Red Dwarf Lunar Landers
polycounter lvl 9
Sup PC
Here is a series of lunar landers I've been working on for the past few months in my spare time. Essentially, Red Dwarf takes place during the 1960s in an alternate universe where the Cold War escalated to full scale war between the United States and Soviet Union, the majority of which was fought on the surface of the Moon.
These landers were designed around the themes of "absurdism" and "retrofuturism".
All were modeled in Max; just models for now , no textures.
All comments and crits welcome; thanks for looking.
Here is a series of lunar landers I've been working on for the past few months in my spare time. Essentially, Red Dwarf takes place during the 1960s in an alternate universe where the Cold War escalated to full scale war between the United States and Soviet Union, the majority of which was fought on the surface of the Moon.
These landers were designed around the themes of "absurdism" and "retrofuturism".
All were modeled in Max; just models for now , no textures.
All comments and crits welcome; thanks for looking.
Replies
That said, you know I think they're great.
are you talkin about Red Dwarf, the old tv show that was on space network?
I was wondering if you could fill us in on your render method though. Looks like some baked ao; but I'm interested to know, if you have a special lighting or material trick with these renders.
the designs are fantastic too, love the retro look
originally thought it was going to be something based on the TV show :P but was even more pleasantly surprised
Sky + Spot, no AO baking
awesome
Quoted for truth.
O eraser, Did you base the second one off of the SeaWiz?
-Woog
Straight to the inspiration folder. Amazing work man.
Lol, jk Paul, amazing stuff as always. Nice to see you finished that last one you showed me. Did you use Mudbox for any of the pieces?
One question though, where's Lister?
Awesome work, added to inspiration folder.
Impressive nevertheless!
great stuff nonetheless
how long did you spend on completing one of these models?
ps: you should contact Doug Naylor about this, he might be interested in rekindling this awesome show?!
but these are much better... ridiculously good work, dude
Some brief background info on the designs; (From top to bottom in the original post):
Ilya Mk I is a reconnaissance lander equipped with radar arrays as well as radar jamming equipment. It is an automated lander with no crew. The flat, cylindrical landing feet were experimental designs which ultimately were phased out in favor of the more efficient rib-padded landing feet.
Iosef is a medium heavy battle capsule equipped with a Gatling gun type armament. Its crew of 2 consists of a pilot and a gunner, the cyclonic eye houses visual sensor equipment.
Igor is a heavy battle capsule, essentially the tank of this universe. The large torus shaped structures offer protection against incoming projectiles and surround the most sensitive parts of the lander, including the liquid fuel storage canisters, weapon assemblies, and ammunition magazines. The top portion of the lander is a turret capable of rotating 360 degrees. The turret sits on an accordian type hydraulic lifting mechanism; this allows the lander to touchdown in a crater, where it will be fully hidden from eye-level, and raise the turret above the rim of the crater so only the guns are exposed, effectively creating a hull down position for the lander to unload its weapons on its target.
Ivan is a reconnaissance lander, no weapons; nicknamed it the Lincoln lander for obvious reasons. The tall cylinder structure detaches from the chassis after it finished collecting the necessary recon data. The ball structure is a camera and sensor array. It is an automated lander with no crew.
Ilya Mk II is an updated variant of Ilya Mk I and features more advanced radar equipment and radar jamming countermeasures. It also features the rib-padded landing feet.
@obbersli: I collected several gigs worth of space tech reference which I pulled ref from for the details. Here are some examples of some of the pictures I used:
@BradMyers82: The render setup is just a Skylight (Blue) + Omni (Orange/Red) and rendered in Scanline renderer. The material is just standard Max Blinn with Spec/Gloss set to 71/24 respectively.
@Ben Apuna: I tried to push the absurdity of the designs a bit; going for something believable but unrealistic in a practical design sense. The designs are inherently flimsy, but I decided to embrass that aspect, as opposed to denying it. Ultimately, I was trying to come up with Ugly designs, that were still visually appealing, if that makes any sense.
I am planning to make a series of US landers to counter these Russian ones, however, Ill probably start work on those after UC is over. Game res versions are on the long term backburner too.
@woogity: Yea, Iosef was partically based off the Phalanx CIWS.
@Dan K: NO U!1 these were modeled 100% in Max.
@Lee3dee: I essentially do 3D concepts, just rough block outs, for the major forms, proportions, and functionality. Once Im satisfied with a high level design, I start gathering ref pictures of how I want specific areas to look. Once Im ready to model, I attack the piece as a whole, versus systematically modeling it from say top to bottom. There is some asset reuse between models, for the sake of time and to help tie each lander together into a cohesive design series. I do alot of rendering as I'm modeling these and never try to lose sight of the big picture; with such detailed models, it can be very easy to become overwhelmed.
@adam; don't make me go crabcore on your ass
Igors wires, I'll post wires for others later tonight:
Concerning the name and TV show; these landers are totally unrelated to the BBC show. I thought of the name Red Dwarf before I even knew there was a TV show with the same name (I dont watch much TV). When I found out there was a show with the same name I thought about changing it but in the end I decided to leave it. However, I underestimated how popular the TV show is, so Im going to come up with a new name for this series to avoid any further confusion, sorry about that.
That explains everything! Why you have so much free time to make all this sexiness, and why you didn't know about the show.
BTW GOOD LORD that's a lot of fucking meaningful detail! Well done!
My game name is much better than yours though :P Too bad my modeling wouldnt be as good
Is this for an actual project or just for fun?
Can't wait to see these textured n such
Moar plz!
@ Commander Keen: Yea this is just a personal project; never intended to turn it into anything more.
@ TheZeke: I have some ideas for a series of lunar rovers, as well as mech walkers. Going to have some fun