Phew. Finally finished it, and here it is! It's mainly painstaking CSG,
plenty of macros and loops, but there's also a couple of meshes in there
too.

Over the weekend I can start to play with it in my CGSphere scene. I don't
think the detail's high enough to be able to use the crew section as the
actual central sphere but we'll see. It still looks pretty good from closer
than shown in these pictures, but I wanted to get all of it in! For some
reason it stands up better at close range when using radiosity, even when
it's only getting light from itself.

The greebles were quite fun. In the end I went for a compromise between
automated detail (discrete panels) and hand-coded detail - things tend to
start looking monotonous if the same macro is used all over an object. I
think the secret is to build up a range of greebling tools and apply them
by hand in different ways. I only really used rectangular panels;
trapezoids were only required at the rear of the engine section, and it
turned out to be easier to just trim a rectangular panel with planes than
try any clever stuff.

Comments welcome, as always!
Bill

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.... and here's the other one.

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Bill Pragnell wrote:
> .... and here's the other one.

excellent. these are very nice!

bob

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"Bill Pragnell" <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Phew. Finally finished it, and here it is! It's mainly painstaking CSG,
> plenty of macros and loops, but there's also a couple of meshes in there
> too.
>
> Over the weekend I can start to play with it in my CGSphere scene. I don't
> think the detail's high enough to be able to use the crew section as the
> actual central sphere but we'll see.

That's downright beautiful. I can certainly appreciate the modeling effort
you put in.

2001's ships are rather iconic for me. I saw the film when it was originally
released, in all its Cinerama glory. Still remember the experience. Kind of
feel sorry for those who never had a chance to see it that way! Alas, it
was during the waning days of Cinerama...

Care to try your hand at the space station?  :-)

Ken W.

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