*** Carmen Rizzolo proudly presents ***
- - The RE-RELEASE of - -
My interpretation of...
The USS Enterprise 1701 D
A really, quite big object for Imagine 2.0
July 16th, 1993
-- INTRODUCTION -----------------------------------------------------
Howdy.
-- ABOUT THE OBJECT -------------------------------------------------
This object is public domain. I claim no rights to it
whatsoever. Please, as a favour to me, only Do whatever the hell
you want to do with it, but a little credit for modelling would be
nice whenever you release images made with it. Reading this ReadMe
file will help you use it to the best of it's abilities. Please,
please only distribute this object in it's original archived form so
that others get the same opportunity that you did.
It's not COMPLETELY accurate. But it's darn close. The part
that I like the least is the neck. It gave me the most headaches.
The front of the neck does not fan out into the bottom of the saucer
correctly. Unless this section is very well lit, it's pretty hard to
notice. I know this is a real lame excuse, but of course, you're
welcome to try to improve on it if you want to. :)
* The object is about 1.24 megabytes in size. In it's first
release, it was 1.65 megabytes in size! I've shaved off over 400k
of points. The point reduction was done by hand, and was very
tedious, but ths way no detail was lost. Just a more efficient
model was the result. It also renders noticably quicker too.
Imagine needs about 8.4 megs to render the object. Adding a few
more megs for running Imagine, I'd say a minimum of 11 megs is
required to render this model. Much better than the original
needing 14 megs. More breathing room, eh?
* I made over four megabytes in scrap objects (Pieces and parts,
crucial for creation. I'm not talking about the left-overs of
slicing) in the process of creating the object.
* There are probably close to 500 windows.
* There are 146 individual parts that make up the original release
Enterprise ship. The refitted version has 141. I know.. Big deal.
* This object -DOES NOT- use -ANY- IFF images for brush mapping
(Yay!). This uses a great deal less ram, and makes setup time for
the end user a great deal easier. Could you imagine sifting
through nearly 150 objects, looking for parts with brush pathnames
to fix??
* The Enterprise object -DOES- use textures, however.. It looks
for it's textures in a drawer named "Textures" inside the drawer or
disk that your Imagine program is in. It uses only the textures
that come with Imagine 2.0, so everyone with Imagine 2.0 with it
properly installed should have no problems here.
* This object -DOES- rely heavily on Imagine 2.0's "phong dam"
feature, and will most likely look terrible if rendered in Imagine
1.1 or if converted to another object format.
* Unless you've got the patience of a tree (or a 68060), DON'T
RENDER IN RAY TRACE MODE!!! There are many thousands of tiny, tiny
faces in this object. Inside a global world size large enough to
give it room to fly in, your rendering would be slowed down to a
crawl. Walking from one end of the galaxy to the center would be
more productive.
* The Saucer section does not seperate. Sorry.
* It may require 10 to 11 megabytes of memory to render.
* This re-release is a bit lighter than the older model.
Hopefully, a little more true-to-form with the one you see on TV.
-- ADDING TEXTURES TO THE OBJECT (Improved in this new release!) ----
If you load the object into an editor, you'll probably notice it
is structured in a very odd way. Fear not, there is a method to my
maddness. There are FOUR main axes you should know about. The main
axis, called "NCC1701D" is the parent object of the entire group.
The "NCC1701D" axis is the parent of three other axes. One is
located above the ship, and the other two are located below. Each
have dozens and dozens of yellow lines spouting from them. Here's
the deal: All of the solid grey bulk of the ship is a child of the
upper axis (Named: "GREY"), all the Windows and white lights are the
children of an axis below and behind the ship (Named: "LIGHTS"), and
all the other miscellaneous parts (decals, engines, phaser arrays,
etc.) are grouped to the axis below the saucer section of the ship
(Named:"OTHERS"). This grouping method serves a utilitarian purpose.
Explained in the next paragraph...
If you want to add a texture to all of the grey area of the ship,
normally this would be very difficult. You would have to select each
grey object, and add the desired texture. Instead, enter PICK
OBJECTS mode, and click on the upper-most axis of the group. It's
called "GREY" if you want to get it via a requestor. Enter GREY's
attributes, and add the desired texture. Be sure to activate the
APPLY TO CHILDREN button, and your texture will alter only the grey
surface of the ship. Amazing, isn't it? I thought so.
If one owns a texture package called ESSENCE (By Apex Software:
415-322-7532), you can use a texture called "SOLID," and instantly
change the colour, reflectivity or filter values of the entire grey
bulk of the ship. Those lucky dogs who own ESSENCE VOLUME 2 get an
even wider array of stuff to add.. Imagine making your Enterprise
break out in heat blisters. The possibilities aren't endless, but
there sure are alot of them!
Don't worry. If you don't have Essence, you can still get
involved. The WAVES texture (Standard with Imagine 2.0) could kinda
make your ship look like it's made of liquid. Then there's checkers,
and well, you get the idea..
NEW! In this new re-release version, all windows and other white
lights are in their own special group. Grouped to the Axis "LIGHTS"
NOW, you can play "Q" by creating a system-wide power failure in
moments! Use the Essence Texture "SOLID" to turn all lights ON, or
OFF by simply making the LIGHTS object axis have the SOLID texture,
and have it apply to all it's children window objects. If you don't
have Essence, Do the following:
Enter "PICK GROUPS" mode. Click on the "LIGHTS" axis, and use
TRANSFORMATIONS to move it [and it's children objects along with it]
down 500 units by giving a TRANSLATE Z value of -500. All the lights
will move down, then you can enter "PICK OBJECTS" mode, draw a pick-
box around all the lights' children while holding down the SHIFT key.
hit F7 function key. Now you'll go through each object's attributes.
Simply click on the COLOR button, slide them all to black [or white
if you want them all ON] Then hit OK. Repeat until you've done 'em
all. Then go back into "PICK GROUPS" mode, click on the LIGHTS axis,
use TRANSFORMATIONS and TRANSLATE Z 500 units to move it back to
where it was originally. Simple huh? Well, it's not as complex as
it sounds.
While on the subject of windows... All your larger clusters of
windows can have it's "ON" windows easily accessed by clicking on the
object, Entering PICK FACES mode, and then use PICK SUBGROUP. The
"ON" subgroup can be found on the neck, top saucer, bottom saucer and
hull clusters of windows. I doubt anyone will ever need to use it,
but it's there for your disposal. Have fun!
-- ANIMATING THIS OBJECT --------------------------------------------
If you want to animate this object, read the Imagine Organizer that
is included in this archive. Look up the section on Speeding up
the Animation Process. Then you will know what to do with the object
called "NCC-1701-D.fake" (Also included in this archive).
The .fake object included in this archive, if you should decide to
use it, includes the following details:
* Photon Torpedo
* Upper and Lower phaser arrays of the saucer section
* Boxed-in areas of the left and right nacelles, and the main
body of the ship.
Of course, you're welcome to add to or take away details of the
.fake object as you require.
-- ENJOY! -----------------------------------------------------------
Have fun exploring the final frontier! If you have any questions
for me, you can reach me at (619) 573-0285. I can also be net-mailed
at CarmenR cup.portal.com
I do do this stuff for a living (not spaceships, but 3D graphics
for video), if you need to get some nifty graphics done.
Special thanks go out to Brad Pennock for his encouragement,
and to Marlin Schwanke for his critical eye. :) Even more special
thanks to the late Gene Roddenberry and to Paramount Pictures
(Pleez don't sue! I'm not the first to do this!) for their
incredible accomplishments.
Greetings to everyone I know on Portal and IRC.
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