I kind of skim read most of this thread with regards to the centrifuge part, so forgive me if I am repeating what has already been said, or if what I say is incorrect as my physics education doesn’t go beyone A-Level.
Anywho, would it not be feasible to have the centrifuge rotating inside an outer shell of the ship, so that the engines and whatnot would be attached to this outer shell, which wouldn’t be rotating?
(It would also save you having to animate anything rotating)
Yes, it would be feasible. This was used in the DISCOVERY from the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey. In fact, I believe that Rhysy is going to use your solution for the American ships.
the first part I follow, but on transforming heat into useful energy… it’s what neclear reactors do isn’t it? they generate steam to make energy, so why wouldn’t you use that heat to make more energy? I’m slightly confused as to why that would be a perpetual motion machine… it’s just transfer of energy, which is never lost in perfect situations… Also, perpetual motion machines are possible, just not realistically or usefully. If you input an ammount of kenetic energy into anything it will have perpetual motion until something takes away that energy.
edit: PS: i’m not sure if someone said this, but the radiators would glow dark red with different intensities because heat radiation lies in the infrared spectrum which lies closest to dark red in the visible spectrum. Any visible photons escaping would be closest to dark red. the brightness of the dark red can make it seem bright red, yellow, or white, but that is caused by the ammount of photons being emitted not the actual color.
I’m sure someone said that already but just making sure, it was bugging me all day yesterday 
Easy one first.
Well, not exactly. To be precise, the brightness is related to the number of photons, and the colour is due to the temperature (or energy) of those photons. If the radiator is hot enough, it WILL glow (ie become incandescent) at colours other than red - witness your incandescent light bulb. Carefully selected elements that become white-hot incandescent at ~120 volts.
Ah yes. Witness the humble toaster, the 100% efficient heat producer - all losses are eventually converted to heat… (2 points for who can identify the Golden Era S.F. writer who used that in a story!) and so…
I’m slightly confused as to why that would be a perpetual motion machine… it’s just transfer of energy, which is never lost in perfect situations… Also, perpetual motion machines are possible, just not realistically or usefully. If you input an ammount of kenetic energy into anything it will have perpetual motion until something takes away that energy.
Several true statements that don’t add up because of the vague ones. “Perfect situation” is the key. There are no such things, even in space. Black holes radiate quantum particles, “empty space” has dust, mass bends space and moving objects generate gravity waves (thus losing energy too)
The point of the laws of Thermodynamics is that energy is transformed into less useful forms of energy. Useful as in “doing something”, ie a machine. Heat is only useful when there is a difference in temperature and the universe tries to fix this imbalance, thus the radiator is most efficiently doing work (transferring energy) when there is a 75% difference in temperature. Once temperature is equalized (or mostly) no further work will get done. You’ll note that the location of the heat is important - hot axels will melt the bearings and your generator will screech to a halt or tear itself (and you) apart.
So yes, a real P.M.M. is impossible in the real world because there are always losses. If you appear to have one, its taking energy from somewhere else. That’s why you can’t get a patent on a true P.M.M. and anybody who claims they have one is lying or clueless.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion
John W. Campbell Jr. in, IIRC THE BLACK STAR PASSES, or maybe THE MIGHTIEST MACHINE. And I claim my two points. 
True. If you go here:
http://www.shodor.org/refdesk/Resources/Models/BlackbodyRadiation/index.php
you can input the temperature of your radiator, and it will show the color of the radiator. But as you point out, even if the “color” is dull red, if the radiation flux is large enough it still might appear to be almost white.
Or maybe not. I’ve gotten several different answers on this question from different experts.
The question arose because of a 3D render of spacecraft radiators by Tero Neimi
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3e.html#radiator
(scroll down)
The image had the radiators white-hot at the base. Expert A gave a link to the blackbody site, and pointed out that white corresponded to a temperature of about 6000K, which is hot enough to vaporize even diamond (which melts at 4300K). About this point expert B pointed out the flux issue, and the arguments started.
But at low temperatures, the blackbody site will give you a quick and dirty color swatch for texture mapping your radiator surfaces (he said in a desperate effort to drag the thread back on-topic).
Oh oh… I’ll have to check my dates on who was first then… looks like Campbell wins. Thinking about it I guess I did actually read much JWC before. I was thinking of another classic, V.E. - I see you loved Skylark too, eh?
Also, there’s “how to construct a star field” on the LW better space site. Lots of great stuff there if you haven’t seen it before.
http://www.ap3d.com/betterspace/index.htm
Resistance is useless! (And you’d better get that one too)
Maybe we could say that some materials will melt/vapourize before they get hot enough to glow white hot?
No, the joke’s on me, you can have your two points back. I’ve checked all my Campbell, and he didn’t say that. I was mistakenly remembering him mentioning that a good transformer was about 99.8% efficient in THE ULTIMATE WEAPON. Now that you remind me I do remember the quote from The Complete Venus Equilateral.
I enjoy Skylark, Lensman, Subspace Explorers, and the other classic Doc Smith. I’ve even got a copy of Campbell’s THE INCREDIBLE PLANET, which most space opera fans have never even heard of.
