Renders

[Winter]

OK I have render an new one, with the light source in Cinema called sun.
I only can control this light with time and date.



The movie :

http://www.sitters-electronics.nl/md2/render/moon6.avi

The source :

http://www.sitters-electronics.nl/md2/render/Moon_animation.rar


I going to make now other stuff.

Willem

Once again, your final product is perfect, and I'm very happy with it. Can't wait to see someone like Destructavator make a full intro out of it.

Regards,
Winter

[Sean_E]

Thought I would throw my hat in on the whole animation thing.
This is the same model doing what could be considered an overview rotation.  Possibly for the UFOpedia.
File size is 13.5mb and is rendered in 640x480

http://www.scenerysoup.com/soupscenery/files/UFOAI-Carrier-Rotate.avi

Regards,
Sean E

[kracken]

The situation is different because Earth has an atmosphere which refracts light (think of the way light behaves in a fog). The moon doesn't have an atmosphere at all, so sunlight doesn't get refracted and the lighting as a whole is much more direct.

Yes, the lighting is more direct, and that's why the shadow of a UFO on the moon has a sharper form that is would have on earth.
Still, as the sun light arrives collimated on the moon, the shadow of a UFO on the moon is the same size than the UFO itself (a few hundred meters). That's true as long as the distance between UFO and moon is small compared to the distance sun-moon (which is really true here).

So Destructavator is right, the size of the shadow should be about the size of one crater we can see on the moon (and not the biggest one), so almost invisible. In the current movie, the size of the shadow implies that the Carrier size is about 1/4 of the moon size.

[Sean_E]

I would say that this is more to scale when compared to our moon.  And the carrier is still a good distance away from the surface or else it would be effected by the moons gravitational pull.

I guess the best way to solve this issue would be to inquire what are the dimensions of the carrier and the other UFO crafts?

Regards,
Sean E

[Winter]

I would say that this is more to scale when compared to our moon.  And the carrier is still a good distance away from the surface or else it would be effected by the moons gravitational pull.

I guess the best way to solve this issue would be to inquire what are the dimensions of the carrier and the other UFO crafts?

Regards,
Sean E

. . . You know, that render is pretty cool. Please make a high-res one and consider offering it as a loading screen or such.

Anyway, I've decided to set down some solid specs for the Carrier, so the following stats can be considered as canon pending my discussing them with BTAxis.

The Carrier is between 200 and 300 metres in diameter (i.e. from launch bay to launch bay), so call it an even 250. It will have 16 UFOs on board. In the early game this will be 4 Scouts, 10 Fighters and 2 Harvesters. In the middle game this will be 2 Scouts, 8 Fighters, 1 Harvester, 3 Gunboats and 2 Corrupters. The late game layout will be different again, but that's still up in the air based on further UFO models we can get our hands on.

The stats of other UFOs are listed on their wiki pages.

Regards,
Winter

[Destructavator]

According to a science page at http://www.freemars.org/jeff/planets/Luna/Luna.htm , Earth's moon is about 3,476 km in diameter, or 3,476,000 meters across (notice the "k" which stands for "kilo" or a thousand in "km").  A spacecraft even a thousand meters across would have a shadow 1/3476th of the diameter of the moon, or, in other words, so tiny that looking at the entire moon it would be so relatively small it would not be seen.

If you still don't believe me, try rendering the whole thing in the software with the moon larger to approach the proper scale of the ship relative to the moon (Don't go exactly to scale, I'm guessing the computer wouldn't handle it, I'd suggest even just twice as large) and you will see that the shadows from the ships will shrink more and more as you approach the "real" proportions of a ship several hundred meters across to a moon several million meters across.

This assumes that the moon in the render is the size of Earth's moon, but even a smaller moon would be so large that the shadows would be relatively so tiny they wouldn't be seen.

According to what I've studied in Astronomy class at college, tiny moons (where a shadow from such a spacecraft might be visible) would be more like asteroids and would be irregular in shape, not spherical, because of a lack of enough gravity to compress into a sphere.

Actually, our moon is a little egg-shaped, not a perfect sphere.

The situation is different because Earth has an atmosphere which refracts light (think of the way light behaves in a fog). The moon doesn't have an atmosphere at all, so sunlight doesn't get refracted and the lighting as a whole is much more direct.

