Challenge #9 - Lord of Arda - Dyson Bubble

[lordofarda]

So here's the thought I had with mine. I'm going to go off both a square and a sphere. The sphere is going to be the Dyson Bubble/Swarm, and the square is going to be the statites/satellites.

Since these things are going to be HUGE (4 cities on each one) they are going to have to be a combination of a statite and satellite I'm thinking. They will use the solar sails to slow the orbital velocity so they don't interfere with one another as much, but they are still going to have to orbit due to gravity. So it's not entirely a Dyson swarm, nor is it entirely a Dyson bubble. More a combination of the two.

Anywho's, here's what I have on the statite/satellite's so far. The spikey things are going to be wireless power transfer/communication arrays. You can obviously see the solar sails. The smaller, more recessed part is where the cities are going to go. The larger, less recessed part is going to be solar panels and whatnot. I'm not entirely happy with the mid portions, so that may get redesigned later. We'll see.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/lordofarda/3d%20graphics/Bubble.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/lordofarda/3d%20graphics/Statite.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/lordofarda/3d%20graphics/Top.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/lordofarda/3d%20graphics/Side-1.jpg

[Dallidas]

I was wondering if someone would do something like this! How big is each satellite?

[lordofarda]

I'm thinking it's going to be big enough for each city section to hold roughly 1 million people, so 4 million per statite.

I haven't done much modeling since I've been kind of distracted by replaying FFVIII. Which gave me an idea for another power plant. I was in FH and saw the parabolic mirror dish thingy and it reminded me of heliostatic CSP plants. The ones that have mirrors focusing sunlight at a tower full of molten sodium for thermal power generation.

I wanted to work out the concept before applying it to the model so I made it stand alone at the moment, and I'm kind of pleased with it. The light fog still needs a bit of work (and shouldn't really exist in space, but it shows the concept better) but other than that I like it.

Anyways, here's what I have so far. I'll show it in place later.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/lordofarda/3d%20graphics/CSP.jpg

[lordofarda]

Here it is in place. Also threw on a test texture for the sails.

Let me know what you think.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/lordofarda/3d%20graphics/Statite1.jpg

[CrimsonLine]

Cool! The fine detail gives it a better sense of scale, and the sail texture really brings out what it is.

[Sphynx]

Information regarding Challenge #10 (http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/challenge-wips/54880-sensei-challenge-10-primitives-motion.html) has now been released.