First off let's deal with a nice flat hull
- First make yourself a long rectangular
box in layer one in Modeler like so:
You next task then is to create your window - the shape of
your window is really a matter of taste; I went for the following
shape - when you make the window make it in the left view
- like so and then multiply Clone a few copies of it
along the length of your rudimentary hull. You're aiming for
something like this:
There are 2 methods of doing what we are going to do next
but the one I'm going to outline is by
far the easiest. Now this is the important
bit - ensure that the window polygons
are nowhere near the polygon surfaces
you are going to use them on so offset
them on the x-axis until they are away
from both hull sides like so.
Now swap layers - the key setup for this is usually the comma
key next to the semicolon. Select the
two polygons that make up the side of
your hull and then hide the rest using
the "-"
{minus} key. Try and get into the
habit of always selecting the polygons
that you want to affect - hiding the rest
is optional but on large models easier
on your eyes. You effectively tell Lightwave
which polygons it must then affect with
the next operation - not only saving you
time but also your computer and getting
in this habit also makes the risk of error
far less.
The process we are going to use is Tools - Drill -
shortcut key is "R". You will be faced with
a menu looking like this:
We are going to use the Stencil command - as you may have
noticed - now we want to stencil the window
polygons with a different surface name
so that we can pick them from the other
polygons later with greater ease so do
as I have done and type in the name of
your new surface and then click create
- or alternatively if you have already
got a pre-made window frame surface in
Modeler choose that from the drop down
surface list - then simply press OK..
You will now have effectively stencilled or "painted"
the window frame surfaces onto your hull object like so:
Now comes the nifty bit -- bring up your
statistics window - I have configured
mine to a different button but it is usually
"w" . From here go to
polygon mode and then select the Window
frame surface - with the polygons that
make up that surface now actively selected;
perform a smooth shift function
or even with straightforward flat planar
polygons like this you could use the Boolean
function. Move the window frames back
a suitable amount into your hull - the
dimensions will depend on the size of
your object - aim for something like I've
shown in the next image. Once you have
made your window recess which will now
handily be called Window Frames - all
you have to do is now apply a new surface
to the still selected polygons - Windows
would be a good name!
If all went well you will have this result on both sides
of you hull:
Right that's flat surfaces done with now for something a
little bit harder:
First make a regular saucer shaped object
- nice and symmetrical - again dimensions
are totally up to you - this isn't a hand-holding
tutorial rather one specifying a particular
technique. Aim for a similar object to
the one in the next image - you can make
and then squash a sphere or use the lathe
tool. For the purpose of this tutorial
delete the bottom half as we won't need
it. Were you to make a standard trek type
hull you would cut and copy this to another
layer for separate detailing.
The next step is to place your window stencils in the correct
starting point for the subsequent operation. If you look at
the next image you will see I have placed 3 in line at the
front of the saucer. As before have the saucer in the background
layer for this operation and when you have positioned your
stencil objects move them up the Y axis so that they are well
clear of the background surface that will be affected.
Now perform a multiply - Array - With the Radial option.
Specify a suitable number of clones of the original and ensure
the axis of rotation is Y if you have made yours like mine
and that all the centre co-ordinates are set to Zero. I made
my sphere with 64 divisions and adjusted my window to fit
twice in each segment so 96 clones should give an even spread
here. You'll get something like this:
Now at this point you have a few options - it would be rare
for ships to have windows in this layout
- and the good news is these stencils
are single polygons so you can easily
select and delete them to your taste to
get a nice window pattern for your hull
- at this point apply a surface called
- you guessed it -- Window Frames to these
stencils. Now exactly as before swap layers
and perform the Drill stencil Operation
and obviously this time in the Y direction
instead. Stop before you do the Smooth
shift operation! It will have to be
a smooth shift operation because now the
surfaces will be made up of several polygons
each instead of just one as in the first
section; but I want to cover something
else with you before that.
