3DLocke's WIP "Journey's End" Universe

LockeFP

I've been working on a universe of my own for several years, now. It's set in the 2220s or so, and the tech is suitably advanced. I started a thread on this awhile back, but I needed a new one for various reasons. I'll post some images from the other one as well. Anyway, I cooked this up in the past hour or so, and thought it was pretty interesting. I have a few ideas to go with here, but any input would be helpful. The main idea is a surface-to-space single-stage military ship. The colorings are just to break up the curves so you can see them, by the way. They won't have any bearing on the finished work.

LockeFP

Here is a hero ship from the story. Original thread is here.

oldmangreg

Interesting ships.

James Midsen

I like the idea. Entirely new universe? I'm intrigued. I like the idea of the detachable bridge-sphere, if that is what it is.

LockeFP

Yeah, new universe, with a burgeoning humanity still stuck in the Sol system.

Check out the original thread about the Breaking Dawn to get the concept of that ship.

LockeFP

Okay, a little progress on the ship. It's now a military interdiction ship. Launches from the surface, armed with a squad of marines and lots of weapons to intercept hostile ships. Of course there's lots of work to do with it, but you can get the main idea.

There are two atmospheric engines. Those are the ones out from the center. I haven't added in the atmo intakes yet, since I'm still trying to find a spot for them. There is also a set of high-tech rockets in the rear section, which is the video at the bottom of this post. I can't decide what type of rocket or engine they are, exactly, but they need to be boosters of some kind that push the ship into orbit quickly.

For right now I'm going to concentrate on the rear engine assembly. The intention is to have it function similar to the movie below. The cover raises back and the boosters rise out. I'm not sure if this is stable, but what the hell: it's only fiction, right?:thumb:

LockeFP

Well, I'm working on the space interceptor, and I've changed the rear end a bit. Instead of a hatch opening up, I have a molded tube. What I did is take a cylinder and deleted a portion of the polys, then connected them to the main body. Unfortunately, I wound up with some small mesh errors. I want to fix them before I get too much farther and realize I have to redo this bit. Any suggestions? The second and third pictures show the mesh errors, as well as what was added (red) to make the engine housing. Is this fixable? I'll keep trying on my own, but any hints would be appreciated. Thanks!

LockeFP

Not too much to update, although I've started following MadKoiFish's lighting tutorial, and my renders are striking enough to show good detail now! I've also taken out the main engines and replaced them with "grilles" that I'll be finalizing at some point. Also upped the size of the booster and added some details. I toyed with putting wings on in several different configurations, but no matter what I did, they were too small and ineffectual. So I guess we'll go with "it has some sort of field onboard that allows it to repel the ground up to a certain height" or something like that. After all, it may be aerodynamic, but it sure as hell hasn't got enough hull to be a lifting body.

somacruz145

That's looking really good so far :thumb: The last 3 renders are absolutely amazing - that design is absolutely killer. Modeling-wise everything's top-notch as well. Keep it up !

LockeFP

Okay, two more before I take off for the evening.

Have a heatshield and some materials now. No textures, yet, but I need to get some modeling down before I get to that, anyway.

Capt Dave

Cookin Good, Keep it up!

publiusr

The soft, undetailed look is very futuristic in form.

LockeFP

Well, just one for the night, and it isn't very good. The lighting is wrong for this shot, as well as the materials. They aren't permanent, just placements at the moment. They'll be done over once I have the mesh corrected. But for now, I'm using native Max 9 materials and learning as I go. The little cylinders are RCS thrusters that will be repeated around the rest of the ship.

LockeFP

So I've set aside the Interceptor ship for the time being, mainly because I'm not sure where to go with it at the moment.

But I was intrigued when I ran across this thread in the 3D Gallery. The idea of free-floating habitats in the atmosphere of Venus was amazing to me, so I started envisioning my own versions. I have two planned, but only one in the works at the moment. Keep in mind that this is a very rough version right now. I only have the basic parts laid out. The connections and embellishments will come later.

