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Hello! :>
In this post I'm going to give a detailed history about all the Star Trek projects I have built in Minecraft over the years and what it is that motivates me to keep going with these builds. I am not going to include absolutely every single detail, just what I think are the most important parts c:
1. Introduction:
I'll start by doing a small introduction about myself and how I got into Minecraft. My name is AstralSapphire and I have been playing Minecraft since February 2011. I was introduced to the game by an old friend of mine when I was at school (I initially misheard him say it as "MindCraft" xD). He explained to me the concept of the game and I was hooked, at first I played only Minecraft Classic in a browser and I adored the creative freedom the game gives you. Within time, I was able to convince my Dad to get me the full version of Minecraft! :D I have been playing the game consistently since.
2. The Star Trek Journey Begins (2013):
First of all, what even is 'Star Trek'? Well, Star Trek is an American science fiction franchise set in the far future of humanity. The motto of the franchise is "boldly going where no-one has gone before", and It first aired in 1966 and has since inspired 13 movies and 11 TV-series'.
Prior to 2013, my knowledge of Star Trek was very little. I knew the rough shape and design of the USS Enterprise (The main ship of the franchise) and that was it. This all changed when in May 2013, the twelfth movie 'Star Trek Into Darkness' was released. This movie was the second in the reboot franchise which began in 2009 with the release of 'Star Trek'. Prior to 2009, the franchise was considered by some to be dead as it had not received anything new since 2005. My Dad took me to see Into Darkness when it came out and I had not seen the previous movie nor anything at all related to Trek at this time so I was going in completely blind. Needless to say, I was completely fascinated by the idea of these huge, beautifully designed and structured ships exploring space. The universe I was introduced to in Into Darkness and the rest of the reboot movies (now dubbed the 'Kelvin Timeline') is certainly my kind of sci-fi and is a future I believe we should strive to achieve as a species. This goes for the rest of the franchise as a whole and not just the Kelvin Timeline.
Now that I had been introduced to Star Trek, when did I start building 1:1 starships?
3. My First Ship - The USS Vengeance (2014):
In late 2013 going into 2014, I was beginning to get very bored playing Minecraft and I wanted something to recapture my love for the game. I would also frequently watch clips of Into Darkness on YouTube as I had still not got over the buzz that watching the movie gave me! xD Then I had an idea.... what if I attempt to build one of the starships from the move in Minecraft? I had a keen interest in the USS Vengeance which was first seen in that movie, so this was the ship I had decided to build. I didn't really have a very good plan for how to attempt this project and my knowledge of WorldEdit was very little to none, so all I did was find as many reference images I could and build the ship by hand while trying to make it as accurate to the reference images I could.
4. The USS Kelvin and The USS Enterprise (2015-2016):
Sadly, I was not able to finish my USS Vengeance build because the server owner had changed the main map the server was running on. They were able to send me a copy of the world, but the copy they sent me was months out of date and I couldn't find the motivation to rebuild what had been lost. However, towards the end of 2014 I had a strong desire to build a new, and much better looking ship, using what I learned from my USS Vengeance build and my now improved understanding of WorldEdit. The ship I decided to make was the USS Kelvin from the first of the reboot movies. Once again, I looked at a lot of reference images, specifically those of other Star Trek ships players had created in game in order to understand the general shapes and patterns you get when you build circular/cylindrical objects in Minecraft. It was also around this time that I discovered the MineTrek server, and I had a blast exploring the amazing stuff they had built at the time. They also had a custom resource pack which I planned to use in all projects going forward. (Once I started using it there was no way I could go back to Vanilla textures xD).
