Celestia Forums

Hmmm, shadows could increase dramatically the realism, but can also reduce dramatically the frame rate

Here's a quick rendering in my modeler. I'll try to make a rendering from another point of view later, if I have time.

Cor!...I'd love to have a go at rendering this model in Bryce. I guess a 3ds is out of the question? Hehe.

Excellent model!

What propulsion system does the ship use, by the way?

Here's the actual state of the model. About 85% finished. I'm working on the head now. Frame rate is 30 FPS on my system and I'll stop adding details if it's going to reach the 25 FPS limit. Click on the small view below to see a large picture. It's pretty impresive, live in Celestia !

Oh, that does look nice!

Now, is this an early Mars-to-Earth ship? If so, what're you going to name it?

...John...

I don't know its name yet. I was thinking about something like : SS Kepler, or COPERNIC, but I'm not delighted with those. Do you have a suggestion ?

That's a good looking ship. I like the detail, especially in the frame and the engine reactor thing. I have some engineering suggestions. These should be taken with a grain of salt since I'm not a rocket engineer. I think it's unnecessarily long. The external frame only really connects the engines to the head. Instead it could serve structurally as stabilizers for the tanks. Also, I don't know if the detail on the little tanks has a function, but if they are as replaceable as they appear to be, they should have some sort of grapple fixtures.

Matt

You're right, there should be some fixtures from the tanks to the hexagonal structure. I was thinking about this, but was reluctant to add these, because it may add a lot of confusion to the model. It may become messy. I'll try to add some fixtures anyway, but I don't want to affect the frame rate too much. We could also justify the absence of fixtures by saying that all the heagonal sections are modules, each one placed in orbit around the moon, and then joined together to built the space ship. The lenght of the spaceship may also be related to the presence of some nuclear reactor, like the "Discovery" spaceship in Kubrick's 2001 movie.

About the name, it may ends to be USS JASMINE. I'm not sure about the USS, however. What does it mean anyway ? United SpaceShip ? Doesn't make much sense to me. Any opinion on this ? USS ??

About the flags and logos, I'm thinking about the US and China flags. This futuristic mission is supposed to happens in about 80 years from now (is it too much optimistic ?). At that time, China will be a superpower, probably stronger than the US themselves (and I'm not talking about India). This mission is the result of a cooperation between the US and China. Hmm, what about the european nations ? I'm not sure. I don't want to add too much flags on the models too, or it will be completelly messy.

And what about the Coka Cola logo, on one of the smaller tanks ? LOL

Cham wrote:Hmmm, shadows could increase dramatically the realism, but can also reduce dramatically the frame rate

Here's a quick rendering in my modeler. I'll try to make a rendering from another point of view later, if I have time.

Hum! That's true that the shade could well on this vessel. I don't think, on Celestia, that it could have increased over the night of Saturn due in the light of the rings and the back-day of satellite due in the light of large planet.


Images of nasa

As far as names go, the prefix "USS" would likely be used only if it were a United States military vessel. USS refers to "United States Ship", but I don't think it has ever been used in a civilian context. That is usually reserved for "SS", which means "Sea Ship".

I would do away with any sort of prefix, then, and simply concentrate on a name. If this is the first manned venture to Mars, then perhaps the Ares would be suitable, or some other classical god associated with Mars. Or you could reference some other great ship of exploration and discovery, such as the Endeavor, the Calypso, Discovery, or any other number of them.

What spirit is behind this ship? Is it a ship of exploration, colonization, or something else?

...John...

Thanks Dollan.

I'll avoid the USS prefix. SS is pretty, for SpaceShip, however.

Yes, it's an exploration ship. I like "Calypso", but to me, it's too much associated with that French explorer, Jacques Cousteau. I would prefer a name that wasn't used by something else before.

You could always go with a name of a fmous explorer or astronomer, then, perhaps one associated with Mars. The SS Percival Lowell, perhaps? Or even the SS John Carter, referencing a somewhat famous fictional character who traveled to Mars!

...John...

I'm still working on the head. That part needs more work. There will be lots of details in the circular trench. I didn't found any name yet.

Cham: Can I join the crew on this cool ship? Looks awesome... Thumbs up!

Do you have any data about this ship, lengh, width, engienes and so on..?

Crew : 8 members.

Destination : Mars, from the Moon, and Maybe Titan from Mars.

Mission : bringing water, food, nitrogen, oxygen and beer to some outpost colonies. I guess that's what the spheres grapes are used for.

Length and other caracteristics, well, that will come later. I'm really not sure yet !

The moving part (rotating ring) is located inside the front sphere, like the one in the Discovery (Kubrick's 2001).

Cham, it is really shaping up. Looks great; i am a little envious of your Cheetah skills

Ar you going to texture it? It??ll look more natural with some texturing to bring out the characteristics of the hull material. Maybe also a few flaws, so that it looks *used*...

- rthorvald

Indeed it's a very nice model!!
Cannot wait anymore to test it

Very beautiful work. From a purely aesthetic view it is excellent. I don't want to be nitpicky, but 2 things occured to me from a technical viewpoint.

1) You have translation/rotation thrusters but no axial roll thrusters.
2) With a rotating ring, wouldn't there be some torque you would have to cancel out?

buggs_moran wrote:1) You have translation/rotation thrusters but no axial roll thrusters.
2) With a rotating ring, wouldn't there be some torque you would have to cancel out?

Internal gyroscopes. The intertia moment is much lower along the main axis, so gyroscopes can do it. Have you seen the Discovery in 2001 ? It's the same.

Gotcha.