##ABOUT Use your imagination as an artist to depict dreams and adventures -- rather than spend weeks pushing and pulling vertices to reproduce essentially the same models artists all across the world will also create. If we collaborate over time as a community we can maintain a library of free high-resolution Creative Commons models -- UV mapped, textured, and rigged -- to inspire the dreams and adventures of humanity for generations.
Models from the archive can be repurposed for commercial use in stereoscopic VR, 3D prints, toys, games, museum and cinematic renderings, on and on -- forever. The end result: professional realistic art set off-Earth to inspire the settlement of our solar system. Professionals using such models could return incrementally improved work to the Creative Commons pool. These free evolving CC models will be of higher quality and available for a wider variety of uses than any single commercial entity could afford to make — including SpaceX, Framestore, you.
Importantly these models will also be realistic and technically literate -- depicting SpaceX, Planet Labs, Planetary Resources, Lockheed Martin and similar companies -- expanding civilization through our solar system. Rather than suffer technically illiterate depictions of off-Earth settlement — like The Martian’s Ares — films and games and media of all sorts could use these free basic models based upon real world technology -- which you contribute to. Depicting SpaceX. On Mars. Making the Interplanetary Transport System intuitive, widely known, expected.
##FAQ Can we use the models for commercial work? Do whatever you want with them. If you return improved versions that would be helpful. (Just don't sell the original starter models unless you have either updated them significantly or are their original creator...though even that's really not a big deal. Just contribute.)
Are artists recognized for their contributions? Can we display models we've improved in our own personal portfolios? Sure. Please join the Mars Artists Community, be proud of your contributions. Even if you've only marginally improved a model others have also contributed to, just note your specific contributions in your portfolio -- for example with before/after shots.
Can we upload models not made in Maya? Sure. If you do not have access to Maya please consider exporting your work as .obj or .stl files. (Alternatively just upload whatever format is easiest for you...there are many free online file conversion services others can use.) If you would like to learn Maya, Autodesk offers free 30 day trials and student versions here: http://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software/maya
What if we don't know Maya? Excellent free tutorials are available through Autodesk itself and of course via YouTube. (Don't worry too much about learning the entire Maya toolset/workflow...just learn what you need for immediate tasks at hand. If you're new, focus on polygon/SubD modeling, then texturing, file referencing, and rendering. Do not waste your time learning animation and particle effects before you've created a beautiful complex scene with gorgeous textures -- technology may improve by the time you decide to animate it, if at all.
##To Do Start a project or join one then improve a component of the team's model. For example, if you would like to render the latest ITS model, consider contributing back a portion of it which you have improved -- such as its engines, windows, interiors, or displacement maps -- so that with each iteration of higher-quality textures and geometry our shared model will incrementally improve over time. Many components -- from decals to thrusters -- may be exported for reuse in future visualizations as real-world technology evolves. Decades from now an artist may use high res .psd texture maps from a Bigelow Hab model created in 2017 to illustrate brochures for Disney Cruise Line tickets in 2040. Or someone might become a specialist in solar panels, creating exquisite high-resolution models of solar panels which can be referenced into thousands of different scenes, for hundreds of different vehicles, crafts, and habs. All at a detail far greater than any single project can afford. And all promoting realistic, near-term, technologically literate space development.
By providing an open, free, well-documented archive for artists to share work which would otherwise die on a hard drive at the end of a particular commercial projects, we can enable future individual artists and well-established studios to more easily illustrate their own unique imagination at a quality much higher than any one person or studio can attain. The end result: vibrant, realistic depiction of civilization expanding through our universe.
##Licenses for All Material on this Site... CC0 Use it, abuse it. (Of course we'd appreciate it if you add your own models for vehicles, suits, habs and such to help maintain a permanent open-source repository. After your commercial project is completed, why let your work die on a hard drive? Why not sell your models on Turbosquid then drop a copy here for free use by fellow artists for decades -- who knows, maybe you or your studio will want to use a model similar to yours again years from now, and, by that time, it may have been updated and improved by dozens of artists for free!
##SIMILAR RESOURCES NASA 3D Resources
##SUGGESTIONS Any thoughts on how to improve this archive? Leave a note here or message our admin: @oceanbluesky