I began building the USS Kelvin in November 2014 and completed it in around March of 2015. This was my first ship where I put a lot of effort into the interior detail and at the time I was super proud of it :') (It even had a working redstone holodeck and transporter! :O). Once again, I built the Kelvin on the same server as the USS Vengeance but this time I was able to get an up to date copy of the world once it was finished and I still have access to that world to this day! When I look at this build now, there are so many aspects of it that I do not understand why I built it the way I did xD. It shows just how much I have improved as a builder in the last 8 years c:. Below are a few screenshots of the ship in the original resource pack:
For my next ship, I decided to build the USS Enterprise in preparation for the upcoming Star Trek Beyond. She took a little bit longer than the Kelvin at around ~7 months starting in January 2016. I had decided to build the ship at a much smaller scale than seen in the movies making her roughly the same size as the USS Kelvin. Like the Kelvin, the Enterprise had a full interior albeit without the working holodeck and transporter. My understanding of Star Trek ship interiors had improved a lot since making the Kelvin but looking at the ship now there are still many areas that could be improved. I completed her around 1 week after Star Trek Beyond was released in cinemas and she was also my first ever post on PMC ;_;. Below are a few screenshots of the ship in the original resource pack:
5. The first series of revamps + new ships (2016-2017):
Shortly after I finished the USS Enterprise, the server I was a member of shut down :(. Fortunately I was able to get a copy of the world with my ships on it and I had a strong desire to revamp the hulls of them using my new WorldEdit knowledge. Without a server this would be difficult, and this was also the time when I had started my undergraduate degree at University and the place I was staying had blocked access to Minecraft multiplayer servers for some reason :/. What I decided to do instead was host a local server with WorldEdit on the laptop I had at the time and this server I was able to play on without a problem!
So, Over the following months up to the end of 2016, I revamped both my USS Kelvin and USS Enterprise (Now the USS Constellation) and even created some brand new ships that are also seen in the movies namely the USS Armstrong, USS Mayflower, and the USS Newton. I also remade the USS Vengeance, and began a working on a full scale version of the Refit USS Enterprise from Star Trek Beyond as well as the Enterprise-A seen at the end of the movie. However, unlike the previous ships none of these had any interiors as I wanted to focus more on hulls as that's what I enjoyed the most (Especially rendering as it was on these ships that I first started using Chunky to render my builds). I posted all of these projects to PMC :D
6. The Enterprise Refit (2017-2019):
At this point after spending over a year building solely hulls, I had a huge craving to start making some interiors as it had been almost 2 years since my last interior builds! The ship I chose to work on was the Refit USS Enterprise from Star Trek Beyond. However, before I could begin I was unhappy with some parts of the hull so I wanted to perfect those first. During this time, the laptop I had experienced a motherboard failure and I almost lost all the files forever ;-;. Fortunately, I was able to get it fixed (it took 4 months to get it fixed! xd) and the files recovered. If I hadn't have got the files back it's likely I would have quit building ships there and then. Anyway, with the necessary alterations made to the ship completed, I could now start building interiors in around August 2017.
One thing I wanted to do though was use some more 'Kelvin Timeline-esque' textures. I had still been using the resource pack made by the MineTrek team but it was more catered towards ships from the Prime Timeline of Star Trek. It was then that I came across Norzeteus's absolutely incredible sci-fi resource pack. I asked him if he would be okay with me using some of the textures in my custom pack and he said yes as long as always give him credit (Which I continue to do so :D). This was also when I had a go at making some textures myself, they were not perfect but we all have to start somewhere :). With the textures ready, I began working on the interior. Construction took me around 1 and a half years and I had a little bit of help from close friends Drfh2, Echorson, and ville672. It potentially could have been built faster, but my university course was finishing during this time and Minecraft received some pretty unstable updates *cough* 1.13 *cough*. My interior detailing skills really took off with this ship but looking back at it now there are sooo many things I would do differently :3
7. Escapades into 3D models and cooperation (2020 - 2021):
With the Enterprise Refit completed, I didn't know what to do. I had built all the ships I wanted to and was not ready to build any more interiors just yet. I definitely needed a break after spending a year and a half on one ship! xD Just when I was ready to move on from Star Trek builds, I discovered this stunningly accurate 3D model of the USS Enterprise-A from the end of Star Trek Beyond. This model was made by Alexander Klemm (Nightfever) and it was free to download for private use. This got me thinking if it's possible to import 3D models into Minecraft which would save a ton of time as before I made each of the ships with WorldEdit.
