I thought it might be interesting to document the story of how this crazy image got built so here goes.

Day 1.

(Primary assembly of parts).
This day was pretty straightforward as I had to collect several components from other projects into this one.

The first thing to do was to go and find the latest version of the Enterprise that I have. This was a little more of a trick than I had realized as I have updated several versions in different files. Eventually though I compiled the latest version and copied it into a separate file for manipulation.

Then I pulled up an old model I made for the engine internals. This was done a long time ago and had some raydream components.

I got rid of the outer casing I originally built for that model and constructed a whole new outer frame and ribs resulting in what we see in the final render. I learned in this process when comparing to my latest model that I do have a small taper in the engine case which I had thought I had missed. The real model (meaning the actual real model of the Enterprise in the Smithsonian) has more tapered engines than mine but I'm glad I do include that detail (albeit too subtle). The engine case was built in Amapi and I left that program in the US in storage on accident when I moved to Japan so I can't fix it now. I really regret it too because the secondary hull was also made in Amapi and I'd really like to do some major work on it. Carrara can't handle it and I'm really skeptical that Hexagon can deal with what I want. Maybe, we'll see, I'm a big chicken when it comes to learning Hexagon (why I don't know since I paid for it and all).

Then I went to my Constellation model and collected all the ribbing and internals I built for the primary hull copied them into the Enterprise model. The Constellation stuff was textured to look burned and damaged so I fixed all that to look nice.

Then I brought all that stuff together. I copied the primary hull mesh which is a spline object, converted it to a vertex object and removed several panels. Then I copied this new starship model into a new file with my new drydock model and that was the first day (took about six hours or so which included a lot of test rendering and model updating and organization).

Day 2 I really thought those dorky little shuttles I built in Raydream about 84.6 years ago were just too dorky so I built new ones. This took about 1.5 hours. They're really low detail and they're not like the real thing but hey, these are construction shuttles in drydock. It's art! In all cases, these shuttles look nicer and have more details in the right places and are significantly more spiff.

I also changed some of the smaller parts on the drydock model as I thought some of the original stuff was a shade silly (yeah, I know, I built that model only four days ago and I'm not happy with it!). Fooled around with the blue panels some but I'm still not happy.

Re-textured the starship primary hull completely and re-did all that paneling. The original thing I did with the paneling was just too much so it needed work. In addition, I did some manipulation of the internal decking and dialed it. Adjusted the lights a lot by adding some additional target helpers and spread them out some. I also adjusted their angles and falloffs a LOT. I built a frame for the starboard engine pylon and added conduits to the pylon internals.

Here's a collection of what things looked like at the end of day 2.

Day 3
The model and render is really coming together now it's time to get into the details and get done! I have a deadline for this render which is December 22nd. December 23rd starts my Christmas break and I have a recent tradition to uphold. For the last two years I have devoted my Christmas break to some big Carrara project. Millenium Falcon - 2008. Snowspeeder and At-At scene - 2009. This year will be a new Star Destroyer model! Anyway, I have to get this thing done by then (can't cut into the schedule for crying out loud!, this is a SERIOUS hobby!, how else am I going to get stuff done?).

So I started a list of things to finish. Here's what I did on day 3.

1. I fixed the fact that the starboard engine pylon was sticking into the shuttle bay (oops!). Then I noticed that somehow I had accidentally moved the entire starboard engine to the right and that made a huge mess to get it all straightened up again (how does this stuff happen!).
2. I removed a few more panels on the primary hull. The window texture was overlapping on some of the edges and it looked weird so I got rid of them (nit pick).
3. I added an additional central deck to the primary hull and several pie shape dividers. I textured this with some squares. I emailed some test renders to Gavotte and dang if he didn't send me a list of things he'd do. I thought about it and some of the ideas sounded pretty cool and I couldn't resist. This deck was one of his ideas so here we go. To be clear, he gave me some really great ideas which I think will make the render really great so I appreciate his ideas (but it added work which I wasn't planning). The added stuff will make some really nice differences.
4. Added some lights inside the primary hull (another Gavotte idea, dang him).
5. Doubled up the detail bars on the deflector dish thingy.
6. Added some spotlights to point at the primary hull (still needs dialing).
7. Blued up the panels on the drydock.
8. Decreased the sunlight brightness. This sunlight is an issue for me. The sunlight is illuminating the upper portions of the drydock a lot and it really helps the image quite a bit plus the shadows it casts on the ship look pretty cool but it washes things out. So I have to have it but it needs to be done correctly. This is going to be a little tricky. In addition, it's going to be a little messy when I figure out a backdrop planet because the sunlight on the planet needs to correspond with the sunlight on the ship and drydock (pain!).
9. Added some conduits inside the primary hull. I'm quite unhappy with them though. It's obvious they were rushed so more work is required (thanks to Gavotte for adding work, AAAAARGH!, looks good though).

