Monday, October 09, 2006

New Venera-D lander

New wind powered version, had to make most of it up, since the diagram I have is little more than a sphere with a pin wheel on top of it. I think this is going to be it model wise for Venera-D, since there is very little info out on what it will look like(its still really early in the concept definition phase), for those that are interested here is info on the current orbiter/lander proposal
Orbiter
Lander
not a lot to work with :(

I just can't get over how stunning these pictures are from MRO and Opportunity of Victoria crater
there is a good write up from Doug Ellison on the Planetary society's blog, of the pics
I see you, Baby
Also a good article in Avleak on Victoria crater
Victoria's Secret 274K PDF

To answer Zachstar's question and anyone else who is interested, in knowing my opinion on blender and google sketch up modeling programs

Google sketch up still has a significant flaw when saving the model as .3ds, you can have textures, but no smoothing groups, or you can have smoothing groups, but no textures, you can't have both for some reason. And at the end of the day the cost for the program is crazy, $500, but I was cheating it. Using the free version to model with, and the time limited demo full version, for conversion to .3ds. :P

Blender, I got about halfway through the "Noob to Pro" tutorial, I learned more about how to use blender as a result, but my opinion remained the same. Its way to complicated, and time consuming, for the kind of modeling I do. Every model I have made so far starts off a rough model made up of nothing but basic, sphere's, cylinders, and boxes. For that Anim8or rules the day. complex shapes and finishing touches, depending on what you are making, Blender/Anim8or are on par with each other, if all you are doing is changing the shape of the faces or repositioning points, beyond that blender is the undisputed king. Textures, I know you can do great texture jobs in Anim8or, just look at the firefly jumbo, or Mustards, station pieces, I just wish they would reveal some details on how they do it. Blender has some great texture tools, But I have yet to see anybody put out a model that would make me want to give up anim8or. (GMAX on the otherhand..... WOW...). For conversion to orbiter, blender kick's ass, with its scripts, however the upcoming anim8or .95 will support scripts as well

At the end of the day, Kudos to those who use Blender, But I won't be one of them

BTW happy Thanksgiving
my fellow Canuckistani's :P

3 comments:

Zachstar said...

I just check out Anim8or's site...

Indeed it looks like writing Mesh export plugins directly into the program will be simple after .95.

Even tho blender is basicly out of the mix now I do hope you will play with it a little here and there.

Some stuff for you next blog....

I have a request if you ever find time to do it in. Looking at your wasp launcher reminds me of a bad need for a Dnper launcher for the Baikonur Cosmodrome Project. Just a request if you ever have the time.

Also is Luna-Glob still in the dev mix?

SimRoskosmos any new ideas perhaps?

Sorry for all the ?'s you have been gone for quite some time.

DarthVader said...

Welcome back Kodiak! Nice work on the soviet probe, they look pretty nice :-)

Kodiak said...

thanks for the comments guys

dnepr: see my new post
luna-glob:cancelled
simroskosmos:just wait and see :)

Venera-d isn't soviet, its part of the new russian space program