 1970's.

I'm about finished modeling (73,000 verticies), it's time to start thinking about texturing.

I have had several of the Valient Stardate 3000 ships in shoeboxes for over 30 years. It's nice to see that that they "aged" so well.
Dfox2

[Greeble_Gremlin]

This is so Cool!
I haven't laid eyes on those in years!

I have about half the fleet socked away in the attic somewhere (from back in the day)

nice to see the designs "hold-up" after all these years
great Job!!!

[Berticus]

...Let me aid thou in thy attempts to raise the dead.

RISE MINIONS OF DARKNESS! RISE AND SERVE YOUR MASTER!!! HAHAHAHAahaaa.. wait.

:shiner: