Modeling the Enterprise in Cinema 4D

[dan1701a]

Well, Scifieric kind of challenged me to do this, so here's my contribution to the general insanity that is modeling the USS Enterprise. I think many of these techniques could actually be used in other 3D programs (for instance, I did much of the following in 3ds max before my PC blew up), so take what you think you need and leave the rest. Hopefully it'll be helpful.

The Enterprise has, essentially, three basic shapes…a saucer, rectangles (the warp drive pylons and the interconnecting dorsal) and cylinders (engineering section and the nacelles). The basic task of modeling these shapes is done by using vector-based shapes and manipulation of primitives, or “lathing” a shape. The actual task of modeling the Enterprise can be done fairly quickly, but the task of detailing the model is very time-intensive (and can lead to early male pattern baldness, marital stress, carpal tunnel syndrome, impotence, eyestrain, and other non-medical maladies).

Are you sure you still want to do this? Okay, then, let’s proceed.

First, it is imperative that you familiarize yourself with your application’s ability to import vector-based shapes. I’m not talking about raster outlines done in Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro…I’m talking about shapes done in Illustrator or any other program that uses vectors to describe shapes. These shapes are always much cleaner in appearance, can be resized almost infinitely, and (at least in Cinema 4D and 3ds max) can be used as the basis for extrusions, lathes, and other types of shapes. Some of you may say this is cheating…I say why go through the effort of using planes with GIF files pasted on them as the basis for drawing paths when those paths are already readily available? Save yourself some time and headache, man!

If you don’t own Illustrator, see if your paint program will allow you to save out as an EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) file. If it will, then you can draw your paths in that program and export them out, then import them into your 3D app. If you can’t do that, then you’re back to drawing paths in your 3D program, using planes with the blueprints pasted on them, but that’s better than nothing. (The thread, “How to build the Starship Enterprise in TrueSpace 3” [http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/m...pace-3-a.html] has some excellent pointers on how to do that, much better than my humble self can describe.)

A good Open Source vector drawing program is Inkscape. It will allow you to do many of the same things as Illustrator. You'll still need the JPEGs to trace over, though.

Find a source for your blueprints or outlines. Two excellent sources are Alan Sinclair’s blueprints of the Enterprise (which can be found at Star Trek TOS 1701 Enterprise Gallery) and Charles Casimiro’s set of blueprints (found at http://home.earthlink.net/~casimiro/blueprints.html). Both are very good, and you can use either to draw very good vector outlines. Sinclair’s blueprints also include fairly accurate measurements of each component, as well as measurements between components. These can be of immense help. Also, Sinclair has DXF files on his site (for use in AutoCad 3D) which can be imported into Illustrator and some 3D applications. Be warned, however, that these files, while very good, are very large…and there is quite a bit of work involved in being able to use these for your 3D work. If you can do it, it’s probably easier to draw the paths in another application and import them into your 3D app.

Also, I mentioned above that primitives are used...there's a reason for that, and I personally think it's much easier than extruding polygons or stuff like that...even though it doesn't seem easier. But the method behind my madness will make itself apparent over time.

Okay, here’s where we get started. I’m assuming you’ve drawn your paths and you’ve imported them into your application. In Cinema 4D, here’s what the screen will look like (click on the thumbnail to enlarge):



Oh, you don’t see it yet? That’s because, for some reason, C4D doesn’t paste the object directly in the center (or at 0,0,0). Notice your X, Y and Z positions at the lower center of the screen. Each of these should read zero. So go into each field, highlight the numbers, then replace them with zero. Now here’s what you’ve got:



Okay, that’s better. But notice your path…the axes are in the center of the path. That may not seem like a big problem, but when you try to lathe it here’s what happens:



Hmm, that’s not what we want. Since the lathe function in most programs uses the Y axis (up/down) as its rotation point, we need to move the Y axis. In C4D, here’s how you do it.

