A long way down
A little project I’ve been wanting to do for a while and with a lot of room for expansion! I started modelling the ISS Cupola module from a fisheye perspective for a bit of a challenge and slight artistic licence. (It’s actually a lot more angular).
With this project I took my time to look at little details such as all the bolts and screws, the shutters on two of the windows and the blue handles. There is so much detail and individual elements on the actual ISS and Cupola modules I could have spent a lot more time adding bits and pieces to the shot but I wanted to find a good balance between time spent modelling and creating enough detail to make the shot believable.
I textured a sphere to act as the earth with textures from a NASA database and put a lot of mutation blur on the rotation for a stylized time lapse effect. This sphere was given its own Redshift light so I could control the illumination of the planet separately to the Cupola.
I also added a separate module of the ISS on the left side which received a basic metal texture and a NASA logo. This module was there to add a little bit of depth to the scene and a slight hint of parallax with the camera movement. The same can be said for the solar panel I added on the right side of the shot.
In the shading I added some imperfections to the outer glass just to break up some of the details and give an interesting haze to the edges of the planet.
By tweaking the lighting and the PostFX in Redshift to give a nice lens flare off the inside of the Cupola I think I have quite a cool little shot!
As always, a tidy scene file, is a happy scene file!