Scooterlord, its lovely anyway, as always . I love those scratches and surface roughness from manufacturing.

Would be possible to try softer light source by next test renders in order to prevent overburn of some shiny surfaces?
Strings holding RAT cables are kind of transparent whereas by other places they seems to be white. Is it on purpose or by mistake?
Thanks

hey there.. yes, I will try to tone down the light source (the sun in this case). It's just a box with holes in the sides... doing a render again atm, so from the next one. I encountered a strange artifact (again!) but I think I know now why corruption occurs, will have to do a few tests again..

...as for the strings, yes, I noticed it myself, it's probably the angle that shows them this way, other than that I prefer the slight transparent view than the other... good observation though..

edit: as for the strings, if you notice closer, for example the moessbauer, the bottom string is transparent, the material seems to be ok, so it's definately the angle. Let alone that on the rat, the light source falls directly on it and the surface below the string is very reflective and it reflects through it. Currently I have the transparency of the strings set to 70% - considering it's double sided.

so, here is the close-up of the base of the idd. hope you like it as well..



next render will be of the rocker-bogie.. once I am done with it that is..

Now try it with a patina of iron-oxide dust...

Simply incredible! I remember back in the early 1970's when computer graphics were just starting to move out of the "overstruck line printer" mode. (Does anyone here remember the Mona Lisa rendered by a PDP-8 on a line printer?) How far we've come!

Scooter,
Are you saving the camera orientations when you do these awesome renders? It would be awesome to take one of the older untextured renders, and fade in the exact same scene with textures (even partial).

Thank you for this work!

Unforunately not, but many of my backup saves consist of the exact render views. I say again, these are just test renders, haven't played with lighting, with camera dof, nothing yet. As soon as I finalize the whole thing, I'll do 3d renders (red-blue that is), part textured, part not, whatever you want. I'll see if I have a good camera view of the above renders to photoshop textured/not textured ver...

edit: well, uhm, here it is, FULL HD wallpaper size (1920x1080)...

Hey everyone!

I've got a new render for you...

The whole process is very slow, because even though I thought that I had finalized the mer modeling-wise, a lot of things have to be fixed, instanced, and a few things even need to be modeled because I didn't notice them in the first place. I spent an entire day just finishing up the wheel of the mer, I am very happy with the results. Hopefully everything else besides the rocker-bogie is finalized and only needs to be textured.



Once again, expecting your comments...

edit: since the forum switched pages, maybe some of you weren't notified for my last post edit with the wallpaper..

Very nice, indeed !

< pedant mode ON >
The orange-coloured material in between springs should be some kind of foam (if I remember well it prevents pebbles from jamming between springs)
Even if its really small detail, could be the orange surfaces roughness modified to simulate such a material better?
< pedant mode OFF >

Those delicate colour tone changes (orange) are excelent though.

Amazing as usual, not that I expected anything less.

The diagonal part of the tread pointing toward the hold down point looks curved in your render, is that right? I could have sworn it was straight and looking at a few images it looks to me like should be.

James

...as for the foamy part, I thought it would be foamy myself, didnt know for sure, However in many reference photos I have it seems like it is coated with something so it has this shininess. It's not a big deal to change this to a more matte look if it would make you feel better!

As for the treading, yes it should be curvy. I have a lot of material that shows its curved. It would be great to know these things from start but keep in mind that all of this is made from observation, let alone I would have to spend my entire life making it accurate. Its simpler to create it at first rather than replicating it!

I hope its curved anyway, it would need many hours to be fixed..

Edit:
Phewwww.. Looks curvy to me! Glad I avoided a lot of extra work, especially now that I am finalizing stuff..


http://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/MIT/863.10/...es/img_0082.jpg

Are we looking at the same thing? Maybe its a perspective thing but these parts look curved across the surface of the imaginary sphere of the wheel surface in your render but straight in the photo.

Scooterlord

Not sure if this would help you. It's something done for a project from some time ago.
It's the best I have based on photos and fullscale references.
I had a rover wheel on my head once...but that's another story

Click to view attachment

There are some differences in the render you posted and the photo reference you gave above.
I've seen the rover wheels in several configurations as well.
The version used for flight might be a little different to some of the photo references available.

I don't think that at this stage that we can get too picky on small details when the entire thing looks so magnificent!!

