With a wide angle camera even more of the Big E.
Long ago, the refit Enterprise NCC-1701 (as seen in the first three
movies) was my first *big* POV-Ray project.
My main reference was a collection of photos from the real thing (the
3-meter-model used for the shooting) found at William McCullars
IDIC-page - but the site has meanwhile vanished into digital nirvana.
As far as I remember it did start with POV-Ray version 3.0 and did
continue until version 3.5 when I lost interest - mostly because at this
time the model did take ages to render. As POV-Ray tells me there are 90
light sources (when all are switched on) and most of them need to be
area-lights, also many parts of the hull use blurred reflections.
But with POV-Ray 3.7 (and a fast machine) it renders even with radiosity
turned on pretty fast. And using radiosity gives a nice touch due
internal diffuse reflections from the ship-hull.
Well the source code is a mess and I didn't want to touch it besides of
replacing "ambient" by "emission". But I did add the arboretum that was
meant to be within the secondary hull and was actually never seen in the
movies. So I had total freedom when making it and was at first tempted
to create something very exotic by e.g. designing plants from alien
planets but then I figured: when actually going boldly where no man has
gone before, you would take a bit "earth" with you. And some earthly
wilderness did make a nice contrast to the clean "Star-Trek-Look" that
also has to be present.
Lighting the arboretum was quite difficult as it should look natural
*and* artificial at the same time. And without requiring HQ radiosity
settings to keep rendering time reasonable. It is mostly faked by a
spotlight with a soft falloff and projected_through the ceiling dome.
Thanks for watching and reading and I'm quite happy that I can put at
least one of my numerous unfinished businesses aside.
-Ive
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