Day 4

Review the checklist.

1. Build some construction pods and put them into the scene doing some construction. Done (but needs more work). I built a little construction pod with two articulated arms and I put a little space suit dude in it (already had the space suit dude built for another project). The pod has two articulated arms and everything. The problem is that I need the arms to rotate in two dimensions instead of 1 so I will probably go back and update the model and replace the pods I already installed (plus I forgot a red light on the top and bottom, stupid!). The pods are about 30 pieces or so and it only took an hour to build. To update the arms is about 30 minutes and then another 20 minutes to replace the current pods. Not a big deal. I'll probably hack on the details a tweeny bit just because I'm anal even though you will NEVER see them (way too small).
2. Add some dudes in some space suits welding on the hull. Didn't get to it last night.
3. Build some panels for the construction pods to pack around. Didn't get to it last night.
4. More tweakage on the lighting. Done. I hardened the angular falloff on two lights pointing at the primary hull, tweaked their projection angles and arcs and also added another spotlight to point at the starboard engine under construction.
5. Conduit manipulation in the primary hull. Done (but will copy in a couple more). I did some reasonable manipulation of the conduits and got them looking a lot better and spread them out a little bit. I only have two groups in there and I will just copy a few more and stick them in (10 minutes work, no prob). It turns out that I have a lot of decking and junk already in the primary hull which obscures these conduits quite a bit but I don't really care. It's just a subtle detail that people who are looking will notice and people who don't look won't care and it's all good!
6. More compartments in the primary hull. Probably a few more lights, diversify the colors, amp up the texture I put into the new decking. Done! I decided more compartments weren't necessary but I did amp up the textures and I cut a bunch of holes in the deck just for more diversity (hard to see them though but that's just fine, it's supposed to be subtle). I didn't actually cut holes in the mesh, I did it using transparency. I originally had a primitive cylinder with the z axis scaled to tiny to squash it for the deck. So, I took that cylinder into the modeling room, converted it to a vertex object, and then cut off the top to leave me just a single disc. Then I mixed 100% and 0% values with the squares procedural using a cutoff tolerance to "cut" holes in that circle using texturing (lots faster and looks good and I can control the hole counts and mixes really easy that way). I doubled the number of lights inside the primary hull and varied the lighting colors (looks good). Diversifying the colors makes a bigger difference than I thought it would. I dialed them more to the Oranges and reds (pinks sort of). Blue will be reserved for the welders on the outside.
7. Finish up the details on the drydock blue panels. I'm going to add more details into the lines, put in a splash of red and some white squares. Done! This was a little bit more of a pain than I had planned but it came out the way I wanted it. I had to apply three layers with masks onto those panels (one for the blue pattern, one for the red stripes, and then one for the white squares). I also doubled up the details on the blue section. This part of the work is done mostly in paint shop pro to paint the mapping patterns and then the manipulation in the texturing engine requires some major brain whanging for me. I haven't done much of the more advanced texturing stuff that Carrara can do so it took me a while to figure out a way to bang it out. It's done though and it looks great! Complex texture layering is still somewhat of a mystery for me. Carrara's texture engine is really powerful and it's dangerous in the hands of a novice!
8. Decrease the depth of all those crazy little blocks in the drydock ceiling. I like em but they need to be toned down a tad. Done. This was a two minute job. Just select the block that all the blocks are based on and rescaled it (WHAP!).
9. Backdrop issues. I don't know if I want a planet in the backdrop yet. Seems like a good idea but then I have to make it and not only do I have to make it but it has to look good and make sense from different angles, yak yak yak yak.
   Did not get to this last night. This is going to be last to do since it's such a big deal. It took a whole day to make the backdrop for the previous image I made. Carrara has a really super stupid model for Aura and it took 10 hours just to render the atmospheric halo (It's a bug in the code I'm sure, but it's the only way to get it so I just turn on the computer and go to bed, computers are good slaves). Then I rendered the planet and its atmosphere separately, rendered a mask, then combined in paint shop pro. It's a little dorked because I reduced the brightness of the stars a tweeny bit on accident but I'll live with it. The point is that it takes some time to crank out a background especially if you want it to look good so I'll just see what happens. You have to get the lighting right and you have to get the planet to have good details when you render it big and it gets even more tricky when you're just looking at a small section of a planet (ie, you're really zoomed in). In addition, it's hard to put a planet in the backdrop in the actual scene and just render the beast in one crunch. The reason is that you can't really put in a planet on the scale of a planet and get the lighting right. You put in a planet and size it and position it to get it where you want it and then render it and dang if your stupid ship and space station casts a shadow on the planet the size of Europe (scaling and such). In addition, there are other issues that get messed up when you put in a planet as a backdrop and it's a lot easier just to bash it out separate. We'll see what I come up with. It's kind of important because it pops out a lot of the details in the drydock. I'm thinking something blue/greenish that's subtle and dark with a cool atmosphere.

