Stalled Trek

[largento]

My first time around with Animation: Master in 2004, I had wanted to do an animated version of a Star Trek parody I'd done as a comic. I only got as far as creating one model and it looked pretty terrible. :-) I eventually reached a point of frustration and abandoned it.

 

This year, I decided to give A:M another go and this time, I've been making a real effort to learn it.

 

So, I'm giving my Stalled Trek (now the name's even more appropriate!) another go.

 

Here's the scary head I made of the captain back in 2004:

 

 

It's even scarier than I remembered it being! :-)

 

Here's where I'm at with the new version:

 

 

It's like night and day! I'm not entirely satisfied with the ear. I'm figuring that one out still, but I'm feeling a lot more comfortable with the tools and the proceess. I've got a ton of work ahead of me, but I'm really looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

 

On the side, I've started building set pieces. Here's the captain's chair from the bridge set:

 

 

Only about a billion more things to do. :-)

[higginsdj]

From a personal taste perspective I think the ear is too far back on the head. You might want to add some folds to the eyelids (upper and lower) but a shaded wireframe view would be advantageous to gauge how animatible the mesh will be.

 

Cheers

[largento]

From a personal taste perspective I think the ear is too far back on the head. You might want to add some folds to the eyelids (upper and lower) but a shaded wireframe view would be advantageous to gauge how animatible the mesh will be.

 

Cheers

 

I'll have to consider that. There's definitely an aspect of wanting to create a dimensionalized version of my original, so I don't really want to stray too far from the designs of the characters, but I'm not too married to them. I think that once the hair is on, it won't seem as dramatic.

 

Here's the mesh:

 

[Paul Forwood]

This looks promising.

[goodguy20k]

Largento, we may need to talk someday. I too have a star trek parody, but I was thinking of filming live action. This might be tempting enough, though...

 

Anyways, VERY cool work! I'll be watching!

[nyahkitty]

Having worked on a couple of full length live action Star Trek Parodies, it's a lot of fun, but a lot of work.

I wish you much success.

[largento]

Thanks!

 

I think I may be wishing this had been live action before it's all through, goodguy! :-) There's a pretty big cast in this.

 

Still, there's a simplicity to the designs in the old Star Trek that makes it seem attainable... with a lot of time and patience, of course. I'm taking the attitude that I'll just pick away at it each day. In May of '05, I knuckled down and lost 120 lbs. Took me almost a year and a half, but it was the same sort of thing. Every day a little bit.

 

I've got the story pretty much narrowed to 4 sets: a hallway, sickbay, the bridge and the arena on the planet. (This is a parody of a specific episode, "Amok Time.") I've found some pretty good reference for most of it. I found a website with blueprints of the bridge (that's what I used to make the captain's chair) and a lot of the props (communicators, medical scanner, tricorder, etc.) It'll help to be able to keep everything to scale.

 

And then there's the Enterprise (or "Secondprize" as it's called in this.) :-)

 

I can't really think big picture on this, though. It's too daunting.

 

Baby steps. :-)

[nyahkitty]

Amok Time?

Wow.

 

So.... are the ceremonial bell ringers going to suffer an unfortunate accident this time?

..... PLEASE!!!!

[largento]

Amok Time?

Wow.

 

So.... are the ceremonial bell ringers going to suffer an unfortunate accident this time?

..... PLEASE!!!!

 

I hadn't thought about that, nyah. There was no audio with the comic, so they weren't nearly as annoying. :-) It would be funny if they kept getting accidentally wiped out during the fight.

 

A bunch of the gags in this are a play on "dog" jokes. "Mr. Spott" is a Vul-canine and the Pon Farr is basically them going into heat. There's little things like the soup "Nurse Temple" brings to Spott is in a dog dish with his name on it and "Dr. McGruff" calls it "Pew-Ree'nuh Soup."

 

The title of it is "Amutt Time," since Spott is a mixed breed. :-)

[Tralfaz]

If you need any other blueprints, let me know. I have an original hard cover copy of the Star Trek Technical Reference from the original series. Bought it many, many, many moons ago. Although, I am pretty sure that anything in this book is already on the web, it may make things a bit quicker and easier than searching for them.

