Page
created Sunday, January 17, 2010
Revised May 3,
2012
S&M ENGINEERS
AND CONSTRUCTORS
VIRTUAL
SHIPYARD
(Warning:
Graphic Intensive Page!)
Introduction
In
April of 2009 our local role-playing gaming group was playing Trans Human Space.
I expressed an interest in modeling our ship, and someone in a forum suggested
Blender. I found it, installed it, but could not get it to do very much.
Sometime later I uninstalled it and forgot about it. In mid November, a new
member of the Cajun Clickers Computer Club came forward and offered to teach
workshops in Blender. I attended the first one, reinstalled the software and the
rest, as they say, is history! After March, 2010, I pretty much stopped
Blending. In March, 2012 I decided it was time to get back into it. I forced
myself through the pain of learning version 2.62, which was quite a change fro
2.49…but wroth it. I'm delighted to be Blending again. And, to boot, thanks to
Shapeways my Blender models can become
reality.
Catalog
of Ships
Ekaterina
HMS Valhalla (Worlds Of
Honor)
Arkenstone
I created the fusion/hyper
driven Arkenstone in the early 1980s. Unfortunately I lost the original
pencil and graph paper drawings when we moved from Tennessee to Louisiana in
1988. The basic parameters of the
ship remained in my head, and in mid 1997 through early 1998 I created it to
scale in Corel Draw. (Being lazy, I
used conventional home architectural symbols in the drawings!) Starting in late
November 2009 and finishing in mid February 2010, I have the exterior, control
room, lounge, shuttlecraft and hanger completed in Blender. (I created the
computer and touch surface displays for the control room in Corel Draw and
imported them into Blender as image textures. I found the textures for the
bulkheads and decks as well as the warehouse walls and floor at http://www.cgtextures.com/ ) In March and April
of 2012 I continued with the ship, making some very minor changes in the
exterior and continuing with the interiors.
Plan
drawings and renders are shown below.
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The
ship is 250 feet long by 50 feet by 50 feet. Maneuvering is provided by low
thrust reaction-less thruster discs mounted on the hull so that the ship can
thrust along any axis. Interplanetary travel and positioning for hyper travel is
provided by four high thrust HE3/ single-H fusion reactor-drive sets. Faster
than light travel is provided by a hyper drive which is controlled by a
dedicated hyper spatial computer. All major ship's systems and controls are
triple redundant for reliability. The hull is a custom grown single molecule
which stops 50% neutrinos. The last row above are new renders, showing a better
exhaust, the ship near a beautiful blue nebula, and finally, all you can see
just before I disappear into hyper-space.
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The ship’s
control room is fifty feet across and fifteen feet deep, large enough to also
serve as a rack room; there are several equipment cabinets and racks co-located
with the ship’s controls and displays. There is a large display screen mounted
in the center of the forward bulkhead. Directly in front of it is a semi
circular main control console. This houses three wedge shaped panels. The top
surface of each wedge is a touch sensitive control area. Each wedge also has a
dedicated display screen mounted perpendicular to it. Controls and displays for
any ship’s system can be called up on any wedge and/or display. They can be
‘mixed and matched’ as I desire.
The long panel
to the left of the control console houses dedicated controls for the four fusion
reactor-drive sets. The smaller panel located to the right of the control
console is dedicated to navigation and optical star sighting.
The
ship employs induced gravity. The lift/airlocks, shop deck, cargo hold and other
areas are designed
to be subjected
to microgravity. There are nets, tie downs, and hand holds placed strategically
throughout these areas.
“A”
deck is designed to be continuously subjected to .75 g. Since the induced
gravity system is triple redundant there is little chance of “A” deck being
unexpectedly subjected to no-weight. The deck can be prepared for microgravity
by placing loose items in lockable drawers and fitting covers over desks and
tables. The pool room is watertight. The hot tub is normally covered. Seals can
be snapped into place over the flush toilets –I refused to even consider
installing zero g sanitation fixtures.
The
shop deck is where I make my living. It includes storage for raw materials, and
a CAD-E/CAM (Computer Aided Design-Engineering/Computer Aided Manufacturing)
system. I also have a complete fabrication area, and equipment to do small
production runs. I can design, build, manufacture, ship, deliver, install and
startup product anywhere in this part of the galaxy.