Of course me being a perfectionist, I wanted every ship to be as accurate as possible so I accepted the challenge of revamping the Enterprise-A with this model. I found that you could convert 3d models to schematics using a program called binvox and from there I could use MCEdit to paste them into the game. However, I want to make it clear that it is not as simple as that to get a new ship in. The conversion process is very imprecise and every imported ship needs to be smoothed and tidied up before I can detail them. Often the saucers are not perfect circles and thus have to be remade entirely with WorldEdit the old fashioned way. With this process complete, I began working on the updated Enterprise-A and posted some screenshots of my work as well as some of my other ships on other sites such as Reddit and TrekBBS.
It was at this point that I received a message from ii86 who had seen my posts on Reddit and was keen to build with me. I jumped at this opportunity as I had been building by myself for YEARS :'). He offered to pay for a server for us to build on, so I reached out to another PMC user Birchybo1 who had shown support for my builds before and had also helped create the nacelles for my USS Enterprise Refit. The 3 of us decided to work on a custom interior for the Enterprise-A. We never got to fully finish it but the screenshots below show some of the planning and areas we did.
While working on the interior, I was constantly wondering about the possibilities of 3D models. I wondered if there were any available for other ships I had done before so I could revamp them YET AGAIN xD. Fortunately, BirchyBo1 was in contact with some of the guys in the MineTrek and TrekCraft teams and was able to get me some models for these ships. I had also discovered the incredible work of PixelMagic on TrekBBS who is a very talented 3D-modeller also with a keen interest in the Kelvin Timeline. He had been working on a custom ship the USS Tyson and had provided a download. I added some of my own ideas to the ship including a forward-facing deflector dish and torpedo launcher and I had actually inspired PixelMagic to add these features to his 3D model which was an incredible feeling c: Over the next year or so, I began revamping almost all my older ships using 3D models as well as making some new ones (Oh! and some large scale shuttles too but these were done the old fashioned way xP). The other two worked on their own personal projects. In late 2020, I created a huge Spacedock to use as my main world for the ships and I still use this world to this day!
8. Mods, Texturing and Modelling (2021- Present):
For the longest time, I was always adamant that I didn't want to use any mods in my builds and to keep them as vanilla as possible (with the exception of the resource pack). That all changed however, when I came across the Extrapieces mod. This is the most incredible mod I have ever seen, it adds in sidings (vertical slabs), corners (sideways stairs), posts, layers, columns and new slabs and stairs for any block you specify. I knew that with this mod the amount of detail I could put into interiors would be enormous. I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to use the mod so I worked with Birchy and ii86 to update our world and server to a modded version. Something the 3 of us wanted was an updated resource pack, we had been using the one I cobbled together for my Enterprise Refit project but it just wasn't good enough for the detail we wanted.
What we decided to do was to find a professional resource pack artist online and pay them to make some textures for us. We did find a few who were willing but nothing ever happened as they pretty much just ghosted us. Frustrated, I decided that I would just do it myself so I spent the latter half of 2021 drawing over 300 textures to use on the builds. The foliage in my resource pack was created by PMC user SuperBusy for their Earthy Texture Pack. They very graciously gave me permission to use them in my builds and I strongly recommend that you check the pack out its marvellous! I developed a newfound love for texture art as a result and with each new texture I daw my skills are only getting better and better c': I also learnt how to make 3D blocks and items! With the new texture pack completed, I put it to the test by building some interiors for my 1:1 USS Enterprise. Later, I would go on to learn how to code my own mod in Java and I am now able to add as many blocks and textures as I want! :D
By this time I had already pretty much built every canon starship in the Kelvin Timeline, but I desired to do more. I started learning the basics of 3D modelling in Blender, and kit bashed (taking parts of existing models and making a new ship with them) together a few ships with names that had been mentioned throughout the films but never seen on-screen. The one ship that motivated me to do this though was the USS Kobayashi Maru. I had wanted to build that ship for so long but could never find a model of it anywhere, so I made one myself :3.
