EVENT HORIZON SHIP

[ScyBladeghost]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here and I'd like to say how much I like and appreciate Celestia.
As a 3d artist back in 2001 I created a game level for aliens vs. predator ge edition of the ships from the movie Event Horizon,
Recently I've just created the exterior of the Event Horizon ship in 3ds.
and would like to have my model for upload here at the motherlode.

However what I'd like to have is the proper files for or as an add-on for celestia : description as follows, My Event Horizon ship model orbiting Neptune.

From what I understand the.ssc files especially for our solar system seem a bit sensitive. I guess what I'm asking is if anyone could help me arrange a proper extras folder correctly to display the EH orbiting around neptune correctly.

I'd like to share this with all celestia users, instead of just uploading the model only. How can I do this?

Any help would be appreciated, Thanks.

[t00fri]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here and I'd like to say how much I like and appreciate Celestia.
As a 3d artist back in 2001 I created a game level for aliens vs. predator ge edition of the ships from the movie Event Horizon,
Recently I've just created the exterior of the Event Horizon ship in 3ds.
and would like to have my model for upload here at the motherlode.

However what I'd like to have is the proper files for or as an add-on for celestia : description as follows, My Event Horizon ship model orbiting Neptune.

From what I understand the.ssc files especially for our solar system seem a bit sensitive. I guess what I'm asking is if anyone could help me arrange a proper extras folder correctly to display the EH orbiting around neptune correctly.

I'd like to share this with all celestia users, instead of just uploading the model only. How can I do this?

Any help would be appreciated, Thanks.

Welcome!

I am curious, what could an event horizon be? . Does this have to do with normal horizons? What sort of event are we talking about here?

Thanks a lot!

Bye Fridger

[ScyBladeghost]

The Event Horizon was a movie made back in 1997 starring Lawrence Fishburn and Sam Neill by Paramount Pictures about a spacecraft sent into neptune's orbit and mysteriously dissapeared and reappeared mysteriously 7 years later.

I have a few screenshots at my home web pages of the ship (check the 'www' at the bottom of my post) to see

So far I have a folder created in my extras folder called 'EventHorizonShip' and within I have my Models folder with the ship in .3ds and Textures folder, with 2 textures they are in .jpgs format. also I used an existing .ssc file from another add-on as a template,I tried to modify using contextedit to set up the file.and save as a .ssc
and no luck,
I guess all I really need is a proper .ssc file to have the ship properly show up and orbit neptune. on this I'm lost

This is what I understand, is the folders goes like this

extras/EventHorizonShip/Models/EventHorizonShip.3DS
extras/EventHorizonShip/Textures/##.jpgs
extras/EventHorizonShip/EventHorizonShip.ssc
extras/EventHorizonShip/readme.txt

any help getting this to work would be greatly appreciated so that everyone can enjoy it Thanks!

[rthorvald]

I guess all I really need is a proper .ssc file to have the ship properly show up and orbit neptune. on this I'm lost

Hre??s a basic SSC file:

"Event Horizon" "Sol/Neptune"
{
Class "spacecraft"
Mesh "eventhorizonship.3ds"
Radius 0.7
EllipticalOrbit
{
Period 10
SemiMajorAxis 50000
}
Albedo 0.5
Orientation [ 90 0 0 1 ]
}

A good explanation of what everything in the above example means, and how you can add more properties for the orbit, is here:
http://members.fortunecity.com/guilpain/index_uk.htm

This is what I understand, is the folders goes like this
extras/EventHorizonShip/Models/EventHorizonShip.3DS
extras/EventHorizonShip/Textures/##.jpgs
extras/EventHorizonShip/EventHorizonShip.ssc
extras/EventHorizonShip/readme.txt

The path marked in red is wrong: you need to have lores, medres and / or hires directories inside the textures folder:
extras/EventHorizonShip/Textures/medres/##.jpgs
Also, to make things simpler to keep organized, create an Addons folder inside Extras, and place your addon there.

IMPORTANT: all your filenames should be entirely lowercase.

-rthorvald

[ScyBladeghost]

IT worked , but the ship had no textures, medres is probably what i will need for that.

another question I have is file size. I found that if I use winrar I get a smaller size then place in a .zip file, from 10,000kb its now 233kb using both compression formats. First I'd like to Thank you for your help It was greatly needed and appreciated, Thanks my friends.
I'll update accordingly.

when its ready for presentation I'll post an update, again thanks.

[fsgregs]

Sycbladehost:

The ship in Event Horizon was a great design. I'd love to see it available for Celestia. Let us know when it is ready.

Frank G

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

I am curious, what could an event horizon be? . Does this have to do with normal horizons? What sort of event are we talking about here?

Event Horizon is a sci-fi movie (as he says in the post), also the name of the ship which is the star of the show. And I kinda mean that really, since it's basically a "haunted ship" movie set in space. It's an excellent scifi/horror flick, with LOADS of tension and spookiness (and no small amount of gore), though it kinda blow it a little at the end. And the ship design is very gothic.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119081/

[ScyBladeghost]

Alright Everyone its ready http:www.bladeghost.homestead.com/celestiadev.html

or just follow the links from my home page

try it out and let me know of what you think and please post your comments here so I can make any adjustments if nesessary.

Thanks,

hope ya like it.