There
is a loading crane mounted in the overhead of the shop deck. The plates in the
center of this deck can be removed allowing access to the cargo hold. With the
plates removed and the cargo bay doors open, the entire area can be exposed to
vacuum for loading/unloading or construction of projects in space.
BTW,
the "Arkenstone" is a mythical "large, white gem." The hull of the ship is a
dazzling white.
The ship’s lounge is located immediately
aft of the control room on “A” deck. It is approximately twenty feet by twenty
feet.
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The left hand picture is looking down into the lounge from above. It is oriented to correspond with the “A” deck plan view. Note that the hot tub is normally covered. Yes, that is redwood planking! In the right hand picture, I am chilling in the hot tub, sipping coffee and catching up on True Blood while traveling through hyperspace.
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In
the left hand picture, the forward lift/airlock door as well as the door into
the control room are slightly open. (Note that the lift door is ten feet by ten
feet.) You can also see the security panel for the control room door, as well as
some of the home theater speakers and electronics. Panning counterclockwise, the
right hand picture reveals the security panel and door for stateroom #3 as well
as one of the floating armchairs, which has a keypad embedded in one arm.
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Continuing to pan counter clockwise, in the left hand picture you can see a bit of the hallway, the wide couch and the steps leading up to the hot tub, as well as the powered massage table. The double doors in back of the hot tub open into the master’s stateroom. The middle picture shows the door to the ship’s dining room, and the door to stateroom #2 as well as another floating armchair and a storage unit. The right hand picture completes the pan around the lounge, showing the door to stateroom #1 and a second, smaller storage unit. The storage units, coffee table, massage table, couch and armchairs are models I found at http://resources.blogscopia.com/index_en.html and modified. The water procedural texture is based on a great water tutorial which is now offline. As usual, image textures were provided by http://www.cgtextures.com/
Click on any photo for a full-size image
The top left picture is the Arkenstone's hyper-drive bay, with the h-drive running. Middle picture is my office. Sorry it's a bit of a mess, but I'm a working engineer. Mess means work. Work means I get to eat, and refuel my ship. Top right is a wider shot, showing the Galactovue switched off. The bottom left picture shows the Galactovue running. Bottom middle is me, changing neighborhoods. Finally, I'm taking my ease, relaxing in Earth orbit.
By the way, a Galactovue is
a device for displaying holographic maps of the galaxy, or at least a portion of
it. The device was described by Robert Heinlein in Citizen of the Galaxy,
published in 1957. (I frequently borrow from Mr.
Heinlein.)
"What’s even more fun is that once you get all the calcs done, I can feed the whole mess into the Galactovue, and see a really nice 3D representation of the entire trip along with readouts of the actual figures. The Galactovue uses the hyper-calculator’s database and the nav system database; I can access data on a planetary level on up to an interstellar level. It’s a good check on what we think we are going to do. If we’ve made a mistake something won’t look right on the Galactovue. Handy gadget." –me, writing about my ship.
Look closely
at the pics of my office, there are a couple of in-jokes. (Hint: I built this
stuff using Blender.) Note that the couch, desk and safe are not mine, I found
the .blend files online and modified them to suit my
needs.
The shuttlecraft is a ten foot sphere. Half of this is a
clear canopy which can be recessed into a slot in the craft’s hull. There are no
seats, the pilot and passenger lie flat on a padded floor. To
enter the craft you raise the canopy, climb in via handholds and stand on a
platform. There is a shelf where you can tie down your luggage. Strap yourself
in, lower the pilot’s control panel into place and seal the canopy. The canopy
also provides a heads up display for the pilot. Thrust
is provided by five
reaction-less thruster discs mounted on the hull so that the ship can thrust
along any axis. The craft does not employ induced gravity, you will feel the
acceleration. A wise pilot will always orient the craft so thrust is provided by
the rear mounted thrust disc. (Note, I grabbed the human model from a Blender
model repository and modified it.) Click a thumbnail for a full-size image Arkenstone’s
Hanger When I have to stay on Earth for any length of time, I
land my ship in a large warehouse that I've converted into a hanger/refueling
station. (Getting the roof doors installed was a bear!) I have a process skid
and storage tanks installed for FARM (Fuel And Reaction Mass) which must be kept
refrigerated and under high pressure. The skid also provides the ship with
utilities: Power, Water, Oxygen, Nitrogen and Data. (PWOND). Click
on any photo for a full-size image The landing legs retract into the hull during flight. They
hold the bottom of the ship ten feet above the warehouse floor. The forward
lift/airlock outer hatch is 10 feet x 10 feet. The gangway for the aft
lift/airlock is on the other side of the ship. Click
on any photo for a full-size image The gangways, railings and
platforms fold up and retract into the hull during flight. By the way, that’s an
escalator, not stairs. Makes getting in and out of the ship very convenient,
especially when my SO is wearing heels. The outer ‘lock hatch is slightly open.
