Project Hail Mary - Going Centrifugal

I wanted to animate the sequence where the ship converts from zero G mode to centrifugal mode simulating 1.0G earth gravity. This is quite nicely explained in the book and so this is timed out as best I can from the description. And if you haven't read Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. GO DO IT!
Video is a little noisy, it took two days to render so I may revisit this again.

[@coryphefish]

Amaze! You say there are images in light-book, question? Sounds in sound-book are good. Now must obtain light-book.

[@makeshake9582]

Hey rocky!

[@JustinEames]

love love love!

[@indalcecio]

Fist my bump!

[@zapzan8894]

Amaza amaze amaze

[@kumudgautam9543]

Happy happy happy

[@digitexstudios5634]

“Normally you not stupid. Why stupid question?”

[@dasdom]

“When last sleep question? You sleep, I watch”

[@MrGaugeBoson]

One of the best books in a long time.

[@6KIWIDino5]

My favorite ever!!

[@barkingsheltie]

I so agree.

[@vincentmartin9667]

Darn good.

[@MavericksDrone]

I concur..a superb read.

[@Wurtoz9643]

Good good good!

[@Lakehouseobust]

Proof that we are 100% nerds, and I love it!

[@panamike6178]

I couldn't figure out what this could like. Thanks! I'm in the middle of listening to the book and just got to the part about the ship design. Thanks

[@nathanwerth2094]

These are fantastic visualizations. Thank you so much for making it! You rock, Mat.

[@DenisTheMennnace]

Amaze. Fist my bump!

[@preferredimage]

"It's just fist bump, fist bump!" ;)

[@justinmckeiver7070]

Thanks for this! I was trying to explain this to my 10 year old and words just weren't cutting it.

[@derpydane]

Thanks for the visualization. Seeing this reinforces what I was already thinking. It would be extremely tricky to get this spun up without a force imbalance just tearing the whole thing apart.

[@preferredimage]

I did a better looking follow-up. kzbin.info/www/bejne/npLdinaLebCJabs . But yeah, I think the cables might be the weak point in all this. one bit of slack and you'd start to get some crazy oscillations!

[@RobbedTheBank]

Beautiful! It's such a crazy idea , I didn't really understand it in the book (I listened to the audiobook which had the disadvantage of missing out on the diagrams at the start of the printed version). Crazy solution but seems plausible enough!

[@RS-cz4oq]

There are diagrams in the print book? Darn it, I only got the audio version

[@bonelesskebab2041]

I can only imagine how Rocky looks at this from his own ship and thinks to himself: "wtf is this guy even doing?"

[@preferredimage]

I did a basic rocky test over on reddit. www.reddit.com/r/ProjectHailMary/comments/o26trb/last_one_for_tonight_rocky_test/

[@therocketman8933]

Hahaha yeah

[@PaleBlueDot946]

Yeah he must be so confused since even be starts doing it

[@berkiaskyclan2948]

Amaze amaze amaze

[@flowerperson581]

Love that you accounted for the intermediate axis theorem here by having it rotate about the long axis. Good work. I think you got the center of mass wrong (I think) - shouldn't it be way closer to the heavier cargo section? It looks like it's dead in the middle here but maybe that's just me. Also I think the book gives a number for the rate at which it should rotate and it should be much slower than shown here. A little "fast forward" icon saying like "20x speed" or whatever the actual number would be might help. Regardless this is an amazing animation and I love it. Especially the ending saying "amaze!" and the little text pop-ups throughout. Phenomenal work.

[@preferredimage]

Thanks. I thought I'd got all the distances and rotation speeds down correct from the book. 104m seperation and a rotational speed of 20.7 degrees per second. rechecked the scene file and it seems to check out. I ran it by Andy Weir and he likes it so I'll go with that.

[@KDHalliday]

@@preferredimage I love how you just casually mention that you showed the author of the book your animation and that he liked it 🤣

[@preferredimage]

@@KDHalliday Well I've heard over the years that Andy is an approachable guy and not wanting to badger him about things I sent a few short concise DMs about the ship design with questions. he replied and once I sent over a final image / animation for approval he said it looked like what he'd written. He really is a nice guy!

[@TK-zf7sx]

Isaac, I thought the same thing. At a very rough guess, the crew section appears to be about 1/7 or 1/8 the size of the engine section. If their masses are roughly similar to those ratios, I'd expect the center of rotation to be much closer to the engine section. However, I couldn't even begin to do any sort of animation, much less something this sophisticated. Doing it against the star field is a bonus. I'm not going to quibble about where the center might be, when I'm sitting here in awe of the overall effect.

[@paullowell1305]

Good, good, good!

[@cjmartinez684]

Now we need one of Rocky’s ship.

[@InnerRevolutionProject]

Wow!! Thank you! I am listening to the audio book and I was pretty confused when this part got explained without any pictures. This video helps a lot to understand what exactly is going on when the main character actives the artificial gravity.

