Grand Space Opera 3D Entry: Robert Turner

#4

Hi Stoat. I always loved ram-jets (being a Larry Niven fan). Will watch this one closely.

Good luck!

#5

The ship is fairly simple and it still needs a few bit of dandyfunk put on to make it look like it go someplace. Saturn looks okay, as does the moon enceladus.

Modeling done in Cinema4d CE.

#6

Well it’s getting there. The scale’s wrong on some bits but that’s easy to fix. The texture is a photo of an old girlfriend and her mates. The mosaic plugin in photoshop and convert to greyscale to make decking. I also pop the map into reflectivity and diffuse.

#7

Interesting - this idea is developing quite rapidly I can see :)!

I agree that it’s still very much a WIP, but it’s coming along well.

Look forward to seeing it being refined.

#8

I like the bright “sunlight” look of the ships. It is actually very similar to what real sunlight from the sun looks like in space, very high contrast. I also like the burnt look of the light.

One thing,… try not to use the whole saturen thing… ALOT of other challengers are using it and I would guess you’d want to stand out amongts the crowd. Well, good luck.

What software are you using???

#9

Thanks Wazar, It’s done in Cinema4d. Really I’m not that bothered about getting noticed with this. I just saw the challenge and thought of my days of reading, and looking at the covers of classic space opera pulp fiction. I’ve never modeled a space scene before. Yet I’m really interested in astronomy. In real life anyone wanting to buld a ram jet, would buld it in low Earth orbit but then a ring system is just so awe inspiring I’m reluctant to dump it.

#10

It is always good to try your best in everything you do.

If physical reality is you goal check out www.free-stock-photos.com/science/ space-shuttle.html

Also if your going to keep with saturn, see if you can add some realistic details, like the real rings have. In real life, saturns rings have strange transparent areas that change over time in a regular pattern. Another intersting feature of not only saturn but of any large gas planet is that it has vastly more powerfull and visually dramatic brust of Aroura Borialsis, not to mention intense and almost prepetual lighting stroms.

hope that helps.

#11

Thanks WazaR. at the moment I’ve just got c4d’s stock Saturn and tings on there but they’re wrong :eek: I do think that I’ll have to take a few liberties with this though. The great moon landing conspiracy goes on at great length about the lack of stars in the pictures, seemingly not knowing about f stops. I think I’ll have to put the stars in, simply because people will expect tehm to be there. I’ll also have to remember to change my monitor to pc, as mac gamma is very dark when seen on a pc.

Thanks for that link, I’m on my way now :thumbsup:

#12

Just a quick comment. I’m sure you are aware of this, but you’re not allowed to use any stock models for the final piece. Didn’t want you to get disqualified over something like that.

Anyway, I’m sure you plan to model saturn for youself.

Interesting that you’re trying to make it physically realistic. This is a good idea as I think many concepts can go OTT, but somewhere along the line, I think that at least one element should be based in, or on, something that could actually occur. Think of it as a natural evolution… could this technology actually be developed??

I really like your thinking/aim to make it physically realistic, and I wish you good luck.

#13

Yep, I know that but the model in this case is just a sphere. As I say the rings for saturn in c4d are just an image with alpha but they are wrong, so they need changing.

The story, such as it is, the ship has been built in Earth orbit and has been sent round the Sun to gather momentum and out via Jupiter to Saturn. Here its magnetic super conductor coils are to be charged up in the gas giant’s magnetic field. Because this trip has taken seven years a certain amount of retro fitting is now taking place. They also are obtaining fuel from Titan.

Next step is to create a guy in a space suit, this will be based on the space suits worn in 2001. I’ve got a head built, Clint Eastwood, I might leave his cherrot in for a laugh :applause:

#14

A little about ramjets. In interstellar space there is about one atom per cubic metre, so if they can be gathered by magnetic means they can be used to power a ship up to near light speed. Even anti matter wouldn’t provide enough fuel to get to the stars. Now if an atom is traveling toward you at near light speed it could do damage int the form of gamma rays, so the magnetic field has to protect the ship as well.

My ship is about 20 000 tonnes so the loading area is goint to be about a quarter of a million kilometers across! Oddly I’ve never heard of anyone looking for the spectrum of such a drive out there.

In this update I’ve altered the ship a bit to make it longer and gave it the name Gaia (poetic gai-airs)

#15

Ramjets are efficient crafts, but not that efficient to propel a starship to near lightspeed. 0,5c (half the speed of light) would be very good, at higher speeds the magnetic fields starting to act as breaking parachute. Also you still have to push your craft to a certain speed, below that a ramjet does not work, so you still would need to drag a percentage of your total mass in fuel with you.

Radiation becomes a problem at higher speeds, because of your speed the light from stars (those in front of you) will shift their wavelengths, they become shorter and therefore more energetic, ultraviolet, X-ray and even Gamma rays if you are fast enough. Traveling at almost light speed is lethal.

And another thing, if you where behind me at nearly light speed, all i have to do than is to throw some rocks at you, kinetic energy will work just as efficient as an direct hit with a nuclear weapon. At several km/sec even paintflakes can crack a shuttlewindow, and here we are with greater speeds.

#16

Sagan and Shklovskii give this for a ramjet, with S being 10,000 parsecs. They say that v would differ from c by one millionth of a percent. The frontal loading would be 100 thousand times the intensity of sunlight at the surface of the Earth. Pretty hot!

v=c[1-(1+aS/2c2)-1/2]**1/2

The reason to do it would be to drop off stargates on route, or more likely Von Neumann machines to build them.

That leads to the thought, would we be allowed to do that?

I had a chat with Hal Puthoff about zpe, the idea that mother nature has beaten us to it with the chlorophyll molecule. So I think I’ll go for that as the stargate power source. :slight_smile: I’m not going to get too serious about the hows and whys of it, it’s arty, do as you like :applause:

#17

An alternative could also be anitmatter engines.

I think this is a great alternative, and as far as your image is concerned I think it opens up intersting design opportunities.

#18

Anti matter is loved by sci fi writers but it doesn’t fill the bill where interstellar travel is concerned. Even with total energy conversion the ratio of payload mass to the initial total mass of the spacecraft must be about 2/(1-v/c). At v = 0.99999 c (enought to get one to Andromeda in a lifetime) we would need fuel 200,000 times greater tahn the mass of the rest of the ship. That’s not on. Plus, antimatter is very hard to make and contain. No, the promise lies in zpe (zero point energy)

#19

This is getting crazy, isn’t this art, as opposed to physics? I wouldn’t worry yourselves over whether or not it’s plausable, I mean, if it looks cool, that’s all that matters.

#20

I agree Steve but sci fi art has always been a bit of a two way street. The people who are really working on warp drives, cut their teeth on fifties and sixties book cover art. A bit of physics is okay, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of a nice pic.

#21

stoat
Agreed.

#22

Well put. I don’t dissagree with things having to have some founding in the real world.

Anyway, I look forward to seeing these engines take form, whichever type you go for.

#23

More updates coming? Anyway, have a happy new year!