A friend of mine SpearmintMagpie assisted me with kit bashing some new ships and created the Kelvin Timeline USS Discovery model. They initially started working on this ship on our little server but ran out of steam and gave me permission to finish it and post on PMC. At the same time, I also finished all the other kit bash ships that had been sat on my world for months. These are the most recent ships that I posted about and the latest one was the USS Endeavour :3 I also built some non kit bashed ships such as the USS Reliant and the USS Sitting Bull which was based on a model created by dwoid. My rendering and building skills have improved so much with these ships! :D
USS Reliant model from Madman's Shipyard
USS Sitting Bull model by dwoid
USS Salcombe model by Pixelmagic
9. The USS Eclipse - My current project:
A while back, Birchybo1were playing around with 3D models, and we came up with a ship design that combined what we both agreed were the best parts of the USS Enterprise and the USS Enterprise-A. The ship sat unfinished on our world for so long before I decided to work on it. Thus the USS Eclipse was born. I wanted the USS Eclipse to be the ship from the movies as it should have been (Don't get me wrong, I do like the design of the Enterprise in the movies, but it could still be better! :3). I will give this ship the most detailed and accurate interior possible. I have thought a lot about how the ship would function if it were real and tried to make all rooms have a purpose and clearly defined layout. It has been incredibly fun to work on this ship for the past few months and the engineering section is close to completion! :D I am very excited to continue working on her ^-^.
If you're wondering where the name and registry came from, I named her after a very special friend of mine and the registry is their birthday c':
10. The Future and Conclusion:
I have no plans to stop building any time soon! >:) If you look at my PMC profile you will see that I have a lot of projects planned for the future. Furthermore, after we all took a break for a while, myself, AkJackHd, ii86, and SpearmintMagpie have started up a new server where we are each working on our own projects! :3. I also plan to further enhance my texturing and modelling skills. I want to create more custom ship designs without kit bashing!
Regarding the next Kelvin Timeline movie, it has been stuck in development hell since 2016. I really hope it gets made and you can be sure that if there are any cool new ships in it I will definitely be building them! As of right now, I plan to continue working on the USS Eclipse and will post screenshots on here! :D I do also have a BIG ship that I want to finish before the new year ;)
If you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading ;-;. I apologise for it being such a lengthy post but there is a lot I wanted to talk about because these projects have been a part of my life for so long now and are very important to me. Also thank you so so much for the support I have gotten here on PMC it means the world to me <3. I'm glad I decided to stop being shy on here and actively engaged more with the PMC community I have already met some really great people c:.
I also want to give special thanks to:
Paramount and Gene Roddenberry - For creating such an inspirational and awe-inspiring sci-fi series.
The VoiceChatAlpha team - For hosting the initial server back in 2014-2016 where I began my projects.
The Chunky Development Team - For creating an amazing rendering program.
The MineTrek and TrekCraft Teams - For inspiring me with their builds and resource pack. (Go check them out!)
Norzeteus and Superbusy - For giving me permission to use their incredible textures. (Also go check these out!)
Dwoid, Madman's Shipyard, Nightfever, and PixelMagic - For creating such detailed 3D models that I can recreate in-game.
AkJackHD, BirchyBo1, ii86, and SpearmintMagpie - For being very supportive of these projects and for the fun times we've had together on our server.
Drfh2, Echorson, and ville672 - For assisting with some of the tedious work on the Enterprise Refit back in 2018-2019.
I would have not have been able to get this far if it were not for the above people so I give my utmost thanks <3.
P.S If anybody I have mentioned in the blog post would like some details changed please let me know I will happily oblige.