In the right hand picture you can
see the security panel that controls access to the ‘lock. The buttons are one
inch square, to accommodate spacesuit gloves. Here you can see part of the
refueling operation. In addition to two large built in FARM tanks, I can load
smaller auxiliary tanks into the cargo hold in lieu of cargo for a longer trip.
There is a forklift positioning an aux tank to be lifted into the hold with the
ship’s loading crane. Click
on any photo for a full-size image Product from the FARM/PWOND
skid is transferred to a motorized service cart via flexible hoses. The cart can
maneuver to the FARM/PWOND access panel in the ship’s hull, or to the auxiliary
tanks. Delivering product to its final destination is done via more
hoses. Here is a close-up of the
ship’s FARM/PWOND access panel, and the cart. You can see the cart steering and
feed controls, as well as some of the connecting hoses. Click
on any photo for a full-size image These two pictures show the
FARM/PWOND skid and storage tanks. In the left-hand picture you can see a six
foot high blue control cabinet mounted next to a pipe support.
Looking straight down from the warehouse
ceiling Obviously, once I discovered
Shapeways I wanted a printed model of my ship! This desire expanded to the point
where I decided to create a simplified diorama of the warehouse/hanger. It is
still a work in progress. The left pic is the display with mockups for the
ship and ancillary equipment. The right pic is the real deal, the ship as
printed by Shapeways and assembled by me. The rest of the ewuipment is in
production. The
Heavy Space Transport Vessel Ekaterina was originally designed by game
designer and GM Michael Scott around 2003. We used the ship when playing Trans
Human Space off and on for the last several years. In late 2009 and early 2010
Scotty, inspired by the ill fated Defying Gravity television series,
decided to redesign the ship. He provided me with his drawings done in Corel and
I created the ship in Blender. The ship is built in accordance to GURPS THS ship
building rules. E-Kat is 350 feet long. The command module is 30 feet in
diameter, and the rotating spin pods create a circle with a 110 foot diameter.
(By far the most difficult aspect of this model was the truss, see close-up
below. Next was the command module, I had to make liberal use of Booleans. To
date I have not textured the model.) Here
are the GURPS THS design specs created by Scotty (PDF
format) Click a thumbnail for a full-size image The Federator/Freemen 2 was designed by my wife Karen Morton for use in her science fiction
novel The Phoenix Revolution, Book 1. She
originally sketched the ship in mid 1997. In January 2010 she created the ship
in Corel Draw to scale using her sketches as a guideline. The Freemen 2
is approximately 130 feet long. It is 66 feet high and 113 feet wide at the
stern. I completed the Blender models in mid February 2010. I found the image
texture for the hull at http://www.cgtextures.com/ The Federator was designed and constructed
underground on Sedona Minor by the Prentiss 7 division of Haverford Industries
in conjunction with the Human Confederacy. The three deck prototype craft uses
VTOL chemical thrusters for takeoff, jet engines for atmospheric flight and
fusion drives for interplanetary flight. It employs a Straczynski drive (named
after J. Michael Straczynski) for hyper travel. The ship mounts plasma guns for
offense, and uses force wall generators for defense. When the ship enters an
atmosphere, wings are unfurled for atmospheric braking. The hull of the ship has
a special finish that is radar/sensor transparent. In between the hull plates
are hundreds of tiny nozzles that are used as thrusters for low speed maneuvers
in space. Click
on any photo for a full-size image Since 2006 or so our gaming group has been playing in the
Honor Harrington universe. In 2009 we playtested the RPG Worlds Of
Honor which may be published by Ad Astra Games. My character served as XO
on board the Reliant class battle cruiser HMS Valhalla. I
decided to throw together a quickie model of our ship. On reflection, I'm not
happy with this model, so I'm going to put in the effort to make a better
one. Wedge up, looking for Peeps!
HSTV
Ekaterina
Freemen 2