In addition, this whole beast is lit using only spotlights and one distant light (and now some bitty little bulb lights in the primary hull and I'll put in some beensy little blue lights for the welders). The point is that there is no GI in this thing so far. I kind of like it. The lighting in space would be sort of harsh and I think I have enough lights to fill in cracks and crevices so I think I'm just going to leave it as is and no GI (weird since I haven't rendered a final image without GI in about 4,000 years).

Day 5
Review the Checklist

1. Rebuild the construction pods and install them.
   Done. Turns out that I didn't even use the new ball joints and the lights I added on the top and bottom don't even show up on the test renders but they're there and when I render this thing at printable resolution, it will all show up and be worth it.
2. Add some dudes in some space suits welding on the hull.
   Done. Once again, the size of these little dudes is so small that you would never even know they are there. However, they do add cool stuff with their little blue welding torch lights. I am going to add more but not a whole lot as they are so tweeny.
3. Build some panels for the construction pods to pack around.
   Done. I need to move them around more as they don't show up really well in the test renders but they're there and they're done.
4. More tweakage on the lighting (a never ending adventure in pain).
   Didn't do much and I think it's sort getting done.
5. Conduit manipulation in the primary hull.
   Done. I can see some stuff needs a little fixing but other than that, the added color inside the primary hull makes a big difference and it came out great!
6. Re-work the texture I put into the new decking a little bit (needs more holes I think).
   Changed my mind and left this alone.
7. Build a backdrop and render.
   This is all that's left. Unfortunately, it's also a MAJOR pain.

Day 6 Review the checklist

1. Move some of the new little guys around so they show up in the renders a little better.
   Done.
2. Add more welders on the bottom of the primary and put some onto the engine under construction.
   Done. These guys barely show up though. They're there for me mostly, not for whoever will be viewing the image.
3. There's some sort of error in the texture on the underside of the primary. Need to check that out and fix.
   Fixed: It's some weird bug with Carrara. I'm using lights which are super pumped up (500%) with wild falloffs and apparently, it dorks up the lighting model and shines through stuff. I noticed this often with the welders lights.
4. Build a backdrop.
   Decided to bag it. Too hard.

So I finished up all this stuff and ended up with what I'm thinking is really close to final. I started new renders yesterday which are 6000 pixels wide. They're taking about 10 hours each so it's going to be a little while before we have results.

The collection of images you see here are different points of view for the final image.  Came out fun!

Great tutorial, if you want can you post it at CarraraLounge.com please?

Man, great work, Kixum.

Klebnor

If you did the Polygon version of Amapi (not the NURBS version) then Hexagon is a cakewalk to use.  But you've probably been told this over the years already.

Kixum, I agree with Klebnor, outstanding detailing.  Everything in the scene is superb.  Jan

No doubt that using the vertex side of Amapi is essentially what Hexagon became.  However, my focus for Amapi was completely nurbs and that's what I was modeling in.

Nurbs works for my tiny brain.  That's why I'm such a HUGE spline modeler in C.  The spline modeler is almost a nurbs modeler.

