1/700 & 1/350 scale BH Cygnus builds

[Nwerke]

I'm glad, honestly! Will feel better about it.

That's simply the default method which I usually use - just attach pics to your post. Choose the 'go advanced' button, scroll down to 'manage attachments', click that and you get a choosing-your-pics box. You can post nine or ten pics at once.

Note there's an 'upload' button within that dialogue box but you may have to scroll to the right to see it.

If you want a pic to show up full size there are a couple of ways to do that, also.

 

[Red Eye]

WOW, what an update!

TOO COOL!!! :eek :eek :eek

 

[Nwerke]

I have a few more bits in hand now but I think I will save updates until I have more done. It's not far off; nearly there in fact. I've been busy putting in a few value-adds in, haha. It now has a nearly complete fuel system which actually even makes sense, sorta.

Here's a render of the current status. My biggest yet - SSDs are awesome...I still haven't got my new box commissioned yet, this was done on the old (March 2006 build) box, now running Win 7 off a Samsung 830 250GB SSD. Something I could never have done on the old XP, mechanical HDD setup.

Incidentally, any PC folk give me a clue why I can't get a signal out of my new box? Gigabyte X-79 UP4 mobo, seems to start but no signal to the monitor at all. Not my first rodeo by any means but nothing I've tried so far works. If the board was cactus I wouldn't get a start at all but I do - fans, PSU and drives all spin up, just...no signal. Could be a duff card; that would suck but I've already tried swapping it out and still no joy.

Ahh the joys of rolling your own!

 

[mrchester]

What the Hell are you talking about? Its all clicks and whistles to me. Very nice rendering (I would say Frameable)... I see some extra piping running on top of a couple of the engine horns. Must make a note to put those on my MPC project. Thanks for the great reference material.

 

[MWB]

mrchester & martyn,

I did not realize it had been so long since any updates. Feed us. And Martyn, I haven't forgotten about getting pics of the bow section, I am a serious procrastinator, sorry.

 

[MWB]

Getting old often times sucks. My memory is going so I offer my apologies to PrimitiveDave. The previous post was meant for you and Martyn.

Sooooooooooo, any updates?

 

[JeffBond]

Any idea what's happening with the Primitive Dave version?

 

[Nwerke]

mrchester, yes, there's a fuel pipe to each of the upper bow engines which runs along the mount pylon and down into the superstructure. No proper supports or fittings on the original AFAIK, but mine will have them for the sake of good printing, strength and just looking right. The lower bow engines probably had pipes too; it's hard to tell. I've worked a complete, coherent fuel system into the mandible and bow core now.

Mark, I'm right there with you, don't worry. Have been putting off an RMA on my new motherboard while I tinker with RAM settings etc. It's futile probably, I should just bite the bullet and get a new new motherboard. Bah humbug. I really need the new box though; I'm right at the limits of my old CPU at the moment. I have a big, quiet, aftermarket fan on it, but it spins up to serious audibility when I'm rendering, and the renders are back up into the multi-hour range even with everything heavily optimised. Sigh...yeah, I need to tear down the new build tonight and package up the mobo for return.

JeffBond, Primitive Dave is still on the job, but is tied up with RL stuff at the moment. Like me, he is also a bit fed up with Shapeways. It's been a while since either of us has received a trouble-free order. It does dampen the enthusiasm for a bit, which is why I am focusing on developing parts rather than having test prints done right now.

I think things need to settle down a bit there; it would be good if they would implement the long-promised 'orientation' options for starters.

 

[avoidz]

Hi, I just joined to follow this remarkable project. I am also a long time fan of The Black Hole and its haunting visual effects. The Cygnus is such an amazingly effective and brilliant design. Something rarely if ever seen now.

 

[Nwerke]

Thanks for the bump! Crossing my fingers cos I have just had a kind of small technological breakthrough...if all goes well there will be awesomeness! Soon! Or at least a rendered mishmash of virtual girders, lol.

 

[Nwerke]

Whew!! Two or three weeks back I bought a second set of RAM for my non-functional new PC, in case the problems I was having were due to the first set being cactus. I had no better luck with the new ones but my new board has eight slots, so I figured if RAM wasn't the issue I'd just run the extra memory, boo hoo hoo.

I tried every possible RAM/slot combination, but nada. Gave up for another week. Sunday I finally decided on one more go-around - last ditch, should have done it in the first place, just installed all 32GB on the very slight chance it might work and planned return the board if it didn't.