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Oh ya. I’d forgotten about annoying teaching habits like that. My only classes lately have been expensive, intensive and the teacher had better not gloss over stuff I want to know about! 
Mars would work, but it’s such a cliché. For the last one I nicked Hans Zimmer’s score to the recent King Arthur movie. Next time, Star Wars, or maybe Sibelius. Or something.
Hmm. Good point - it has been used a lot hasn’t it. With reason of course, but some innovation is a good idea. I forget if I mentioned, but check some of the Creative Commons music so you don’t have worry about copyright. When I get a chance I’m going to build me a “future use” background music library. There was a site that has a ton of music styles and pieces http://freeplaymusic.com - with varying lengths of the same piece from 10 seconds to 3 minutes. Its only royalty-pre-paid and free for broadcast use now. I was sure they used to have free for personal web use, but I think they changed the license to not allow any free web usage. I don’t really get that site - free for air broadcast, nothing else. And even the $ CDs require yearly licenses. I’m going to have to see about getting some royalty-free cds I guess.
Didn’t think there’d be any point with things like Elephant’s Dream around
I disagree - they need lots of films, with all styles and subjects for a demo reel - they’re not going to just fill it with ED, that’s kind of pointless, they already have that!
Seriously - see if you can find an appropriate piece and remix by… tomorrow? Urk.
Check this out as a possible drop in replacement sound!
http://www.opsound.org/artist/manolocamp/ and look for Medieval
or d/l http://www.manolocamp.net/music/mp3/Manolo%20Camp%20-%20Medieval.mp3
Time is 2:46!
Hmm. Looked for some orchastrated stuff to find something similar to what you had. Some might be useful for your eventual Showdown at Calisto animation too 
Fair bit of CC’d stuff, including classical and symphonic pieces at http://www.soundclick.com/genres/cc_license.cfm (looks like you have click the music link from that list to play, then click the band link on the player and then you can see the license and the MP3 download link. A 2 minute string quartet http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=526079
http://www.opsound.org/pool/genre/ has a soundtrack genre too. hmm The Lion and The Zebra sounds interesting, tho its 5 minutes remixes allowed though. In other genres, Noize Unitz Blob is a energetic jazz repetitive piece that would be easy to cut down to your 2:35. The beginning flyby would fit with the pre-launch sequence nicely I think, not sure about timing. Likely have to increase the volume of launch command’s count-down. 3:15 for Rogg Maddedford’s piano duo Slave. Pace’s Microsoft Galaxy is rather amusing electronic, repeated voice (oh - though with some expletives)
http://www.jamendo.com/us/ apparently has shareable stuff too
I gave it far larger cooling fins (again retractable during close combat). There are too many in the left-hand pic though, but easily fixed. I thought perhaps the top laser could be a Death Star style superlaser for long range, one hit kills striked, but with a roof for closer combat. It looks like a hamburger collided with a UFO… should improve when details are added.
Ack! Er… yes, that’s about it. Hmm. Do the radiators unfurl for a true steam-punk effect? 
I know I have read VE over 6 times. I think “we” :rolleyes: had better take this to an O.T. thread to save poor Rhysy’s thread for himself. Sorry about that.
OK, this time I’ll post the updates BEFORE responding…
Some progress. Here’s a schematic. I gave it a nice white American paint job, but decided the Europeans ought to have a token role in this alter-universe. I don’t hold with the boring American practise of naming warships after states, so I referred back to my last major project. I’ll probably add a few more flags/logos (NASA, USAF, etc.) on the centrifgues, which are otherwise complete. The main hulls, which serve as armour/weapons platforms, are nowhere near complete :
http://rhysy.plexersoft.com/Deep%20Space%20Force%20Gallery/slides/US%20Schematic.html
The habitat rings are divided into 7 modules which may be sealed from each other in the quite likely event of an emergency. Each module has some protection in the form of 4 100mm guns. They also have airlocks and rails should exterior maintence be necessary. Here’s a closer view, but the texture seems to have been screwed up somewhat :
http://rhysy.plexersoft.com/Deep%20Space%20Force%20Gallery/slides/Centrifuges.html
Now where were we ?
nyrathwiz on e-bombs : thanks for the links, looks like I’ve got a bit of reading to do. I skimmed the howstuffworks one, looks like a good excuse for lots of crackly sparks across the hull.
True, using the pusher plate as a shield probably won’t work very well. But it is better than nothing.
That’s a good point. If things get hairy, you can use the plate as a shield whilst firing through it/around it. The drive mechanism might get blasted but it would absorb much of the impact, saving the crew (who could await rescue).
Yes, Wayne Smith maintains that the big argument against ground launches of Orion spacecraft is the fallout. This is basically vaporized dirt. Mr. Smith says that by using a metal launch pad the fallout can be avoided.
[http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclearspace-03h.html
The thing is, the job an Orion drive does best is lofting huge payloads from the surface. It has lots of thrust but there are plenty of other drives that have better specific impulse in a deep space environment.