First, note how big your path is in the X axis. In this case, it’s 583 inches. (Yes, that’s way too big, but ignore it for now…just look at the numbers.) The path is centered on the X axis. In order to lathe properly around the Y axis, we need to align the Y along the left edge of the path (what would be the “center” of the shape). Note the icons along the left edge of the screen. The second icon (directly below the one that’s selected) allows you to align the “axis” without moving the path. Click that button, then in the X position field, type in half of the 583 that’s in the X size field. (That would be 291.5.) Put a minus in front of the number. This allows you to move the axis to the extreme left of the path.



Okay, that moves our axis where it needs to be, but our path is still centered on the X/Y axis. That’s easy. Click on the button above the axis position button, and in the X position field, type 0. That moves everything back to the right.



Next: Lathing the saucer

[dan1701a]

Continued from Part 1:

Okay, now you can lathe the outline. In C4D, click on the button up top that has an orange box with a cage around it, and in the resulting window choose the button that looks like a vase. Obviously, different 3D apps will have different methods for lathing an object, but we’re sticking with C4D right now.



And here's what that little sub-menu looks like:



Your object window will now look like this:



But your shape hasn’t changed! What’s up? Well, C4D (and many other 3D apps) use a hierarchical object method…in other words, you have a top-level effect (parent) and other effects, paths, shapes, etc. (children) that the effect acts upon. To make the lathe modifier affect the path, click on the path item in the object window and drag it on top of the Lathe NURBS effect (not above it, but directly on top). This will “nest” the path inside the Lathe NURBS effect, and now your screen looks like this:



Well, that’s certainly looking much better! However, you can see it has many straight edges…it approximates a circle, but it’s not smooth. Go back to you Lathe NURBS effect and change the subdivision modifier to something smoother (a minimum of 64, maximum of whatever your computer will handle):



Once that’s done, it’s looking more like a primary hull.



Now would be a good time to save your work.

Next: Darned numbers!

[dan1701a]

Continued from Part 2:

I need to back up a little bit. When you draw your path for the primary hull (or import it from Illustrator), consider that there are three concentric rings on the lower side. Those can either be modeled in (by creating “notches” in the path in those locations) or created by using a bump map, which will be touched on later. Bump mapping is easier, but not as clean. Consider which way you want to do the rings when you draw your paths.

Okay, now we have a primary hull. Here is where we might want to start aligning things. Alan Sinclair’s drawings contain measurements for each component of the ship, as well as measurements between things like the nacelles, center points, etc. The documents state that the primary hull is 59.25 inches in diameter.

Oops.

Our path is 583 inches wide (and since our path was only half the total saucer, that means our actual saucer is 1166 inches, or just over 91 feet, in diameter!), so we have to make the path smaller.

If the diameter in the diagrams is 59.25 inches, then the radius would be half that, or 29.125. However, if you type that into your X size field, it’ll change that parameter but leave the others untouched…and that will make your path look goofy. So what to do?

Well, if you scale it instead, you can get it to the right size and keep it looking the same. Under the “size” fields, there is a drop-down menu. Currently it says “size,” but it has two other items, “size+” (which I still haven’t figured out what it does) and “scale.” Click on the double arrows to the right of “size” and choose “scale” from the drop down menu. This changes all the values in the fields to 1.

But what scale is 29.125 compared to 583? Here’s where you have to do some math. In order to find this value, divide 29.125 by 583. The answer you come up with is 0.049957118353344768439108061749571, and believe it or not you can copy that number from Windows’ Calculator and paste it into each of the scale fields, but when you round up to the nearest 100th you come up with 0.05. Type 0.05 in each one of the scale fields and click “apply.” Here’s what your screen looks like, if you did it right:



Notice the value in the X size field is now 29.15 inches. Well, that’s probably close enough. That would be considered the radius of the primary hull, making the diameter 59.3 (not much off from 59.25). For our purposes, that’s probably close enough.
(Note: if you wanted to get more accurate, paste the actual number shown above into the scale fields, and it’ll make your hull measurements absolutely accurate.)

