BetterSpace

Adding Detail to Spaceships

Now that we have looked fairly extensively at how to add detail to flat panels, and now we have the more challenging task of adding detail to the curved front face of our object.

If it's not already loaded, open the object we worked on in the last lesson. In this lesson we will be adding some detail to the rear of the object.

our object so far

The first thing we will do is isolate the polygons we will be working with.

select these polygons

Select the polygons shown above and Cut them out, then Paste them into Layer 4.

Now choose Layer 5 as your foreground and leave Layer 4 in the background.

Create two discs with the following settings:	Disc 1	Disc 2
	new disc 1	new disc 2
Next, create two boxes with these settings:	Box 1	Box 2
	new box 1	new box 2

Move all of these shapes up the Z-axis so that they do not intersect with the polygons of the object in the background layer.

Lightwave [6]	Lightwave 5.6
Press w to open the Polygon Statistics window. Click the black triangle next to 'Surf' and select temp from the popup menu. Lightwave [6] polygon statistics Finally, press the + next to 'Surf' to select all polygons that have the temp surface.	Press w to open the Polygon Statistics window. Click the popup menu and select temp from the menu. Lightwave 5.6 polygon statistics Finally, press the + next to 'with Surface' to select all polygons that have the temp surface.

We will be using the temp surface after each Drill operation, for ease of selection.

temp surface polygons selected

When all the polygons are selected, deselect the polygons that make up the stencilled boxes, so that you are left with only the polygons of the stencilled discs selected. Press q and apply the Main Details Pipework surface.

Lightwave [6]	Lightwave 5.6
Press Shift+f to activate the Smooth Shift tool, then simply right-click to create a smooth shift with no offset.	Press Shift+f to activate the Smooth Shift tool and enter settings of Offset=0.0m and Max Smoothing Angle=89.5 degrees.

Press Ctrl+v and enter settings of axis=Z, position=93.5m.

discs smooth-shifted out

Next, press Shift+z to merge all the selected polygons. Since there are two distinct groups of polygons which do not meet each other, the polygons will merge into two circular polygons.

Apply the following bevels to the two disc polygons..

This will smooth out the end of the extruded disc and form a pipe.

bevels completed

Now deselect all polygons.

Open the Polygon Statistics window again and select all polygons with the temp surface, as we did in step 4). This will select all the polygons making up the stencilled boxes we made earlier.

boxes selected

Press q and assign them a new surface called Main Details Curved, with the following surface settings:

Now press Shift+f to activate Smooth Shift and do a shift on the selected polygons with an offset of 2.0m and a Max Smoothing Angle of 89.5 degrees.

boxes smooth-shifted

Now apply a new surface called Main Details Curved (temp) to the selected polygons at the end of the shifted area. This surface should have the same settings as Main Details Curved.

Now we will stencil some more shapes into the object.

Create some polygons like these in the Top view. Swap the layers around and use the Polygon Statistics window to select all the polygons with the Main Surface texture.

new stencils made

Now drill the polygons in the background layer through the Y-axis onto the main object, again, specifying the temp surface to facilitate later selection.

drilling complete

Open the Polygon Statistics window again and use it to select all the polygons with the temp surface.

Press q and apply the Main Details Curved surface to these polygons.

Now apply a Smooth-Shift to the selected polygons with an offset of 1.0m and max smoothing of 89.5 degrees.

newly-stencilled polygons smooth-shifted

Finally, apply the Main Details Curved (temp) surface to the polygons still selected.

Now that we've built some detail poking out of the object's surface, let's create a little detail that is recessed into the object.

In your face / front view, zoom in closely to the area just above the two pipes.

Create a box here that only overlaps areas of the main surface, do not overlap any of the detail surfaces.

(face view) new box created

Once again, use the Polygon Statistics window to select all the polygons with the Main Surface texture, then drill this box polygon into the main object through the Z-axis, specifying the temp surface.

After the drill is done, select all the temp polygons and apply the Main Surface texture, then Smooth-Shift them with an offset of -1.0m.

drill and smooth shift completed

Finally, apply the surface Details Panel to the polygons left selected when the smooth shift is completed.

Now that we have some large panels sticking out of our object, let's enhance those by stencilling some smaller details onto those.

Use the Polygon Statistics window to select all polygons with the surfaces Main Details Curved (temp) and Details Panel. Cut these polygons into a new layer.

polygons cut into new layer

Select a new layer and put these polygons into the background layer.

Create a few small boxes like this:

new detail boxes

Then Drill them onto the polygons in the background layer through the Y-axis, using the temp texture.

detail boxes drilled

You can now Cut all the polygons in this layer out, and Paste them back into the layer containing the curved surface they were created from.

Now use the Polygon Statistics window to select all of the polygons with temp surface and apply the surface Main Details Smooth.

Next, Smooth-Shift the polygons outwards with an offset of 0.5m and a smoothing angle of 89.5 degrees.

detail boxes shifted out

Finally, use the Polygon Statistics window to select all of the polygons with Main Details Curved (temp) surface and apply the Main Details Curved surface to them.

