The making of Beluga V07

WSBurns · November 2016

So last time i was reading Minder´s thread i noticed he´s pretty busy with his studies and i was really enjoying his work (and still am looking forward to see more of it)
Meanwhile i decided to throw my hand at it and model Pat Presley´s Beluga V07 Class Submarine.

I then started to model the submarine exterior and i ended up with this:

It looks OK for 3D printing and i was very pleased with the result.
Anyway i then started to mentally imagining the interior and decided to sketch a few concepts on paper, so far i have modelled most of the engineering deck that i placed in the ship´s stern, reactor, engines and other miscellaneous stuff.

Did some research in the inner works of a nuclear powered submarine and i ended up with some interesting concepts that i decided to bring into the V07.

Nuclear Reactor and Turbine Engine Rooms:

Another View:

Its still a work in progress but i wanted to share these pictures with you folks, maybe some of you will enjoy them.

Cheers!

crimsontwilight · November 2016

First off, wow, Wow, WOW. That looks so cool (and must have taken a fair amount of time). I'd be interested to know what you have planned for the rest of it, will the bay at the bottom function like a moon pool? What will the circle things' function be?

WSBurns · November 2016

crimsontwilight wrote: »

First off, wow, Wow, WOW. That looks so cool (and must have taken a fair amount of time). I'd be interested to know what you have planned for the rest of it, will the bay at the bottom function like a moon pool? What will the circle things' function be?

I have been doing a bit every day,
The bay will be placed ahead, somewhere along the middle. It will have the capacity for two or four vehicles, Seamoth or PRAWN.
To explain you the function of the area at the bottom i have to go around some of the concepts.

The nuclear reactor produces electricity and hidrogen, both these elements can be used to power the V07. In the bottom area are batteries and capacitors used to stored the produced electricity for later usage.
I have yet to model the hatches, stairs, and the other metallic platforms, i will be making them modular so i can add them as needed. The blue transparent areas are the ballast tanks, in the middle (in red) are the maintenance nacelles, much like the Cyclops there will be two hatch doors on each side of the wall.

EvilSmoo · November 2016

WSBurns wrote: »

crimsontwilight wrote: »

First off, wow, Wow, WOW. That looks so cool (and must have taken a fair amount of time). I'd be interested to know what you have planned for the rest of it, will the bay at the bottom function like a moon pool? What will the circle things' function be?

I have been doing a bit every day,
The bay will be placed ahead, somewhere along the middle. It will have the capacity for two vehicles, Seamoth or PRAWN.
To explain you the function of the area at the bottom i have to go around some of the concepts.

The nuclear reactor produces electricity and hidrogen, both these elements can be used to power the V07. In the bottom area are batteries and capacitors used to stored the produced electricity for later usage.
I have yet to model the hatches, stairs, and the other metallic platforms, i will be making them modular so i can add them as needed. The blue transparent areas are the ballast tanks, in the middle (in red) are the maintenance nacelles, much like the Cyclops there will be two hatch doors on each side of the wall.

That's not how nuclear reactors work. A reactor uses critical nuclear material to generate lots of heat, which creates steam, which drives a turbine. It's a bit like a nuclear bomb, except very controlled as opposed to going boom.

You can use the electricity from the turbine to electrolyse water, sure. But reactors only produce heat.

0x6A7232 · November 2016

EvilSmoo wrote: »

WSBurns wrote: »

crimsontwilight wrote: »

First off, wow, Wow, WOW. That looks so cool (and must have taken a fair amount of time). I'd be interested to know what you have planned for the rest of it, will the bay at the bottom function like a moon pool? What will the circle things' function be?

I have been doing a bit every day,
The bay will be placed ahead, somewhere along the middle. It will have the capacity for two vehicles, Seamoth or PRAWN.
To explain you the function of the area at the bottom i have to go around some of the concepts.

