l-o-l ...imperial work in progress... (-oo-)

Some views of the same(!) model

It will not be the original DS-1 in every detail (remember the original one was destroyed in the Battle of Yavin) but it is developed after its basic plans, because DS-1 was the most sucessful one - it was finished and its primar weapon was used to destroy Alderaan.

As known, some of the published plans and sizes were fakes (to confuse the rebel alliance I guess). After many battles and losses the imperial engineers only had a lot of fragments and contradicting plans. So they had to develop many details again, but as near at the original DS1 as possible.

Sorry there are no lights at the moment - perhaps Luke has turned off the fuse...

Maybe the largest scene ever built in POV - the outer hull (120.000 meters in diameter) of the famous imperial death star. It is not just a textured sphere - there will be uncountable details like buildings, hangars, lasertowers, small trenches, antennas etc. down to a size of meters and less when getting closer to the surface.

There were (and still are) a lot of problems you can't imagine:
- what about the blocks at the pole caps? Dividing the surface of a sphere into squares is still impossible.
- how to get the typical vertical surface structure of the blocks?
- how to tell the blocks not to appear at the dish?

already finished

At this stage, the hull is covered with small blocks (see the dark squares) at a size of about 1000 m and 50 m in height (see the edge of the dish to get the size of a single block). Later each one will contain its individual set of buildings. The picture above contains nearly 9000 visible blocks.

Depending on the camera's position, every plate is tested for visibility and distance and the model will automatically adapt it's seamless level of detail. Otherwise the masses of details couldn't be stored in any PC and render time would be years. Therefore, parsing time will take a few minutes. So it is rather an algorithm than a 3D-model.

Actual level of detail: 10m

future works

- adding self-generating buildings to the blocks
- adding lights
- the equatorial trench with hangars
- deeper interior like the main reactor
- navigation system for placing the camera relative to the surface
- laser beams of the primar weapon when firing
- finally a sightseeing coordinate table with some interesting points

And when this all is done (I really believe!) a lot of things are still imaginable:
- more interior (the complete - why not?)
- a spline generator for smooth flybys and fly-through-trenches both for the camera and for other ships flying around
- lasertowers targeting at ships
- an explode-animation when the rebels win again...

The first version will be downloadable when first buildings are added to the blocks.

So be patient - DS1 wasn't built at one day, too.

Official StarWars Site
The Force.net
A Death Star Examination