Now we need to move the primary hull to where it needs to be. For all my measurements, I’m using the forward end of the secondary hull as my “zero” point (“forward end” meaning the edge of the amplification rings, or what I call the end cap). Here’s where we get into some more calculations. The center point of the primary hull is 17.5 inches forward of the front edge of the secondary hull. But how far above the secondary hull does it go? Unfortunately, the diagrams don’t go into that much detail, but I’ve made some calculations that should help. Without going into too much detail, the top surface of the saucer sits 18.01” above the center line of the engineering hull. In other words, imagine a rectangle that is 18.01 inches tall and 17.5 inches wide. The top edge of the primary hull (the flat part, not the very top) aligns with the top of the rectangle. The center of the primary hull aligns with the left edge of the rectangle. In other words:



DON’T move the Primary Hull in the Z axis at all – leave that number at zero.

Next: The Secondary Hull

[dan1701a]

Continued from Part 3:

Okay, that was the easy part. Now we get into the secondary hull. This is going to be somewhat more challenging, in that there are several parts of this component that require Boolean subtraction, but making the actual shape of the hull is pretty simple. First, though, you should keep this in mind: When resizing a circle, make sure all parameters (X, Y and Z) are resized at the same time, otherwise you’ll wind up with an ellipse and you’ll have to start over.

Now that that’s said, let’s start on the secondary hull. It’s basically a cylinder that’s somewhat tapered near the aft end, so that’s what we’re going to start with. You’ll need to create a cylinder that is 44.75 inches long and 13.4 inches in diameter. Align it along the X axis (or create it and rotate it 90 degrees along the X axis), so that it lies on its side.
Place it so its forward (or far left, in this case) end is 4.25 inches to the right of the X-Y origin (X=4.25). Give it about eight height segments, and at least 36 segments around the circumference (more will make it smoother). And make it editable. Here’s how it should look now:



There’s our cylinder, but now we need to “shape” it to look like the secondary hull. Here’s where you need another path. Either lift the path from Alan Sinclair’s DWG files (converted to AI) or draw it using your favorite vector drawing program and Sinclair’s or Casimiro’s JPG blueprints. Remember to draw the path as a vector-based file (EPS) as opposed to a raster-based picture file (BMP, GIF, JPG, etc.) Alternatively, you could use a properly-shaped plane with the GIF of the secondary hull outline textured onto it, and it would probably work, but possibly not as well. There are nearly as many methods out there as there are 3D modelers, so find your own method. Here’s mine.

Import the path into C4D. Again, you’ll find it’s about 400 times bigger than it needs to be. Resize the path to be 44.75 inches long (X) and 13.4 inches tall (Y). Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about the Z axis yet. Center the path (X, Y, Z should be 0), then move the path’s axis to the far left edge of the path, then move the path to where it is overlapped by the cylinder. Here’s basically what it will look like:



(I turned off the cylinder for clarity.)

If you haven’t already made your cylinder editable, do so now. You’ll need to be able to move points around to get your cylinder close to the shape of the secondary hull. Here’s what your cylinder will look like once you enable the points for editing:



Here’s where things get interesting. You now need to lasso each “circle” of dots and scale them to match the outline. Use a lasso or rectangular marquee tool rather than a direct selection tool, and (at least in C4D) make sure you turn OFF “Only Select Visible Elements.” This way you will select all the points, not just the ones facing you. Here’s what that looks like:



Now use your scale tool to scale that “circle” to match the outline. There are no reliable cross-section measurements available for the secondary hull, so you’ll have to do the best you can by eyeballing it. You can probably get pretty close, though. Note, too, that you may have to move some of the dots further forward, backward, up, or down, depending on which part of the outline you’re trying to match. The most critical parts are in the front, because after the widest part of the outline it all pretty much slopes evenly toward the back. In fact, if it turns out you have too many points, you may be able to delete some (hopefully without deleting sections of the cylinder; if you do that you’ll have to start over. Remember, CTRL-Z is your friend. ) At any rate, once you’ve done all your manipulation, this is what you should be left with:



That was easy, wasn’t it?

