O'Neill cylinder / Rama

CoXComics

I'd like to see a set of products for a generational spaceship. Something like an O'Neill cylinder along the veins of Rama from Arthur C. Clarke's book Rendevous with Rama or the Vanguard from Robert Heinlein's Orphans of the Sky.

I imagine the set would include the exterior of the cylinder with airlocks / docking bay at one end of the cylinder. The example, Rama, was 20 kilometers wide and 50 kilometers wide so in a perfect world the various interior locations would have a "sky" background of the inside of the cylinder that gives the illusion of the interior curving up into the distance. Different sets would cover different locations within the cylinder, such as homes/living quarters, farms, generic business, and transportation on the interior surface of the cylinder and then ship related items within the cylinders shell like the bridge, control rooms, engine room, docking facility and pretty much anything else 20,000 people might need for a generations long trip.
 

richardandtracy

Interesting idea. On the practical side, I wonder if DAZ Studio is able to cope with the number of significant digits needed for such a project. I have run into problems with a 400m athletic ground model, where the separately modelled lane markings sometimes disappear into the track surface because of significant digit limitations. Whoever models it would have to take such possibilities into account from the beginning. Would be an interesting project, though.

alexhcowley

Denis Villeneuve's next but one movie (following on from Dune part two) is slated to be Rendezvous With Rama so this sounds like quite a good idea. 

Cheers,

Alex.

CoXComics

richardandtracy said:

Interesting idea. On the practical side, I wonder if DAZ Studio is able to cope with the number of significant digits needed for such a project. I have run into problems with a 400m athletic ground model, where the separately modelled lane markings sometimes disappear into the track surface because of significant digit limitations. Whoever models it would have to take such possibilities into account from the beginning. Would be an interesting project, though.

I imagine most of the distances involved with the vast spaces would be accomplished with HDRI backgrounds with local small structures on a much more reasonable scale as locations on the interior of the cylider.

richardandtracy

You're probably right. A few years ago (wee, must have been 15 years ago, where has the time gone?) I tried to model the local area around my house using some GIS data I got hold of, using AutoCAD. It all came a cropper due to AutoCAD only using single precision numbers internally. There simply weren't enough digits available to model things like kerbs and pedestrian pavements (walkways) to the precision of the data I had over the extended area I wanted. Very frustrating.

Oso3D

I've debated making HDRI backdrops for this sort of thing... but haven't really managed to pull it off.

 

CoXComics

Oso3D said:

I've debated making HDRI backdrops for this sort of thing... but haven't really managed to pull it off.

 

I'm not even sure what tools would be needed to pull it off, but I suspect they are outside of my budget, :)

I imagine taking an existing landscape model that might provide the needed illusion of distance and then bending it into a tube with scifi greebles caps on either side would be the easiest way to produce the HDRI. I mean with atmosphere effects, tweaking the camera and etc done as well.

Oso3D

Part of the problem is 'realism' looks... weird. None of us encounter anything LIKE this environment in the real world.

You also get issues of tiling... you need an environment that looks reasonably varied and not, well, tiled over immense distances. That's tricky with any environment. Mmm

 

CoXComics

Oso3D said:

Part of the problem is 'realism' looks... weird. None of us encounter anything LIKE this environment in the real world.

You also get issues of tiling... you need an environment that looks reasonably varied and not, well, tiled over immense distances. That's tricky with any environment. Mmm

 

I don't see tiling as a huge problem. When you look at populated areas from the air, human construction tends to be very grid like and tiled. It's only broken by natural barriers like rivers or mountains. Planes cruise at about 10 kilometers. Depending on the thickness of the hull, the distance is going far wall of the surface is going to be at least that far away. If you're human and completely control the environment, it could be tiled.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/spierisf/20228360743

It may actually lend to the final illusion. If you make it obvious that inhabited tiles are bounded by a forest or heavily wooded tile on all four sides in a checkerboard pattern. When the local sets are built,a bounding treeline will break up the horizon and ease the forced perspective of the distance curving upward.