Misc - Rigel's Renewal Thread

[Rigel]

I spent some time today and redid the landing gear.



The gear itself didn't need much work. I doubled the polygons on the cylinders and made the cross braces inside the foot larger and bevelled the edges.

What really needed a fair bit of work was remodelling the hull plates around the recesses I created for the gear mounts.



Here's a close up showing the cross braces in the foot.

[Mikala]

Hopefully this won't be landing on to uneven or windy a planet/terrain.
That is a pretty narrow stance for the tripod legs.

[Eden]

Cool update Rigel, some really nice work there, im by no means a engineer but every time I look at this landing gear all I can think of is stability issues …maybe its that the feet them self’s are to small and need to be much bigger so that the weight can evenly distributed especially at the rear end.

[Rigel]

It's kind of like a WWII Spitfire. If you set it down right, you're okay. Otherwise, yeah, it would fall over.

[Rigel]

I started working on the sensor array today.

The original was actually a fixed fin. Now it's an open framework, which retains the shape of the original fin. I've also got the communications dish installed. It needed to go in first as it is the largest piece that will be on the array.



This is from the port side.



This shot shows how not only the array can rotate but the dish can tip up and down as well. This will allow the dish, or all three dishes, to be aimed towards an incoming signal or towards a distant receiver.

[Starbase1]

Minor points - the inside of a dish will always be smooth, and (assuming the dish is roughly a section of a sphere), the collector / sensor will be about halfway to the centre of that sphere, where the focus is.

[Rigel]

Originally Posted by Starbase1

Minor points - the inside of a dish will always be smooth, and (assuming the dish is roughly a section of a sphere), the collector / sensor will be about halfway to the centre of that sphere, where the focus is.

I certainly bow to your wisdom. However, I'm going to claim future tech on this one and just go for cool looking.

[Rigel]

So a couple of weeks ago I was at a friend's cottage with no Internet access and thus I got a fair amount of work done on this model. I've just been too preoccupied to knock out any images and share them.

This first shot shows the completed instrument arrays mounted on the ship.



This is a shot of the telescope, the spectrometer (the white one), the laser range finder (small one to the right) and the solar panels. The laser range finder is a modified version of the camera (see below).



This is the radar dish. I borrowed this from the cargo ship I built a couple of years ago.



This is the camera. The camera comes from my Universal Joint ship.



This final shot shows how the three arrays do rotate so they can aim the sensors at a common target if desired. They rotate independently so the sensors can check different targets as well.

[Pheylan]

Amazing stuff Rigel. I always love watching you add the kinds of details that really make your models stand out. They look like they can actually funtion in real life.

[Rigel]

Thanks Pheylan. I try.

[today]

[silly comment mode]
You can't fool me! You're obviously building a mobile launch platform for the pointy stick, it's going to be the first motivational tool ever with first strike capability
[/silly comment mode]


looks really cool, I still think it's a well thought out, grounded, plausible looking design. Don't see that much in scifi spaceships

[Rigel]

Mobile launch platform for the pointy stick. Hmmmmmm

[Rigel]

Okay, I redesigned the landing gear.

It's still a tripod arrangement but now uses two tripods rather than one. The angled legs have been moved from a 25 degree angle to a 35 degree. The result is a more stable looking arrangement. The angled legs keep it from falling over, the vertical legs support the weight so the angled legs don't buckle.

Here are two shots of it sitting on a spaceport landing field with a crewman in for scale.

Sky courtesy of Starbase1.





Hmmm. That landing field needs to go through a renewal process.

[Treybor]

Very interesting. Hadn't thought of it landing.

[Rigel]

Originally Posted by Treybor

Very interesting. Hadn't thought of it landing.

It's a scout vessel, with a small lab on board for collecting samples, so the owner does make planetary landings in order to assess the biosphere for colonization or exploitation. And because the sensor arrays need to be kept off the ground, it needed long landing legs, thus the telescoping design.

In this universe they've solved Einstein's Unified Field Theorem and one of the technologies that came out of that is the contra-gravity lifter. CG Lifters can nullify the pull of gravity to varying degrees allowing ships of any size or design to make planet fall.

The CG Lifter is actually a fairly old SF concept crucial to getting most SF ships off the ground in the first place. The CG Lifters can also assist the ship while it's landed by decreasing the gravitational pull enough to lighten the ship.

[starship]

Looks to much cool! Will you be building the interiors too?

[Rigel]

Originally Posted by starship

Looks to much cool! Will you be building the interiors too?

I've got the shell of the interior in there now. I will be completing it.

Next up, I need to put the airlock/elevator into the bottom of it.

[Rigel]

I spent a number of hours on this today and got a fair bit done.

I have installed the airlock lift system which is used to enter/leave the ship while it's on the surface.

The most time consuming part was cutting the hole in the bottom of the hull and redoing the hull plates. As you'll see in the renders below, I think it ended up looking nice.

I also created the airlock by installing walls across the interior shell and copying the airlock from deck one down to deck two.

In this first render, you can see the hatch leading into the airlock. I put a temporary bump map on the interior to help define it.



Here the hatches are open and the crewman is standing inside the airlock. You can see one of the four hydraulic pistons used to lower and raise the floor as well as the shelving on the port side. There are storage shelves on both sides for EVA gear.



In this shot, you can see that the floor has started to lower.



Outside on the bottom is the hatch that closes off the lift shaft when it's retracted. This is the area I mentioned above that took most of the work. The hatch retracts to the aft to open.



This shot has the hatch open and the lift coming down.



And last but not least, the lift fully extended and sitting on the ground.

[Mikala]

Hey that inner hatch is looking a lot like an Eagle's (Space 1999) cockpit hatch.
Looking great man. Keep it it movin' on.

[Rigel]

Originally Posted by Mikala

Hey that inner hatch is looking a lot like an Eagle's (Space 1999) cockpit hatch.
Looking great man. Keep it it movin' on.

Thanks Greg!

It's in the F3D greeble section. I rebuilt it to a higher polygon count and bevelled the edges though.

[Rigel]

I've started texturing the outside of this one.

In case I haven't mentioned it before, the ship's owner is Nikki Bowdring and her favourite colour is purple.

[bobakabob]

Love the design concepts and surfacing work on these spaceships

[Rigel]

Originally Posted by bobakabob

Love the design concepts and surfacing work on these spaceships

Thanks!

[Rigel]

A couple more renders of the texturing in progress.

Finished the front piece by texturing the glass, window frame and docking clamps.



Textured the landing legs, lift hydraulics and the torus in the middle. I'm trying chrome on the lift pistons whereas the landing gear is done in a pewter material.

[bmckain]

You know that second image really makes me think of the displays at The Smithsonian. You should consider doing a museum shot with it.

[Rigel]

The ship is only 6 months old! Far too new to be in a museum.

Maybe a starship dealer's showroom image.

[Rigel]

I've modelled the cockpit interior for the ship and for now I am calling this done. The living/work area of the interior isn't modelled yet, but that's also not necessary at this stage and won't be unless I plan to do an animation of moving through it.

Note: these are VPR renders.

Cockpit looking aft.



Cockpit looking forward.



Cockpit from outside.



I'm now in the processing of rigging it and setting up the few lights that it needs. It will then be released to a few individuals but is not available for public release.

Thank you one and all for both your interest and your comments! It helped to shape the ship.

[Treybor]

That's pretty spiffy! Nicely done.

[Mikala]

Commander Koenig to the bridge...Commander Koenig to the bridge
Cool cockpit area.

[Rigel]

Thanks guys!