If you zoom up real close on one of the
now stencilled window frames surfaces
you will note that in some places there
are points extremely close to each other
- on detailed meshes they can be so close
as to not be eliminated by a merge even
on the absolute setting - and they WILL
sometimes cause polygon surface smoothing
errors. Now Lightwave 5.6 and earlier
has a point limit; so this can
be a problem also in that arena for detailed
meshes. So certain points don't need to
be there and if the surface won't be affected
that much WELD adjacent points
together. We do this at this stage because
after a smooth shift we would have a massive
amount of these unnecessary points and
also polygons as you can imagine on a
mesh with many windows!
L6 users can leave it be so long as there are no smoothing
problems to correct.
The points to weld together are these in both cases best
to weld points 1 to points 2 as shown below - use your judgement
on which point should be the one all others are welded to
and remember that the very last point you select is the one
in which all the other points will end up being united with
to make One single point.
Now we can proceed to make our recesses and windows exactly
as discussed previously - BUT first check
for 1 & 2 sided polygons with your
statistics window - because they will
invariably end up being created sometimes
due to the point welding clean up process
- it can take a while but the effort is
worth while!
If all goes well you will have a nice set of recessed windows
like this:
This next section deals with how to place our stencils on
an elliptical hull.
As before create your hull - but this time
stretch it on its x axis - so it looks
like the enterprise D Hull. Now this is
My technique and there may be another
way - but this is how I do it. First place
your windows stencils in their respective
start positions as outlined before.
Now make a note of where there are any adjacent cylindrical
divisions of the hull that are very close to your windows
like so :
You can see in my example that there are
two divisions on the hull that are close
to my window - these will prove very handy.
I'll now select one of these divisions
as the basis for a polygon curve .If you
select a point and then press the
"i" button you will
get a little menu that will tell you its
EXACT placement in the Modeler universe
- using the info you gather on the furthest
X points position and the furthest Z points
positions - you can easily make a a disc
to the exact dimensions as the curve you
are interested in.
Do this in another layer but only use half the number of
sides as you did for your hull object. This is because we
are going to use the points from this new disc to create a
polygon curve. From your new disc select points from just
on the x=0 and just after a single quadrant; and make
a polygon curve by pressing Ctrl + p -- then select
the original disc polygon and delete it to leave you with
a solitary curve like so:
Now place your window stencil object in a foreground layer
and the polygon curve in the background
- then you go to the multiply menu and
click on the Rail Clone button
right at the button on the left - you'll
get a menu giving you the choice of how
many clones you want and whether to do
it automatically - via Lengths or via
Knots. hmm what does that mean?
Well Automatic and Knots will tend to bunch
the objects closer together towards the
zenith or highest point of the curve so
you'll end up with a denser concentration
where a curve reaches its tightest arc
and they will space out more and more
as the curve relaxes.
For our purposes Lengths is the best option as this will
ensure that the spaces between each clone
are maintained as a constant.
Oriented as you might have guessed will orient the clones
with the shape of the curve.
Now experiment with the amount of clones
until you get a nice density and they
packed quite close together - this will
involve a few OK and UNDO operations to
find a nice balance as its dependent on
the dimensions of your hull. When done
merely delete any left over from the quadrant
and perform two mirror operations to get
the other quadrants done like so
Delete the highlighted "extras"
from the final rail clone result
Then perform two mirror operations to achieve
the other quadrants
These stencils are now ready for use using
the methods described previously in windowing up your elliptical
hull!
The previous method in the last section can be adapted for
use on hulls with weird shapes also -
by copying the points directly from the
surface of the hull pasting to a new layer
- using the set value tool to conform
to one point on the y axis or whichever
axis you are using; and then creating
a polygon curve exactly as discussed previously
-
LIKE SO:
However now you must be aware that if the
hull has steep falloffs on the Y axis
and you are stencilling in the Y-Axis
then obviously windows will end up being
stretched - that situation calls for the
use of the solid drill tool. The
solid drill tool is very similar in its
operation except that now you have to
make a solid object as opposed to just
a single stencil type polygon.
You then intersect the actual surface you want to
affect with the stencil object in a background layer - and
of course as you can imagine this allows you to orient the
cutting or stencilling object to the exact desired angle -
study the following images and you'll get the general idea.
Our solid object in the
background - angled for the stencil operation
using solid drill stencil:
...and then the end result
- looking good with no stretching from
planar distortion on the awkward surface:
Tutorial ©2000 F. Passaro
(E-mail)
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