- AstralSapphire
♡♡♡
In this post I'm going to give a detailed history about all the Star Trek projects I have built in Minecraft over the years and what it is that motivates me to keep going with these builds. I am not going to include absolutely every single detail, just what I think are the most important parts c:
1. Introduction:
I'll start by doing a small introduction about myself and how I got into Minecraft. My name is AstralSapphire and I have been playing Minecraft since February 2011. I was introduced to the game by an old friend of mine when I was at school (I initially misheard him say it as "MindCraft" xD). He explained to me the concept of the game and I was hooked, at first I played only Minecraft Classic in a browser and I adored the creative freedom the game gives you. Within time, I was able to convince my Dad to get me the full version of Minecraft! :D I have been playing the game consistently since.
2. The Star Trek Journey Begins (2013):
First of all, what even is 'Star Trek'? Well, Star Trek is an American science fiction franchise set in the far future of humanity. The motto of the franchise is "boldly going where no-one has gone before", and It first aired in 1966 and has since inspired 13 movies and 11 TV-series'.
Prior to 2013, my knowledge of Star Trek was very little. I knew the rough shape and design of the USS Enterprise (The main ship of the franchise) and that was it. This all changed when in May 2013, the twelfth movie 'Star Trek Into Darkness' was released. This movie was the second in the reboot franchise which began in 2009 with the release of 'Star Trek'. Prior to 2009, the franchise was considered by some to be dead as it had not received anything new since 2005. My Dad took me to see Into Darkness when it came out and I had not seen the previous movie nor anything at all related to Trek at this time so I was going in completely blind. Needless to say, I was completely fascinated by the idea of these huge, beautifully designed and structured ships exploring space. The universe I was introduced to in Into Darkness and the rest of the reboot movies (now dubbed the 'Kelvin Timeline') is certainly my kind of sci-fi and is a future I believe we should strive to achieve as a species. This goes for the rest of the franchise as a whole and not just the Kelvin Timeline.
Now that I had been introduced to Star Trek, when did I start building 1:1 starships?
3. My First Ship - The USS Vengeance (2014):
In late 2013 going into 2014, I was beginning to get very bored playing Minecraft and I wanted something to recapture my love for the game. I would also frequently watch clips of Into Darkness on YouTube as I had still not got over the buzz that watching the movie gave me! xD Then I had an idea.... what if I attempt to build one of the starships from the move in Minecraft? I had a keen interest in the USS Vengeance which was first seen in that movie, so this was the ship I had decided to build. I didn't really have a very good plan for how to attempt this project and my knowledge of WorldEdit was very little to none, so all I did was find as many reference images I could and build the ship by hand while trying to make it as accurate to the reference images I could.
USS Vengeance Images
4. The USS Kelvin and The USS Enterprise (2015-2016):
Sadly, I was not able to finish my USS Vengeance build because the server owner had changed the main map the server was running on. They were able to send me a copy of the world, but the copy they sent me was months out of date and I couldn't find the motivation to rebuild what had been lost. However, towards the end of 2014 I had a strong desire to build a new, and much better looking ship, using what I learned from my USS Vengeance build and my now improved understanding of WorldEdit. The ship I decided to make was the USS Kelvin from the first of the reboot movies. Once again, I looked at a lot of reference images, specifically those of other Star Trek ships players had created in game in order to understand the general shapes and patterns you get when you build circular/cylindrical objects in Minecraft. It was also around this time that I discovered the MineTrek server, and I had a blast exploring the amazing stuff they had built at the time. They also had a custom resource pack which I planned to use in all projects going forward. (Once I started using it there was no way I could go back to Vanilla textures xD).
