Behind the Scenes: Titan Exploration Rover

Hi everyone! My name is Sergey Panayev, I'm living in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, and I'm a 3D artist. I’ve been a Blender user for about 5 years.

I also, as most people did, began learning Blender from YouTube tutorials. Sometimes I tried to make my own concepts. Recently, I also often use Substance Painter to texture my models.

Inspiration

I had started to work with a planet concept, for which I would create a rover. I chose Saturn's moon, Titan. After reviewing the information regarding this moon (its atmosphere, surface, etc.) and considering its features, I tried to create a believable vehicle. My idea was to create an exploration rover, which could explore the atmosphere and surface of this moon.

Tools

For this work I used:

• Blender 2.82 to create the entire scene, composite and render
• Substance Painter to texture the model
• Photoshop to create some decals for the model and post-processing

References

I was looking for many reference images and tried to find the most suitable ones.

Modeling

I started to create primary shapes and then I divided them into 4 parts.

I determined that a chassis that was on tracks with a torsion suspension would be most suitable and effective for this vehicle.

Then I moved on to create secondary shapes. I tried to correctly distribute details so that they fit the model. I also began to add some asymmetrical objects such as terrain and atmosphere scanners.

Final mesh:

UV Mapping

After I had finished modeling, I started to prepare the model for texturing, which was the biggest puzzle. :) The model has many details.

I had to divide the model into separate meshes and after that I unwrapped it.

I wanted to make it as correct as possible to avoid creating any artifacts or distortion.

Shading and Texturing

The model was textured in Substance Painter. I also used Photoshop for creating some signs and decals. My mission was to create realistic-looking lightweight, composite materials.

Rendering and Compositing

Below is my raw render; I thought it looked too soft.

I used the native Blender compositor to add some sharpness and a glare effect.

And finally, below is my final image with post-processing done in Photoshop. I used it for color correction and to add some rain and a cryovolcano effect.

Thanks for reading!

Hardware

• CPU-Intel Core i5-3470
• GPU-Nvidia GeForce GTX 650ti
• 8GB RAM

About the Author

Sergey Panayev, 3D Artist