Next: Cutting and Chopping

[dan1701a]

Continued from Part 4:

We still have a couple of more things to do to this cylinder before it more closely resembles the secondary hull, though. First, you need to clone the secondary hull path, because you’ll be using these to create Boolean cutouts. Simply copy the path and paste it a couple of times, then isolate one of them for editing. Change to points mode in your app (in C4D, click the icon that looks like an array of dots), then begin moving dots around until the cutout on the bottom rear looks like this:



Again, the cylinder has been removed for clarity. Now, use your extrude tool to extrude this shape in the Z direction (towards/away from you), enough to extend beyond the sides of the cylinder.



Now is where we get to have some fun. On the C4D button bar is a button that looks like a blue dot with six green boxes surrounding it, kind of like a strange looking flower. Click that button and you get a submenu with choices that look like this:



The red circle is around the Boolean function. Yours may be similar, depending on your 3D app, but all Boolean functions work the same. It takes two items and subtracts the intersection point, as well as all of the first item. I’d go into a long, drawn-out explanation, but you guys have done this before (hopefully). Just make sure your main cylinder is the "A" object and the cutout is the "B" object. You'll be doing an "A subtract B" operation. At any rate, here is what this Boolean function looks like:



Well, now it’s beginning to look more like a secondary hull, isn’t it? Here's where using a primitive instead of "lathing" or "skinning" a hull becomes an advantage. Note that, when we cut out the fantail, it left a solid surface as opposed to an empty hole. This way you don't have to add any polygons or stitch any points together. But there are still quite a few things to be done. The hangar deck, for instance. Well, that’s easy. First, rename your first Boole to something else, like “Engineering Hull.” Next, take one of your other secondary hull outlines and do the same thing with it that you did with the fantail.



(Side note: I had to make the secondary hull editable because I wound up with a stray point that I had to edit out.)

It’s starting to look a little more like a starship. We’ll leave the secondary hull for now and proceed to the nacelles. The same technique applies here as did the secondary hull. Get the outline of the nacelle first, and resize it. The length should be 63.67 inches and the height should be 7.65 inches. Place the nacelle at these coordinates: X=18.79, Y=21.475, Z=19.5. This should give you the basic layout of the starship. Now, make a cylinder 63.67 inches long and 7.65 inches in diameter, then place it at the same coordinates at the outline. Make the cylinder editable, then manipulate the points the same way you did the secondary hull. Note: give this cylinder 21 height segments. When you're done with that, duplicate that cylinder, then change the Z coordinate to -19.5. This is the final result:



Those are probably the major assemblies. The dorsal, pylons, and the amp rings for the secondary hull still need to be created, and the smaller structures like the bridge, B-C deck, lower sensor array, impulse engines, and the components that go on the nacelles. But those four structures above comprise the basic shape of the U. S. S. Enterprise.

Coming soon: How to make those nit-noid structures, plus other things.

Note: if you want really detailed measurements that aren't on Alan's latest blueprints, go here: PUBLIC RESOURCE ENTERPRISE: Alan Sinclair's Enterprise. The page itself might be old, but the measurements are accurate. It's an invaluable help, and the picture files can be saved (although they're not the latest revision). Great resource!

[scifieric]

Pretty cool man!

[dan1701a]

Originally Posted by scifieric

Pretty cool man!

Well, it was your idea.

Actually, I never sat down and actually thought about how I did it before, but doing this tutorial allowed me to cut out a bunch of the intermediate steps I had taken that slowed down the process. I actually wrote that part of the tutorial over the weekend.

Now, the smaller items will take a little longer, but looking at all the great tutorials on this forum (including yours in tS 3) has given me some ideas..........

[Jedilaw]

This is good stuff, man!

Maybe once we have completed tutorials for both the TOS and the TMP version, in the major apps, we can combine them all into a single uber-PDF. I have a feeling it would be very popular.

[dan1701a]

Originally Posted by Jedilaw

This is good stuff, man!

Maybe once we have completed tutorials for both the TOS and the TMP version, in the major apps, we can combine them all into a single uber-PDF. I have a feeling it would be very popular.

I have a feeling you are correct!

[scifieric]

Originally Posted by Jedilaw

Maybe once we have completed tutorials for both the TOS and the TMP version, in the major apps, we can combine them all into a single uber-PDF.

Now that's one heck of an idea!