[@preferredimage]

Glad you like it. If you grab the amazon ebook of it, there's some diagrams at the beginning which is how I knew what the ship looks like and how it moves.

[@InnerRevolutionProject]

@@preferredimage I see. That probably makes it easier to understand.

[@BearmanBob]

I'm at the part where blip a has proposed a bridge to hail Mary and had to pause to go to bed, but this will help with me continuing to listen to it in the morning

[@SpiderElf-jz6se]

The book has a depiction of the ship

[@RichardSanchez137]

Now make blip A!

[@preferredimage]

I did! www.reddit.com/r/ProjectHailMary/comments/o16oir/some_images_of_wip_blipa_next_to_the_hm/

[@Ndstars1]

Fist me!

[@preferredimage]

'It's fist bump, just fist bump!'

[@ijustmakegamesnow906]

Great. now do Rocky dancing and waving

[@preferredimage]

I did a quick test over on the subreddit. www.reddit.com/r/ProjectHailMary/comments/o26trb/last_one_for_tonight_rocky_test/

[@ijustmakegamesnow906]

@@preferredimage Oh my god, dude, YOU RULE!!!! I was actually just kidding, but that looked GREAT! I think that was better than the ship animation. I'm an animator myself, and i'm REALLY impressed, honestly doing animation with that many legs is really hard. It's hard to just do TWO. But that was awesome! You ROCK!!!

[@preferredimage]

@@ijustmakegamesnow906 Cheers! yeah 5x IK/FK chains all feeding back to the body, getting the spider like motion was pretty tough. I guess I need to put some clothes on him next and a tool belt. cloth sim, sheesh!

[@reecypontiff]

Thanks for this! I'm reading the book and was confused as heck by the description of the separation and rotation of the ship.

[@ChrisBri77on]

listening to the audiobook and I cannot begin to imagine how Andy Weir could have reasonably described this operation in words alone. That is an absolute bastard of a design and I love it for the novelty and the problem solving showcased, but by GOD is it ugly as sin xD.

[@MasonWang-p7d]

Good. proud. I am scary space monster. You are leaky space blob

[@MasonWang-p7d]

I liked my own comment

[@anuradhapriyankara5226]

Amaze! Amaze! Human thinking machine make not real light show real light show, question?

[@themardbard9096]

I adore the music choice for this!

[@WeAreAllHumanToo]

Amaze amaze amaze! You did such a good job on the 3D models!

[@TimDownsAnimation]

JAZZ HANDS! I was just starting to look up reference and kitbashes for my own model of the HM. This is so sleek, and I like the way you filled the gaps between the tanks. I envisioned it as something more "NASA-punk" which is apparently a thing lol. The shiny metal descriptions of the book made me think of the destiny module on the ISS or the apollo command/service modules with all the greebles and handholds-- all scaled way up, of course. I also kept wondering what the heck a spin drive RCS thruster would even look like. just little circles all over? Anyway, this is awesome! Subscribing just for this!

[@preferredimage]

Thanks for the comment! yeah. the HM seemed to me like a rush job. get it done and get it launched. so nothing that wasn't essential. like paint.

[@RS-cz4oq]

Very cool video, thanks for making it! But looking at that design you'd think Stratt would have insisted on more than just two connecting cables, she's so big into reliability she would have made them put in 6 cables at least around the crew section circumference :)

[@dumm-edumders2690]

“Amaze, now science tool work, amaze!”

[@XBlueBeam]

"Amaze, Amaze Amaze!"

[@davs1588]

Increible, amazing, great design and theorically possible....

[@QualiLap]

Fist my bump!

[@glenwitteman2585]

One of my favorite books ever. I have been reading since age 4 and am now 74. I don't take the making of this into a movie lightly. Please please please. Don't let them screw it up. Our character that plays opposite Grace is too precious to mess up. Please let them have enough money and time to tell the story right. I will be patient. I am not sure how, but I will. Amaze.

[@weaponizedglitter69]

I agree. Amaze. Fist my bump

[@sicinfit1886]

I so agree. I am 68 and this has to be one of my favorite sci books ever. Please don't let Hollywood just make it all about Ryan Gosling...Ryland Grace is sort of a wimp, I'm sorry but it is what it is.

[@garyacker7388]

Now I understand how the ship rotates. Thanks 👍

[@sentino68]

Awesome! I was reading this part today and it looks just as I imagined it. I just thought that the center of mass would be the actual engines. I guess the cable distance makes the spin wider and thus have less impact on the crew. Grace.

