How to build the Starship Enterprise in TrueSpace 3

[scifieric]

This is what your final piece should resemble.



Good work!

[backstept]

sweet
now I have to redo mine

[scifieric]

Thanks backstept! I'd love to see a couple of renders of your Enterprise. Have you got them posted?

[evil_genius_180]

Yeah, that's basically how I did mine, but I did the deeper groove on Alan's plans. I might add that extra lip and round the edges a tad, but I don't need to do a new spline for that.

[backstept]

I better get in on the fun and start my own thread I'll do that tomorrow (or later today, dang it's bed-time)
I need to rebuild my secondary hull because I can't quite figure out the shuttlebay area
oh yeah and the lower dome, mine's all one piece

[scifieric]

Looking pretty sweet there, backstept! That's a nice looking model. You've got an excellent lighting/camera setup. I had to remind myself it was TrueSpace.

I only do the pieces seperately for easier texturing. I don't know if it's better but it's easier for me!

[backstept]

oh definitely easier for texturing

[evil_genius_180]

Looks great, backstep. WIP, go now!!

[chrono]

I'd like to add somethings about the tooling used so far.

Deform tools - are frankly one of the best and error proof tools in any version up till version 5.0(they turned into garbage then). Also if you increase the amount of control lines the deform tool becomes nearly a hybrid Sub-Division/NURBS tool of incredibly diverse usage. Remember that when you try organic or smooth modelling.

Spline tools - Are also nearly error proof and are some of the most incredibly useful tools in the early versions of TS(again in all versions 5.0+ they turn in crap). The examples shown within this tutorial thus far show the tool being used in an illustrative, single dimensional way. However they also can be used in all dimensions, easly building complex objects.

Boolean tools - Perhaps THE most error prone tool within ALL versions of TS. Repeated usage on a single mesh WILL result in unrepairable mesh, and occasional scene, corruption. So it's highly suggest that their usage is avoided. However, as you can see, sometimes their usage will be invaluable when few to no other options are available. In the above cases their usage is a result of a lack of face axis tools allowing for easy/fast editing.

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Props on the tutorial guys! Keep it up!

[backstept]

Originally Posted by chrono

. . .
Boolean tools - Perhaps THE most error prone tool within ALL versions of TS. Repeated usage on a single mesh WILL result in unrepairable mesh, and occasional scene, corruption. So it's highly suggest that their usage is avoided.
. . .

amen, brother!

haha