admin

More work on the 1958 Lockheed shuttle design

I was struggling a bit with a colour scheme for the main rocket – how to do something period, that fits with the orange and black shuttle?

Here’s how it’s coming along.

Continue reading “More work on the 1958 Lockheed shuttle design”

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.

Astronomers 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.

1958 Space Shuttle design

Not a lot of info on this one, it may be quick!

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).

Just 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. Continue reading “Test renders of all sky map from the ESO”

Comet 67P Churyumov–Gerasimenko over London

A rendering of Comet 67P floating over a map of London, to show the true scale of it:

As usual everything done in Lightwave 3d. The old map is used to avoid copyright problems.

Magnetospheric Multiscale Satellite

That was quick!

Surfaced the Magnetospheric Multiscale Satellite, and put it in front of my Earth model.

The NASA object is downloadable here:
http://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/mms

And you can find out more about the mission here:
http://www.nasa.gov/content/the-magnetospheric-multiscale

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.

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.

Continue reading “Magnetospheric MultiScale satellite”