Well, I see your point now, this is not of great importance and don't forget that I didn't have any of this reference when I started the model (not even the image I posted that I could have great use of it when I first started).

Doing shapes on curves surfaces is extremely difficult and I don't think going into a process of remodeling at this point would help the whole representation.

Maybe many of you weren't expecting the model to turn up so good, maybe you didn't watch the thread back then, but this is material I wish I had in the beginning. I contacted several companies that helped produced the mer, I begged for reference, I contacted everyone related to the project that I could get contact info. Only a few helped me out.

..but well, you couldn't have known Anyway, at this point, I am only fixing and finalizing surfaces and would remodel something that is wrong and very OBVIOUSLY wrong. I admire your observations and the love for the project (I wonder how many of you actually WORKED on the mers - I would like to know who of you did). Only now can I see how inspiring your job on something this big can be, and would love to take part in something like this, would be a life's dream come true.

Last but not least, I hope you are not dissapointed and don't feel let down if I don't get into the process of fixing things like straight or curved lines on a wheel, which is a GREAT observation (would love to use such pairs of eyes while looking at reference photos), but not that important to invest an extra couple of hours to fix (yes, it needs that long because it's one surface, it will have to be uncut, and re-cut, and re-filleted, etc...). I may try to see if its easily fixed to please you people but can't promise it. This also rises my spirit that I did everything else good enough for you NOT to notice So, sorry James, but please keep pointing out my mistakes, calms my mind actually knowing what I did wrong...

Would also really love to know about rover wheel on head Astro0??

No worries. I am in no way disappointed, your work is beyond amazing.

You've always requested feedback and errors to be pointed out, this is close as I've come to finding anything at all and it is so tiny it's staggering.

It's only because the tread of the front wheels appears in hazcam images that I have looked at nearly every day for the last eight years(!) that this one jumped out at me.

James

Will try to have it fixed later, because I am planning on making 'hazcam view' renders, so I don't want it to bother you..

You are right, its glossy, but not perfectly plain ... it has some wrinkles or waves on the surface.
RR wheel in this picture may help. But its absolutelly up to you

It's the lighting that makes it look this way. You mean it's bumpy? From many other photos, I made out it's smooth and shiny. From the above photo you can see that there's a variation in color, but I have already did that...

edit: watching the picture again, I just realized what you meant, I saw the rear wheel reflections, yes, I will do this...

You've gotten us all excited with this project which we have seen developing since your first post about it in September 2006

In that post you actually showed us an image of the wheel tread and back then it had those curved sections and none of us said anything.
So, don't go changing it now.

It's your rover and as we've already seen it has your personal touches (eg: your name on the ribbon cable)
As your renders keep coming, I just think how great it is that we can see a nice new bright and shiny rover again

Scooter,

Here is a post from July 10, 2010 about the MER Wheels (and a picture from the manufacturer)

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=162219

Maybe you can get the CAD file from them?

PDP8E.... thanks for the reference photo (had it already though but... uhm.. not going to happen...

...because as Astro0 suggested, no-one compained about it back in 2006 (nor provided me with as much useful reference as I could get) and I am finalizing stuff, so.... mean you know I don't get paid for doing this right? It's just my ticket to get hired somewhere. HOPEFULLY. Just looking to please a few people making it...

..that's why I was happy while I was reading Astro0's last post, I was also rendering this at the background...



...WOW! Look at that, no more bent lines! I hope James is pleased... along with pospa, I made a thin coating layer on top of the foamy stuff, so that it's mostly visible when seen from big angles..

edit: sorry, messed up with the image code

That actually nails it - it's like an orange foam, but with a sort of clear plastic cover over it. On the test-bed rover, the plastic started to peel off - and I'd expect it to have done the same on Mars.

D

Excellent work as we've come to expect
Can't wait to see the final render of the entire rover!

Same for me. The wheel renderings are simply superb... I was always amazed by self-amortized spiral structure, I wonder if someone already used it somewhere else...

One version of LER chariot (2008 ?) has wheels with spirals, maybe inspired by MER design. http://collectspace.com/review/chariot01.jpg


(hopefully I didn't brake 1.6 rule with the link above , but since it can be controlled remotely I thing its also considered as unmanned robotic rover platform )

Perfect.

Smile and satisfaction on my face as well.
Thank you slord !

