This November I was proud to be featured in an exhibition arranged by the British Interplanetary Society, visions of space:
https://www.bis-space.com/2015/08/25/15130/visions-of-space
Here are some picture from the show:
Modo Moon
I keep meaning to find the time to learn Modo properly. It’s clearly a powerful and logically laid out piece of software, but I keep falling back on Lightwave which I know so much better.
Here’s a relatively rare Modo item from me, a displacement mapped Moon, (that’s Earth’s Moon, just to be clear!)
2001 A Space Odyssey – Alternate Space Station Design.
My favourite film, without a doubt is the stunning “2001 A Space Odyssey”. Even all these years after its release, it still manages to look credible and futuristic.
I have now finished the model of the alternate design for the 2001 Space Station. This mesh is based on sketches in the excellent book “The 2001 File” by Christopher Frayling. The bulk of the book is the design sketches by Harry Lange that were done for the spacecraft concepts used in the film.
The sketches were basic, so I added lots of details from the design actually used in the film.
I’ve also made a short animated video to show it off, I recommend watching in HD if possible!
Continue reading “2001 A Space Odyssey – Alternate Space Station Design.”
Giza-tron video!
This was done before the second TRON film came out. I always really liked the bright edges look of the first film, and decided to see what I could do with that approach.
The theme was inspired by my mate Pete Williamson and his band “Anubis”, an Egyptian space rock sort of thing.
Sound track done with Sonic Fire Pro again. Main animation done in Lightwave 3d.
British Rocket – Black Arrow
This is a (very) short documentary I made on the British rocket, the Black Arrow. The UK remains the only country ion the world to develop a successful satellite program, and then shut it down.
The model I built for the video was based on personal photographs taken at the London Science Museum.
I am gradually moving my videos over to Vimeo, they get less views there than at YouTube, but the quality is higher, and you won’t get interrupted by crappy adverts!
Saturn – New Renders
A couple of new renders of my old Saturn mesh.
I think I may want to revisit the planet map, and see if I can come up with something of my own – this is by Bjorn Jonsson. The ring maps are based on occultation data from Voyager.
Zorn Overlord
This was a bit of a quickie – exported from Daz Studio for rendering in lightwave 3d. A Zorn overlord.
I like the cheap content and posing capabilities of Daz Studio, but I really can’t get on with the renderer or lighting. All the user friendly qualities of a cornered rat,
Work in Progress – Alternate design for 2001 A Space Odyssey wheel station.
This is something I am still working on. It’s an alternate design for the famous Wheel Station, much more disk-like.
All the outer sections will be completely replaced, I’m still trying out ideas here. The design is based on “The 2001 File”, the Harry Lange archive.
I don’t intend to get the viewpoint as close as is shown in the near image.
The hub is pretty much the same as the ends of the core as used in the original film. The dark ribs on the inside of the outer sections will have to go too.
Some photos from when Alexei Leonov visited Moldova
When I visited Chisinau ion Moldova in September, I visited a small cosmonautics museum. They have an impressive collection of photos of cosmanauts visiting Moldova from the early days of the manned space program.
Here are a couple of photos of the first man to walk in space on his trip!
The Lovell Radio Telescope at Jodrell Bank
Whjen I decided to try and make a mesh of the iconic Lovell Radio Telescope at Jodrell Bank, England, I knew it would be a big task!
I think this is easily the most complex mesh I have ever created. I visited the real radio telescope, and took hundreds, and hundreds of photographs, from every angle I could.
It was really tricky to work out the symmetry of the repeating elements, and it took a bit of trial and error to get it right.
As if that was not demanding enough, I also had to keep the polygon count under control, while trying to include every bolt I could see.
I had a bit of help, the nice people who work their very kindly sent me some basic plans with the key dimensions marked, so I had a firm foundation to build on.
The end result is rigged, so I can rotate the base and tip the dish into any desired position.