Luke Skywalker's Lightsaber - Props and Test Film Contents of Zipfile: 1. LUKSABR.TXT - You're reading it now. 2. LUKSABR(.BIN) - Lightsaber Hilt, prop and it's .BIN file 3. LUKSABR2(.BIN) - Lightsaber Hilt w/ Lit Blade, prop and it's .BIN file 4. LUKSABR3 - Flat blade used for animation, no .BIN file necessary 5. LUKSABR.RES - Ready to use .RES file for Stunt Island, it's index number is 66 The whole point of making the props in this way was to limit the number of props needed in a film and to ease the animation process. With a max prop number of 40 in the game, it becomes important to limit prop number when making some of the scenes I am attempting. So the lightsaber goes from 2 props to 1. The animation is just as easy, but later on that. Before I explain how all of this works, be aware that the saber is pushing the limits of what SITOOLS will allow us to do. When you load LUKSABR2 into your copy of SITOOLS you may experience some problems viewing the prop. Then again you may not....eerrghh. If the prop unsorts and pieces disappear, then in the CONTROL screen hit NO SORT and then FILLED. You will see a large white sphere surrounding the saber. Simply DELETE this sphere and the prop should sort properly. Go back to the CONTROL screen and turn NO SORT off. You'll find out what that sphere is later in this file. Also, the .BIN files that came with the textfile have the completed, working props so you can experiment with the props and still have the originals. Make sure if you change something that you use SAVE AS instead of just SAVE and change the filename!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Step 1 : Build your props. I used picture reference from "Star Wars : The Visual Dictionary" and some graph paper to make my lightsaber. Originally I built the hilt with the 0,0,0 point about in the middle so it could rotate around that point for animation later. I found out, unfortunetely, that this didn't leave enough room for the blade because of the 16,000 coordinate limit. So the whole hilt had to be STRETCHed down so that the 0,0,0 point is now at the top of the hilt rather than the middle. The blade was built with the idea that the blade is three times as long as the hilt. I based that on nothing more than it looked right. I also deleted the black circle at the top of the hilt and replaced it with two circles that round out the blade at the bottom. LUKSABR3 is the prop used for the animation. It's just a flat green polygon that is slightly larger than the whole blade. I also used DETAIL to put two DISCs at the top of the prop to round off the blade. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Step 2 : Animating the Lightsaber. Subobjects are exactly what they sound like. You have your prop and then an additional prop attached (sub) onto it. Unlike the ATTACH command in SI, you can animate an attached subobject in SITOOLS. However, you are limited to two types of animation. Propellor animation (used on the lightsaber), and landing gear animation. To see some subobjects, load the Spitfire prop that comes with the editor. You'll see a number of white spheres attached to the airplane. Look familiar? These spheres are the propellor and landing gear of the Spitfire. "They don't LOOK like propellors or landing gear.", you say. Now go to FILLED and click SHOW SUB. Looks better, right. You can even hit the "G" command and watch the landing gear animation. If you hit EDIT and then click onto one of the white spheres you can examine the animation data used for each subobject. So what does this have to do with a lightsaber? Everything! Load LUKSABR2. I'm going to assume you're going to have the same type of sorting problems I have had with this prop. So delete the white sphere as described above. Okay, you're starting over now with a non-animated lit lightsaber. In CONTROL hit TRYHRD and then PT/LN. You'll enter the coordinates and lines mode that shows the skeletal outline of the prop. (looks cool don't it :) ) Go to the bottom of the screen and hit SUBOBJ. You then need to click on the coordinate you wish to attach your subobject to. In this case it is the 0,0,0 point. Then the file selection menu will open. Select LUKSABR3 from wherever you have it stored. Then a new menu will open. If uou experimented with EDIT and the Spitfire spheres this menu will look familiar to you. The OBJECT line will contain the name of the subobject you're attaching, in this case LUKSABR3. ROTATE is the axis the prop will rotate around, in this case the Y-axis. The second box beside ROTATE is where you tell the menu what type of subobject it will be. Enter 10 for propellor. The COND line has a couple of uses. I'll not confuse you with all of them, just enter < in the first box. In the second box enter 9. In the third box enter 6000. The ELSE line is not used for this prop set. So leave it blank. Here's what your menu should look like : --------------------- | OBJECT | LUKSABR3 | -------------------------- | ROTATE | Y-AXIS | 10 | --------------------------------- | COND | < | 9 | 6000 | --------------------------------- | ELSE | | | -------------------------- Hit 'OK' and that's it. Go to FILLED mode and hit SHOWSUB to see the lightsaber with animation. Once you get it working to your liking then BSAVE it like you would any other prop. Again, if you have changed anything in your prop, make sure you change your filename so you don't erase the originals. SITOOLS isn't nice enough to ask you if you want to write over an existing file or not. The original will simply be replaced. Also, you may notice some sorting quirks after the subobject is attached. It's just a sideffect of the process and can't be helped. The sorting problems I had were minor and acceptable, to me that is. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Step 3 : Turn that sucker on..... Make your .RES file using Dave Palmowski's ResMaker utility. (thanks Dave!) Note : You will not need a .BIN file for LUKSABR3. It will already be a part of LUKSABR2. You will only need to include LUKSABR and LUKSABR2 in your .RES file. Or just use the one I included. The lightsaber was built in SCALE with the current SI people. I used a quick recolor of my action figure for the Luke in my testfilm, but the lightsaber looks just fine in the hand of the "Bad Guy"(BG from now on) or other people prop. So go ahead and set your BG on the Island somewhere. Then ATTACH the lightsaber HILT(LUKSABR) to one of his hands. Set up a camera in slot 3-8 that is shooting the BG. Now set a camera or something in the Prop 1 slot. Make Prop 1 invisble with no shadow, and set it's speed to 1000 or so. The speed isn't that important just so it's not slow. The prop 1 slot has to be moving because it's speed relates DIRECTLY to any propellor props you have in your set. This applies to ANY propellor not just the lightsaber. If prop 1 is not moving then your lightsaber will NOT be animated. Now use EVENTS to decide when you want the saber to turn on and change it's SHAPE to LUKSABR2. When you film your scene the saber will flicker just like the real thing and all you had to do was ATTACH it! Piece of cake! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All this stuff was done by Dean Newbury. (c)2001 Fanboy Productions.