[@preferredimage]

I actually did a version 2 which addresses this. it was discussed although not in the book about the mass of all that fuel meaning the rotational centre would be nearer the tanks than the main ship. Here's a link. Glad you liked it! kzbin.info/www/bejne/npLdinaLebCJabs

[@peterkapitola2401]

Nice animation! Though I always thought it would make more sense to start the ship spinning a bit while the two parts were still attached. That way, you could use the centrifugal force to help keep the cables taut as you spooled them out. Otherwise what is pushing the crew section away from the fuel and engines section? Astrophage thrusters would be pointing at your own ship. I guess they had some gas thrusters for that purpose?

[@Wurtoz9643]

I think they can gimbal the attitude thrusters possibly to point them away from the ship at a ~45° angle

[@kaleaditya55]

"Good good good!"

[@madragonse]

Wrong point of balance

[@WeirdProductionss]

How does this fare for spider people

[@Nangbubi]

This is awesome! Thank you!

[@Doofwarrior88]

Jazz hands

[@SpiderElf-jz6se]

I’m gonna be super hyped if project Hail Mary becomes a movie just like the Martian

[@brookehovas3676]

it is Ryan gosling is set to be the lead

[@Wurtoz9643]

@@brookehovas3676ryan goo sling

[@wilsonpereira1307]

FANTASTIC!

[@adegokelukmon7833]

Good good good.

[@lindapirolli2133]

yes yes yes

[@alexmackinnon5810]

Love it, well done.

[@evil6214]

Stanley Kubrik be like

[@tracysherwood6094]

Thanks! I had trouble picturing this as I read. Very helpful!

[@Wyatt125]

you know I kind of wish grace went back to earth at least for a small trip to surprise everyone then go to back to erid

[@GENIOSDELCODIGO]

La nave en el libro no gira de esa manera, porque el centro de gravedad esta corrido hacia el extremo con más masa!

[@zubarsky]

anyone else have an issue with the centrifuge on Earth theory that he was testing in the book. Things would not fill straight down if the centrifuge was on Earth. Thoughts. Nice job on the animation.

[@David_Burt_Art]

Depends on the angle that the room is set up at. It wouldn’t necessarily have to be flush or perpendicular to the floor, somewhere in between could increase gravity but keep things falling “down” (relative to the room). Check out the Tom Scott video about The Artificial Gravity Lab. If the room's "up" angled toward the centre of the spin, I’m pretty sure it would work. That combines earth gravity and centrifugal force.

[@Wurtoz9643]

@@David_Burt_Artalso good to keep in mind that he discarded the theory after thinking about it

[@flutjaker]

Why does the passanger module has to flip?

[@peterkapitola2401]

Because the apparent "gravity" is acting towards the outside of the circle. If you didn't flip, it would feel like gravity was pulling you towards the roof. And when the engines are running, the acceleration is the other way. So it has to flip. I hope that make sense.

[@flutjaker]

@@peterkapitola2401 it does! Thank you very much.

[@Wyatt125]

Is this in ksp question?

[@theflightguy8726]

No rocky, this is a render. New word, render. It means…. in fact, that’s too hard to explain, nevermind. Fancy human computer thing.

[@venerexate1841]

We totally aren't taking notes on how this ship works for our future evil plans... he huh.

[@barkingsheltie]

This is great Mat! Thank thank thank! What software did you use? I might have a go at this. Thank you!

[@preferredimage]

*jazz hands* This was done in Lightwave 3D but I've been thinking about doing a less literal verison in blender....

[@LannaSelayaran]

Wow! It’s amazing 🤩

[@madman5710]

How would it account for the decrease in mass after using the fuel?

[@Wurtoz9643]

The design likely is made so that at maximum extension of the cables it will create 1g when they are completely empty

[@TomorrowSalad]

That’s really cool

[@MrNed21]

ha ha spaceship go spinnnnn

[@jeffkeyz]

I kinda felt like just the nose cone would rotate, not the whole ship including the astrophage tanks. Beautiful work though.

[@preferredimage]

Have a look in the book, there's diagrams.

[@mryee9001]

the nose would rotate? as in roll or pitch roll would push them to the walls pitch would have one half of the ships gravity a different direction or weaker in one bit

[@ulrikahaggard9923]

@@preferredimage I thought the entire ship would rotate on y axis and not the x axis

[@kaleaditya55]

Same here

[@alexnguyen5665]

Is Project hail mary scientifically accurate? would appreciate a response

[@preferredimage]

Apart from the actual energy source, I believe so, yes. Andy Weir takes his science very seriously in all his books.

[@alexnguyen5665]

@@preferredimage the energy source is inaccurate?

[@rundavidrun76]

@@alexnguyen5665 Astrophage is not real, so far as we know.

[@Wurtoz9643]

@@rundavidrun76so far as we hope

[@AndrewCZ47]

​@@Wurtoz9643 Depends... imagine it exists and current solar output is the equilibrium state for it. Then, instead of an extinction level crisis, you'd have the ultimate solution to energy storage and the way to make us at least a system wide civilization like in The Expanse.

[@AstroPlayser]

Tap, tap, tap, *jazz hands*