Space - Lunar Escape Device

[Starbase1]

It's been too long since I did a proper space model!

I've decided to do a Lunar Escape Device - this was intended as a backup to get Apollo astronauts off the moon if the LEM failed. Particularly for the planned longer missions, (Apollo 18-20) where there were concerns about how well the LEM would last on the surface.

It was to be built partly from bits of LEM.

2 reference images and an early start.

[DaveK]

This is very interesting. I've never seen this before.

[Starbase1]

Originally Posted by DaveK

This is very interesting. I've never seen this before.

There's a fairly good article on wikipedia:

Lunar Escape Systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lunar Escape Systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lunar Escape Systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Though the designs there tend to be all two-astronauts-sitting-on-4-tanks
The links at the end point to the NASA docs with more info, which is where I got the ref for this one.

Two more renders, I've swiped a set from a Japa plane model, which I am adapting for this.

I've added some cables, not in the original plans, as the whole thing looked distinctly floppy without them...

Nick

[3D_CG]

cool
thats cool

[Pete Paterson]

Lots of fuel strapped to your a**e on that ride. Thanks for the wiki link as this was new to me to. Nice modelling as always Starbase1.

[Rigel]

*pulls up a chair*

Looks great so far!

[Starbase1]

Thanks Guys!

I've added some frame detail, and extra cables, and started on the astronaut.

For this I'm starting with a Daz Michael 3 astronaut, which I am shunting over to Lightwave.

The two pictures of the astronaut alone were in Daz, the one with him on the LED in LW.

There's something very odd about the imported one - it lights in the preview like its inside out, (but does not render like it), and the suit looks over luminous too.

Nick

[Pete Paterson]

Very nice modelling on the LED, liking the triangulation cables and fittings.

[Starbase1]

Originally Posted by Pete Paterson

Very nice modelling on the LED, liking the triangulation cables and fittings.

Thanks Pete - that's good to know as the cables are mine and not in the plans.
Nick

[Pete Paterson]

Originally Posted by Starbase1

Thanks Pete - that's good to know as the cables are mine and not in the plans.
Nick

[BillS]

Man... that would get toasty on re-entry though

[Rigel]

Originally Posted by BillS

Man... that would get toasty on re-entry though

Only meant to get you back into moon orbit.

[Pete Paterson]

So the module that landed on the moon, is not the one that came back to earth? The astronauts left the moon and then transferred into the cone shaped capsule that splashes into the sea? Excuse my ignorance

[Hundred3d]

Now this is awesome. Good stuff.

[bmckain]

Ok, that's cool. I really liked a lot of the old drawings trying to envision space exploration. It was such an innocent and naive time. Everything was fresh and new and exciting. So this will be a neat addition to your model collection.

[Starbase1]

Originally Posted by Pete Paterson

So the module that landed on the moon, is not the one that came back to earth? The astronauts left the moon and then transferred into the cone shaped capsule that splashes into the sea? Excuse my ignorance

Yep, thats exactly right.

Taking off again was viewed as one off the most dangerous parts of the mission.

The US went for a VERY simple ascent engine, where the fuels ignited on contact. If necessary the command module (cone) could do most of the work docking.

The russian plan was to put a spare lander down in the immediate area, and use a Lunokhod to carry the cosmonaut over if needed.

For longer stay missions the LEM was viewed as having a higher risk, hence the alternative options. This was still very tight, and the command module pilot would have a very limited time to dock before the air in the suits ran out.

One hell of a view on the way up on that thing though!
Nick

[Starbase1]

Originally Posted by bmckain

Ok, that's cool. I really liked a lot of the old drawings trying to envision space exploration. It was such an innocent and naive time. Everything was fresh and new and exciting. So this will be a neat addition to your model collection.

By coincidence I recently found this great page of space concept drawing style images, by Russ Arasmith

http://www.arasmith.com/Russ/space/

This year one of the big things on my todo list is to learn to do close up lunar terrain that's convincing!

[Pete Paterson]

Cheers for the info Nick.

[Starbase1]

I'm struggling to clean up the astronaut...