I began building the USS Kelvin in November 2014 and completed it in around March of 2015. This was my first ship where I put a lot of effort into the interior detail and at the time I was super proud of it :') (It even had a working redstone holodeck and transporter! :O). Once again, I built the Kelvin on the same server as the USS Vengeance but this time I was able to get an up to date copy of the world once it was finished and I still have access to that world to this day! When I look at this build now, there are so many aspects of it that I do not understand why I built it the way I did xD. It shows just how much I have improved as a builder in the last 8 years c:. Below are a few screenshots of the ship in the original resource pack:
USS Kelvin Images
For my next ship, I decided to build the USS Enterprise in preparation for the upcoming Star Trek Beyond. She took a little bit longer than the Kelvin at around ~7 months starting in January 2016. I had decided to build the ship at a much smaller scale than seen in the movies making her roughly the same size as the USS Kelvin. Like the Kelvin, the Enterprise had a full interior albeit without the working holodeck and transporter. My understanding of Star Trek ship interiors had improved a lot since making the Kelvin but looking at the ship now there are still many areas that could be improved. I completed her around 1 week after Star Trek Beyond was released in cinemas and she was also my first ever post on PMC ;_;. Below are a few screenshots of the ship in the original resource pack:
USS Enterprise Images
5. The first series of revamps + new ships (2016-2017):
Shortly after I finished the USS Enterprise, the server I was a member of shut down :(. Fortunately I was able to get a copy of the world with my ships on it and I had a strong desire to revamp the hulls of them using my new WorldEdit knowledge. Without a server this would be difficult, and this was also the time when I had started my undergraduate degree at University and the place I was staying had blocked access to Minecraft multiplayer servers for some reason :/. What I decided to do instead was host a local server with WorldEdit on the laptop I had at the time and this server I was able to play on without a problem!
So, Over the following months up to the end of 2016, I revamped both my USS Kelvin and USS Enterprise (Now the USS Constellation) and even created some brand new ships that are also seen in the movies namely the USS Armstrong, USS Mayflower, and the USS Newton. I also remade the USS Vengeance, and began a working on a full scale version of the Refit USS Enterprise from Star Trek Beyond as well as the Enterprise-A seen at the end of the movie. However, unlike the previous ships none of these had any interiors as I wanted to focus more on hulls as that's what I enjoyed the most (Especially rendering as it was on these ships that I first started using Chunky to render my builds). I posted all of these projects to PMC :D
The Revamped Ships
6. The Enterprise Refit (2017-2019):
At this point after spending over a year building solely hulls, I had a huge craving to start making some interiors as it had been almost 2 years since my last interior builds! The ship I chose to work on was the Refit USS Enterprise from Star Trek Beyond. However, before I could begin I was unhappy with some parts of the hull so I wanted to perfect those first. During this time, the laptop I had experienced a motherboard failure and I almost lost all the files forever ;-;. Fortunately, I was able to get it fixed (it took 4 months to get it fixed! xd) and the files recovered. If I hadn't have got the files back it's likely I would have quit building ships there and then. Anyway, with the necessary alterations made to the ship completed, I could now start building interiors in around August 2017.
One thing I wanted to do though was use some more 'Kelvin Timeline-esque' textures. I had still been using the resource pack made by the MineTrek team but it was more catered towards ships from the Prime Timeline of Star Trek. It was then that I came across Norzeteus's absolutely incredible sci-fi resource pack. I asked him if he would be okay with me using some of the textures in my custom pack and he said yes as long as always give him credit (Which I continue to do so :D). This was also when I had a go at making some textures myself, they were not perfect but we all have to start somewhere :). With the textures ready, I began working on the interior. Construction took me around 1 and a half years and I had a little bit of help from close friends Drfh2, Echorson, and ville672. It potentially could have been built faster, but my university course was finishing during this time and Minecraft received some pretty unstable updates *cough* 1.13 *cough*. My interior detailing skills really took off with this ship but looking back at it now there are sooo many things I would do differently :3
The Enterprise Refit
7. Escapades into 3D models and cooperation (2020 - 2021):
With the Enterprise Refit completed, I didn't know what to do. I had built all the ships I wanted to and was not ready to build any more interiors just yet. I definitely needed a break after spending a year and a half on one ship! xD Just when I was ready to move on from Star Trek builds, I discovered this stunningly accurate 3D model of the USS Enterprise-A from the end of Star Trek Beyond. This model was made by Alexander Klemm (Nightfever) and it was free to download for private use. This got me thinking if it's possible to import 3D models into Minecraft which would save a ton of time as before I made each of the ships with WorldEdit.