The nuclear reactor produces electricity and hidrogen, both these elements can be used to power the V07. In the bottom area are batteries and capacitors used to stored the produced electricity for later usage.
I have yet to model the hatches, stairs, and the other metallic platforms, i will be making them modular so i can add them as needed. The blue transparent areas are the ballast tanks, in the middle (in red) are the maintenance nacelles, much like the Cyclops there will be two hatch doors on each side of the wall.

That's not how nuclear reactors work. A reactor uses critical nuclear material to generate lots of heat, which creates steam, which drives a turbine. It's a bit like a nuclear bomb, except very controlled as opposed to going boom.

You can use the electricity from the turbine to electrolyse water, sure. But reactors only produce heat.

IIRC and Helium 3 - Helium 3 fusion reaction could directly produce electricity, but that's way out into the theoretical future (we can't even get deuterium- whatever fusion right so far).

Shambanation · November 2016

EvilSmoo wrote: »

WSBurns wrote: »

crimsontwilight wrote: »

First off, wow, Wow, WOW. That looks so cool (and must have taken a fair amount of time). I'd be interested to know what you have planned for the rest of it, will the bay at the bottom function like a moon pool? What will the circle things' function be?

I have been doing a bit every day,
The bay will be placed ahead, somewhere along the middle. It will have the capacity for two vehicles, Seamoth or PRAWN.
To explain you the function of the area at the bottom i have to go around some of the concepts.

The nuclear reactor produces electricity and hidrogen, both these elements can be used to power the V07. In the bottom area are batteries and capacitors used to stored the produced electricity for later usage.
I have yet to model the hatches, stairs, and the other metallic platforms, i will be making them modular so i can add them as needed. The blue transparent areas are the ballast tanks, in the middle (in red) are the maintenance nacelles, much like the Cyclops there will be two hatch doors on each side of the wall.

That's not how nuclear reactors work. A reactor uses critical nuclear material to generate lots of heat, which creates steam, which drives a turbine. It's a bit like a nuclear bomb, except very controlled as opposed to going boom.

You can use the electricity from the turbine to electrolyse water, sure. But reactors only produce heat.

All very true, but not entirely important given some of the technologies that already exist in the game. I'm sure the OP was implying the electricity and hydrogen as bi-products just for the sake of simplicity. This project is coming along really well. Ill be following it going forward.

EvilSmoo · November 2016

Shambanation wrote: »

EvilSmoo wrote: »

WSBurns wrote: »

crimsontwilight wrote: »

First off, wow, Wow, WOW. That looks so cool (and must have taken a fair amount of time). I'd be interested to know what you have planned for the rest of it, will the bay at the bottom function like a moon pool? What will the circle things' function be?

I have been doing a bit every day,
The bay will be placed ahead, somewhere along the middle. It will have the capacity for two vehicles, Seamoth or PRAWN.
To explain you the function of the area at the bottom i have to go around some of the concepts.

The nuclear reactor produces electricity and hidrogen, both these elements can be used to power the V07. In the bottom area are batteries and capacitors used to stored the produced electricity for later usage.
I have yet to model the hatches, stairs, and the other metallic platforms, i will be making them modular so i can add them as needed. The blue transparent areas are the ballast tanks, in the middle (in red) are the maintenance nacelles, much like the Cyclops there will be two hatch doors on each side of the wall.

That's not how nuclear reactors work. A reactor uses critical nuclear material to generate lots of heat, which creates steam, which drives a turbine. It's a bit like a nuclear bomb, except very controlled as opposed to going boom.

You can use the electricity from the turbine to electrolyse water, sure. But reactors only produce heat.

All very true, but not entirely important given some of the technologies that already exist in the game. I'm sure the OP was implying the electricity and hydrogen as bi-products just for the sake of simplicity. This project is coming along really well. Ill be following it going forward.

Easy way out would be to just call it a mini-dark matter reactor. That's not a real thing, so you can say it works however you like. Precursor tech is also there to help you hand-wave away physics as needed.

WSBurns · December 2016

Hi to all the handful of folks still following this thread, just wanted to post a few more pictures on what is my view on the Aft section of this super sexy Sub.
And since its so sexy i decided to make it even sexier and so i took two hours of my life to model a super sexy propeller. (I dare you say otherwise).