It worked!! For no reason I can determine it posted and went straight into BIOS; it's now all set up, no more drama. It renders in minutes what formerly took hours or days.

I'm starting to come to the conclusion that Gigabyte has some seriously finicky people on their design team, my old board had weird RAM configuration issues as well. Oh well, hopefully I'm future-proofed for a while.

Should be able to make faster progress now. Here is the bow fuel system so far.

 

[crackerjazz]

32 Gig- wow! My computer has 4. Excellent troubleshooting job by the way. That must have felt really good! Now you're unstoppable.

 

[Nwerke]

I WAS EUPHORIC, lol. Seriously, I haven't felt that big an endorphin rush since I rode the Cylon rollercoaster at Universal Studios last year, hahaha.

One of the renders above took ten minutes, it would have taken <>2hrs previously, at best. Woohoo!!

It's also running incredibly cool and quiet. I can barely hear it and even under load the processor barely breaks 64% of capacity. It runs at under 32 deg. C while idling; if you could touch it it would feel cold. About 40 deg. C while working 'hard'. Just wow.

I should be able to handle really stupid file sizes now.

 

[ketrob]

Glad you are back!
As usual, great work!

 

[avoidz]

It'll be interesting to see what the Black Hole remake Cygnus looks like (if indeed they keep the same name). I'm apprehensive because I thought the Star Trek reboot Enterprise redesign was terrible. Like some blobby kid's toy.

How long do you reckon it would take to do a full render of the entire ship?

 

[Nwerke]

That project has been very quiet since TRON: Legacy failed to hit big. It does look as if Tr3N (ack) may now go ahead though so who knows, perhaps we'll get a BH remake too. It's one remake project I really wouldn't object to - the film gets some over-the-top criticism but most of it is fair. I think the one thing people agree on is that the Cygnus was stunning, so perhaps it won't be monkeyed with too much.

Building a virtual (and real) replica teaches you a few things, one of them being that the original design makes very little sense. I don't mean the crazy off-centreline engines, I actually like those - but there are a lot of small-scale bodges like the near total lack of supports for the piping, and a lot of clumsy intersections in the framework.

They could quite easily stay with basically the same design - just maybe give the engines some thrust vectoring capacity to make sense of them and tidy up the girderwork and piping systems - and still have a winner.

Um, months. :lol Mainly because it will take me months to model the spine ridge and stern in order to have an entire ship. :lol

 

[avoidz]

TRON's Joseph Kosinski revealed during his promotion for Oblivion that the remake is still a go project. Script writing is currently being done by Jon Spaihts (Prometheus...). Kosinski says:

“Yes, The Black Hole is on. We actually have some exciting, big news coming on that very soon. It’s a project that I’m really excited about… it’s a deep space trip into the centre of the galaxy and we have a really great idea for the Black Hole itself…”

While I think Kosinski's movies have been great to look at and generally very technically competent, the bad writing has sucked out any possibility of a great film. Here's hoping The Black Hole will break that cycle.

 

[Nwerke]

Good to hear!

I actively love Tron: Legacy. I was sheltered from religion as a child so for me the Old and New Testament plot elements are, well, not exactly rich and unfamiliar, but far from tired and old; anyway I don't consider the writing poor at all though I realise I'm in a minority of about one there. :lol Oblivion is another matter; wanted to love it but can't.

Using the Milky Way's central BH as the title singularity, cool, good move. Should look good.

With a remake, in this case, there could be a plus in that they know the original wasn't great. I hope that doesn't act as a low bar to get across and instead spurs them to top it by a mile.

 

[mofo77]

hey dude,good to see your back on board the cygnus.the black hole remake sounds very interesting.could be some great spacecraft and robot designs in it.
i liked oblivion but tron legacy in my opinion was a better film but i'm definetly a big kosinski fan.
anyhow,keep on building.looking great!!!

 

[avoidz]

Oblivion was a waste of time for me. Boring, no connection to characters. Sam Rockwell in Moon did the similar theme a whole lot better, with a much smaller budget and no action.

TRON: Legacy is fantastic... visually and with that awesome soundtrack. The story was basically the first one retold, but the writing was lacking. Not really bad but something was definitely missing, as evidenced by its mediocre success. That said, I'd love to see a couple of sequels in the same world.

I hope Kosinski's news about the Black Hole features some concept art. Because of his design background I really want to see some visions for the remake. It could be spectacular. It'd be great to see some actual real model work again, but it's unlikely.