Of course me being a perfectionist, I wanted every ship to be as accurate as possible so I accepted the challenge of revamping the Enterprise-A with this model. I found that you could convert 3d models to schematics using a program called binvox and from there I could use MCEdit to paste them into the game. However, I want to make it clear that it is not as simple as that to get a new ship in. The conversion process is very imprecise and every imported ship needs to be smoothed and tidied up before I can detail them. Often the saucers are not perfect circles and thus have to be remade entirely with WorldEdit the old fashioned way. With this process complete, I began working on the updated Enterprise-A and posted some screenshots of my work as well as some of my other ships on other sites such as Reddit and TrekBBS.
The new Enterprise-A
It was at this point that I received a message from ii86 who had seen my posts on Reddit and was keen to build with me. I jumped at this opportunity as I had been building by myself for YEARS :'). He offered to pay for a server for us to build on, so I reached out to another PMC user Birchybo1 who had shown support for my builds before and had also helped create the nacelles for my USS Enterprise Refit. The 3 of us decided to work on a custom interior for the Enterprise-A. We never got to fully finish it but the screenshots below show some of the planning and areas we did.
Enterprise-A Interior
While working on the interior, I was constantly wondering about the possibilities of 3D models. I wondered if there were any available for other ships I had done before so I could revamp them YET AGAIN xD. Fortunately, BirchyBo1 was in contact with some of the guys in the MineTrek and TrekCraft teams and was able to get me some models for these ships. I had also discovered the incredible work of PixelMagic on TrekBBS who is a very talented 3D-modeller also with a keen interest in the Kelvin Timeline. He had been working on a custom ship the USS Tyson and had provided a download. I added some of my own ideas to the ship including a forward-facing deflector dish and torpedo launcher and I had actually inspired PixelMagic to add these features to his 3D model which was an incredible feeling c: Over the next year or so, I began revamping almost all my older ships using 3D models as well as making some new ones (Oh! and some large scale shuttles too but these were done the old fashioned way xP). The other two worked on their own personal projects. In late 2020, I created a huge Spacedock to use as my main world for the ships and I still use this world to this day!
USS Franklin built by 
8. Mods, Texturing and Modelling (2021- Present):
For the longest time, I was always adamant that I didn't want to use any mods in my builds and to keep them as vanilla as possible (with the exception of the resource pack). That all changed however, when I came across the Extrapieces mod. This is the most incredible mod I have ever seen, it adds in sidings (vertical slabs), corners (sideways stairs), posts, layers, columns and new slabs and stairs for any block you specify. I knew that with this mod the amount of detail I could put into interiors would be enormous. I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to use the mod so I worked with Birchy and ii86 to update our world and server to a modded version. Something the 3 of us wanted was an updated resource pack, we had been using the one I cobbled together for my Enterprise Refit project but it just wasn't good enough for the detail we wanted.
What we decided to do was to find a professional resource pack artist online and pay them to make some textures for us. We did find a few who were willing but nothing ever happened as they pretty much just ghosted us. Frustrated, I decided that I would just do it myself so I spent the latter half of 2021 drawing over 300 textures to use on the builds. The foliage in my resource pack was created by PMC user SuperBusy for their Earthy Texture Pack. They very graciously gave me permission to use them in my builds and I strongly recommend that you check the pack out its marvellous! I developed a newfound love for texture art as a result and with each new texture I daw my skills are only getting better and better c': I also learnt how to make 3D blocks and items! With the new texture pack completed, I put it to the test by building some interiors for my 1:1 USS Enterprise. Later, I would go on to learn how to code my own mod in Java and I am now able to add as many blocks and textures as I want! :D
The first builds with the new resource pack
By this time I had already pretty much built every canon starship in the Kelvin Timeline, but I desired to do more. I started learning the basics of 3D modelling in Blender, and kit bashed (taking parts of existing models and making a new ship with them) together a few ships with names that had been mentioned throughout the films but never seen on-screen. The one ship that motivated me to do this though was the USS Kobayashi Maru. I had wanted to build that ship for so long but could never find a model of it anywhere, so I made one myself :3.
