doesn't need to be that exotic - as each segment reaching full extension a little lock pops out and prevents it sliding back inside the larger segment - need a small motor or something to retract them when you want to take off again but thats not a big issue - i would like to see the brace moved a little further down that first segment - strain on that hinge would be quite high since its such a long lever arm
There's going to be a thick rod that will extend from the rear wall of the gear bay which will lock into the base of the upper gear section which should strengthen it enough. I guess there could be mechanical drive motors powering the movement of the landing gear extension rods rather than magnetic field generators, just depends on how much the reliance is on future tech over current real world mechanics. As for wheels, I'll be sticking with pads. If you want to move the shuttle around a hangar bay you could just engage the anti-grav at a low setting and levitate it wherever you want it, possibly with tug guidance if needed.
A boarding ramp will be deployed, a different one depending on whether it is with or without drive ring, due to the significant height difference.
Haven't had much time to work on this lately as marking student's work pretty much 24/7 for a couple of weeks, but found the time to render out a quick WIP animation of the nose landing gear for you to check out, simplified the lighting to facilitate quick rendering times for this seeing how it is just a quick WIP test. Let me know what you think, cheers in advance guys.
Jeeez, Youtube really does do a proper hatchet job on CGI these days, how is it that it is getting worse?
Has been a while, have been busy, but managed to get to grips with the drive ring landing gear, so have a few pics of that development for you to peruse, tricky to fit it within such a confined space and there is also the fact that the ring was so low to the ground, so that the gear is really aimed at facilitating as wide a landing gear footprint at the rear as possible so it feels balanced and stable more than anything else, so it more goes across and wide rather than that far down, so the complete opposite of the nose gear which had quite a vertical distance to travel. Anyway, hopefully I've got something viable looking here and I can move onto completing and detailing up the gear pod which integrates with the drive ring.
That's the tricky bit I'm working on now, had an idea of how I was going to do it, but the translation of that idea into practical application hasn't been as simple as I'd hoped, but after a few stabs at it I think I finally have a solution I'm generally happy with. The aim was to have pods that integrated pretty seamlessly with the drive ring with lines which complimented their curvature but provided the additional space required to stash the landing gear in there. And as I said it ended up being a trickier job than I'd imagined. The images below show the gear pod with extended landing gear, am yet to cut in the gear bay doors, but the interior that the gear retracts into is all blocked out within. Let me know what you think of the solution I came up with.
modeling is excelent as always but its not entirely clear from these images how the landing gear is going to work on the ring - also since the front section can detach does it have more land gear or does it only detach in space and needs the ring to land?
Hi Stormcloud, cheers for the comment, yeah, as mentioned earlier in the thread there'll be an additional set of landing gear for a drive ring-less configuration landing. Here are some shots of the ring gear pod with the landing gear retracted, so you can get a clearer look at what I'm trying to show you, which is the pod itself and how it integrates with the ring. It'll retract into the space provided, and then once I have added the bay doors you'll be able to see the whole effect, just wanted to get a little feedback on the design of the gear pod before I committed to choosing and completing it.
Cheers once again in advance for any feedback guys.
the bit there protruding from the ring are they going to be doors that open to let the landing gear out? or are they going to be the landing pads themselves? i'm assuming doors as otherwise your landing pad will be curved and somewhat less than stable - on the ring they look fine - the leading edge might cause extra aerodynamic drag but thats not necessarily an issue - can explain it away with shields or even just a plasma spike depending on the tech level involved
your other option that makes life much simpler is to just say the ring stays in space and only the front section does planetary landings - a bit like the jedi star fighter from teh clone wars
the bit there protruding from the ring are they going to be doors that open to let the landing gear out? or are they going to be the landing pads themselves? i'm assuming doors as otherwise your landing pad will be curved and somewhat less than stable
Yeah, basically, those parts that are protruding from the ring are the pods that house the landing gear. The gear themselves are the apparatus you saw in previous renders showing the workings of the deployment mechanisms. All that is left to do now, assuming I'm happy with the overall look of the pods, is to work in the doors that will open to allow the gear to deploy, they'll open from the lower heavier armoured plating section at the bottom of the pod, with a slight side component opening to allow clearance for one of the gear struts which intersects with the outer side on deployment.