This is a gas mining station. The power system is pretty complex. It starts with the solar panel fields on either side of the station. Those feed electricity to the cable spools (the two cylindrical parts at the rear). These contain kilometers of meter-thick cable that extend up and down through the atmosphere. The engines in the spools then draw atmospheric gasses through the twin collectors at the ends of the cables via potential-driven pumps that utilize pressure variations in the atmosphere. This in turn powers dynamos that power the feed mechanisms to the four main collection tanks as well as the drive engines that keep the ship in constant daylight. Since Venus rotates so slowly (about 1 revolution every 243 Earth days) and in the opposite direction from it's orbit, the major "day" on Venus is about 117 Earth days. Meaning that an object intending to stay in constant sunlight would only have to maintain a speed of around 10 kph, perhaps less. This could certainly be managed with the bleedoff energy from the dynamos.

The center section of the platform is just a placeholder right now. I may use it, but I'll be chopping it up into bits later on if that is the case. The idea is functionality, not aesthetics at the moment. I'll also be adding a rigid sail in the center, so that the station can be steered left and right, as well as elevators someplace that can change it's altitude, although those would only be for stabilization, since changing the pressurization of the main flotation system (the outer, rectangular ring) would change the altitude fairly effectively.

Jenny

I like the use of heat tiles, but the nose bending down like that makes me wonder where re-entry plasma comes to as it's plunging through the atmosphere.

LockeFP

Well, the nose doesn't actually dip down as much as it looks like it does in the images. That's a trick of the angles. You can see in the image below that it merely tapers to a point.

I managed to give life to the other floating station I came up with. This one is purely a habitat. Science and whatnot can be carried out on this one, but no heavy manufacturing or mining. The center section (the actual habitat) is roughly 1.5km in width. The ring around the middle is the same as the ring around the gas mining station. This one will also have the extendable cables like the station, as well as a ring of solar panels like flower petals.

LockeFP

And here's the colony with the "flower petal" solar collectors attached.

Mikey-B

One of the interesting things about Venus is that due to its atmospheric density, you can use ordinary oxygen/nitrogen as a lifting gas.

LockeFP

Fleshing out the habitat colony.

publiusr

Your design choices look quite weightless. Having the solar panels angled upwards almost makes it look like it is 'displacing' water--bouyant.

LockeFP

The colony is modeled after a Japanese Water Lilly:

It would spin slowly through the Venusian atmosphere much like the lillies do in water, with just a couple of stationkeeping thrusters to keep it on the dayside of Venus.

LockeFP

Well, here's a progress shot. Trying to set up a Venusian atmosphere. It's far too orange at the moment, but I'm working on that. I just need some reference as to what it would really look like in Venus's clouds.

Anyway, I've added an Operations Sail to the colony. The intersection areas near the docking bays will be dealt with soon. They are by no means permanent.

unusualsuspex

LockeFP wrote: »

Well, here's a progress shot. Trying to set up a Venusian atmosphere. It's far too orange at the moment, but I'm working on that. I just need some reference as to what it would really look like in Venus's clouds.

I'm guessing pretty much like it would in Earth type cloud (except the colour) though there would still be breaks. Cloud density would obviously be dependent on altitude.

Jenny

Your station is reminiscent of the early O'Neil "islands." I believe it was his suggested Island One that had a spherical shape, but he spun it for the illusion of gravity. Do you have gravity plating, or is your habitat spinning as well?

LockeFP

Actually, in the range of the Venusian atmosphere that this colony stays, several advantages occur:

1) The density of the atmosphere is such that buoyancy is achieved by merely filling the station with an oxygenated gas. Regular air would work perfectly. The ring around the exterior of the colony has a core of helium, that can be used as ballast.

2) Since we're well within the actual atmosphere of Venus, the gravity is just about Earth-normal.

3) Venus has a very slow rotation period as well as sidereal day, which would make for a "day" that lasts most of two years of Earth time, meaning keeping in sunlight to take advantage of solar power would be incredibly easy.

LockeFP

I was just struck by this:

This is a shot of the fan that I see every night just before I sleep. Maybe it was a subliminal influence on the way I developed the colony.

Just a random awesome occurrence.