A friend of mine SpearmintMagpie assisted me with kit bashing some new ships and created the Kelvin Timeline USS Discovery model. They initially started working on this ship on our little server but ran out of steam and gave me permission to finish it and post on PMC. At the same time, I also finished all the other kit bash ships that had been sat on my world for months. These are the most recent ships that I posted about and the latest one was the USS Endeavour :3 I also built some non kit bashed ships such as the USS Reliant and the USS Sitting Bull which was based on a model created by dwoid. My rendering and building skills have improved so much with these ships! :D
My latest builds
USS Reliant model from Madman's Shipyard
USS Sitting Bull model by dwoid
USS Salcombe model by Pixelmagic
9. The USS Eclipse - My current project:
A while back, Birchybo1were playing around with 3D models, and we came up with a ship design that combined what we both agreed were the best parts of the USS Enterprise and the USS Enterprise-A. The ship sat unfinished on our world for so long before I decided to work on it. Thus the USS Eclipse was born. I wanted the USS Eclipse to be the ship from the movies as it should have been (Don't get me wrong, I do like the design of the Enterprise in the movies, but it could still be better! :3). I will give this ship the most detailed and accurate interior possible. I have thought a lot about how the ship would function if it were real and tried to make all rooms have a purpose and clearly defined layout. It has been incredibly fun to work on this ship for the past few months and the engineering section is close to completion! :D I am very excited to continue working on her ^-^.
If you're wondering where the name and registry came from, I named her after a very special friend of mine and the registry is their birthday c':
USS Eclipse Images
10. The Future and Conclusion:
I have no plans to stop building any time soon! >:) If you look at my PMC profile you will see that I have a lot of projects planned for the future. Furthermore, after we all took a break for a while, myself, AkJackHd, ii86, and SpearmintMagpie have started up a new server where we are each working on our own projects! :3. I also plan to further enhance my texturing and modelling skills. I want to create more custom ship designs without kit bashing!
Regarding the next Kelvin Timeline movie, it has been stuck in development hell since 2016. I really hope it gets made and you can be sure that if there are any cool new ships in it I will definitely be building them! As of right now, I plan to continue working on the USS Eclipse and will post screenshots on here! :D I do also have a BIG ship that I want to finish before the new year ;)
If you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading ;-;. I apologise for it being such a lengthy post but there is a lot I wanted to talk about because these projects have been a part of my life for so long now and are very important to me. Also thank you so so much for the support I have gotten here on PMC it means the world to me <3. I'm glad I decided to stop being shy on here and actively engaged more with the PMC community I have already met some really great people c:.
I also want to give special thanks to:
Paramount and Gene Roddenberry - For creating such an inspirational and awe-inspiring sci-fi series.
The VoiceChatAlpha team - For hosting the initial server back in 2014-2016 where I began my projects.
The Chunky Development Team - For creating an amazing rendering program.
The MineTrek and TrekCraft Teams - For inspiring me with their builds and resource pack. (Go check them out!)
Norzeteus and Superbusy - For giving me permission to use their incredible textures. (Also go check these out!)
Dwoid, Madman's Shipyard, Nightfever, and PixelMagic - For creating such detailed 3D models that I can recreate in-game.
AkJackHD, BirchyBo1, ii86, and SpearmintMagpie - For being very supportive of these projects and for the fun times we've had together on our server.
Drfh2, Echorson, and ville672 - For assisting with some of the tedious work on the Enterprise Refit back in 2018-2019.
I would have not have been able to get this far if it were not for the above people so I give my utmost thanks <3.
P.S If anybody I have mentioned in the blog post would like some details changed please let me know I will happily oblige.
- AstralSapphire
♡♡♡
| Credit | AkJackHD, BirchyBo1, Drfh2, Dwoid, Echorson, ii86, Madman's Shipyard, Nightfever, Norzeteus, PixelMagic, SpearmintMagpie, SuperBusy, The MineTrek, TrekCraft and Chunky teams, ville672 |
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Thank you for the kind words <3