your other option that makes life much simpler is to just say the ring stays in space and only the front section does planetary landings - a bit like the jedi star fighter from teh clone wars
anyway great to see progress on this
Thanks, yeah, I wanted to avoid having the drive ring be a commonly detachable component, to actively avoid the functionality veering to close to that of that vehicle, I also wanted the modular functionality to be more of a ship configuration choice rather than separation being an operational function. So engineers can configure this type of shuttle in their hangar bays to be a sublight or FTL capable shuttle dependent on mission profile, and have a separation in flight be a last ditch emergency function to be deployed in the case of a catastrophic failure within the FTL drive systems.
Have been on a bit of a hiatus with this project due to other commitments, and perhaps also a little bit due the the fact that the part I was working on was being a bit of an awkward bugger to sort out. Well I think I finally have a workable solution for the element at hand, and tonight I'll throw up a few renders of the thing. The part in question was the FTL drive ring mounted rear landing gear pods, which turned out to be a bit of a nightmare to realise, what with the limited space and curved nature of the hull it needed to be integrated with.
Below are some renders of the element showing the animation of the landing gear in a similar fashion to what I did for the nose gear earlier. Once I'm happy with the gear assembly and have received feedback I'll act on this and then render out an animated sequence showing the gear deployment, once again, akin to what I did with the nose gear.
Gear leg extension and retraction should be fine, nothing too complex there. OTOH, I'm happy I'm not the one who has to figure out the geometry of the door opening/closing actuators. I'm sure they're workable, but the bellcranks and pushrods seem like they're going to need a lot of adjusting and fussing to get them just right.
Gear leg extension and retraction should be fine, nothing too complex there. OTOH, I'm happy I'm not the one who has to figure out the geometry of the door opening/closing actuators. I'm sure they're workable, but the bellcranks and pushrods seem like they're going to need a lot of adjusting and fussing to get them just right.
Oh yes, they were a 'mare just to get the rough draft in which I have in there at the moment.
Thanks guys, these last two images are it for the primary gear. On to the secondary gear now (Oh joy! ), but they should be easier as less of a design issue with those, and none of the concern here due to limited space, so they should be pretty bog standard and easy to bang out, just coming from within the main fuselage.
With regards to these landing gear, yes, the nose gear is very thin, and the length of it might make you think it could easily topple, but I'm thinking the design and structure of the vessel is very rear heavy, that section having all the engines and engineering facilities etc, so more of the weight would be balanced on the rear pair of ring mounted landing gear, which should form a pretty stable base. The nose gear is there more to give added stability, and to prevent the nose from ditching in the dirt, but it shouldn't be having to deal with too much weight, and there will probably be additional stabilization devices within the ship itself to add greater balance, but I don't really see it being much of an issue.
Next stage of the landing gear development commencing, gear bays complete and doors working for the port and starboard auxiliary landing gear (for when the shuttle is used for sublight only travel without a drive ring), next up will be putting together the forward landing gear, which should be a pretty quick affair, being modifications of the nose gear already in play.
Looking good, Talon. Short legs with plenty of room for retraction this go around, piece of cake, what?
For some reason the FTL section just jumped out at me in the first pic and got me wondering, will the "warp nacelles" have Trek style glowy bits on the forward grooved segments?
Funnily enough the detail of the front end of those drive ring nacelles that you mention are going to go through a bit of a rework on the next detailing pass, just not quite happy with them as they presently are and feel I can do something better with them. The overall shape will stay the same, just the detail within that grill section will be improved. As for glowy bits, I intended to have something going on here, but that will depend on what the new grill design I come up with offers up. Glows will also be on the drive ring inner face, I plan to have some array in there which will allow you to see twin glowy elements (possibly packets of matter and anti-matter) spinning in opposite directions and getting faster as if spooling up for an FTL jump, then when they get up to speed they collide and the resultant charge of energy gets filtered through the four FTL drive pods resulting in the jump/warp effect.