This is a simular design for a small robot, and same principle for flexible wheel suspension.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebwofhAT4Ps

I have also designed a 4.5 inch wheel derived on the MER wheel design for a personal robot project of mine. This will be CNC machined on my small 4 axis milling machine I am also building.

Click to view attachment

uhm.. someone said that he had good reference of the room the rovers were built in? I would like to give them a look if that's possible... Is is the same room the curiosity was built in? I saw a couple of AWESOME photos online. It's just that I want to make indoor renders but don't want to spend more than 15 days modeling the thing...

...I am at work atm, was working on the rocker-bogie before, left it in the middle and my mind is there... I saw a few things that I need to model because I didn't see them before and some things are wrong.. other than that I will probably have it all done by tomorrow..

Hello...

I've got a new render for you. It took me so long because there were so many things that needed to be remodeled, instanced, modeled from scratch and took me more than I imagined. These parts were the first to be 'finalized' so the progress will be faster from now on because I progresses with great thoroughness..

I know there's something wrong with the rear part of the rocker's texture and I definately don't like the cables. They may have been seen good until now, but now I see the need to be re-textured, so probably in the next render they will be corrected - will deal with it a bit later on tonight.



I want to note that I have finally added the 'mars rover project' in my site (as seen in the signature http://www.nicksotiriadis.gr). I have almost every render found in here gathered in one place, along with a small story, so you are welcome to come visit (and show your friends)! So, if you haven't visited the site so far, now is a good opportunity to do so!

Any comments for either the new render or the site's post is welcome!

Hi Nick,

Fabulous renders as always; just a minor comment on your web site - you mention both rovers 'died' after 6 years on Mars, but Curiosity is still very much alive!

Airbag

??

Opportunity is still alive.

That's why I needed your help, looks like I messed up I've been looking for info everywhere, off I go to restore the good news

Hello everyone, new render for your eyes.. here with morning lighting..



I spent almost a full day making the cables look right, I double checked them and this is the best result. It may look a bit too shiny in a few parts, but trust me, it's as good as it can get.

Already started the HGA, expect results soon..


edit: for people interested two HUGE (5400x3038) renders on my site in black and white backgrounds respectively:

http://www.nicksotiriadis.gr/mer-white.png
http://www.nicksotiriadis.gr/mer-white-2.png

Hi Scooterlord, like everyone else here I love all the details like the manufacturing scratches on the metal surfaces. But I think I saw those scratches also on the flexible flat cables, on some renders... I don't know what flats NASA uses, but in my experience those cables are smooth and shiny even after quite some use... Maybe it would be better to make them smooth? What do you think?

Cristian

Well... first of all it's not the same scratch texture, looks like it's the same but it's not Let's discuss the following image..



Left to right, top to bottom we have, ribbon in the idd, hga, mossbauer's ribbon, idd ribbon on mars and extreme close-up of the idd's base.

All of them being great examples (and I am grateful I found images of THIS quality) but the last one is the best. As you can see they are not smooth at all. The renders that show 'scratched' cables are extreme closeups, if it was a bit further away you wouldn't be able to tell there's something there, it will make the surface seem 'strangely' reflective as it shows in most of the mars rover reference pictures.

In the specific render that the scratches are shown (the idd closeup I posted before) You see 3 parts of the ribbon, left, center and right side. They all have the same texture on, but look how different they show according to the light source reflected on them. Just notice the right part of the cable, isn't this what you were looking for? Let alone these are TEMP renders, not lighted properly, just a sun source with too much intensity.

Last but not least, I have too much trouble making out the colors in different reference photos I have. Some reference is washed out, some is indoor lighted, some outdoor lighted. Sometimes is seems red-ish, sometimes yellow-ish, other times brown-ish. I still am not sure about the ribbon color, that's why I ended up in something in between all of the above.

Moreover, the cables. In most photos they seem yellow. In others orange to red. In 99% photos you can't make out that they are actually transparent and more than one cables are inside of them, but I tried to replicate this as well.

I want to hear about everyone's opinion but, trust me, I am way too thorough to leave such mistakes occur

It seems pretty clear that this is due to different light sources and light temperatures. The color in the ribbon ribbon cables should respond to varying light sources in a similar way to other polymers of a similar color. Use the Kapton tape as a color reference since that is a known constant and made of a polymer of a similar color to the ribbons -- and it is everywhere. Re-balance the reference photos so that the tape appears the same in each one. I think that will give you a truer idea of how the ribbon cables' colors are changing in the reference photos due to things like texture, reflections and translucence.

kapton tape in google images gives pictures with a hundred different hues... :/

Yes. What I meant was to ADJUST the color balance in the Google pictures you are using until all the Kapton tape is the SAME. Then look at the ribbon wires. Pick one example where the whole picture looks good and use that to start with.

uhm... thats what I did in the first place...

