NEW Apollo models

[Cham]

L?  tu parles !

[ElChristou]

8O L?  tu parles !

[Vincent]

Amazing ! Bravo Christophe !

[fsgregs]

Well, here in America ... we have a phrase which best conveys what I think of your new Apollo model under development ...

HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!

Unbelievable!

Can't wait until it's released.

Thank you for this spectacular effort!

Frank

[ElChristou]

Tx guys!

In fact this is the easy part. The LEM got me a bit worried indeed...

The reentry is also on good way, parachutes are ready, the model of the capsule is in progress but is missing a big work for the burned texture...

[bh]

Holy Roman Catholic Church Batman!... as Robin would say.

[ElChristou]

Guys, because I'm quite busy and the LM models is going slow, here a pre release of the CM.

I choose to avoid a few details to limit the poly count in the optic of having both CM and LM with a not so bad frame rate.

Notes:

The texture "chrome.jpg" is not complete (was just a test, I like it so I'll end it for the final release).

The model is in 2 parts (2 cmods); it's the only way I found to avoid the nasty seams on the main thruster without loosing the fine tune of smooth level on the rest of the meshes (using generate normal). It's not elegant at all (there is two entries in the ssc) but for now we wil have to do like this meanwhile someone find a solution to this problem...

If someone has a better idea for the ssc, just post!



Download Here (2,9Mo)

Comments are always welcome!

Enjoy!

[fsgregs]

Christophe:

Your model is beautiful. Thank you for the effort.

I have just two comments:

I am running the model in Celestia 1.4.1. As such, it is flying sideways across the moon. I notice that in the ssc file, there is a new set of commands I have never seen before. They are modify commands, referencing something called a "bodyframe", with lines containing "vectors". Here is a quote from the ssc file:

Modify "Apollo 11" "Sol/Earth/Moon"
{
BodyFrame
{
TwoVector
{
Center "Sol/Earth/Moon/Apollo 11"
Primary
{
Axis "z"
RelativePosition
{
Observer "Sol/Earth/Moon/Apollo 11"
Target "Sol/Earth/Moon"
}
}

Could you explain what these lines are designed to do? I'd love to understand them. Do they orient the spacecraft so it points forward?

2. In the screenshot you included in this initial post above, the body of the service module was medium gray. In the downloaded model, it is the same color as the service module (chrome??) Based on the images I've found on the net taken by NASA, the Command Module was a highly reflective chrome, but the service module was a muted light gray with a different surface texture. Here is the best color image I could find, showing the actual colors while in orbit around the moon:

http://www.projekt-apollo.com/html/bilder/csm.JPG

I'll leave final coloration to you, but I favor two different textures for the model to better represent the actual craft.

FYI

Frank

[ElChristou]

Christophe:

Your model is beautiful. Thank you for the effort.

I have just two comments:

I am running the model in Celestia 1.4.1. As such, it is flying sideways across the moon. I notice that in the ssc file, there is a new set of commands I have never seen before. They are modify commands, referencing something called a "bodyframe", with lines containing "vectors"....
Could you explain what these lines are designed to do? I'd love to understand them. Do they orient the spacecraft so it points forward?

Yep, you have to upgrade to 1.5 (if I'm not wrong) to use the reference frames; this set of commands have been dev by Chris a few months ago; you should do a quick search to learn more. In this case the CM always point to the moon.

2. In the screenshot you included in this initial post above, the body of the service module was medium gray. In the downloaded model, it is the same color as the service module (chrome??) Based on the images I've found on the net taken by NASA, the Command Module was a highly reflective chrome, but the service module was a muted light gray with a different surface texture. Here is the best color image I could find, showing the actual colors while in orbit around the moon:

The CM and the SM are not the same color in this model; only the CM use the chrome.jpg texture. Celestia is unable to render the reflecting material of the CM, most of the time such material would looks just plain black in space, only approching a body one would be able to see something reflected on it...

I choose a high spec level on it to have a huge contrast between shadow and light. Viewing it on it's axis (the docking system is front of you) show you the best result I could find.

The SM is not so mute, just looks you photo; the contrast between the edge of the SM and it's center is quite important. What's is wrong on my model is that some parts should be pure white (thay are grey actually), changing the global impression.

In all case, don't forget it's still a test model, the final one will be the nearest I can do from the original...

[ANDREA]

Chris, just checked your model, and IMHO it's wonderful, as usual.
I see strange whitish lines, concentrated around the CM door and the CM nose, that are present in the texture "chrome.jpg".
I have never seen them in the real CM, so are them an artifact or have they to be modified some way?
Just curious.
Bye

Andrea

[Vincent]

Great work so far Chris !
And as usual with your models, it's a pleasure to display them with such a high FPS !
Optimisation rocks !

[ElChristou]

Chris, just checked your model, and IMHO it's wonderful, as usual.
I see strange whitish lines, concentrated around the CM door and the CM nose, that are present in the texture "chrome.jpg".
I have never seen them in the real CM, so are them an artifact or have they to be modified some way?
Just curious...

Just a tentative to represent the lines visible on the reflective material wrapping the capsule... They are quite subbtle so I like them well...
The texture is not completed, was a test, need some more work...

