Back to the Heavy Rig

 I returned to the recent space vehicle project—the Heavy Rig from Orbital Elements. Last week, I spent hours trying to rig the container folding system so I could animate all the containers folding in and out. It didn't go well, so I took a break. I'll need to start with something simpler and do more practice rigging before having another go.

In the meantime, I decided to bring the updated folding system into the animation scene and incorporate the missing sub-vehicles, two drone landers that can detach and deliver containers to surface installations.

The idea with the lander was to riff on the Eagle from Space 1999. 

A sketched idea

Ultimately, I wanted something closer to the Eagle, but not slavishly so, particularly with the main truss element.

That's pretty much what I was looking for...

Serious high-poly oopsy

So the cloth bagging, surely an essential element in NASA-like space vehicle modelling, looked great. It looked better than the earlier cloth elements I'd created with Fluent's cloth maker. When I saved the scene, I was shocked that it was nearly 1GB, which is about ten times larger than expected. It turned out those bag elements were absolutely huge polygon hogs. I optimised them so they're about 10% of the original polycount but with a slight loss in baggy quality.

A first pass at the materials. Nothing too snazzy as these vehicles will be attached to the rig, so not all that visible.

In place, on the rig:

A tad over-exposed, but it sells the configuration.

And animate!!

There's a small flaw. Some mesh blocks are spinning with the camera for some reason. It's enough to discourage me from sharing, but I'll render the sequence again tonight with those so-and-sos removed. I might try to add a planet into the background.

Mini-project: Orbital Elements Modular Container (test animation)

Shiny! Also enormously expensive in terms of poly count

 Yesterday's efforts included rough material selection. There are still no decals, though. I did some more clean-up and rebuilt the fuel bladder.  



I created a test animation during my lunch break. Then, another longer animation was rendered last night.

Animation frame.

Moving modules to a second support/spin ring could have made a cleaner hinge system that works off the opposite ring instead of at the module's own root. I might do a rebuild, but if I do, it will be done after the module lander.

Mini-project: Orbital Elements Modular Container - What next..

 I made some good progress. Some changes here and there.

I now need to focus on getting the build finished. There will need to be some additional touches. I will rebuild the fuel bladder and add communication equipment and external stores. Suddenly, the container's panels look sparse, but I prefer them that way for now.

Space lighting

The containers are now orientated so that the floors align with the cradle when folded for spin. Nice. The cradle structure on the outer-facing walls looks awfully cluttered, but I can live with it. It might look good with the proper lighting and staging.

Clutter-bug: Folded down for spin

Folded-out for acceleration-as-gravity

Mini-project: Orbital Elements Modular Container - Test Run

 It's Tuesday morning. Rather than pushing on with the build, I needed to jump ahead to test that the fully populated container frame doesn't look too cluttered.

Spin ring reversed

Testing out the reversed direction of the ring. So it doesn't look like this fixes the issue in that folding downwards puts the container's floor where the roof would need to go. This might be a time when cool-looking wins out against realistic. To be decided.

So I had a thought: Instead of doubling up the containers on the ring, how about a second ring where the containers are offset so all the containers can fold in together?

I like it!

I really like it, but it might look horribly cluttered when viewed from other directions.

Folded down for spinning.

Firstly, the hinge system didn't work as I hoped. When folded down, the hinge isn't locked in a properly load-bearing position. It does fold in, but not as expected. This might not matter, as it's all lost in the complicated latticework.

It does look a bit cluttered, but not so much that extra padding cannot remedy it. To this end, I thought that I'd add fuel bladders. That's bags instead of solid tanks at the midsection. These quickly modelled cloth bags must have had a massive polycount, as the render took minutes instead of seconds. I think this is working.

This was a quickly hashed test setup. Before continuing with this configuration, I'll return to the previous file version for fixes, refinements, and build optimization.

Mini-project: Orbital Elements Modular Container (Round Two!)

 The mini-project continues. I'm reasonably happy with the progress. The idea that this would be a super-quality build has fallen aside. I'm having a horrendous time with Fluent. It may be a bug, a scene corruption, or my keyboard or mouse has been sticking. I managed to get what I needed, though.

Understated Pod

I wanted the container pod to avoid excessive sculpting and boolean cuts, which are too easy to make but hard to justify. This is actually two of the units I built stuck together to get the dimensions close to the stand-in module.

Nonetheless, the hinge system needed to be rebuilt to better match the new form.

Longer and with a bigger cage

Interesting story here. The pivot is in the wrong direction. I hadn't noticed when I first blocked it out, but under spin, the roof would become the floor. Not ideal, but not a show-stopper. The fix might be as easy as having the pods pivot forward instead of towards the rear. Then, the pod's deck floor would be on the outer side.

Progress made:

• Command module with a first round of details, including windows.
  
• Two containers are attached directly to the hull. These don't spin and are probably used for stores. They mate with the hull via an airlock block at the rear. This is the bit that caused me so much woe.
• Note that the structural ring has a bunch of boolean cuts to show that it is a structural frame and doesn't contain any bits.

Tomorrow: Finish the primary build steps. Clean up. Some materials, some lamps. Then...Drum Roll... I will bone and rig the hinge machinery to animate the modules folding down. I watched a tutorial, and it looks complicated but this is me laughing at my comfort zone as I side down the rockface. 

A new mini-project: Orbital Elements Modular Container

 It's time to build another space vehicle, this time one of my own designs. I'm also looking to make it available for sale, which is forcing me to be more careful in the build process. Every time I try to ignore some lousy meshwork, I see some future customers looking at duplicated verts or shader artefacts and then raising complaints.

This extra level of care might be eroded over time. We will see.

The idea:

The concept

Containers that pivot on their support ring

This heavy rig travels at 1g to its destination. During the journey, it accelerates forward, creating simulated gravity. The container units pivot on their support ring so that their decks are oriented appropriately. Once at the destination, the engines turn off, and the vehicle sits in an orbit. The containers then pivot ninety degrees so that gravity can be simulated by spinning the rig on its forward-rear axis. This model was built in July 2023. I liked the concept but not the execution of some elements. Particularly those Space 1999 Eagle-like Drone module trucks. So it's time for some new and improved!

Blocking out

Do the fiddly stuff First. In this case, the container hinge system.

Happy enough with this as a starting point.

Checking out what it looks like with more containers. I might fit another six on the ring...

Time for a break. I want to do a good job of the container module. That will be a project in itself.

Rig!

 Firstly, Alien: Romulus is excellent!

Andy (played by David Jonsson) is my favourite character.

Alien Romulus offers nothing new; it's like a horrifying "The Best of Alien" album featuring masterful covers from previous episodes of Alien films. Set between Alien and Aliens, the retro-vibe is back, and yet it manages to weave elements and story points from prequels and sequels that nudge the movie out of the decaying orbit of a simple pastiche effort. So why is this the best Alien film since 1986? Mastery of the elements and discipline to keep things simple. The film never tries to pull the backstory into the foreground; you get an intriguing prologue that tells you the "how" and a fantastic cameo presence to drive the backstory, delivered in just as few lines of dialogue to explain the "why". Most surprising of all, I instantly liked all the characters. People making bad choices is an essential ingredient of the monster movie genre, but it's refreshing that all bad decisions make sense in their moment here.

Rig

I'm almost done ... probably done with the Rig

Moody lighting!

I must use more external lamps to light stuff!

Logo character art from Midjourney!

Orbital Elements - Medium Rig Nudges and paint

 The Rig slowly progressed, not because of any problems; I just gave it a day off. I played with landscapes, then returned to it this afternoon.

I tweaked a few things, but nothing major. I added some different elements to the back. Instead of just mirroring the front elements.

Front tweaks

New rear elements in play

I'll come back to it tomorrow. Tonight, I'm off to see Alien: Romulus. 

Orbital Elements - Medium Rig backwards and forwards

 

Some thoughts on my process

My 3D modelling—maybe my entire "art" journey—has been a race between my critical standards and my capabilities. There have been times when I've turned my back on 3d in general because everything I produced was rubbish, and I knew it. Maybe you have a lot of fun initially because your standards are almost zero, so everything you create has the merit of being made. I remember modelling in Caligari trueSpace, where I would complete every challenge in a couple of hours. I was productive and learned a lot, but everything was a quick sketch. I think this set some bad habits that have taken a long time to recognise, never mind overcome.

So, I reached a point with the Medium Rig where I felt like I was in the home stretch—just a few more touches and call it complete. But I'm now tending to question this feeling, and I force myself to look harder and compare the output with other people's 3D stuff that I admire. So I don't complete it. I get back and redo things. Then, I redo some more. This feels like important progress!

Removing the cargo module, and I like the spindly quality. Those legs look mismatched, though.

Nice end-caps. Accented in yellow. Thruster nozzles too dark.

 I'm not sure about the fuel pods or the command module. Remember that the vehicle's standard vector is "upwards". This way, constant acceleration produces simulated gravity, making the floor/regular deck arrangement.

Trying out different command modules. Messy!

Meh, on the first step.

I decide to go shopping in my old model catalogue. I'd done fuel tanks and command modules that I'd liked in some earlier Orbital Element models. I argue that elements are duplicated because these vehicles share standard components. 

Fuel tanks from a "grabber" utility rig

Command module and crewmember derived from my "squid" cargo-hauler.

See the squid in this post.

Progress continues! Doubtless, a few steps back will also happen before the end.

Slow going

 I'm back in Blender, but oh the rust that has formed. It's only been a week away. As well as having trouble producing a satisfactory base model, I had some instability issues with the geo-scatter. I tested a smaller scene, which was okay.

Geo-Scatter without the crash-to-desktop

Concepts

 More "Dropship" Too much, I think.

This is the concept I'm going with.