Hi Scooterlord, first of all, thank you for your reply.
Of course I have never seen "live" NASA cables, so my experience was with everyday cables - the ones that you can find in almost every electronic device these days.



I hadn't seen those pictures before, and I agree the cables don't look absolutely "flat"... but I'd say what I see are the "bumps" due to the dozens of parallel copper tracks running under the lamination, and not "random" manufacturing scratches...

That said, I trust your eyes and judgement, and I fully also appreciate the fact that the only way to be sure either way would be to hold the actual piece in our hands!

Cristian

Sooo... I did a few tests and here is what I came up with... luckily I was a perfectionist about my surfaces and every film is just ONE surface so it helps the texture mapping..



HOWEVER, currently, I CANNOT UV map properly, meaning that with the current beta I can only map only ONE channel on each surface which means I cannot have letters on, etc. So we all have to wait until the final version comes out. I will be progressing with everything else and leave films and some cables for the end.

Cristian, as you may realize, both straight grooves AND random 'scratches' (bumps I'd say) can be seen in the pictures, and the final version will have both.

Hello everyone!

New renders... Finally done with the high gain antenna. Tough task, a lot of stuff were missing so I had to model them, plus I had trouble with my program that corrupted my file multiple times :/ Anyway, all done. Here are two renders, a studio one and a 'natural lighting one'..





...Although the HGA's film texture is a bit different than all the rest of the mars rover, I think I will replace the previous ones (when the program finally allows multiple uv channels) with a version somewhere in between the two.

Aditionally, for the ones interested in the 'white' mere, here is another mammoth render at 5400x3038:
http://www.nicksotiriadis.gr/mer-white-final.png

Comments always welcome, and don't forget that all this material can be found gathered in my site.

Still without words, waiting for gran finale!

Hello,

took me some time (actually a lot) to finalize this thing here, but I am finally done! I hope you really enjoy the details...

Click on the link for ULTRA render 3298x3293. Once you get used to the full details it's hard to go back EDIT: Sorry, ops, could not get it to recognize link with thumbnail :/



I know a few things are wrong, already fixed them, but I should mention them before you eagle-eyes find them

a) in the front render, a small film is missing from the right NavCam.
in the front render, a small tie-up goes 'inside' the cabling (glitch) which I fixed.
c) the black texture on the PanCams shows an ugly repeating texture - which is fixed.
d) repeating white texture WILL be fixed in future renders so that the scratches don't repeat so often.
e) I fixed that 'lever' on the PanCams after the eagle-eyed member that found that. Actually it's not a lever, it's something different, modeled it as close as I could

For anything else, I am here for your comments and as always my site is updated with the new renders!

OMG WOW I nearly fell out of my chair!!

EXCELLENT WORK Scooter!

You continue to surprise. I'm just in amazement every time!

Fantastic! This stunning render clearly show details hard to explain for me, for example the two tiny grey disks in front/below of miniature thermal emission spectrometer... perhaps temporary PanCam lens covers for cruise phase?

Exactly.. Took me a while to figure out what they were. Once you know it's easier to model. Tens of hours spent wisely... Hehe.. They are black actually, not grey, just reflecting the sky..

You are a sick man. The detail is amazing.. these last renders, again, and in particular the mast, gave me a big smile

Words fail me….. absolutely beautiful. I never realised the Navcam electronic box covers were so mirror like!! The reflection of that cable on the RH box cover is just magic!!!!

...but not just cruise, mainly EDL.

Taken from Bell et al: MER Athena Pancam Investigation, Jnl Geophysical Research Vol 108 No E12

"During the cruise and EDL phases of the mission, flexible metallic dust covers are held between the two outer baffles in the sunshade to guard against dust contamination of the sapphire window during airbag impact, roll, and deflation. These EDL dust covers are designed to pop out permanently (and gracefully) the first time the camera bar is deployed on the PMA. After they pop out they remain attached by a short lanyard to the camera bar, but out of the field of view of any of the PMA cameras."