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Most sci-fi stories, at least in my experience, feature spaceships fairly prominently. Mine, Aquila, is no exception. And I’ve actually designed the titular ship. The ship itself is an Akashi-class repair and support vessel. It has a front-mounted bridge, with windows like an airliner’s. It has a wide middle and tapers most toward the front and a little bit near the rear. It has a large, rear-facing bay window several meters behind the bridge, accessible from the common room inside. It has two large thrusters and four smaller ones on the back, that extend in a wedge-shape. The main feature is a large hollow section in the middle, the repair bay, where fighter craft can be kept while under repair, and other ships can be docked to when repairing.
It’s able to dock to landing pads and space-stations, but also land using landing struts, that I have yet to model. 😛
I’m also working on the ship’s interior. It’s very interesting to try to work within the confines of the ship’s hull.
You too can design ships. All you need is an idea, pencil and paper, and Blender to work it into 3D, if you’re interested in that. Sometimes you don’t even need pencil and paper, if you can think in pictures.
And here’s the Aquila!
@leumeister That is a really cool design!! I like the back view(or second picture, whatever it’s supposed to be) best – probably because of the lights. 😉 My brother has a huge collection of the Star Trek miniature ships, and it reminds me of those, though of course it’s very different from most of them.
My sci-fi stories are about time travel, rather than space flight, so the only piece of tech I have is the time machine…which is conveniently invisible most of the time. 😛 So I haven’t really designed it at all, just a sort of vague outline in my head. Do you think I should actually draw it out? I’m not sure exactly what you mean by Blender. Is it a computer app or something like that?
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
Hey, thanks! 😀 I just winged it with the shape, taking into consideration a few design inspirations. I actually fixed the front of the ship a few months ago, taking into consideration window-size to ship-size ratio. Basically, putting it into the model ship context, the more “little lights,” and the smaller the lights are on a ship, the bigger it is.
That collection sounds really cool, by the way? Does he have the Defiant and Voyager? Those are my favorite ships! ^_^Ahh… I’ve actually got a unique design for a possible time machine. It’s inspired by the shape of the Cranium Conga game… 😛 That’s probably not what you have in mind. I would love to see a drawing of it. And if you’re able to, try and draw technical drawings of it, like a front view, side view, top view, and an isometric view of it as well, as well as an interior.
Blender… Ohh, ho-ho-ho-hohh, Blender! XD You got me started, Rochellaine, look out! XD Blender is a free and open source 3D modeling and animation program. And. I. LOVE it!! It is so powerful, and if you know how to use it, you can make some truly amazing things! I actually modeled and rendered the Aquila in Blender, and I’m in the middle of retopologizing it, to make it a bit more artist-friendly. What you see here is only the rough design. It’ll have all sorts of greebles and nurnies on it, which are the little details that make it look less like a block and more like a Borg Cube. And if you’re able to draw, or think in pictures, you can translate the pictures from the drawing (or your mind) into 3D space. That spaceship started out as a simple cube. Four faces, twelve edges, and eight vertices. The Aquila model now has 1,164 faces, 2,378 edges, and 1205 vertices (the model is actually mirrored along the X-axis, so I’m manipulating less, but drawing the same amount).I use Blender almost every day, and I love animation. If you’re even a little bit interested, I HIGHLY recommend you give it a try. Also, if you get to the point where you’d use it a lot, learn the shortcut keys. It will speed your workflow up so much! 😀
@leumeister I know he has Voyager. I don’t remember if I’ve seen the Defiant or not, (because, forgive me, but I don’t know very many of the ships by sight, 😛 ) but I think he might have the complete collection, so if he doesn’t have the Defiant I’d be very surprised.
