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Lightwave [6]
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Lightwave 5.6
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Open Modeler [6] and create
a ball with the following
settings:
(Please note, that is Mm
[megameters] not mm
[millimeters].)
Kill the polygons in the ball
object by pressing k.
Convert the points left behind
from the ball to single-point-polygons
by running the plugin called
'Points2Polys' from the Additional
menu.
Copy these single-point polygons
(SPPs) and paste them into
a new layer.
Rotate the ball of points in
the second layer by one degree
about the Y axis so that the
points do not occupy the same
positions as those in the
first layer.
Finally, cut the SPPs
out of this layer and paste
them back into the first layer.
If you check the Statistics
panel, you should find that
you now have a ball of 18,004
SPPs.
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Open Modeler 5.6 and create
a ball with the following
settings:
(Please note, that is Mm
[megameters] not mm
[millimeters].)
Kill the polygons in the ball
object by pressing k.
Convert the points left behind
from the ball to single-point-polygons
by running the plugin called
'Points2Polys' from the menu.
Copy these single-point polygons
(SPPs) and paste them into
a new layer. Continue doing
this until you have seven
layers, each with its own
copy of the ball's points.
Rotate the ball of points in
the second layer by one degree
about the Y axis so that the
points do not occupy the same
positions as those in the
first layer. Now rotate the
points in the third layer
by two degrees, the points
in layer four by three degrees
etc. until you have rotated
the points in all seven layers.
Finally, cut the SPPs out of
layer 2 and paste them back
into layer 1 with the original
points. Do this for all the
other layers too, until you
have all 7 copies back in
layer 1.
If you check the Statistics
panel, you should find that
you have a ball of 17,934
SPPs.
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We now have the basis for our starfield
object: a bucket load of single-point-polygons.
What we will do now is define several surfaces
within this ball, so that later we can
give the stars different colours and intensities.
This is by far the least scientific of
the steps described in these tutorials...
Press a so that the whole of your
object is in view, make sure you are in
the polygons selection mode, and then
hold down the right mouse button and scrawl
a kind of checkerboard-pattern all over
your object in the face/front viewport
as shown:
When you let go of the pointer, some SPPs
will be have been selected and some will
not. The original object was around 18,000
polygons, and hopefully you will have
selected around half of them (9,000).
Cut these SPPs out of the current
later and Paste them into Layer
2.
Now go back to Layer 1 and repeat the scrawl
procedure so that you pick up half or
the remaining polygons (about 4,500).
For a little variation, draw your selection-scrawl
in the top view this time. Cut these out
and paste them into Layer 3.
Go back to Layer 2 and cut away half of
the polygons here using the same techniques,
and paste these polygons into Layer 4...
You should now have four layers, each containing
about 4,500 SPPs.
What we are going to do now is cut away
half of the SPPs from Layer 1 and paste
them into Layer 5, then cut away half
of the SPPs from Layer 2 and paste them
into Layer 6... can you see where this
is going? Essentially, you need to keep
cutting away half of the polygons from
one layer and pasting them back into a
new layer. Each time you draw your scrawl,
draw it in a different view port (top,
side or front) and try to alter the angle
of your scrawl strokes each time too.
All of this will help randomise the selections
you make.
Continue until you have eight layers, each
with around 2,250 SPPs (don't worry if
your numbers are a bit off, it will all
add authentic randomness to the final
starfield.)
If you have Lightwave [6], you can use
Lightwave [6]'s infinite layers (access
this by selecting )and continue dividing
the SPP layers until you have 16 layers,
each containing around 1,125 SPPs. I recommend
that you do this, as it will enable you
to have more surfaces defined, which can
only benefit the eventual look of the
star field.
If, however, you are running Lightwave
5.6, or you can't be bothered to create
sixteen layers, then we will proceed to
only fill the available layers.
Check through your layers and find the
two layers that have the most SPPs in
them, then divide these two layers as
we have been doing before and paste the
SPPs you cut out into Layers 9 and 10.
We will now define the surfaces for our
stars.
Click on Layer 1 and press q to
apply a surface.
Call the surface 'Stars 01' and define
a colours of your choice, as shown above.
Click on Layer 2, press q and call
this surface 'Stars 02'. Give these stars
a different colour.
Continue through all your layers repeating
this step, giving each layer's SPPs a
new surface name each time (Stars 03,
Stars 04, Stars xx...)
Each time you define a new surface, specify
a new colour too. It doesn't really matter
what colour you choose at this point,
just as long as you can tell each surface
apart from all the others. We will come
back to these colours later.
Once you have finished defining all the
surfaces, we have to get all the SPPs
back into a single layer.
This is easily accomplished by clicking
on Layer 1, then shift-clicking on each
of the other layers in turn until all
the layers are selected. (NB: If you are
in Modeler [6] and using more than 10
layers, you will need to use the Layers
control [ ] to select the layers
after Layer 10).