 

Al

[largento]

If you need any other blueprints, let me know. I have an original hard cover copy of the Star Trek Technical Reference from the original series. Bought it many, many, many moons ago. Although, I am pretty sure that anything in this book is already on the web, it may make things a bit quicker and easier than searching for them.

 

Al

 

That would be awesome, Trafalz! The blueprints I found for the bridge seemed to have been done by a fan who built his own bridge set (for real) in the '70s. I'll try to post a link to one of the images tonight when I get home for comparison. (Don't have them at work with me.)

 

Did the book have blueprints for the Sickbay set? All I've got are some tiny line drawings in an old paperback book...

 

Thanks!

[ruscular]

Nick Porcino made a bridge of the Enterprise that I used to demonstrate Artic Pig plug-ins. The bridge is simplyfied to 2040 patches and could be modified to include more detail. I think it would be perfect for a animation set, and I would look him up and ask for permission. He has quite a crew as well fully rigged.

[Tralfaz]

That would be awesome, Trafalz! The blueprints I found for the bridge seemed to have been done by a fan who built his own bridge set (for real) in the '70s. I'll try to post a link to one of the images tonight when I get home for comparison. (Don't have them at work with me.)

 

Did the book have blueprints for the Sickbay set? All I've got are some tiny line drawings in an old paperback book...

 

Thanks!

 

It has just about everything on the Enterprise as well as the shuttle crafts, tricorders, phasers, space docks, uniforms, bridge stations, medical equipment, well, the list goes on.

 

When I get home tonight, I will scan a few things and post it here for you to take a look at. Then if it is what you are looking for and there is anything you need, just ask.

 

Al

[Tralfaz]

Here are some of the blueprints. Unfortunately, there weren't any really good close-up details of Sick-Bay, just an overview of it.

 

Al

 

 

 

 

[largento]

You, sir, are a gentleman!

 

Thank you!

 

These are great! Especially the details on the consoles. I think it will be really trippy to move around the bridge set when it's finished.

 

That is a bummer about the sickbay, but it's not nearly as familiar to folks as the bridge set, so I think cheating will be okay there.

 

These are definitely more polished than the ones I found online...

 

Thanks again!

[largento]

Nick Porcino made a bridge of the Enterprise that I used to demonstrate Artic Pig plug-ins. The bridge is simplyfied to 2040 patches and could be modified to include more detail. I think it would be perfect for a animation set, and I would look him up and ask for permission. He has quite a crew as well fully rigged.

 

Thanks for the tip. I found Nick Porcino's website and checked out the models. The bridge set is impressive in it's simplicity and his Enterprise model is fantastically cool. He does have a disclaimer against the models being used in anything of a commercial nature, though. I'll most likely never see a cent from this, but I'd like to keep the option open to sell DVDs or "photo"-comics of this at conventions someday.

 

It's really cool that he's got them available. The Enterprise model is a wonder. The way the lights reflect on it and the level of detail. Definitely something I'm going to have to study.

 

Here's the url for his download page, if anyone else is interested:

 

http://meshula.net/daystrom/1701/1701_4.html

[largento]

Here's an update of how the Captain Krok model is coming.

 

I had a time trying to figure out how to model the hair. I had a bunch of false starts before I finally got it to go the way I wanted. There's room for improvement, but it's coming out way better than I thought it would, so I'm not focusing on the negatives. :-)

 

I just put in a temporary bump map for the ear lobe wrinkles. I think that'll work.

 

Now onto the rest of him...

 

[Zaryin]

Looking great so far. Although I have to say he looks a little like a caracture of Conan O'brien.

[largento]

Looking great so far. Although I have to say he looks a little like a caracture of Conan O'brien.

 

Holy Cow, he does!

[nyahkitty]

The captain is looking good so far.

The only thing I did notice might be that there is a little bit of pinching at the 4 corners of the mouth.

This is more noticable in the front view and the angled view.

 

Unless this detail is intentional, in which case please disregard.

You're doing great!

[mfortunato]

Looks fantastic! Wonderful job on the look of the captain. I think Conan would make an excellent captain!

[largento]

Thanks, mfortunato and nyah!

 

The captain is looking good so far.