Great work so far Chris !
And as usual with your models, it's a pleasure to display them with such a high FPS !
Optimisation rocks !

Happy to see someone noticed!

[Spaceman Spiff]

Hi ElChristou,

I've tried out your 'pre-release'. The models work fine with Cel. 1.5.0, even on my ancient hardware.

Some comments about the SSC and XYZ:

I noticed that the SSC includes commented out references to apollo11.xyz. I restored it to see what happened, and I see it's calculated relative to Earth, but you've set Apollo 11 relative to the Moon. I don't know if you meant to do this, or all your time was sucked up by modelling, but changing lines like

Code: Select all

"Apollo 11" "Sol/Earth/Moon"

to

Code: Select all

"Apollo 11" "Sol/Earth"

makes for a very nice journey from Earth to Moon to Earth again.

I haven't yet learnt how these new orientation commands work, but I made the same changes to the Center and Observer lines in the TwoVector, and changed the Orientation from [ 130 1 0 0 ] to [90 1 0 0] which got the SM pointing to the moon there and back. Also, I changed UniformRotation Period to 1000000000. I think the SM didn't actually move like this, but on the whole it's less wobbly than before.

If you haven't thought about it, you'll need to 'snip' the XYZ file in half (or more likely a first and second part maybe with some points overlapping or missing) to insert the SM Lunar orbit part while the LEM goes down to the Moon and up again.

There are some kinks in the XYZ during the straighter parts due to undersampling, Celestia's motion smoothing makes the SM appear to drift from the orbit quite a bit.

Spiff.

[ElChristou]

Hi ElChristou,

I've tried out your 'pre-release'. The models work fine with Cel. 1.5.0, even on my ancient hardware.

Some comments about the SSC and XYZ...

Well was also a test, I don't remember where the xyz files comes from (perhaps Jack Higgins addon?)...

The problem is that I plan to add the LM docked to the CSM, so it won't make sense to have such model flying around Earth...

In all case, this is really secondary to me so indeed the ssc could be discuss here.

I'll try your changes to see.

[Spaceman Spiff]

ElChristou,

Wasn't the XYZ source from this post: Apollo 11 Free-Return Reconstruction ( http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9687 )?

Actually, now that I think of it, that reconstruction says it doesn't include the "Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) maneuver", so the time or orbits around the moon while the Eagle landed must be missing, though I think the Eagle was only on the moon for two hours...

Spiff.

[ElChristou]

ElChristou,

Wasn't the XYZ source from this post: Apollo 11 Free-Return Reconstruction ( http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9687 )?...

You must be right... but again I'm really not sure to use it for the final release...

[ElChristou]

Progress on the LM...

(Click to enlarge)

[linuxm@n]

e found on the net taken by NASA, the Command Module was a highly reflective chrome, but the service module was a muted light gray with a different surface texture. Here is the best color image I could find, showing the actual colors while in orbit around the moon:

If you want, you can use my"chrome.jpg" texture , i have made with franck gregorio pictures from Apollo ( your texture + my texture ):





With Soyouz 19



Around the moon

I think it look better no ?

If you want to use it, please do it, you can find this texture in my Soyouz Apollo pack on my site (you have just to rename the picture)




Your model is beautiful and y ask me that function or effect you use for (sorry en fran?§ais; les vis et les boulons) to give this realistic effect.
I mean there is a same effect in 3dsmax.

they nice work really.

Your model weight 3.9 mo in cmod, is it realy a best solution ?
How mant mb in 3ds format ?

I ask me this for my addon


Linuxman

[ElChristou]

If you want, you can use my"chrome.jpg" texture , i have made with franck gregorio pictures from Apollo ( your texture + my texture ):

Yep, I was thinking in this; now my main problem with textures is that my config cannot handle too much textures in the same time; for example I'm used to use 4k dds maps on planets (if possible normal+color); now for a nice result on models, you need to use at least 2K textures (can be also dds with cmod files). I this condition, my config got some problems to render the whole thing (I often get a balck moon for example)...

Another problem concerning a texture like yours, is that despite it's look nice, the reflexion on it is not realistic.

I'll see later what to do, anyway,Tx for proposing your texture!

Your model is beautiful and y ask me that function or effect you use for (sorry en fran?§ais; les vis et les boulons) to give this realistic effect.
I mean there is a same effect in 3dsmax.

What about the screws? (rivets/vis) they are 100% hand made... There is of course much more screws in reality, but I had to reduce the detail number to keep a good FPS with the LM...

Your model weight 3.9 mo in cmod, is it realy a best solution ?
How mant mb in 3ds format ?

I ask me this for my addon

To me it's the best solution; ok, the cmod file is a bit bigger than the 3DS (3,5 mo), but remember Celestia will render Cmod faster than 3DS...
Now, don't forget I try to optimize at full my models so the difference between 3DS and Cmod is not much. On a non optimized model the difference can become dramatic... I haven't tested lately one of your models (I don't know if you have been able to reduce them) but for sure the benefit of the Cmod format won't be spectacular with a model which has, let's say 40% useless poly...

Last thing, remember my philosophy is to support Celestia and only Celestia, for this the Cmod format is welcome.

[ElChristou]

More progress on the LM...

(Click to enlarge)