So decided to do more work adding the star tracker above his head, and the handles towards the front. This revealed that the plans don't have the astronaut wearing an (essential) back
pack, so the pilot can't reach the handles...

I can remove the padding from the (swiped from a plane) seat - I think the only other option is to pull the handles forward a bit, and extend the side beams.

All a bit frustrating.

A couple more cables added, at least that was straightforward.

Nick

[DELTA]

One mistake during takeoff could be very deadly... Nice work Nick.

[Starbase1]

I think the seat has got to go, and be redone from scratch...

Apart from that, some work on the textures with labels and logos, moved the side handles forwards, thickened up the inner handles, engine bells retextured, some cleanup on the astronaut, including helmet to gold glass, red bands on the knees, some connectors changed to blue matching Apollo.

[Pete Paterson]

Looking good Nick. Pity about the chair/plan/pack mismatch, yet your nearly there.

[Lynx121]

this is really interesting, great job!

[Starbase1]

Originally Posted by Pete Paterson

Looking good Nick. Pity about the chair/plan/pack mismatch, yet your nearly there.

Well, I think it will end up better in the long run if I build one specific for the project! Tidying up the astronaut will probably be a bigger job...

[Starbase1]

A few notes on how I add decals, words and symbols which might be of interest - its not rocket science, but might be handy.

I always start by getting the underlying surface right - its fiddly to keep everything in line otherwise. So in these cases that meant getting the underlying metal right, with some micro bump, and all the trimmings.

I then select the polygons that will get the logo, and give them a new name - for example in this case, tank-band-fuel, tank-band-oxidiser, nasa-logo-1

Copy the base texture to this new surface.

For the text, I use photoshop elements, but anything that supports text layers with a transparent background will do fine. For more complex things like hulls with many logos, you may end up with many layers. This keeps it easy to pull the elements around if they are not right first time. I stick to PSD format, to preserve quality and layers etc.

In this case I chose a font, and did a wide image with a transparent background, adding the text OXIDIZER. I left a generous border, its easy to crop and reload the image.

Applying this as a cylindrical map in diffuse, with a tile of 8 meant 8 instances around the tank 'equator', I then trimmed the image to get a good fit and correct proportions.

This is OK, but you will now have metallic highlights on the black paint, so copy the texture over to the specular channel, so the black paint has no metal highlight. If you are not using black text, you may need to to make an alternate version map for other channels. In practice I find that even with a colour image, a change in specular that matches the image can work well. Suck it and see.

For the NASA logo I found a PNG version with transparency - in this case it definitely needed a black version of the logo for the spec channel. It's normally easy enough to select and cut away the background colour if it's not been done for you.

Be aware that at least with my version, transparent areas in a PSD may not display correctly in preview, so have a test render before you panic.

I find that slapping labels, warnings, logos and dingbats on a model is a great way of getting fine detail, and selling the scale, for relatively light effort.

Auto sizing will work well, but for text and logos you will probably find some come out reversed - this is easily fixed by adding a - sign in front of the relevant direction. So if your text is along the Z axis just change 1.23 to -1.23 on the Z scale, (or whatever the number is).

[Rigel]

That's very similar to how I put text and logos on models. I always texture the whole surface then rename the polygons getting the text.

Of course, since I've learned to use UV maps, I will often do it that way too as it gives more control over the placement. But only if I am using UV maps on the model to begin with.

[Starbase1]

I decided to pull out the pilot for cleaning up, here's a spin of the chap.

[JimCrafton]

Originally Posted by BillS

Man... that would get toasty on re-entry though

That's what the 2-man version is for - a nice little buffer there

[JimCrafton]

Very cool! Love the ship, but the astronauts foot looks a little squished in the toe area.

[Starbase1]

Originally Posted by JimCrafton

Very cool! Love the ship, but the astronauts foot looks a little squished in the toe area.

Yes - its a Poser Michael 3 suit I'm trying to fix!

It seems to be based on Apollo suits, but lacks the boots (amongst other things)

I'm not planning on taking this to high accuracy, but making a really impressively accurate astronaut is very high on my todo list.

Thanks for the observation!
Nick