Short: Imagine 2.0 object by Carmen Rizzolo. Architecture: generic *** 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.