JV

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Is that really what the ship looks like? Your model looks a lot thinner and the wings seem a lot stubbier than the "real thing" in the movie (I'm sure the "neck" section was a lot thicker than that). That said, I'm not sure we ever saw the whole ship very clearly there, so I may be mistaken. Were you basing your model on any specific photos of the ship?

But it looks good so far...

[t00fri]

I am curious, what could an event horizon be? . Does this have to do with normal horizons? What sort of event are we talking about here?

Event Horizon is a sci-fi movie (as he says in the post), also the name of the ship which is the star of the show. And I kinda mean that really, since it's basically a "haunted ship" movie set in space. It's an excellent scifi/horror flick, with LOADS of tension and spookiness (and no small amount of gore), though it kinda blow it a little at the end. And the ship design is very gothic.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119081/

Indeed I overread the word 'movie' in his first post. Since an 'event horizon' is of course a familiar concept in general relativity close to space-time singularities (black holes...), I was getting curious...


I am usually not watching sci-fi movies due to their quite bad average quality in more recent times. I used to be very keen reading sci-fi books when I was in high-school.

[ScyBladeghost]

Were you basing your model on any specific photos of the ship?

...

I have a poster with blueprints on it that show comparitive scales compared to a 747 jet , the eiffel tower, and the titanic to name a few,
Its not perfect but 95% accurate as possible. I have some blueprints of the command module as well , also I have the movie on DVD. I did have quite a few references to use.

did the model work for you in celestia?

[ScyBladeghost]

Since an 'event horizon' is of course a familiar concept in general relativity close to space-time singularities (black holes...), I was getting curious...
.

The movie's ship was based on that theory.

[rthorvald]

The movie's ship was based on that theory.

... Though one might safely say that what happens there in the movie is - fortunately - not accepted theory

-rthorvald

[Cham]

ScyBladeghost,

your model has some huge problems (with me, anyway). I downloaded it and tried it in Celestia. It works. But there are two problems with it :

1- the texture mapping is really crude. At some distance, the model is beautifull, no doubt about it. But at close range, you can see the main texture mapped in many distorded ways, so it's really ugly (there are only two textures for this big model !?). I opened the model in my 3D modeler. Celestia does not accept multi layered textures on the same mesh part. The model comes in only one big piece with the texture mapped in many ways on it. Celestia has a problem with this.

2- The size of your model (about 28 MB !!) is a symptom that something is wrong with it. It's not a so big mesh, you know. So I resaved the model within my 3D modeler, without any loss, and the file is now 1.7 MB only !! You should check this.

[ScyBladeghost]

ah some useful feedback, thanks for replying cham, um where to start..originally the model was 1.8mb I went back into it to add more detail in the geometry, like adding more struts to the central corridors, and uv'ing some areas that were mapped streched. later i realized that the model would only accept one texture in celestia, and went back to remapping the model with the two textures combined and remapped.
that result was that it made my celestia crash. so I left it as it was for the time being until I recieved some comments. The texture isnt the greatest but I had to put something on it just so that it wasnt all grey. In your 3d modeler if you remove all the textures youll see what I mean or just retexture with a solid color to see. what I am pleased about is that the compression of the files were benificial, in that other things for celestia like hi-res textures can be compressed simularly.

This model being version 1.1 will need some work and a 1.2 version will be in the works. also I'm pleased the model worked but yes I was alarmed that the model size did jump to such a high file size to begin with.

your welcomed to rework the model anyway you please for your own display in celestia, I have no problem with that, this is however my first attempt for an addon and I appreciate the constructive summary, It always helps to have a second opinion and critique. not only was this made available for celestia, but I'm working on this to be a complete game level mod with interior and exterior scenarios, its alot of work for just one person ,and being without any help one is bound to make some mistakes without any feedback, so I really appreciate yours, Thank you.

JV

[Dollan]

I won't get to try the model until tonight... but is there any chance that you might be making the Lewis And Clarke, as well?

...John...

[ScyBladeghost]

For anyone that has v1.1 please delete it and replace it with this new version v1.2, instead of a patch I just made a quick fix so that the nameplate and some lights show up, and divided the mesh into 3 parts and the ship is now a smaller mesh file size.

It will be a little while until I update with v1.3 with all the trimmings and higher-rez better textures so this will have to do for now.

v1.3 will be at least a month or so away, due to other projects
so please enjoy the updated v1.2 for now thanks.

as for the Lewis and Clarke YES I intend to construct an exterior of it sometime soon. reference on it it a bit more scarce than the EH ship so that will take a bit more effort.

[Dollan]

Downloaded the newer version; I still look forward to trying it out tonight!

Glad you're making these models; this was one of my favorite sci fi movies. Thank you!

...John...

[fsgregs]

Scybladeghost:

I downloaded your modified Event Horizon and it looks fine in Celestia now. It is a much better size. Thank you for your effort.

Two questions:

You have its radius as 100 km. It is really 200 km long (in the movie)? That is ENORMOUS!

I know in the movie it was abandoned and dark. However, would it be possible to add a bit more tiny lights to the model to suggest it is populated and working?

Frank

[ScyBladeghost]

more lights, ok I'll write that down for version 1.3

as for the radius I don't think that will make too much of a difference , your welcome to change whatever you like with this 1.2 version.

any other suggestions for 1.3 please let me know here
as I'll take suggestions and try to impliment them.

also I'm pleased to know it works and is appreciated Thanks.