The only thing I did notice might be that there is a little bit of pinching at the 4 corners of the mouth.

This is more noticeable in the front view and the angled view.

 

Unless this detail is intentional, in which case please disregard.

You're doing great!

 

 

I see what you're talking about, nyah. I'll get in there tonight and figure out how to fix that. There's also some awkwardness still with the front of the hair that needs some serious attention.

 

If this Trek parody doesn't work out, maybe I can just stick a flashlight under the head and do "In the Year 2000" gags. :-)

[largento]

Still pushing along.

 

I'm pausing on my Captain Krok for a breather and to figure out what I'm going to do with his height. In the comic, I made him really short to play up the contrast with Mr. Spott who was reall tall and thin. I did recognize, though, that I kind of cheated his shape between pages (and some times even between panels) by sometimes making him proportionately short and sometimes taking height out of his legs. I definitely want to have the contrast, but I'm going to have to commit to just one body shape for this.

 

Just to keep the ball rolling, I started building a type 2 phaser. (The type 1 phaser is the black "box" on the top of it. I did make it complete, so it can be used separately.) They didn't use any phasers in "Amok Time," but how can you do a Trek parody without having a phaser? :-)

 

There's a part of me that thinks of this as making a virtual toybox and filling it up with cool Star Trek toys. :-)

 

[Zaryin]

Ooooo. Nice phaser so far. I really like it.

[largento]

Ooooo. Nice phaser so far. I really like it.

 

Thanks, Zaryin!

 

I think the TOS phaser may be one of the coolest-looking props from any tv show ever. I was really disappointed when TNG went with those "dustbuster" phasers.

[higginsdj]

Yeah but those mini dustbusters are more ergonomically sound

 

Cheers

[Tralfaz]

Great job on the phaser. You nailed it the look and feel of it.

 

Also like the look of the Captain.

 

I was really disappointed when TNG went with those "dustbuster" phasers.

 

And what about those hand held flash light thingies in the TNG? They had to be the most difficult thing to point, the way you had to cup your hand around it and hold it up at head level!

 

Except for the big knobs on computer consoles (ala engineering), I preferred the design and style of the original Star Trek than any of its incarnations.

 

Al

[largento]

Thanks, Al! I'm with you about the Original Series stuff... although, I would say that the movie Enterprise is the best-looking of the ships.

 

I'm slowly picking away at this. I've just put together the Captain Krok figure. There's some things I see with regards to the seam that are going to need some attention, but it's getting there. I'm figuring that after I've done a few people models, I may end up coming back and re-doing the whole figure.

 

Here's a render and a quick turnaround...

 

 

krokspin_s.mov

[goodguy20k]

Nice work! Only comments are:

 

Chest looks a bit... Boxey. Squeeze the diaphram a bit, I think.

 

The pants are distracting. Either they shouldn't flare so much, or need to be longer. (Or maybe his knees are too skinny?)

 

The uh... Boots like like girl's boots. If that's intentional, it's funny. If not, lower the heal and make the toe bigger.

 

That's all I see, right now. Keep up the great work!

[largento]

Nice work! Only comments are:

 

Chest looks a bit... Boxey. Squeeze the diaphram a bit, I think.

 

The pants are distracting. Either they shouldn't flare so much, or need to be longer. (Or maybe his knees are too skinny?)

 

The uh... Boots like like girl's boots. If that's intentional, it's funny. If not, lower the heal and make the toe bigger.

 

That's all I see, right now. Keep up the great work!

 

Thanks! I think I need to figure out how to stretch the chest out in the Z. It seems too wide and not deep enough. It looks okay in 3/4 view, but it gets weird when it goes from being wide from the front/back to thin in the side view. I'm going to have to figure that out.

 

I'm definitely wanting to emphasize the pants. I'm parodying the look of the actual costumes. I'm not thrilled with the boots, but they do have to have heels and a fairly pointy toe (again to lampoon the actual uniforms). I used a picture of latin boots as my guide and they are kind of feminine looking.

[largento]

Here's a photo of the actual costumes from the show (you can see how short the pants are and get an idea of how they flared out).

 

[LeeAnderson]

Wow!

