How to build the Starship Enterprise in TrueSpace 3

[scifieric]

Wow, thanks Jedilaw! I really appreciate your kind words.

I'm sorry the tutorial kind of took a backseat this week but I was working on my animation.

I'd love to put this in a PDF format. I can do that!

[scifieric]

I did promise this in the first tutorial:

The More Complex to Build (But Easier to Texture) Spline Hull
I promise we’ll move on to another section soon. Our last primary hull was fairly simple to build but in TrueSpace (especially in 3.2) it will be almost impossible to texture. For an untextured spline hull it would be fine.
Here’s how to give yourself more frustration now, but less heart attack later.

I pulled up the background of the Primary Saucer front half and laid out where I thought the major spline points would go.

I was close and only added one to my original layout. The red arrows show where little detail is needed.

To start, be in Top Down view mode.

Click the Spline Polygon tool.

The top left arrow (1) was my starting point and I set my spline segments to 1.

Then I clicked on the tip of the second red arrow (2) to create a new point. Next, I increased my spline segments to 10 and clicked on the first blue arrow (3), then point (4) and (5). Next, I reduced my spline segments to 5 and clicked on point (6). Then I increased spline segments to 10 and clicked point (7). Again, I reduced my spline segments to 4 and clicked point (8). Set spline segments back to 10 and click (9). Reduce spline segments to 4 and click (20).

Obviously, (20) is where I found I needed to add a spline point to my original plan. I increased my spline segments to 5 and clicked (10) then I increased spline segments to 10 and clicked on (11), (12), (13), (14), (15) and (16). I reduced spline segments to 1 and clicked (17) and then right mouse clicked to close the spline.

The total number of points on this saucer is going to be rather large but TrueSpace 3 does not have any smoothing filters during render, so you have to create a smoother mesh to compensate. This will increase render times so you can choose to use fewer points if you wish or you can create a spline with the same parameters as this tutorial or add even more points, but I think that would be pointless.

Now that the loop is closed, click on spline point 1. Right mouse click on your Spline Polygon tool to open up your spline sub menu. Left click the Sharp Corner icon and your spline handles will snap into place. Left click to select spline point 17 and make it a Sharp Corner too.

[scifieric]

Next I clicked spline point 2 and straightened the spline handle left and right and increased its length. I also increased the handle length for spline point 3 and pulled the right-most handle down slightly to match the curve of the blueprints. I adjusted spline point 4 in the same fashion.

I straightened out spline point 5 from left to right and decreased the handle length a little. This is one of the tell-tale areas on the average Enterprise model. The original model has no clear demarcation between saucer lip and the curve of the upper hull. With a smooth enough transition, there will be no noticeable demarcation for us either.

At this point, I opened up a small New Top View and zoomed in on the curved upper tip of the saucer (points 6 and 7). It was twisted just like our original hull in the first tutorial.

I straightened out spline point 6 handle to match the upper hull and severely shortened the handle length. I did the same with 7 but I made that handle match the flat portion of the descending portion of the hull.
Adjust the lengths of the handles for all remaining points and pull the ends of the handles up or down to match the curve of our blueprints.

When you are satisfied with the conture of the hull, left click the Object Tool (arrow) to convert our spline to an object.

I firmly believe that you should save this object for the future! File – Save Object As…



Cut out the divots for the three lower saucer circles as in the first tutorial.

So far, this has simply been a more detailed version of the first attempt at the saucer section but here is where we alter the tutorial.

The purple arrows 18 and 19 indicate where we want to split the saucer template in half. We do not want to lathe our template yet!

If you have TrueSpace 4 or higher, there are tools to add spline points, create a line between the points and to cleave one section from another. In TrueSpace 3.2, we will have to be a little more creative.

Create a primitive plane by clicking Add Plane.

Select the Object Scale button and make your plane wider and at least half the height of the saucer spline.



Now choose Object Move and move the plane until the bottom of the plane intersects our spline template at points 18 and 19.

[scifieric]

I moved and magnified my New Perspective top down view until I could see the lip of the upper saucer clearly. If you highlight the saucer spline and left click Point Edit: Faces, then left click the saucer spline, you will see the spline points that make up your template. You want the plane primitive (white arrow) to line up with the lowest spline point of the curve of the upper lip (red arrow). Make sure that the plane primitive is wider and outside the shape of the template and higher than the template.



Copy both the plane and the saucer spline with the copy command (or Ctrl-C).

Highlight the template and choose the Object Subtract icon. Glue one of the plane primitives to make the top of the saucer template disappear.

Click on and highlight your remaining full copy of the template. Choose the Object Intersection tool and glue to the remaining copy of your plane primitive.

You now have two templates, one for the upper saucer section and one for the lower section. They have the bonus of lining up perfectly!



Select your top template then select the Lathe tool. Right mouse click the Lathe icon to access the control panel.



Set your segments to 100.

Set your angle to 360.

Pull the center Lathe handle until it meets the left most edge of the template.



Left click once more to complete the lathe and select the Object Tool to convert our lathed spline template into an object.

[scifieric]

Do the same for the lower section. Highlight, make sure the segments also =100 and the Lathe handle is at the left most edge of the saucer. Complete the lathe and left click the Object Tool.

Select the Glue as Sibling tool and glue the top of the saucer to the bottom. Be careful not to glue any lights or other hard to see objects.

Save the glued halves as an object.

You may save the scene if you wish.

Load the scene with all your objects thus far. Import the new saucer halves, resize and position correctly using the blueprints as a guide.



Save your current scene.

[scifieric]

Next: We will add details to the top, back and bottom of the saucer (including windows) before moving onto the neck.

[uniderth]

*raises hand*

I have a question.

Instead of doing a lathe couldn't you also start with a flat cylinder and then just extrude it to match the shape?

[backstept]

that would take lots longer
I think

[uniderth]

Hmmmm. Maybe I should try this lathing thing sometime. I've never made a single lathe in my entire 3D career. I guess it's cuz I can never get splines to work for me. They always end up looking like a string of rotten spaghetti.

[scifieric]

Originally Posted by uniderth

*raises hand*

I have a question.

Instead of doing a lathe couldn't you also start with a flat cylinder and then just extrude it to match the shape?

Of course! There are many ways to do this but if you start with a cylinder (or like I did with my first attempt, a large, round poly that I swept, moved and swept again) you may find that it's very difficult to overcome smoothing errors and such.

It's a lot of work.

If you simply create a spline, you can pretty much get it done first attempt! If you keep the number of spline handles down, you can create a VERY smooth hull and that's going to be tough with a cylinder.