Project Autonomous Planetary/Lunar Rover Design

[unknown_orbiter]

Hello OF! This is my final model/texture result for my DGIV payload, the APLR. I still need to add animations and MMU interaction, like the MKSSAT. Here is the model in Orbiter:

The entire mesh is only 1865 Polys and made up of 8 textures. This will be my WIP thread for it, and I would love any suggestions for the mesh and/or textures! Thank you!

 

[Dambuster]

Very nice, I especially love the mesh! Two things that stand out to me are the texturing on the main body of the rover, and on the solar panels. Is there any way you could make either of those seem more 'realistic' somehow? They just look a bit odd to me.

 

[Buzz313th]

Looks great...

Are you hand drawing the textures, or are you pulling textures from images?

JB

 

[unknown_orbiter]

Very nice, I especially love the mesh! Two things that stand out to me are the texturing on the main body of the rover, and on the solar panels. Is there any way you could make either of those seem more 'realistic' somehow? They just look a bit odd to me.

Thanks! I tried to make the body's texture resolution as good as possible, but I may have to just reduce the size of the texture. The solar panels I think look really nice and high-res, and pretty realistic. Maybe you need to see the Rover in the sim to see the panels fully.
@ Buzz: Most of the textures are modified stock images, however some are custom-drawn such as the dish inside, and the internal compartment.

Now I need to get into the animation stage of the add-on. I want this thing to work exactly like the MKSSAT that comes with the default DGIV package. The MMU must grapple it, then the user must press a series of buttons (eg. "F12 7746 F11") in order to power up the payload, and then make the payload perform animations such as solar panel deployment etc. Can anyone direct me somewhere where I can find out how to do this? Thanks!