There's a large flat area on one side of our object, so let's use the Knife and Bevel tool to quickly add some more detail to this area.

Use the knife tool in the top view to slice the object in two places. The first slice will be made at X = -35m and the second slice will be made at X = -54m.

top view: new slices made

The arrows in the image above indicate the new slices that were made.

By using the Knife tool there, we have created a potential problem for ourselves, as there are now some points on the edges of this object which will not merge with points on the edge of the main object in Layer 1.

We can sort this out by Merging polygons and deleting unnecessary points.

(The following two images show a close-up view of the top-left corner of the image from step 12) in the top view) Begin by selecting the polygons shown here and pressing Shift+z to merge the polygons.

select and merge

Now select the points shown here and press z to delete them.

select and delete

Now we will repeat this for the polygons at the front / bottom of the object.

Select the polygons shown here and press Shift+z to merge the polygons.

select and merge

Now select the points shown here and press z to delete them.

select and delete

The object will now join back onto the main object in Layer 1 without any possible problems at a later stage.

Select every other polygon from within the two slices we made earlier, as shown here.

select these polygons

Press b and apply the following bevels to these selected polygons.

This will leave you with a nice array of bevelled pits in the surface.

pits created and surface applied

Finish them off by applying the Details Panel surface to the polygons at the bottom of the pits.

I'm now going to add a pair of pipes that travel across our object, curving along the surface.

To begin with, select a new layer and create single points at these positions with the Points tool (Lightwave 5.6: Polygon \ Create \ Points, Lightwave [6]: Objects \ Polygons \ Points).

When you have created these five points, make a curve that joins them by pressing Ctrl+p.

Now select the curve and press Ctrl+v then Ctrl+b. This will toggle the end points of the curve to act as controls, rather than as a part of the curve itself.

Next, select a new layer and put the layer containing the curve in the background, then create a disc with the following settings:

Select the disc, and if necessary, flip its orientation so that it points towards negative Z.

disc and curve

Apply the Main Details Pipework surface to the disc.

We will be creating this pipe using a Rail Extrude. This tool works by extruding the polygons(s) in the foreground layer along the length of a rail (curve) in the background layer.

Activate the Rail Extrude tool by pressing Ctrl+r or by selection Multiply \ Sweep \ Rail Extr from the menus.

rail extrude options

We will use the Uniform Knots option, which allows us to specify a number of segments for the extrusion, which Modeler will distribute according to the amount of curve required for the shape. I will use 20 segments.

Now mirror this new pipe across the plane X=-44.0m to create a second pipe.

extrusion complete

After the mirroring is done, delete the curve in the background layer and observe the new pipes with the rest of the object from this lesson in the background layer.

At the moment, these pipes are just floating in mid-air, so let's give them something to join onto on the main object. Create a box with the following settings:	box settings	Next, select the points shown and move them down by -3.5m in Y. extrusion complete Finally, apply the surface Main Details to the new box.

Create another around the bottom of the pipes, and deform it with the Drag, Shear and Move tools to that you have something like this:

second box

Make sure that this new box has the Main Details texture applied, the Cut all the pipes and end-boxes out of this layer and Paste them into the layer containing the rest of the object we have been working on in this lesson.

A good way to add a sense of scale to an object is to add small windows on the surface of the model. If these are built to a realistic scale, they can be a very good visual cue as to the size of the object.

Begin by creating a box as shown here. I have used the Drag tool to deform the boxes' shape and then applied KW Edge Smoother to remove the harsh edges.

new box created

Make sure that the bottom of the box passes through the surface of the main object, so that we don't need to worry about actually joining the box to the surface.

Next, select a new layer and put the box into the background layer.

Create a few boxes in the top view that cross the front-upper edge of our box in the background layer.

four stencil polygons

Now use the Drill tool to stencil these boxes onto the large box through the Y-axis, using the temp texture.

Use the Polygon Statistics panel to select all polygons with the temp surface and apply the Main Details surface to them, but do not deselect them afterwards.

drilling done

Press Shift+f and Smooth-Shift these polygons inwards by -250mm with 89.5 degrees Max Smoothing.

You will be left with something like this:

windows finished

I am now going to quickly add some extra detail to this object, simply by creating some boxes and pasting them into the same layer as the rest of the object. All of the techniques have been described in this and previous lessons.

more detail added

If you are content with the amount of detail on this object, Cut all the polygons out of this layer, then switch to Layer 1 and Paste this lesson's object in there.

Press m to merge all the points that occupy the same space, and we're all done.

Save your object, but do not merge the layers yet, keeping them separate will be useful while we are texturing the object.

finished object with no texture maps

finished object with no texture maps

In the next lesson, we will look at how to add even more detail to our object, and to increase its visual appeal, through the use of dedicated textures.

Do you have any comments of questions regarding this lesson?