Press d to bring up the
display options. Set the following preferences:
| Orientation |
Quad: Side |
| Preview
Type |
Wire |
| Visibility |
all checked |
| Unit
System |
SI |
| Default
Unit |
meters |
| Grid
Units |
1 2 5 |
| Grid
Snap |
Standard |
|
Press OK.
You now need to begin building your splines.
To do this, select . You will now draw the
lower rail-curve of the lower-nose section.
In this illustration, the grid size is
5 meters. The arrow shows the direction
of the spline (the first point you place
should be the one on the right, and the
last should be the one on the left.) Once
you have drawn these points, press (or Ctrl+p)
to make the curve. If this does not work,
deselect all the points on screen, and
then select them in order from right to
left, then make the curve. When the curve
is completed, ensure that the points of
the curve all have an X value of 0.
One curve is not enough I'm afraid. In
fact, if you build the White Star in exactly
the way I have, you will end up with 141
curves made up of 502 points. The next
step is to create the upper rail curve
for the lower-nose.
To make this curve, create the necessary
points as before, with the exception of
the final point on the right. Once the
points are placed, deselect them all.
Next, select the newly placed points in
order, starting from the left. Finally,
select the point belonging to the lower
rail-curve at the far-right. With all
these points selected, make the curve.
Your next task is to modify the points
of this curve to form half of the top
rail-curve of the lower-nose. Select the
upper rail and then select . Drag the points of the
upper rail-curve to form the shape shown
in the image below.
 |
We will be creating only the right-hand
side of the ship with splines, and eventually
using the mirror tool to create the rest
of the ship. However, before this can
be done, we must ensure that when we finally
mirror the resulting geometry to make
both halves of the nose the join is smooth.
This is true of all profile curves which
cross the X axis. To do this, select the
second point from the right on the upper-rail
and mirror is across the X axis. Next,
select the newly created point and the
point on the far-right of the upper rail
and make a curve between them with Ctrl+p.
This is only a temporary curve. Next,
select both the new curve and the upper
rail curve together. Select and watch the
results. Deselect all the curves and then
select the temporary curve on its own.
Delete it by pressing z.
You should be left with something which
looks like this:
 |
An alternative to this method is this:
After mirroring the correct point and
creating the temporary curve, select both
the temporary curve and the upper rail.
Select or press Shift+z
to merge the two curves into one single
curve. Next, select the curve and observe
which end of the curve the small diamond
appears over. If the diamond appears as
it does in the image above, select or press Ctrl+n.
If the diamond appears over the other
end of the curve, select or press
Ctrl+b.
Both of these techniques have the same
results. We have told Lightwave to use
the point on the left of the X axis as
a reference control point. This means
that Lightwave will shape the curve as
if the extra point is a part of it. All
curves which cross the X axis must have
the same treatment for this model.
Save your work at this point as WS_Splines_1.lwo
To make a polygon mesh from a spline cage,
we must make patches with either three
or four sides. Four-sided patches always
make for better results, but in some cases
a three-sided patch must be used.
To create this curve you need to place
just two points. The first needs to be
placed just above the point to the far-left
of the upper rail-curve. The second needs
to be placed between the point at the
far left of the upper and lower rails.
This second point needs to be mirrored
across the X axis. Now, select the points
in the face view, starting with the newly
created point and working left. When all
five points are selected, make the curve.
Finally, select the curve and make both
end points into reference control points
by pressing Ctrl+b and
then Ctrl+n. You will
be left with a curve looking like the
yellow curve in the image above.
Save your work at this point as WS_Splines_2.lwo
Now that we have three curves, it is time
to test the spline cage. Select the two
rail curves first, and then select the
new profile curve. When you have all three
curves selected, make the spline patch
by selecting or by pressing
Ctrl+f.
Select the default options: 10 perpendicular
knots and 10 parallel knots. Press OK.
When the patch is made, you will see polygonal
geometry something like the image above.