If all the layers are selected, press x
to cut away all of the SPPs from
their respective layers. Now click on
Layer 1 alone, and press v to paste
back the SPPs.
Hopefully, you will now have a single layer
with around 18,000 SPPs and ten or more
different colours spread between them.
Looking at the OpenGL view above, it is
clear that two major obstacles prevent
our ball of SPPs from looking like stars.
Firstly, the points are all positioned
too regularly, and secondly, the colours
we defined are all in patches, clumped
together. This is no good at all.
Luckily, there are several tools available
to us that can easily rectify the situation.
Tool number one in our arsenal is the Twist
tool ( ). Select this tool
and then twist the SPPs around the Y axis
about 700 degrees. (Do this by clicking
on the 0,0 point in the top view and dragging
the mouse to the left). Next, twist by
an equally large number around the X axis,
and then around the Z axis.
As you can see, this quickly destroys any
sense of order that might once have existed
in the position of the SPPs in this object.
The twist was good, but not enough to completely
eliminate the appearance of colour groupings...
we need a more drastic tool now. Jitter
fits the role very well.
Select the Jitter tool ( ) and enter the
following settings:
Press OK and watch the results.
As you can see, the points have jiggled
about from their original positions and
become slightly more random in their placement.
They haven't moved about enough yet, so
apply Jitter again with the same settings
about 10-15 times until you have a nice
'furry' edge to your ball.
"10-15 times?!?!" I hear you
say... "Why not just apply it once
with the Radii settings increased by a
factor of 10-15?"
The answer to this is that by doing a whole
lot of small jitters, the overall shape
of the object is not changed; it's still
a hollow ball of points. If you do a single
jitter with a very large setting, the
shape is not retained nearly as well,
and you lose control of the shape that
you started with. Lots of small jitters
are always better when the target object
is to be roughly the same shape as the
pre-jitter object.
After 10-15 Jitter operations, your starfield
should be looking rather like the images
above.
As a final touch, and to get some nice
groupings into our starfield, we will
incorporate the ACTUALSTARS.LWO object
that comes with Lightwave into our own
object.
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Lightwave [6]
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Lightwave 5.6
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Press L to load
a new object and browse to
\Objects\Space\ACTUALSTARS.LWO
to load up the ActualStars
object.
This will automatically open
a new set of layers and place
the ActualStars object into
Layer 1.
Copy this object and
paste is into Layer
2.
Rotate the object in
Layer 2 by 90 degrees around
the Y axis.
Copy the object from
Layer 2 and paste it
into Layer 3.
Rotate the object in
Layer 3 by 90 degrees around
the Y axis.
Select all three layers and
Cut them away.
Close the current object
(
).
Return to the starfield object
we were originally working
on.
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Select a new layer (I will
refer to Layer 2).
Press L to load
a new object and browse to
\Objects\Space\ACTUALSTARS.LWO
to load up the ActualStars
object.
Copy this object and
paste is into Layer
3.
Rotate the object in
Layer 3 by 90 degrees around
the Y axis.
Copy the object from
Layer 3 and paste it
into Layer 4.
Rotate the object in
Layer 4 by 90 degrees around
the Y axis.
Select Layers 2, 3 and 4 and
Cut away their contents.
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Select Layer 2 of the our starfield object
and put Layer 1 in the background so that
it shows through as a black outline.
Paste the contents of the clipboard
into Layer 2 (the clipboard should contain
the three copies of the ActualStars object
that we just made).
Scale the contents of Layer 2 with
the following settings:
This should scale up the ActualStars object
so that it is at the same scale as our
own starfield.
Finally, cut the contents of Layer 2 away
and paste them into Layer 1 along with
our own starfield.
Looking at our object now, we see that
now we have loads and loads of stars,
which is good. At this point, your object
should have around 23,000 points.
There is still a slight problem with our
starfield, in that the density of stars
all over the globe is fairly regular.
Let's fix this now, so that we can have
a band of more dense clustering within
our globe.
In the face view, use the right-button
to draw a rough selection area as shown
below.
Copy these selected stars and paste
them back into Layer 2.
Rotate the stars in Layer 2 using
these settings:
The previous stepshould leave you with
a strip of stars that do not occupy the
same space as any stars in Layer 1. To
be absolutely sure that they do not, run
Jitter on these stars a few times (2 or
3) using the following settings.
This will leave you with something like
this:
As a little refinement, use the Twist
tool to twist your strip of stars around
the Y axis by 45 degrees, leaving you
with something like this:
This will help to prevent the more dense
strip of stars looking too 'intended'.
Finish off your object by rotating
the strip by 20 degrees around the Z axis.
You can now Cut the star strip away
and paste it back into Layer 1
with the rest of the stars.
If you want an even more dense band of
stars, in a sort of Milky-Way arrangement,
you could repeat the steps from 13)
but this time use a narrower selection
band.
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