Hello.
My name is Ryan and I am an alcoholoic building a game. The imagery, story, and mechanics are designed to help me construct a new system of sound design, and to explore the imagery of my dreams. Of the two goals, imagery is the bigger obstacle. I have learned to hard-surface model, but the bulk of basic art training is still before me.
My skill is sound. Sound is the result of motion. Without movement, silence. So, first I need a world.
Begin.
I. SETTING: THE SATURNIAN SYSTEM
Helene is an irregular, icy moon three hundred and seventy-seven thousand four hundred and ninety-six kilometers from Saturn. Give or take a trip to 7-11. Helene is tiny; at her widest point, less than 30 miles across. The orbit is Dione's. Helene is a Trojan moon, living in the orbit of a much bigger one. She leads Dione in the orbit by 60 degrees.
The Ice Queen
The 3D model of Helene is complete; built and textured from Cassini images. The model is useful for laying out the level, which is inside. For exterior shots and animations, however, I will have to make up some textures. The images of Helene differ radically in resolution and contrast. The textures are aligned, but the model still only looks right when viewed from isolated angles. Also, portions of the moon remain unimaged; in particular, a long ravine that runs the length of her top (?). A few years ago, and there would have been almost nothing to work with. The Cassini mission is wondrous.
The remaining moons and Saturn are just textured spheres. I will flesh out the more obvious craters later. There are no awesome compositing tricks here; the shading techniques must transfer directly to a game engine or the renders are useless. Although the renders are prettier in Blender, UKD's shader nodes are more flexible and and it will be a relief to go back.
I may take the time to build an interpreter for NASA's image/data format. Topological data are available for a number of bodies in the solar system, but the value ranges exceed 8 bits, and NASA renders them to multicolor gradients for public consumption in standard formats. Fine for wall posters; troublesome for using the images as the data itself. Alas.
The scene in Blender, ready for ASE export:
Hello, traveler!
Navigating on this scale is cumbersome, so I have attached a camera to each moon.
Looking through Rhea's camera inside Blender
Can I interest you in a tour of the system? The principal moons, out to Titan:
Mimas
Enceladus
Tethys
Dione
Rhea
Titan
TO DO:
■Clean up the Helene Model
I relied on a subdivision modifier for smoothing detail, and it looks bad (slick and bendy). The mesh is fine, it just needs a few more verts in the right places; a little cleanup work to make sure there are no sharp edges and that the smooth shading is consistent.
■Export Assets; Import in UDK; set up the scene.Just get it working. The good stuff is inside Helene.
■Animate Orbits and axial rotations:
Orbital eccentricity:
where
ε is the specific orbital energy ( total orbital energy / reduced mass )
h is specific relative angular momentum (angular momentum / reduced mass)
μ = GM (gravitational constant * mass of the body)
mred (the reduced mass) = m1m2/(m1 + m2)
where
ε is the specific orbital energy ( total orbital energy / reduced mass )
h is specific relative angular momentum (angular momentum / reduced mass)
μ = GM (gravitational constant * mass of the body)
mred (the reduced mass) = m1m2/(m1 + m2)
I will generally avoid solving this problem. And not just because the rings and moons leap the boundary of the two-body problem. In UDK I will bind the meshes to circular and elliptic paths, unless there is some reason to code celestial mechanics. ? I want to, though.
Simplified version:
Simplified version:
Equation of an ellipse:
a is the major radius
b the minor radius.
a is the major radius
b the minor radius.
Eccentricity:
Rearranging the equality, given the eccentricity e and the major radius a, the minor radius b is given by
Rearranging the equality, given the eccentricity e and the major radius a, the minor radius b is given by
Rotation: All planets in the solar system orbit and rotate counterclockwise, as viewed from above the north pole.
All moons of Saturn except the NorseGroup, are in prograde motion.
Orientation: Correct the relative orientation, simultaneous positions of the bodies. Be rough. Nothing should be obviously wrong; that is all.
All the necessary information is on the NASA Solar System Exploration pages.
All moons of Saturn except the NorseGroup, are in prograde motion.
Orientation: Correct the relative orientation, simultaneous positions of the bodies. Be rough. Nothing should be obviously wrong; that is all.
All the necessary information is on the NASA Solar System Exploration pages.
■Add A Star Spheremap
This may take some time. I suppose if you're an observatory there's no point in generating fixed images of the sky-at-once. Everything moves. But... um... I could sure use one. So far I haven't found many general skydomes of the milky way, suitable for in-game use. Photoshop and UV Projection to the rescue. Yay.
■The Remaining Planets... and the Sun
The sun is on its way to a Red Giant. Do a little research.
I need a particle system or some kind of sprite animation for solar flares/changes. The sun is active. No sense wasting a dominant directional light on a single color, invariant.
I need a particle system or some kind of sprite animation for solar flares/changes. The sun is active. No sense wasting a dominant directional light on a single color, invariant.
That will complete the backdrop. The story takes place on Helene.
Inside.
■
_________________________Huge thanks to CodeCogs for their online Latex Equation Editor.