If the polygon arrangement of your geometry
is not similar, and seems to radiate from
the back of the shape, you selected the
curves in the wrong order. Delete the
geometry you have created and experiment
with selecting the curves in a different
order before patching them.
If you turn on your Open GL or Quickdraw
3D preview mode, you will see that there
are nasty errors around the front of the
shape. This always occurs when
you attempt to make a three-sided patch,
and is the reason why four-sided patches
are so preferable. To fix the problem
to some degree, deselect everything and
then select a few of the polygons making
up the new shape. Take care not to select
any of the curves. You need not select
all of the polygons, because if you now
select (Select
Connected) or press ]
(left square bracket), Lightwave will
do it for us.
When all the polygons are selected, check
to see which direction the polygon normals
are pointing. The majority of the points
should point downward, but if they do
not, select or press f
to flip them so that they point down.
Next, select or press m.
Press Automatic and then
OK. This will remove
the excess points created when patching
three curves. Inspect the shaded preview
to see the results. You may find that
the errors look even worse... this is
due to the limited accuracy of the shaded
preview and is fairly rare: the results
will become apparent in the final render
from Layout.
As a trial run for when we have finished
making the model, select or press Shift+v.
Position the mirror on the X axis in the
top view and press Enter.
Deselect everything and make sure that
you are in Polygons-select
mode, then select or press
w. In the Polygon Statistics
window, press the + next to Faces
and close the window. You will see that
all the polygons are selected. Select
or press x to cut these
polygons out of the current layer. Next
choose an empty layer and select
or press v to paste the
polygons into it. With nothing selected,
merge all points as you did before. 41
points should be eliminated. Using your
shaded preview, inspect the object you
have made to check for any major problems.
If you find minor problems, in most cases
the Lightwave renderer is vastly superior
to the shaded preview and will eliminte
the glitch for you.
The polygonal geometry we just created
was purely a trial run, and is not yet
refined enough to be finished. Delete
all the polygons now by pressing z.
The lower nose of the White Star has a
more complex shape than we can define
with just two rails and a profile curve.
We need more profile curves, and we will
create them in exactly the same way as
the last one.
If you followed the instructions and images
closely during the first few steps of
this lesson, your rail curves will join-up
nicely and the next part of the lesson
will be easy. If however, you strayed
from the path, you will need to go back
and sort out your rails.
The points shown here will be connected
with profile curves, which are shown in
the background layer of the image. Connect
the points shown with curves created in
the same way as before.
The profile curve toward the left of the
cage needs three points in between where
it intersects the two rails, whereas the
shape of the forward curve is controlled
entirely by the reference points, with
no need for additional points between
the rails. The most important shape to
achive when creating the curves is the
one seen in the face view, shown here.
The grey arrows indicate the position
of the points on the more complex rear
curve.
Save your work at this point as WS_Splines_3.lwo
With these secondary profile curves in
place, the spline-based modelling of this
section of the White Star is complete.
Only a few steps remain, and the first
of those is the patching of this cage.
With all patching operations, the order
in which you select the splines to be
patched is important and affects the resulting
geometry. In order to reduce confusion
and having to re-patch areas of models,
I use the simple method of always
selecting the rail curves first, and then
selecting the profile curves afterward.
This illustration demonstrates the selection
order for the rear patch of the White
Star lower-nose.
 |
When these curves are selected, press Ctrl+f
to make the patch. Specify 20 Perpendicular
Knots and 10 Parallel Knots. Press OK
to finish the operation. With the curves
still selected, click once on the profile
curve on the far left to deselect it,
then hold down Shift
and select the third profile curve. Patch
the curves with the same settings of 20
and 10 and press OK.
Next, deselect all the curves and press
w to bring-up the Polygon
Statistics window again. Select
all faces in the same way as you did before,
by pressing the + next to Faces.
Close the window and cut the polygons
out by pressing x. Select
a fresh layer and paste the polygons into
it.
