This is a shot of a Deep Space Nine-style excelsior (hint: the nacelles glow) in orbit over Utopia Planitia. The orbital dock seen here is a model I did of a station briefly glimpsed at in the Star Trek Voyager episode Relativity. I didn’t have much reference material at the time, and it’s hard to believe but the model is now just over 10 years old! Here is a closer shot of it (Click for a larger version):
I’ll put this up for download if there is enough interest in it.
The Excelsior class ship is however, not entirely my own – it was originally Eric Peterson’s mesh which you can get hold of here. I believe Matt Allen and Rob Willson also did some rework of it, and then I have taken it and done some re-modelling and retexturing of it (Phew!). However my modifications were light and its still a great mesh to use.
Oh, and if I don’t speak to any of you before – Merry Christmas! 
Nice! Please do make the station available, I’ve been searching for a model of this station for years with no success. And Merry Christmas
Sure – will do. I’ll prepare it in the next few days. Stay tuned!
Lovely picture, and a merry belated christmas to you too
Wow..10 years…its holding up well!
You seem to have a nice blog going here, It’d be great to see you back on SFM (the place really needs people, its like a ghost town :P). If your time permitts that
Have a great 2011!
Hi Leon, I try to show my face on SFM every now and again, but unfortunately life commitments slow me down a little
I shall make an effort to make a contribution there in 2011 
Hi Mark!
I married eight years ago, and I have a little girl with seven years old and a little boy with two years old. It´s funny, but sometimes I got myself tired of running from here to there playing with them. 
Count on me as interested in have a copy of that station, as the excelsior “refit” to.
I read that now you´re a married man. Welcome to the club!
If I don´t speak to you until there – Happy new year!!
That’s great news! I found the wedding planning stressful enough, let alone starting a family! I look forward to it thoroughly, however. Even though I’m technically a grown up I still love “playing with spaceships” as my wife puts it. She actively encourages it at times, in fact (I think it gives her a little peace).
I’d also love to have this spacedock mesh, will it and the Ingsignia mesh work with Max 2009?
At the moment I only have them in 2010 format….unfortunately I don’t know if it is backwards compatible with 3DS Max 9. Can you give it a try and let me know?
No Mark, I´m pretty sure there isn´t native backward compatibility. A workaround is do it by 3ds or fbx formats. In my experience I can say that fbx is the better cause it preserves uv´s and maps. No mesh errors at all for the most of times.
Max 2010 comes with fbx exporter, but it is in a different version taht you can find for max 9. Therefore, Autodesk mades available for free a standalone tool that can exchange between the versions.
Thanks Cassio, I shall take a look. I have managed to export it to .obj at the moment…
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