Colloquially called the Hell Hole (because of its orange glow), this portal connects Earth with TRAPPIST-1e, a planet that orbits a red dwarf star 40.7 light years away.
To sustain its second largest interstellar colony, humanity needs to send vast quantities of raw materials to TRAPPIST-1e. Today’s shipment includes several kilotons of copper, nickel and refined aluminum, but also medical items and plush teddy bears.
This was a project from 2023 where my goal was to explore the creation of huge spaceship structures and the complexity of their hulls. It was also the first project where I used my procedural HDRI planet background; same that I later used in this project that I already posted here.
Essentially the hull is a mix of real geometric displacement using JSplacement textures and bump mapping. I layered another layer of geometry with a similar material on top and alpha-masked it with another texture. This creates the look of panels covering the hull and helps with casting small shadows.