Actually, if you really wanted to be accurate (or downright picky), our moon does have an atmosphere, it's just extremely thin because of the much lower gravity (Another thing I learned in the same class at college).  Even space between solar systems isn't completely empty, there are occasional particles of various junk that are microscopic.

[Sean_E]

I am an ex-Air Force brat and have studied astronomy as well as aerospace science the 20+ years my father was enlisted.
All your calculations are either close or accurate.  I am not going to bother getting exact dimensions, but the following is a scaled representation of what I would feel a carrier task force would look like passing from the dark side of the moon.  Its blurry from the jpg compression.



I am not saying anything bad about Sitters renders and animations.  They are very good.  Perhaps some collaboration between us would be a good idea.

Winter:  How High-res of an image would you like dimension wise?

Regards,
Sean E

[sitters]

Yea with this sizes (The Carrier is between 200 and 300 metres in diameter (i.e. from launch bay to launch bay), so call it an even 250.)  you don't see any shadows.

But earlier they say to me that the carrier size is 1/4 of the moon ( or even 1/4 of the earth ).

so we can trow the render in the trashcan.

[Destructavator]

I wouldn't throw it away yet, at least not completely - If the shadows on the moon were simply removed I think it would look very nice.

I apologize if I made you feel bad, sitters, other than the shadows I think it's quite impressive.

EDIT: An alternative would be if it were decided that the ships were gigantic, although that's not my decision...  (Although something comparable to a "Death Star" might be interesting, but that's up to the devs as well.)

[Sean_E]

You can still use it for passing through a system with much smaller moons or orbital debris.
It is still good no matter what.

[Winter]

Yea with this sizes (The Carrier is between 200 and 300 metres in diameter (i.e. from launch bay to launch bay), so call it an even 250.)  you don't see any shadows.

But earlier they say to me that the carrier size is 1/4 of the moon ( or even 1/4 of the earth ).

so we can trow the render in the trashcan.

I don't know who told you that, mate, but it wasn't BTAxis or me. I do apologise for the confusion, but a ship even 1/4 the size of the moon (much less 1/4 of the Earth) couldn't crash land on Earth, which has been a feature in our story from when we first invented the Carriers.

. . . Well, it could crash land, but that would be kind-of game over for the human race . . .

Actually, if you really wanted to be accurate (or downright picky), our moon does have an atmosphere, it's just extremely thin because of the much lower gravity (Another thing I learned in the same class at college).  Even space between solar systems isn't completely empty, there are occasional particles of various junk that are microscopic.

I know that, I just didn't think it was important enough to bring up.

Winter:  How High-res of an image would you like dimension wise?

I'm not sure what size our loading screens are usually done at, but I assume it's the usual 1024x768.

This is one of those difficult situations where we have realism conflicting with dramatic visuals. I agree that it would be a real shame to bin the render, because it's beautiful, but we are still trying to aim for accuracy. To that end I think that Sean_E's suggestion of using a large asteroid as the backdrop instead of the moon would make the best compromise, because to throw away all of sitters' hard work at this point would be highly uncool. That latest video easily rivals professionally-made game animations from even a few years back.

Regards,
Winter

[sitters]

Read page four winter, there was a small discussion, and you also talk about shadows on the moon from the carriers.
When it make shadows, it is gigantic ( mate ) !!


I have make an other clip, more realistic.



The clip :

http://www.md2.sitters-electronics.nl/render/moon9xvid.avi

This one is not the final because i use an static background.
But first want to know if this is the one, it cost every time 25 minutes for rendering 800 frames.

Willem

[Mattn]

i suppose this was my fault - i'm very sorry. i confused this with alien mothership. sorry for the extra work sitters

[sitters]

i suppose this was my fault - i'm very sorry. i confused this with alien mothership. sorry for the extra work sitters

That's no problem, but winter cant turn his head the other way.
Its just an misinterpretation from us all.

[Winter]

That's no problem, but winter cant turn his head the other way.

Eh? All I said was it wasn't me who gave you the wrong size. My mistake was in making a bad guess about the size of the shadows that would be cast on the moon.

I like your new render, by the way, it still gives the impression of size on the Carriers. Do you think it would be possible to pan the camera at the end and show the Carriers heading towards Earth?

Regards,
Winter