Ok.  I'm building a train right now using NURBS in Amapi Pro.  It was the only way I could get the shapes I needed.  Moi is helping me out with some of the fillets.  I have ViaCAD Pro 6 for NURBS, but its interface is all wack.  Amapi's is way better.

But yah, Hexagon's polygon method would be kinda foreign.

There's a really aggravating reality when modeling something that's real (or something that everybody super duper recognizes).

It's the fact that you have to get the dang thing correct down to some pretty severe details.  Another perfect example is to model a real car.  There are a LOT of curves and shapes in a car and people know them in their heads.  Another way to say it is that people can look at a model and know if it's right or not.  They may not know what exactly is wrong with it but they know it's not right.

I don't think you can use a poly modeler to get really good results for objects which have components where the curves are important.  Details for fillets or chamfers and straight parts cutting into curved parts need to be done really well for a good model.

I think nurbs can serve those purposes easier than poly modeling.  I'm not saying poly can't do stuff but I think nurbs can do curvy or complex shapes easier.  It's really clear when I finished up the secondary hull on this model.  I told Amapi how tight I wanted the mesh and it provided me a product which had gobs of detail where things changed angles a lot and less detail where it didn't and bang, perfect!

You can do that in poly but you have to work at it harder to get it to look good.  Plus I just cannot figure out how to draw nice even clean smooth profiles in Hex for curves and such (can it even do that?).  It seems like you have to put in vertices for every single thing.  I haven't tried it yet so I'm really overstepping my bounds here.  Someday, I'll dig into it.  Bottom line, I don't know how to draw a nice smooth even curve in Hex and have the surface flow out of it like you can in the spline modeler or like you can in Amapi.

Need more vertices?  Just up the settings and whap, it's all taken care of and you didn't have to manage the mesh at all.  That's beauty to me!  Expressing a model in terms of surfaces rather than mesh is far more dynamic for my modeling thinking process.  It's truly a personal limitation for me which is aggravating.

Hexagon does not allow for the super accurate line profiles as Amapi does.  SubD modeling is a matter of hitting the smooth button until things are smooth.  In Amapi, a curve is always going to be curve they way you want it.  Plus Amapi has the much better snapping of points and lines.

No boolean is worth using in Hexagon.

As far as modeling something in Hexagon that people won't say does not look right...  Don't try to model a well known car or person the first time to you use the program.  Model an unknown person or car.  I have to use Amapi Pro if I'm modeling something everyone has seen a million times.

Some people can do exact modeling with SubD.  They take a hit in poly count though.  The positive is that they can then add dings to their model using modo or ZBrush by painting them in, since the model is hi-res enough.

Quote - There's a really aggravating reality when modeling something that's real (or something that everybody super duper recognizes).

It's the fact that you have to get the dang thing correct down to some pretty severe details.  

 

I'm hearing you on that one.   Which is why I do a lot of "In the style of"  Gives you a little more room to play with.

This is a great image.  I like the one looking at the ship from below.   Gives a real sense of size.

I learned a whole bunch of other stuff for this render.

This image has 7,646 objects, 122 shaders, and 49 lights.  Now 2000 of those objects are the blocks in the ceiling of drydock so I don't think those really count.  That means that I beat 5,646 objects into this image.  The details of the image show and that makes it one of the better images I've rendered.

I've been watching the orignal star trek show while working on all this stuff and the new version of the show which they released a few years ago shows off the Enterprise from below quite a bit.  I think they do this for a couple of reasons.

1.)  I agree with you that it makes the ship look big (coolness).

2.)  There's more shapes and angles and stuff to see from that angle.

3.)  It's a view point that we never saw in the original show because of the way the model was mounted limiting the camera angles.  So I think the CG guys for the re-worked show wanted to make sure that angle got the attention it deserves.

4.)  I've rendered this model (and the many incarnations of it) about a zillion times and I've always thought this view from the back and below gave the model the best sense of size and depth (don't know why but that's how it seems).

I'm already working on my next version of the model (posted an image of it in the 3D Modeling forum).  I'm kind of getting tired of always wanting the model to be finished so I think I'm just going to beat it into submission and do everything to it that I can while I'm stranded here without Amapi.

The ultimate would be to actually cut out the holes for the windows and model the internals but there's absolutely no way I would even consider that without Amapi.

Two more days and I'm going to be fully engaged on the Star Destroyer so the Enterprise will have to go back in the box for a little while.