Taildragger landing gear configuration? I approve. Mainly because I have my tailwheel endorsement and it's my bounden duty to mock pilots who don't. :devil:
Extension sequence animation looks good. I can't quite make out exactly what's going on with the aft gear, but there's nothing that looks wrong or impossible there. :thumb:
Posts
There's going to be a thick rod that will extend from the rear wall of the gear bay which will lock into the base of the upper gear section which should strengthen it enough. I guess there could be mechanical drive motors powering the movement of the landing gear extension rods rather than magnetic field generators, just depends on how much the reliance is on future tech over current real world mechanics. As for wheels, I'll be sticking with pads. If you want to move the shuttle around a hangar bay you could just engage the anti-grav at a low setting and levitate it wherever you want it, possibly with tug guidance if needed.
A boarding ramp will be deployed, a different one depending on whether it is with or without drive ring, due to the significant height difference.
Jeeez, Youtube really does do a proper hatchet job on CGI these days, how is it that it is getting worse?
:rolleyes:
As ever, all crits welcome.
Cheers.
Cheers once again in advance for any feedback guys.
your other option that makes life much simpler is to just say the ring stays in space and only the front section does planetary landings - a bit like the jedi star fighter from teh clone wars
anyway great to see progress on this
Yeah, basically, those parts that are protruding from the ring are the pods that house the landing gear. The gear themselves are the apparatus you saw in previous renders showing the workings of the deployment mechanisms. All that is left to do now, assuming I'm happy with the overall look of the pods, is to work in the doors that will open to allow the gear to deploy, they'll open from the lower heavier armoured plating section at the bottom of the pod, with a slight side component opening to allow clearance for one of the gear struts which intersects with the outer side on deployment.
Thanks, yeah, I wanted to avoid having the drive ring be a commonly detachable component, to actively avoid the functionality veering to close to that of that vehicle, I also wanted the modular functionality to be more of a ship configuration choice rather than separation being an operational function. So engineers can configure this type of shuttle in their hangar bays to be a sublight or FTL capable shuttle dependent on mission profile, and have a separation in flight be a last ditch emergency function to be deployed in the case of a catastrophic failure within the FTL drive systems.
Below are some renders of the element showing the animation of the landing gear in a similar fashion to what I did for the nose gear earlier. Once I'm happy with the gear assembly and have received feedback I'll act on this and then render out an animated sequence showing the gear deployment, once again, akin to what I did with the nose gear.
I'm not sure on that nose leg, though. It looks like it could topple easily.Maybe if it came down and split into two legs it would look sturdier.
Oh yes, they were a 'mare just to get the rough draft in which I have in there at the moment.
:argh:
With regards to these landing gear, yes, the nose gear is very thin, and the length of it might make you think it could easily topple, but I'm thinking the design and structure of the vessel is very rear heavy, that section having all the engines and engineering facilities etc, so more of the weight would be balanced on the rear pair of ring mounted landing gear, which should form a pretty stable base. The nose gear is there more to give added stability, and to prevent the nose from ditching in the dirt, but it shouldn't be having to deal with too much weight, and there will probably be additional stabilization devices within the ship itself to add greater balance, but I don't really see it being much of an issue.
For some reason the FTL section just jumped out at me in the first pic and got me wondering, will the "warp nacelles" have Trek style glowy bits on the forward grooved segments?
But first gotta put these landing gear to bed, and I think I've just about managed to do that now. Let me know what you think.
And here's a vid of the secondary landing gear's landing cycle. Will put this together with an animation of the main gear with the drive ring included
Once again I hate what Youtube compression does to this stuff, looks so much clearer and crisper in my original version.
:mad:
Extension sequence animation looks good. I can't quite make out exactly what's going on with the aft gear, but there's nothing that looks wrong or impossible there. :thumb: