Rogue planet

One thing I often feel I have difficulty is depicting things out in interstellar space, or other scenarios were it is seriously dark. Not least because with a realistic view, it would be too dark to see anything.

Here’s my latest attempt, showing a rogue planet, cast loose from it’s parent star.

between-starsAstronomers seem to be growing towards this having happened early in the hostory of our own solar system, with a 5th gas giant being ejected early in it’s history.

Also note I am using the whole sky environments of our night sky, as mentioned a couple of posts ago.

 

More test renders of All Sky Maps from the ESO

Some more test renders of the al sky maps made available by the European Southern observatory. The level of detail is amazing!

Take a look at this high res render for example, and be sure to look at maximum resolution! (For most this will mean one click to see the image full screen, and another to go to full size).

high-resJust awesome! Continue reading “More test renders of All Sky Maps from the ESO”

Test renders of all sky map from the ESO

I found these wonderful images made available by the European Southern Observatory:

http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/fulldome/

Some are VERY high resolution!

So I tried applying one to the inside of a sphere, set to 100% luminous, no diffuse, and used a 1080P camera with AA set to 25. I* used planar mapping on the Y axis.

These images are what I got out. The only adjustments I made were autocontrast.

I think they would look even better if I darkened them a bit.

As usual, click on an image to see it full size. skyball_rgb030 Continue reading “Test renders of all sky map from the ESO”

Two different images of Vulkan launching.

Two different renders of my Vulkan superheavy Soviet rocket taking off. The first has no recovery packs on the boosters, the second one does have the parachute packs.

These were NOT included on the designs for the Vulkan, but as they were added to Energia and Energia M I think it reasonable speculation to include them.

This version has the largest payload faring considered.

The Vulkan was not built but was downsized into the energia family.

vulkan-ascendant-3x

Continue reading “Two different images of Vulkan launching.”

Magnetospheric MultiScale satellite

Quickie project, based on the file downloaded from the NASA 3d object library. This basically comes dow to resurfacing, and setting up a scene or two!

This NASA satellite studies the magnetic field of Earth in high orbit.

mms-holder_rgb000 Continue reading “Magnetospheric MultiScale satellite”

First renders of the new project, Zenit 2 rocket

I always enjoy this stage of a project, when it developes really fast, and every render looks better than the last!

This is the Soviet / Russian ZENIT rocket. It’s part of the energia family, and developed from the boosters used to lift that monster into the sky.

zenit-4

zenit-1 zenit-2

Out of the darkness, and into the light, final.

A collaboration with Ali Ries.

I was very interested when fellow IAAA member Ali Ries offered me the chance to use some of her glorious nebula backgrounds. I’m not very good at using strong colour, and this seemed like an excellent chance to get some practice in.

(You can see her work at Deviant Art).

I found a nice starship in the file libraries at Foundation 3D, and set about it.

I used a yellow distant light for the key light, matching the colour of the bright star. In exactly the same position I had a red dome light – dome lights are extended sources, (often a whole hemisphere), my idea was that the red light would produce a subtle warm edge to the shadow borders.

I experimented with a blue fill light, for added colour, but without a blue light source onscreen, it did not look right.

After experimenting with a warmer tone for the side light, I decided to go for some very small limited range point lights, acting like running lights on the ship. I struggled to choose between blue and red, but in the end I decided to do both!

Here are the results:

red-running-finalx

blue-running-lights-finalx

In case you are wondering, I got the title from a misremembered Hawkwind lyric – I liked the idea of a starship once again receiving the light of a Sun after an incredibly long journey.

As usual, all my bits were done in Lightwave 3d.