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There is an actually a very good reason the outside of the ship is bare bones right now.

Because I am putting so much work into the internal layout of this ship, I occasionally need to change the shape of the external hull to fit the changes I'm making to the decks.  Case in point I deleted a deck from the dish (it is supposed to be a double deck at the rim of the saucer).

Because of that I don't want to turn attention to the external hull until the inside is done.

That, and I like making models out of 3D geometry instead of textures.

I never really got into the AA issues at all.  Honestly, I'm not a uber-graphics purist at any rate.  I like simpler 3D models as I can produce more content quicker that way, despite the fact I have done very detailed models for actual video games (two of the ships in Pirates of the Burning Sea MMO game were done by me).

I am happy I found out how to get the AA working, though.

Back on topic I tried out making a background image for my picture.  This isn't even that complicated.  I just put a gigantic cube behind my 3D model of the ship and painted it with a NASA photo, then spun the ship around to get the angle I wanted.

AA is turned on, and no, I don't really think about that.  

More work done.  I am nearly done with deck 3, the big deck.  I have to change one of the auditoriums into a fitness center, and add in the machinery to the three currently empty back shops.

Then it ought to be a bit easier as all the other decks are a lot smaller.

I would also mention that the original Asia class has two decks in the saucer section, but I changed it to only be a single deck for a couple of reasons.  The major one is to just give myself a break and cut down on the work load!  The second reason is more practical.  You can't see the deck with the skin removed from the ship, so all that work wouldn't really be visible anyway.  The third reason is the ship looks a bit better with the skinny dish, making it resemble the the old NCC-1701, even though it is half the size.

If you have a lot of free time and don't mind low polygon 3D models, you can do this.  I found a website called The Starfleet Museum and several of the fan made designs have deck plans.

Well, that was just too tempting to pass up, but at the same time I'm not going for hyper detail as well.  I figure with every room inside the ship modeled in 3D it ought to be enough polygons to melt my computer.

It is just a work in progress, and I only have most of the first 3 decks out of 20 total decks done.

From the RPG game made by Dream Pod 9, on the planet Terra Nova they use one-man combat units called Heavy Gears.  From left to right.  The heavy Jaguar and Hunter from the Northern League.  The Southern League you get the Jaeger and Black Mamba.

Ok, so I figured out the Chrome texture process of Anim8or, or rather the "cube" texturing.  A sky, four horizon pics, and a ground picture to make the chrome.

And it looks terrible.  Full on chrome is definitely NOT the way to go.

What I think I will do is...

1.  Hyper detail the model with full blown panel lines and vents in actual 3D, use a very basic texture on each part, then take some renders of the top, sides, and bottom of various major bits individually.

2.  Using MS Paint combine those pictures of bits into some textures.

3.  Go back into Anim8or and go back to a lower detailed model and use those detailed pictures as the texture of the final product.

Why do this?  Well, I'm terrible at painting, so I may as well make the 3D work for me as my "paint" and reverse engineer it into texturing.

Spent the afternoon mocking up the Flying HK from the first terminator movie.  Man, that front section was a lot tougher that it looks.




I also found some good reference pictures of the various endoskeletons.  It seems the best place to find pictures is of high grade toys.