Krischan1712 Posted May 4, 2018 More Images The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. A self-contained world five miles long, located in neutral territory. A place of commerce and diplomacy for a quarter of a million humans and aliens. A shining beacon in space, all alone in the night. It was the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind, the year the Great War came upon us all. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2259. The name of the place is Babylon 5. About Babylon 5 Babylon 5 was a TV-series, running from 1994 to 1998. It centers around a large space station (8km long), with an epic story spanning 5 seasons. Babylon 5 is the fifth of the Babylon stations, with the first three being destroyed during construction, and the fourth vanishing when it was completed. The station was build as a place for all the races to gather and settle their differences peacefully, and is home to over 250.000 humans and aliens. The main cylinder of the station is hollow and constantly rotates, generated gravitation on the inside. The back of the station is used for industry and power generation. About the model The model is 85cm long, the cylinder is around 10cm in diameter, and its height is 28cm at its highest point. About 2200 parts are used. It took about two months to design, and another month getting the parts, building it and gradually improving it. I've also created an animation to give you a better impression: A few notes to about the video: The models of the Hyperion Cruiser and Starfuries are created by Christopher Deck of http://www.deckdesigns.de, the model of the Centauri Vorchan ship is created by ink panther at http://www.moc-pages.com/moc.php/413053, all other models are created by me. The model of the station in the video is a modified version to allow it to rotate, the model in real life is not able to do so. Best regards, Christian Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NathanR Posted May 4, 2018 Wow, that is a beautiful model. The video you made was fantastic, how did you create the animation sequences? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
deraven Posted May 4, 2018 Lovely build, and outstanding video! Fun to see all that B5 stuff brick-ified, and solid animation. Your micro/nano Starfury fighters are great. Does the core of the physical bricks model actually rotate? I assume not given the limited support structure at that scale (and the limitations of gravity), but I'm curious if that was something you had designed in or just did for the video. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Krischan1712 Posted May 4, 2018 Thank you! The animation was done by converting the LDD/Stud.io files to 3d meshes using Mecabrick, and then animating them in AWS Sumerian. I had to split the station and the cruiser up, so I could rotate a part of it. The physical station is not able to rotate (that would be quite a challenge, considering the scale and the fact the original was never designed to be used in gravity). However the mid-section of the cruiser does rotate in the physical model. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Littleworlds Posted May 4, 2018 That video really gave me shivers. Great to see B5 is still loved and that it inspires people to build such beautiful models. Excellent work. And more please! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
manglegrat Posted May 4, 2018 Very cool! I've been working on a B5 station myself for a few months in LDD, initially based on the Saturn V cylinders (with a Lowell sphere for the docking/C&C section), though I can't find a decent schematics to base the key dimensions on that'll allow me to settle on the right lengths & diameters... You seem to have pretty much nailed it, though! What did you use to get your proportions looking so good? Any specific reference materials, or just eyeballing it from pics, etc? If I ever figure out the correct diameters for the varying sections on my attempt, it'll likely be far too big to build. I'll probably still be trying to get it to work years from now! I think your approach to all those curves works great, and that animation is awesome! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bamsham363 Posted May 4, 2018 B5 forever, great moc, would look good on my shelf too Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Krischan1712 Posted May 5, 2018 9 hours ago, manglegrat said: Very cool! I've been working on a B5 station myself for a few months in LDD, initially based on the Saturn V cylinders (with a Lowell sphere for the docking/C&C section), though I can't find a decent schematics to base the key dimensions on that'll allow me to settle on the right lengths & diameters... You seem to have pretty much nailed it, though! What did you use to get your proportions looking so good? Any specific reference materials, or just eyeballing it from pics, etc? If I ever figure out the correct diameters for the varying sections on my attempt, it'll likely be far too big to build. I'll probably still be trying to get it to work years from now! I think your approach to all those curves works great, and that animation is awesome! Hey, I used this as a reference: https://galen82.deviantart.com/art/Babylon-5-Side-Profile-211508396 I'm not sure how precise it is (some colors are definitively off), but since it has a nice 2D view of the station, I could trace the outline in LDD/Stud.io. At first I tried to replicate the Saturn V cylinder aswell, but I just couldn't get the different transistions in diameter to look acceptable. But good luck to you, I think it would look much better without the gaps in the surface. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
manglegrat Posted May 5, 2018 7 hours ago, Krischan1712 said: Hey, I used this as a reference: https://galen82.deviantart.com/art/Babylon-5-Side-Profile-211508396 I'm not sure how precise it is (some colors are definitively off), but since it has a nice 2D view of the station, I could trace the outline in LDD/Stud.io. At first I tried to replicate the Saturn V cylinder aswell, but I just couldn't get the different transistions in diameter to look acceptable. But good luck to you, I think it would look much better without the gaps in the surface. Thanks for the link! A lot of the renders I've been finding are at an angle, so it's great to have a side profile for once. I've been trying to find something like blueprints with actual (well, fake, but you get what I mean) sizes on it, but I've been SOL. As for precision, a bit of artistic interpretation is all good. As well as the Saturn V approach (let's call that 4- or 8-sided), I've looked at 5- and 6-sided cylinder designs (variations of this) that allow a wider range of diameters... I'm still in the prototyping stages, with lots of problems still to solve! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
inkpanther Posted May 5, 2018 8 hours ago, manglegrat said: Thanks for the link! A lot of the renders I've been finding are at an angle, so it's great to have a side profile for once. I've been trying to find something like blueprints with actual (well, fake, but you get what I mean) sizes on it, but I've been SOL. https://imgur.com/a/dX9qdiu Here, maybe some of those will help. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
manglegrat Posted May 6, 2018 2 hours ago, inkpanther said: https://imgur.com/a/dX9qdiu Here, maybe some of those will help. Sweet! Muchas Gracias (it being Cinco de Mayo)... Sheet #2 has a list of key dimensions on it, exactly the sort of info I was hoping to find - thanks @inkpanther! Now to translate it to buildable relative stud and plate measurements... I had actually seen those in image search results a while ago, but I guess I only skimmed through them at the time, really looking for the dimensions to be indicated on them (like an actual engineering drawing) not listed separately, and moved on when I didn't see what I expected. What a maroon... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Captain_Quinn Posted May 16, 2018 It wouldn't be a big surprise to know that along with the Warlock class Dreadnought, I've been trying to design some cylinders in order to make an attempt at building the station eventually. My current winning prototype is a combination of 12 sided and 16 sided 'cylinders' using a combination of technic 1x6 bricks and 2x2 plates with two pin holes on the sides. I'm having to get creative with the use of axles, technic bushes and the right angles in order to build a suitable internal framework. The incompatibilities between system bricks and technic elements is really showing itself to be a challenge here. This began with an experiment in trying to motorise the Omega Class Destroyer with a set of planetary gears, and as that got out of control, grew into the rotating section. I'm having serious doubts about the scale so far, as I'd be looking at nearly 2mtrs length for the whole station, and about 1.2mtr for the rotating cylinder. I have an idea about integrating a stand into the design (i.e. instead of the model and stand being separate, like with the UCS X-Wing, Y-Wing, etc, having it as part of the internal frame, like with the Star Destroyers) and using it to rotate the cylinder... that may limit the influence of gravity and provide a more stable mechanism for rotation Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lethke Posted May 24, 2018 Very very impressive. Would look realy neat on a shelf. I have got the Revell kit somewhere. Never got around to building it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kingfisher Posted June 4, 2018 Great animation; it must have taken almost as much time to create that as it did the model itself. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
