Bernal Sphere Space Habitat - Updated flyby.

I continue to work on this - I have adjusted the design so the agricultural toruses taper towards the centre, this to allow sunlight to reach them all.

The large rear ring mirror serves to direct light into the rear agricultural sections (For accuracy the light should come directly along the axis, but that makes the features hard to see).

I also added some trees to the inside of the spherical habitat, and cleaned up the textures a lot.

The Bernal Sphere is a 'small' habitat , about a kilometre long. It is considered a fairly efficient use of mass, as the agricultural toruses double as radiation shielding from solar storms. The vanes are not solar panels, but are for cooling purposes.

Note the small x33 style shuttle approaching to dock with the station.

This is a fuill 1080p animation, and I hope you will watch it full size!

Everything is CGI and done in Lightwave 3d.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• bernal sphere
• space
• habitat
• island one
• o'niell colony
• lightwave 3d
• earth
• flyby animation

[clavius500]

Astrophonix: No chance - the trees are typically 4 polygons each! I'm trying to work out how to do a Vue render of the interior... And I think the film rwe are both waiting for is "Rendezvbous with Rama"!

[clavius500]

Thanks for the kind words!

Some of my object and scene file for Lightwave are availble for download to members of Foundation 3d, which you might want to think about - they are a very helpful bunch, and if you have some resources to upload you can download most of the stuff there for free...

[clavius500]

Seeother comments - I cheated for a better view opf the structure!

[clavius500]

Thank you! I cheated so you could see the whole station properly, hence the lighting

[fragomatik]

Beautifully modelled classic design. Congrats! Subbed.

[fragomatik]

@RetroFishman said "Why waste time leaving a comment when your just told its pending approval..."

Hi there. It's an option set by the video submitter. Some 'tubers only allow comments after approval for a couple of reasons. Mainly it's to discourage or filter-out the trolls, those who would derail the discussion or otherwise cause offence. It's a way for the submitter to moderate comment threads, usually in order to keep the discussion "on topic" and reasonably civil. Hope this helps!

[RetroFishman]

Apparantly my browsing history is taken under account and my opinions noted to be constatly told on all of this series that any observations I choose to make are pending approval. Why waste time leaving a comment when your just told its pending approval by the big guns somewhere.

[astrophonix]

Beautiful animation, I'd love to see one of these actually built. Any chance you could render the inside as an inside-out landscape would look so awesome? I'm frankly amazed and disappointed that no major sci-fi movie has ever explored this awesome habitat design.

[KhanneaSuntzu]

@antred11 No look. The axis angled precisely at the sun. Sunlight falls straight along the rotational axis. Mirrors capture light and funnel it in to the habitat along real solid window sections, generally along the axial poles (to keep out stray micrometeorite impacts) The habitat stays aimed at the light source (sun) because of gyroscopic motion, much as a flower stays aimed at the sun. This is the essence of the habitat, to do it any other way is like making trees grow in a cave.

[antred11]

I'd love to take a look _into_ the habitat. :-)

[antred11]

@KhanneaSuntzu I believe the idea is that sun doesn't shine directly into the habitat but that the sunlight is brought into the habitat via an array of mirrors. That way the people living in the habitat have full control over the intensity and amount of sunlight they get.

[MartianStories]

Good grief! Nick I just saw this on the International Space artists site. I just joined that because I saw a post you did about making HDRI space backgrounds.

Anyway, THIS IS REALLY REALLY IMPRESSIVE!

I'm an animator, and this is exactly the sort of thing I'm trying to do.

Subbed friended. I'm referring to your vids from now on when working on sci-fi animation. SUPERB WORK!

You, sir, are a steely-eyed missileman.