Ah, a classic article. Sound perfectly plausible to me. Apparently ground bursts are the real dirty blasts, with air/space bursts being very much safer.
Good point about the s.i… [scrambles for excuse]… maybe it would be easier, in a pseudo-wartime environment, to scale up existing technology than develop new ones.
My sense of the scale of a typical interplanetary battle tells me that collisions will only be by mutual consent, or with a target with crippled propulsion.
Actually I wasn’t thinking of collisons with other ships (hmm… how about a 10-20m Orion consisting of a drive mechanism and a great big spike ?) but with gun and missile fire. If the ship is attacking its foe head on (as it would want to if it relies mainly on lasers), the top part of the hull will be a natural target.
This is easy if the target’s propulsion system is a Nuclear Salt Water Rocket (with fuel composed of hideosly high critical masses of uranium tetrabromide solutions) or some species of antimatter-fueled rocket. Otherwise it ain’t gonna happen.
Curses. Guess I’ll have to rely on nukes for blasting enemy ships apart. In the case of the US, perhaps drilling a hole with a laser then showering the enemy with nukes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sasuntsi Davit
Anywho, would it not be feasible to have the centrifuge rotating inside an outer shell of the ship, so that the engines and whatnot would be attached to this outer shell, which wouldn’t be rotating?
(It would also save you having to animate anything rotating)
Yes, it would be feasible. This was used in the DISCOVERY from the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey. In fact, I believe that Rhysy is going to use your solution for the American ships.
Kinda. It’s easy to animate constant rotation and provides a nice extra detail, so the centrifuges are exposed. They could perhaps be more heavily armoured than the rest of the ship.
Howitzer :
Wow, that is some nice work Rhysy, I don’t know much about space physics, so I won’t say much.
Thanks !
nyrathwiz :
you can input the temperature of your radiator, and it will show the color of the radiator. But as you point out, even if the “color” is dull red, if the radiation flux is large enough it still might appear to be almost white.
Ah, excellent, an excuse for a nicer colour. Would a high flux cause the same problems with melting the fins ?
dgebel
Also, there’s “how to construct a star field” on the LW better space site. Lots of great stuff there if you haven’t seen it before.
[URL=“http://www.ap3d.com/betterspace/index.htm”]http://www.ap3d.com/betterspace/index.htm](http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclearspace-03h.html)
That’s a good tutorial, but it isn’t really the starfield that’s a problem, it’s that flickering problem that tends to occur. Maybe if I make a copy of the camera that only has rotation animated, with lots of oversampling…
Already responded re:free music via PM (just so people don’t think I’m rudely ignoring you ).
Do the radiators unfurl for a true steam-punk effect?
The upper fins rotate, the lower and central ones just move in and out.
Nice! Stunning as usual.
I’m not sure. If I were you, I’d locate a physics professor or somebody who actually knew what they were talking about instead of me. I still get myself confused with the whole temperature vs. heat situation.
Once again… looking good! Looks far better than I would have guessed from the thumbnail.
Or… just go with it which way you decide looks better.
We know that some things can appear to glow “close to” white hot in a vacuum (remember this is in space), like tungsten. Its not really that worth while worrying about. You could have white “veins” so that the whole radiator structure isn’t “white hot”. Actually, that sounds reasonable to me. The main radiating “feeds” would naturally be the hottest, something like a veins in a leaf. Would also give you more visual detail.
I like it!
That’s a good tutorial, but it isn’t really the starfield that’s a problem, it’s that flickering problem that tends to occur. Maybe if I make a copy of the camera that only has rotation animated, with lots of oversampling…
Ah, the single pixel problem. On ST:TNG they ignored it
I’ll be very interested to see your results.
Did you have low oversampling? Maybe you should turn it OFF for the stars at least? I recall that Bryce users had the problem of stars vanishing entirely when they went to higher AA settings.
Thanks both !
Or… just go with it which way you decide looks better.
That’ll do nicely.
Did you have low oversampling? Maybe you should turn it OFF for the stars at least? I recall that Bryce users had the problem of stars vanishing entirely when they went to higher AA settings.
Don’t know if OSA has any effect on Blender stars/particles, but I’ll give it a try.
Here is a proper render. The weaponary is now complete. The forward hull has 8 small missile turrets, 8 10" guns, 12 silos for high-yeild nukes/e-bombs, 1 giant laser cannon, and 24 laser turrets. The aft hull has a further 8 missile turrets, 8 guns, and 8 laser turrets. Missiles could also be fired through the pusher plate if necessary. From the size of the radiator fins (>100,000 sq. m), I estimate 24 laser turrets would allow 600MW of power through each simulataneously. Probably their size (3m aperture) would limit the power more than the available cooling area. I have some questions on the range of the lasers, but don’t have time to post them right now. Oh and I rendered in 2.42 RC3, which fixes the ugly texture problem on the centrifuges.
http://rhysy.plexersoft.com/Deep%20Space%20Force%20Gallery/slides/US%20Warship%20web.html
Still need to add cooling vents on the aft hull and probably make it a bit dirtier. I want a nice clean ship for the Americans… but not quite that clean.