#Particle FX
Grady,
It's not so much that you can't do certain things with splines, it's that
CSG would make modeling much faster. I am currently working creating very
detailed models to send to LucasFilm and LucasArts and creating Star Wars
models is extremely time consuming.
Just as an example, take the Death Star. I haven't started working on it
yet, but for this example, it will work because it is very basic as far as
shape. The basic shape is a sphere. Outside of adding the surface detail, the
only really distinguishing feature is the scooped-out dish section of the
planet-destroying laser. You can't just place a circle segment for the rim
because the segment won't conform to the sphere's surface area. There is no
fast way of doing this. It would take hours to manually set each point, going
in and out of RENDER until you have a smooth surface. You would also have to
have a specially designed sphere for the Death Star so that splines connected
from the sphere to the rim all matched up. Once you got that done, you would
need to re-orient the pivot to the center of the rim so that you could Lathe
the dish. If there were CSG functions, this whole thing could be done in a
matter of minutes by creating a spehere for the Death Star and a smaller sphere
for the dish. Place the dish sphere so that it intersects the Death Star at the
desired point and choose the CSG function Difference. Viola! And one of the
other benefits of CSG is that in most cases you would need far fewer control
points in objects.
Take one of the new TIE Fighters for example. The hull is comprised of 12
segments. There is space between each segment. The Front, Back, Top and Bottom
all need sliced off at a certain point. With CSG, you create a sphere for the
hull. Next, create an arced segment for the space between each hull segment.
Place it in an intesecting position on the hull. Clone it and rotate it 30
degrees and repeat the function until you have 12 arced segemnts encircling the
hull. Group the arced segemnts into one object. Then use Difference and you
would have a hull with 12 segments with space between each segment. Next,
create a plane and use the Slice function to cut of the top, bottom, front and
back. If you look at the hatch of the new TIEs, it has slots in the top. Creat
your arc and Lathe it for the Hatch. Create rectangles and extrude them to the
desired width of the slots and then place them so they intersect the hatch,
group them into one object and then use Difference. For the wing struts and
wing frames, create each piece separately, and then use Union to combine them
into one object.
The only real way to see where I'm coming from is to try and create these
models yourself. If you or anyone else can come up with a faster or better way
to create these models at the high detail level, it would be a big help to me.
I am about finished with the TIE Interceptor – it should be done today.
After I test render it and am satisfied, I will be uploading the project files
for it and the TIE Fighter.
Micahel S. Flynn