Solar System Cargo Carrier

[merlin]

And here is the completed model so far.
Behind the centrifugal ring comes the cargo pod section, so that's coming shortly.

[Globalempire]

Great work Merlin.

The ship appears very large, roughly what dimensions do you envisage it would be if it was 'real'?

Looking forward to seeing a final rendered version.

Paul

[merlin]

Thanks Paul.
Yes the original idea is for a small fleet of these ships which are the workhorse for human settlements in the Solar System (the Moon, Mars, asteroid belt mining factories - which is the concept for the render for the model when I get it finished). Based on an airlock door height of three metres (to allow for EVA suit and equipment) the existing front end of the ship runs to 45 metres. I think the overall length will end up at double that - 90 metres / 270 feet or roughly the size of a standard soccer pitch.

[merlin]

This is the first part of the cargo section, situated immediately behind the habitat ring. This has been a very complex piece of work and is not yet finished, but I thought I would post progress so far.

[merlin]

I've decided not to go with the cargo section that I have recently posted. Much as I like the intricate detail on it, I just don't think the spine is chunky and practical enough. I've beefed the actual spine up a bit and made the cargo containers smaller in relation to the section.

[merlin]

I have finally managed to complete this model!! It has been built in sections and assembled as I have gone along. Everything has been custom built and there are over a thousand individual pieces making up all of the components that have now been constructed. The final stage is to assemble each section as one final 'ship' and apply texture. After that I intend to use it in a couple of illustrations demonstrating it in it's role as a solar system transport, travelling around various colonies throughout the solar system.

Here is the engine section showing the final texture solution I have chosen to use.

[Globalempire]

Amazing stuff Merlin

To think this is just the engine section, the fully assembled model will be fantastic - looking forward to seeing it.

Paul

[merlin]

Thanks Paul. I've managed to assemble all of the pieces and will run off a few renders over the next few nights. The assembled model has 3,573,976polygons and has a ton of fine detail, all of which I want to do justice to in the final images. I rendered a copy of the image below at 2500 x 1400 (10 meg file) pixels this morning - it took 4 hours and looks great but is too big to post here. So this is the same image but at a lower resolution.

[merlin]

A hastily assembled montage:

[Andy]

Wow - over 3.5 million polygons!

Very nice images - nice space lighting like in the film 2001!