 

That last render looks fantastic! I love the style that you have captured here! What's the insignia on his chest? I have a feeling it's somthing funny

 

Lee

[largento]

Wow!

 

That last render looks fantastic! I love the style that you have captured here! What's the insignia on his chest? I have a feeling it's somthing funny

 

Lee

 

Thank you, Lee! I take that as high praise coming from you!

 

The insignia has a stylized "2P" on it (for the ship, Secondprize). I did think it would be funny to make the symbol on Mr. Spott's be "OrNot" and then Dr. McGruff's be "2P" so that you get "2P OrNot 2P" when they are lined up. :-)

 

I'm sure nobody will be able to read it, though...

 

My thought was to put in little things like that on the props... like there are two buttons on the Captain's chair marked "Butt Warmer" with "Left Cheek" and "Right Cheek" under each. :-)

 

Again, nobody'll ever see them, but I get a chuckle out of them. :-)

[largento]

Question for the gurus:

 

I'm getting a white patch on Krok's right wrist. I noticed on the renders I did yesterday and it showed up on this one I did this morning.

 

 

I looked at the model last night and the normals are facing outwards in that area and it's not visible as being white in the modelling window. It's also a 4-point patch. Any idea on what's happening and how I can fix it? It's just a duplicate of the left hand, which doesn't have this showing up.

[largento]

Whew! It's taken awhile, but I'm getting close to finishing Captain Krok. He's changed a fair amount and probably will change a little more before all is said and done.

 

 

I'm really feeling good about it. This is the first time I've ever modeled and rigged a character to this point and I'm like a kid at Christmas with it. :-) Rigging was something that was really giving me pause, but I knuckled down and followed Barry's tutorial and I'm now feeling mildly competent. :-) A BIG improvement. :-)

 

I haven't done any smart skinning yet. Just from playing around with the model, the tough area is where the legs join. When I put him into a sitting position, it deforms badly. I may have to look at remodelling his abdomen to improve that as well as smart skinning.

 

I'm really looking forward to doing the facial poses, so I can really bring him to life.

 

As a mini-goal, I'm aiming at doing one little scene from the story first. It's one of the gags during the Captain Krok/Mr. Spott fight. Obviously, I'll have to create Mr. Spott and there's a couple of props and part of the Vulcanine set. Hopefully I can get those finished in the next month or so.

[largento]

Still chipping away at this...

 

Captain Krok is pretty much done. He's all rigged and has all his facial poses and mouth shapes. I'm finding that by mixing pose sliders, I can get some really cool range with his eyebrows and expressions.

 

 

Now, I'm working on Mr. Spott. Here's where I'm at with the head. I've got my work cut out for me with the ears. I've also got to work out his hair. The drawings I did always put some gaps in the hair hanging over the forehead and I want to accomplish the same with this version. I also want to try to mess with a specularity map to see if I can get that "highlight ring" around the hair.

 

 

It's gonna' be really cool when I can get the two characters together in a scene!

[the_black_mage]

dude that is so freaking funny!!!!

[williamgaylord]

Spott on! (Sorry, couldn't resist...) But really, I think the Spott character is a great characature.

 

I have "ears for the taking", by the way, but they are a bit too detailed for this kind of character: Ears

 

Might at least give you some ideas. Some day I need to work out a simplified version for more stylized or cartoony characters.

 

Anyway, this project of yours sounds very interesting and so far the characters are looking great.

[LeeAnderson]

This is looking better all of the time! That last Kirk render is great! For the longest time I had a poster of William Shatner in that exact pose in my room! "Spott" is also looking great, I love those little slits that he has for eyes. I wonder if they'd look better if they curved downwards a little (like a Leonard Nemoy's eyes), that might lose the cool cartoon style, though.

 

Keep it up, for all our sakes!

 

Lee

[largento]

Thanks, guys! Your encouragement is really appreciated!

