Project HOPE-X spaceplane

[Loru]

Noise, some manual scratches and blur. Also lines can have some shadows. Investigate baking in ambient occlusion map or you can place some shadows in "negative angle areas" to simulate ambient occlusion.

Keep layers separate and experiment with different layer mixing (overlay, multiply, alpha channel etc). As for bottom tiles I made them by hand (best effect I came up so far however it took ages to do it)

Here is example (no weathering yet and only small selection of lines around cargobay door).

 

[Pipcard]

What programs other than 3ds Max can do texture baking? I can only think of Blender but are there any others (that are free)?

[deleted section]

 

[Loru]

Weathering looks for me like noise with applied "motion blur" filter in Z (front/back) axis.

 

[Pipcard]

Weathering looks for me like noise with applied "motion blur" filter in Z (front/back) axis.

I was thinking of motion blur, but that tends to make the texture offset/"trail off" by several pixels or more.

 

[Loru]

I was thinking of motion blur, but that tends to make the texture offset/"trail off" by several pixels or more.

You have to apply this motion blur only to noise layer. That way it won't affect underlying layers of the texture.

 

[Pipcard]

You have to apply this motion blur only to noise layer. That way it won't affect underlying layers of the texture.

Thanks for the advice!

(made a white layer, set it to "multiply", then added three noise filters and a motion blur filter)

 

[Loru]

Now make tile lines more transparent (50%) and add shadow to them.

---------- Post added at 09:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:42 PM ----------

Edit: Also now you can add another noise layer with no or little blur.

 

[Pipcard]

Current status:

The gear bay doors are like that because I recently came across this .pdf (via a Google search of 'HOPE-X 宇宙' (space)). On the upper right corner of each page is a vector image depicting where the landing gear would go. I measured the relative dimensions using Inkscape and Wings3D, which is why the front gear doors are wider than the rear. I'm also looking at these images from the JAXA digital archives as reference.

I could remake the gear bay doors like that because I had backup meshes. I also used some more boolean operations to create the nose (exported, then imported into the file and replaced the old section of the mesh).

 

[Pipcard]

The artist renditions for HOPE-X don't show any markings on the wings, but I added them so that it would be easier to identify. I didn't add a Japanese flag on the right wing because I felt that it would be too close to the flag on the rear section of the fuselage.

 

[Capt_hensley]

Upper Surfaces look great, Lower is WIP I guess. Non the less, great progress.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Nice looking bird so far.

 

[Pipcard]

 

[Loru]

Very good work.

 

[Pipcard]

The only texture work that needs to be done:
-engines/RCS thrusters
-internal (e.g. inside cargo bay)
-have RCS thrusters at the front (for translation)
-maybe the nosecone?

 

[Loru]

The only texture work that needs to be done:
-engines/RCS thrusters
-internal (e.g. inside cargo bay)
-have RCS thrusters at the front (for translation)
-maybe the nosecone?

You can add bump or normal map to highlight your tiling. Also when your model is ready I may generate ambient occlusion map for it if you want.

 

[Pipcard]

Since HOPE-X has this body flap on the back, how is the launch vehicle payload adapter supposed to work there?

 

[Urwumpe]

Since HOPE-X has this body flap on the back, how is the launch vehicle payload adapter supposed to work there?

Well, think of a simple girder structure there. Your space plane has a few points at the end of its fuselage, where you could attach it to the LV. On the LV end, you want to evenly spread the forces of the HOPE-X on a structural ring, so the tank does not buckle during flight like a soda can (which can easily happen if you put all loads on one point on top of a tank, they are very lightly built)

So, you define which points are the best there (usually, you also have such a structure inside your space plane as well), and then you just draw short lines between them, forming triangles.

Of course, since we are talking about Japan, they would never use a girder structure there like the Russians do. They would take the calculations of that girder model and shape a composite monocoque in its place, to reduce costs and weight. The carbon fiber threads will run in the same direction as your girders in the model (but now you can have thousands of such threads instead of just a few metal bars) and in places, where you have larger distances between the virtual girder lines, you would even have holes in the adapter.

That sure sounds a bit mystical right now... But just try to draw it on a paper, you will sure understand what I mean there. Maybe also play a bit with cardboard, paper and glue to create your own composite payload adapters (Please make pictures for the awesomeness factor then), you will be easily impressed how much weight a lightweight structure can hold, if properly designed.

 

[Pipcard]

Actually, I was talking about this:

There are some parts where the payload adapter wouldn't support the back of the vehicle, due to a body flap being in the way.

I might have to separate the body flap from the rest of the mesh and move it up a bit, which is relatively easy in Wings3D with the "extract" command (it copies and separates a part of the mesh, and you can delete the old that is still attached).

 

[Donamy]

A cut-out for it should suffice, as long as it is locked in place.

 

[DaveS]

A cut-out for it should suffice, as long as it is locked in place.

Yes, this is how it was done with the shuttle orbiter body-flap and the tail-cone. Once the tail-cone had been successfully mated with the orbiter, the body-flap was raised to fit flush with the bottom of the tail-cone.