What you now have in your layer are two
separate patches, which appear to be joined
but in fact are not. To demonstrate this,
click on a polygon at the left edge of
the shape. Next, select all connected
polygons by pressing the right
square bracket. As you can see,
only half of the shape has been selected.
Check that the polygons are facing in
the right direction (downwards) and correct
them by pressing f to
flip them if they are not. Do the same
for the other piece of geometry in the
layer.
Return to the layer with your splines in
it. We will now create the final patch
for the lower-nose. Select the two rails
first, and then select the right-most
profile. Press Ctrl+f
and patch the section with 20 perp. and
10 para. knots. When this is done, select
all the polygons making up the patch and
check to see that they face correctly,
flipping them if necessary, then press
m to merge the points.
210 points should be eliminated.
Cut the new patch out and paste it into
the layer containing the other polygon
patches. With nothing selected, merge
all points by pressing m. The three
patches are now one piece of geometry,
and you should see the difference in your
shaded preview where the patches used
to meet. Select or press
q to give all these polygons a
surface name. Type WS Lower Nose Skin
into the requestor and change the attributes
to the following:
| Name |
WS Lower Nose
Skin |
| Colour |
190,193,182 |
| Diffuse |
100% |
| Specular |
100% |
| Glossiness |
64
(Medium) |
| Double
Sided |
Yes |
| Smooth |
Yes |
| Smoothing
Angle |
89.5° |
|
Save your work at this point as WS_Lownose_construction_1.lwo
To complete this section of the White Star,
we need to do a few touch-up operations
and add a little detail. The first step
is to create the hole in the lower-nose
which the neck of the lower-hull passes
through.
To do this, select the polygons shown here
and delete them by pressing z.
You will notice that the selection of polygons
was almost rectangular, except two corners
of the rectangle were missing. Select
the two polygons which make up the missing
corner and cut them out, pasting them
into a new layer. Select or press k
to kill the polygon data, but leave the
points. We will deal with the points from
the polygon which was on the left first.
In Points-select mode,
select three points in the order shown
in the next image, then create a three-sided
polygon from them by selecting or pressing p.
 |
Do this for the set of points left by the
polygon which was on the right, so that
the effect is to soften the corner of
the hole, as the new triangle on the left
has done. When both polygons are made,
check to see that they both face down
and flip them if necessary, then cut them
out and paste them back into the layer
with the main part of the model in it.
Now merge all points to fasten the triangles
to the rest of the model. These new triangles
will help to make the hole look less oblong,
and the smoothing in the renderer will
make the result look much better with
these new polygons.
To complete the hole, select the points
around its edge as shown here, and then
move them very slightly upward to form
a very subtle dent in the bottom of the
shape. Don't move the points too far up
or the final render will have ugly errors.
The last thing to do is to create the glowing
tip of the lower nose from which the White
Star's main beam weapon fires. This task
is particularly easy.
Simply select or press Shift+k
to enable the knife tool. Position the
knife over the tip of the lower-nose shape
and press Enter to perform
the knife operation. Select or press Crtl+z
to zoom the display. Draw a small box
over the tip of the model where the knife
cut was made.
Select all the polygons to the right of
the knife cut and assign a new surface
to them by pressing q and entering
the following details into the requestor:
| Name |
Light
Strips |
| Colour |
255,
255, 160 |
| Diffuse |
100% |
| Specular |
0% |
| Glossiness |
64
(Medium) |
| Double
Sided |
No |
| Smooth |
Yes |
| Smoothing
Angle |
180.0° |
|
That is all the modelling we need for this
section of the White Star. All that remains
is to mirror the geometry to form a complete
piece of the final ship. Press the Copy
button or press c to
copy the model, then paste it into a new
layer. Using the copied model, select
the mirror tool (Shift+v)
and reflect the model in the X axis.
Once the mirror is completed, ensure that
everything is deselected and merge all
points.
|