 

LOL@ "Spott On," Bill. And I did find your Orc Ear on the Extras DVD and looked at it when I went to start to model the ear. It's really well done, but like you point out, *too* well done for something cartoony like this. Something that never occured to me to even try in the drawings is to actually give them the ability to turn like dog ears. With this being animated, I could show the movement and it would be pretty funny. There's the scene on Vulcananine where Spott hears the Marriage Party approaching. I just had him cup his ear in the comic, but I could have his ears turn forward and have him cock his head to the side like a dog. :-)

 

I've got to go back and fix some of the definition in the eyes, Lee. When I applied the Porcelain material, they lost a lot of detail. Spott's expression stays pretty much the same all of the time, so he's always squinting. I like the idea that it makes him even more alien and weird that you can't see his eyes. (His eyeballs are entirely black.) It also makes him look perpetually annoyed.

 

I'm definitely in this for the long haul. A little bit each day and eventually I'll get there!

[Darkwing]

Keep it up, I (being a fan of trek) look forward to seeing the final product (which I hope is an animated film) BTW how are the interior sets coming, or have you worked on them?

[Logrus]

Mr SPott looks so freakin awesome. I cant wait to see them in a scene together,

[largento]

Thanks, Logrus!

 

Keep it up, I (being a fan of trek) look forward to seeing the final product (which I hope is an animated film) BTW how are the interior sets coming, or have you worked on them?

 

The plan's to create both an animated short (6 or so minutes) and a "photo" comic.

 

I've done some on and off work on the bridge, but lately have been focused on getting the models, set and props finished for one scene, just as a test to get my feet wet with animating. This scene takes place down on Vulcanine.

 

I've got six main characters to model and then a variety of background characters. I figure I'll work on the sets and props in-between them and then finish them up after the character modeling is done.

 

I'm definitely still in the very early stages of this. :-)

[Tacku]

Largento, I'm impressed of your charecter modeling. I'm a big fan of Trek. I can make a good Enterprise, but I'm terrible at charecter modeling. How did you do it?

 

I especilly like Krok. And Mr. Spott's eyebrows and ears are hallarious. Keep up the good work!

[largento]

Largento, I'm impressed of your charecter modeling. I'm a big fan of Trek. I can make a good Enterprise, but I'm terrible at charecter modeling. How did you do it?

 

I especilly like Krok. And Mr. Spott's eyebrows and ears are hallarious. Keep up the good work!

 

Thanks, Tacku!

 

I hate to say it, since it makes me sound like I'm doing a commercial, but I bought Barry Zundel's training DVDs and just followed along with how he created the character in them. I've found that the basic technique seems to work for modeling anything: you make a spline for the outline of the side view and a spline for the outline of the front view and then work on creating the splines that go inbetween.

 

The only thing I've done different from Barry's DVD is do the head first and then the body. (He does the body first.)

 

I really am just a beginner at this 3D stuff and there are plenty of folks out there who are way more experienced than I who should be the ones to go to for advice.

 

I'm still figuring it out. :-)

[williamgaylord]

I made more of a cartoon ear. The trick is to basically start with four splines looped into a "9" and then fill in the gaps. No ear hole, which really complicates things. Here are a couple of pictures to show the basic mesh. You can probably improve on this. Your Spott ears actually look good! And Krok's are pretty decent as is. I can post the ear model if you want it, but I can see you are quite able to make one.

[largento]

Cool, Bill!

 

My Krok ear is a fake! It's got a flat panel in it with a bump map. :-)

 

Yes, please do post it!

 

Thanks!

[dborruso]

This work is looking great. Seeing your old model it really is like night and day. You improved so much. Your characters are looking successful. The only thing is with the arms, maybe look too obviously lathed and symmetrical. Maybe a little more shaping to them. Unless it's just a stylized choice. Looking great. Keep it up.

[Rodney]

Just thought I'd drop in and complement your work. Very nice!

You are off to a great start.

 

The photo comic has got my attention.

What fun!

[largento]

Hey thanks, guys! The positive feedback is really helping to motivate me to keep at this.

 

Not sure I'm seeing what you're seeing with the arms, Dennis, but I'll go back and take a look. I am shooting for more cartoony than realistic, but I don't want things to look wrong. I guess the balance is sort of my own sensibility (and/or inadequacy.) :-)

 

The comic is the thing I think I'll have the most fun with, Rodney. Don't get me wrong, I want to see this animated, but having all of the characters, props and sets in 3D offers so many possibilities with how the book can be set up and the story told. I'm really looking forward to when I have all of my "toys" finished and can start playing with them. :-)