3D Models for the Vanderbilt Museum

Created by Azalea McAdam, Corey Allan, Mark Zimmardi and Nicholas Dey

3ds max 3d modeling Planets planetarium Comet Group Project Collaboration photoshop outer space microbiology

Halley's Comet.

Our client for this project was the Reichert Planetarium at the Vanderbilt Museum

We worked directly with Mr. Dave Bush, the Planetarium Director. We were tasked with creating 3D models of exoplanets/imagined worlds, a comet, and various microbial life. These models were to be used in the dome, which uses the DigitalSky2 software.

Our initial goal was to create 3D models of the TRAPPIST solar system, Halley's Comet, and 6 different microbes.

Our initial production plan.

We were able to meet all of our initial goals, and because we had a lot of extra time afterward, created extra models. We additionally made the K1287 and 75-ceti system's planets and 3 more microbes. Almost all of our models were used, minus the TRAPPIST system's star; the planetarium already had a star, so it wasn't needed.

The work including the extra models was divided as follows:

Corey: TRAPPIST Star, TRAPPIST-g, Red Blood Cells, COVID-19, Tardigrade and K2-187-c

Azalea: TRAPPIST-e, TRAPPIST-f, Vibrio Bacterium, Bacillus Bacterium, Streptococcus, 75-ceti-b, 75-ceti-c and K2-187-d

Mark: TRAPPIST-d, TRAPPIST-h, Amoeba, Spirochaetes Microbiology and K2-187-b

Nick: Halley's Comet, TRAPPIST-b, TRAPPIST-c, K2-187-e

K2-187 solar system.

75-ceti solar system.

As research, we visited NASA's website (https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/) to search for exoplanets to model and learn their properties. We also researched the various kinds of microbial life, in order to learn about a variety of different microorganisms and their appearances.

Our models were made with 3DS Max, and exported into .obj files. The textures were made by taking photos of various textured items and editing the textures in Photoshop.

TRAPPIST solar system.

There was a few different problems that occurred throughout this project. First, some of our planets' textures had visible seams on the model. We solved this by mirroring the textures in Photoshop, concealing the seams.

The COVID-19 model had issues working in the planetarium as well due to being very big, so the geometry was simplified.

Lastly, and most prominently, our the textures of the comet and microbes' models weren't showing up in the planetarium. We worked with Mr. Bush as well as the DigitalSky2 technical support team to figure out what was wrong, and were eventually able to fix it by removing the file paths in the .mtl files, changing the polygons on the models from rectangles to triangles, and deleting the spaces from file names.