Modeling the Enterprise in Cinema 4D

[dan1701a]

Well, there's been a slight problem...my assemblers at the navy yard have gone on strike.

Actually, I screwed up. I tried a new technique that allowed me (or I thought it allowed me) to get rid of some of my booleans and retain my shapes. Unfortunately, it didn't work the way I hoped it would, so I'm redoing the secondary hull.

Also, I've been playing with some of my techniques in Blender, so it's taken me a little longer to hit the C4D tutorial. (Plus, Tallguy, if you're reading this - great job on your 1701 mesh! How'd you do it? I think a tutorial is in order...)

I hope to reattack it soon, so meanwhile, please stay tuned!

[scifieric]

Good luck! Too bad about the boolean incident.

And yeah, Tallguy's Enterprise is spectacular!

[spsmyth]

I hope your assemblers come back to work soon Dan. I have just started with Cinema 4D 9.6 and I love it. As soon as I work thru the tutorials I have, I will be following your tutorial from the beginning and posting some WIPs.

I would suggest that anyone who wants to get to the meat of Cinema jump right in and do the Rubber Duck Race tutorial included on the CD. You won't get all the concepts immediately, but it allows you to touch all parts of program (modeling, textures, animation, etc.) and get a rudimentary understanding of the interface and how it is arranged.

I would just like to compliment you guys on an outstanding site, BTW. Hope I can contribute when I am a little less green.

Steve

[Todd2k]

Awesome tutorial

[dan1701a]

Thanks for the kind words, guys.

I've also been following Four Mad Men's Big E over at hobbytalk.com. He's doing his in Blender as well, so that is kind of encouraging me in that direction.

I like Cinema 4D a lot (I also like 3ds max), but I've discovered that Blender has some advantages (for instance, the megabool function), and although it also has some quirks (the interface, for instance), I've decided to go Blender...meaning that my C4D tutorial will probably never be finished, at least in that application.

However, the techniques I used, I believe, are applicable for just about any 3D package (with the possible exception of Wings3D), so I may be able to continue it in Blender later on.

But I've asked 4MM (at the Hobby Talk forums) to share some techniques, and once I learn a little more about Blender, I will probably start back up. Although I'm not sure I can match either 4MM's or Tallguy's expertise, but maybe my small contribution will be valuable to someone.

Oh, yeah, did I mention I didn't want to break the bank buying 3D apps? And that Blender is free? That was another consideration.

[spsmyth]

Well, it is too bad for us C4D users that Dan has gone to blender. Here is my work so far, from a rank amateur, so, be kind.

As Dan suggested, I used the Alan Sinclair blueprints as a spline. I opened them in Illustrator, took out the parts I needed and saved as an Illustrator 8 eps file, however, for some reason, C4D would not open it (I have version 9.6; there is no import command; it opens what it can open) so I went in again, saved as an Illo 8 file, and this time success. However, Mr. Sinclair had used path segments to create the contours for his blueprints, and not only that, in order to get the shapes completely right, he twisted the paths. The bottom line is that when opened in C4D this resulted in a parent object (primary_half) with something like 8 child paths. This would not lathe as one solid object. Needless to say the twisted paths would create uneccessary extra polygons if it could be lathed.

I went back to Illo and I joined and corrected each segment and removed all unneeded points. I also added the "dugouts" for the three circles in the bulge on the bottom. Saved again and opened in C4D. Success. I went ahead and lathed with 128 segments. I also went ahead and did the same procedure on the lower sensor array, just to see if I could accomplish it. It also had to be "fixed" in Illo before saving. I then Merged that into the first scene, placed, lathed and then I grouped both objects.

Dan is right, using the plans gives you a better final result, especially on the sensor dish. Please also note that if you use the DXF version, and are using SI (metric) as your measurement system in your modeller, your spline will open up at the right size. As Dan pointed out, it will not open at the origin, but moving it there is not a problem. Scaling should not be a problem if you want to do so.

I have provided pics of the work. I brought in a floor object, shaded the hull and the floor the same nutural beige, used the sky plugin as a quick lightdome and placed one spot light to soften the shadows.

I am going to improve the spline even more as I am not too happy with the results for the bottom of the hull. I am going to use Dan's advice on the secondary and nacelles, but I want to finish the primary first, so I am going to use scifieric's procedure for the upper decks and impulse engines. I will post them as soon as I can.

Top:


Bottom with sensor array:


Steve

[dan1701a]

Hey, spsmyth, nice job. If I can make a small suggestion, the concentric rings on the bottom of the primary hull should be evenly spaced. If you look at Sinclair's DXF file in Illustrator, look at the bottom (ventral) view and you'll see what I mean. That upper ring can be pretty tough.

I noticed what you mentioned about Alan's paths being looped...I don't know what the deal was, unless he did it in a different version of AutoCad that interpreted curve nodes differently. It took me so long to try to clean it up, I just found his GIF files and redrew the contour over that. I don't think his nacelles or secondary hull have that problem, though.

My main issue with C4D was cost. I was able to get version 9 from a friend, but I really needed to upgrade, and I didn't really want to pay hundreds of dollars to do it. Blender is free, and although the interface is really quirky, after a while you get used to it. There are a lot more keyboard shortcuts used, but when you get good at it you can move pretty fast (as I'm sure Tallguy and FourMadMen can attest). Right now my main issue with Blender is the fact that you have to convert your curve or path to a mesh before you can lathe, but I figured out you don't need a closed curve to do that (like you do in C4D). The other main issue I have right now is memory and processor (try doing 3D on a 1.8gHz Celeron with 512mb RAM, 64 of which is shared video memory, and a 30gb 4200 rpm hard drive -- it's a frustrating experience). I'm not advocating one package over another -- whatever works best for you is what you should use. I've used everything from Wings3D to Alias|Wavefront (the old version of what is now Maya), and I've found that free is often a good way to go. Plus I'm an open source advocate (or, as they say, free speech as well as free beer) and the more we support the open source software movement the better quality software we get for all platforms. Maybe someday I'll learn to code, too, but for right now 3D is about all I can handle. That and my job.

[spsmyth]

OK, I went back in and improved the spline in Illo. Here are the results:

Dorsal:


Ventral:


You were right about the rings Dan, I confused the outer ring with the top lip of the primary hull (Mr. Sinclair does not have a hidden line for that, so I measured in Illo and it worked great). I also got rid of even more points and followed the contour of the hull more closely. Some of my "improved" lines were off by a few millimetres. Please note there is no "Flat spot" on the dorsal nor extra fillet on the ventral.

I understand where you are coming from costwise. Because I am a student, I managed to get C4D 9.5 (with BodyPaint, Clothilde, and some plug-ins) for several hundred less than normal. I have also tried Lightwave, Maya LE and blender which all had me run screaming into the night (have I explained about my avatar... ?) The reason I finally went for C4D was I actually modelled something in it besides a cube. Okay, I did a sandcastle tute in LW, but it was problematic.The C4D 9.6 updater was free, and my current serial worked fine. I ran through the tute on the CD (the rubber duck race) which goes through modeling and animating a whole scene using XPresso to rig the animation. I went through it quickly, but as I said in my first post here, I have now at least done something and touched something in the entire program.

Anyway, on to the upper decks, bridge and details.

Steve

[Professor Moriarty]

???????

Something looks very, very wrong on that last picture. You shouldn't have a seam at the apex of the scalloped-out part of the hull curvature.

[scifieric]

Yes, but the lower section is now much closer. If it was a tad smoother to transition it would be just about perfect!