Making a unified mesh of this item was very frustrating. Repeated crashes. Models that meshed well refused to do so later when the model was reopened. Unexpected mesh behaviour was also seen - objects that were separate would sometimes mesh together. Seams where they should not be. I remade the whole model from scratch three times before I could export a satisfactory mesh.
Oh for a single rectangular trim object that can do outside body. This would save so much anguish.
When I finally did get the mesh to work how I wanted, I was very happy with the mesh. I'd like to have given the edge of the screen greater curvature to match the original, but that would have made the other seams too rounded. I tried to do it in SILO but it was proving problematic so I left it as it was.
The exported mesh was worked on in Strata 3D, textured up and combined with a space station model which was added as a spherical environment using an equirectangular projection from six cube views of the space station. I did it like this purely to save computing the entire space station with all its reflections and transparency for each frame of the animation.
The animation shows a Groboto turntable animation which plays on the PSA's screen as the bot moves about. No music by PSYbn this time - he's in Cali visiting his ancient father. I'll get him to do some real music to accompany the bot when he returns next week.
Animation - NASA Personal Satelllite Assistant - PSA
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