I’m sorry, I never heard of the Cranium Conga game so I have no idea what you’re meaning. Yeah, I don’t know, I’d have to see a picture or something. Maybe I’ll look it up later. My time machine is – at least in the first book, after which it exploded, so they have to build a new one (which I haven’t done yet) – placed over a door in an outdoor wall. I picture it kind of skeletal in design possibly with possibly uncovered wires in certain places, and a button pad on the outer left side and a dial on the inside right, but that’s about all I’ve thought of. It’s not a fancy time machine like the TARDIS or anything, just a simple, walk-through machine. What’s the one you picture look like?
Blender sounds very cool and useful. I looked it up, but only very shortly, so maybe I’ll try it sometime. Right now I’m going to be very busy for the next several weeks, so I don’t have time to do any drawings of my time machine or to try out Blender, but if and when I get a chance to do so, I’ll let you know. 🙂
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
@leumeister That’s really cool! I’ve designed several ships for a book of mine, and I started designing a 3D model of one of them, but I never completely finished it. Maybe I’ll finish it one day and 3D print it.
I’ve done a fair bit of 3D modeling for the R2-D2 my dad and I are building. We’ve used several programs from Autodesk (123D Design, Fusion 360, and Inventor) because all Autodesk software is free if you’re in high school or college (which is great!) Mostly we design parts for the exterior of R2, then 3D print them.
I’ve never done any effects like you have on your ship, though, with the engines and the electricity in the docking bay. I may have to check out Blender and see what I can do.
A Kapeefer for life!
Compendium of KP Literature: kapeeferliterature.wordpress.com@leumeister Oooh… That’s cool. That ship is pretty good.
I don’t really draw ships… or animate anything. So I don’t have anything to share of that. Sorry.IMMA KAPEEFER! Til we're old and gray!
He’d better. 😛 Joking aside though, I’d be quite surprised, considering what you’ve told me about him. 😛 Would you be permitted to sneak a peek? 😛 Oh,well, that’s fair enough. You said yourself you pay more attention to the acting and stories more than the visual effects.
It’s this circular dome with four domes coming out on either “corner” The central dome was the main section, the saucer section if you will, and the other four were like engines. I used it as a dimensional shifting vehicle, that could be flown through space, the atmosphere, fluid, or the space between dimensions.
Yours sounds more like a stationary device. Is it mobile at all?Yeah, it is, and I exhort you to continue looking into it! 😀 It can be used to make a variety of things, like characters, vehicles, tools, landscapes, even abstract art! 😀 Well, continue looking into it once your less busy, anyway. Lookin’ forward to it! ^_^
@leumeister I’m sorry! I thought I’d replied to you on this. I guess not.
Would I be permitted to look through my brother’s ships? Of course, except that they’re packed away right now because we had guests staying in his room. 😛 I’d have to ask him which was which, though, since I think the only ones I’d recognize would be the NCC-1701 series, Voyager, the Klingon and Romulan ships, and the Borg cube. 😛
Hm, that’s an interesting design. It reminds me of something, but I’m not sure what. Maybe some sort of starship or space station? I don’t know. 😉 Yes, my machine is extremely stationary. 😛 I made it’s design and functionary powers crude purposefully, since that works better for the stories I’m writing. In fact, you have to dissemble and then reassemble the entire thing before you can change the settings on what time period you can travel to. 😮 (Well, that was in the first book, and probably the second, which I’m working on right now.) I have plans for several more books in the series, and if I get to those I’ll probably have them make modifications and upgrades on the machine. But right now, the inventor just died and the machine blew up, (in the last book) so there’s just a teenager trying to rebuild it from the inventor’s plans, and I don’t think he’s experienced enough to make it work better yet. 😛 So no, it doesn’t move, and it doesn’t do much. There are a whole bunch of complicated rules on how little it can actually do, like the dissemble and reassemble to change the settings part.
Okay, when I get a chance I’ll definitely look into it. 😀 As you know, I won’t want to make my characters there…I don’t like that type of characters. 😉 But it would definitely be useful for the time machine and any other types of machines I need. I’d probably like it for buildings and landscapes too, so I can keep track of the settings for my stories.
"Sylvester - Sylvester!"
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