The parts have been made distinguishable with colour material attributes, its not texture yet.

I have made the ballast tanks and outer hull invisible in the second image so you can have a glimpse of the reactor and engine room. I took some time around the engineering section and made some serious retopology to remove double faces, edges and missed vertices, so all is solid now.

Im already at 1500+ modelled parts... but hey ...who´s counting...and I still have to add some doors and panels and place some catwalks around the deposits, power storage area and rear "transmission" room, still haven't figured a proper name for it.

Crew quarters and docking bays for 4 vehicles have already been sketched on paper but are in stage of early development.

Also, added closing hatches with retractable ladders, this is how they would work if they were to be animated...someday...

Fell free to comment and give relevant input, i let to you folks to figure out the inner works of this massive engine.

So with no further due here are some none rendered images, just straight out of the workbench, i hope you guys enjoy.

Ottius · December 2016

Um, guys, why do we need a bigger sub? Cyclops is already too big to navigate in most non-surface areas.

subnauticambrian · December 2016

Ottius wrote: »

Um, guys, why do we need a bigger sub? Cyclops is already too big to navigate in most non-surface areas.

see this thread for one of the proposed applications.

WSBurns · December 2016

Well to be honest im not too worried about a future game expansion/s, right now i just wanted to make something that would look like Star Wars cutaways, to achieve this i must add a lot of details (aka Greebles). the model im working on would not be suited to use in game, the file is already too large and im adding details like bulkheads which would never show up in a game model. It could however be used in the future as a concept reference to build a playable 3D model. I have already modelled the exterior hull with some level of resemblance to the original concept art by Pat Presley. I started with a very similar form only to soon discover that his model is too narrow, this would pose several problems later on once i got to model the interior, especially around the docking area. So i decide to make it slightly larger in the underbelly. To me the "endgame" is to 3D print the external hull and do some really nice 3000x2000 pixel cutaway renders that i will be posting here in a near future.

subnauticambrian · January 2017

Thread necro, because I have a question:
@WSBurns, What software are you using, and have you 3D printed the sub yet?

TheRelmLord · January 2017

Dear Staff. Don't Close This Thread. We Need To Know. And We Need To See. The Great Submarine. And I'm Wanting It To Survive.

zetachron · January 2017

Man, I'd love to buy a professional model of that submarine. I just can't get clear with the shape of the cyclops.

Maybe it would be possible to drop the pressure module system at all in favor of alternate depth sub models, as the whole game has only 3 big depth limits right now:

old - seamoth - titanium & glass - max depth 300m
NEW? - hardened seamoth - plasteel & transparent alu - heat absorb 20°, max depth 900m
(or just the same model with other surface look)

old - cyclops - plasteel & transparent alu - heat absorb 20°, max depth 900m
<<<NEW>>> - precursor upgraded cyclops = v07 sub - obsidian & kyanite glass - heat absorb 50°, max depth 1700m

old - prawn - plasteel & transparent alu - heat absorb 20°, max depth 900m
NEW? - precursor upgraded prawn - obsidian & kyanite glass - heat absorb 50°, max depth 1700m
(or just the same model with other surface look)

WSBurns · January 2017

My 3d Swiss army knife includes Lightwave (not the newest version) and 3D Coat (also not the latest), several others mostly for retopology, ultimate unwrapper for texturing.
3d Printer wise, haven't choose one yet, i like the prusa i3 mk2 and i like the tevo black widow, still haven't figured out what i will get, i like the challenge of building something and loosing my patience.
Maybe i just buy a cheap anet a8 ($155) and then i use it to build my own larger 3d printer version, there are some very interesting designs in thingiverse made from openbuilds.com aluminium extrusions.

PS:
Anyway, my tools are a bit outdated, if i were to start using a new modelling tool, i would move to Modo all the others pale in comparison. And i may even do that once i stop being lazy.

The making of Beluga V07

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