-Project Log-

This project was started at the beginning of December 2006. originally it started as a way of testing a paint scheme that I had been considering for a physical model of the original USS Enterprise. I had wanted to see what my ideas looked like before committing to them by painting a model, and so I started playing with tests in Photoshop.

The following are early test done completely in Photoshop.

I realized that I had number of 3D applications which I had never gotten around to learning, and decided that a more accurate shape that I could look at would be helpful.

The most complete package I own is Strata Vision 3D 4.0, which is an old classic Mac application. And the most convenient copy of this software was on my PowerBook 3400c/200... this image is the results of my first test.

I started to realize that I may, in fact, be able to build something more complex, but I didn't quite feel up to the task of doing the Enterprise. Franz Joseph's Star Fleet Technical Manual from back in the early 1970 had a number of starships based on the original Enterprise, but with different configurations. I had always liked the Hermes class scout, so that was what I decided would be my first attempt.

I picked the USS Columbia (NCC-621) partially because I had built a model of it back in the late 70's and partially because it was "cannon" (this ship was specifically named in dialog in Star Trek: The Motion Picture).

This image represents my first steps towards building the Columbia.

After playing with Vision 3D for about a week, I was able to get many of the basic shapes I needed worked out. This next image represents the first basic structure of the Columbia.

I was able to refine this even more and came up with some renderings that I was relatively pleased with.

I then collected the best of these rendering into a single, higher resolution image.

As I learned more, I started replacing parts that I wasn't completely happy with. The next images represent those updates

At this point I started to attempt animating my model. This is the results of my initial animation test.

I also continued to refine the model, this is a look at some of the changes to the warp engine.

And these are additional animation test.