Here is a 3D model I made of the RBMK reactor control room

[ElliotSmith]

Summary: The new HBO miniseries inspired me to use blender 3D to re-create the Chernobyl control room.

The HBO miniseries about Chernobyl inspired me use a 3D modeling program called Blender to re-create the RBMK-1000 reactor control room of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

It's about 95% done, it just needs some chairs, a large desk in the center of the room, and maybe some more textures and better lighting.

 

[ElliotSmith]

Here is a link where you can view the full-resolution screenshots.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/A9gQBq

 

[Janus]

Nice work. I've been recently reintroducing myself to using Blender for doing modeling. (I've had it for some time, I was just tending to use Moray and POV-ray more.) Lately I've been focusing more on using its animation features.

Was this done with the Blender or cycles render? I tend to use Blender rendering engine when it comes to animations as, on my computer, the cycles render is slow and it takes forever to generate all the frames. ( I did one 700+ frame animation with cycles that took weeks to completely render. Doing only so many frames overnight each day. At 24 frames per sec, that was a lot of time investment for a 30 sec animation, just for rendering.)

 

[ElliotSmith]

Nice work. I've been recently reintroducing myself to using Blender for doing modeling. (I've had it for some time, I was just tending to use Moray and POV-ray more.) Lately I've been focusing more on using its animation features.

Was this done with the Blender or cycles render? I tend to use Blender rendering engine when it comes to animations as, on my computer, the cycles render is slow and it takes forever to generate all the frames. ( I did one 700+ frame animation with cycles that took weeks to completely render. Doing only so many frames overnight each day. At 24 frames per sec, that was a lot of time investment for a 30 sec animation, just for rendering.)

It took around 5 minutes to render a single frame.

I'm using Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 CUDA processing.

And yes, it was rendered in cycles.

 

[Janus]

It took around 5 minutes to render a single frame.

I'm using Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 CUDA processing.

And yes, it was rendered in cycles.

By contrast just this, at a resolution of just 640x360, took 18 min on my dinosaur of a computer with cycles.

And until it dies completely, I have little hope of convincing my wife that it needs to be replaced.

 

[ElliotSmith]

By contrast just this, at a resolution of just 640x360, took 18 min on my dinosaur of a computer with cycles.
View attachment 243770

And until it dies completely, I have little hope of convincing my wife that it needs to be replaced.

When your computer eventually dies, you should look into getting one with an Nvidia GPU, because of CUDA processing.

 

[anorlunda]

I spent 18 years building training simulators for such control rooms. Your simulation looks like a lot of fun to me. In fact, if it could be made to work in real time and paired with a VR headset, and responsive to user actions like twisting a knob, I could see making a training simulator with only a virtual control room for the operators. You might miss a little of the ergonomics, but not much. It would cost perhaps 5 million dollars less than a conventional simulator, and it could be used by trainees whenever and wherever they are.

 

[Janus]

When your computer eventually dies, you should look into getting one with an Nvidia GPU, because of CUDA processing.

Pretty much anything would be an improvement. By the way, that render was from the animation I was referring to. You can see the entire 28 sec video here:


It was a pretty basic animation with just the camera following a path through the model. I added the ambient background sound later.

A bit more complex animation using sound is this one. It actually uses sound clips to control aspects of the animation ( flashing lights), which I then used in the final soundtrack.

 

[Janus]

I spent 18 years building training simulators for such control rooms. Your simulation looks like a lot of fun to me. In fact, if it could be made to work in real time and paired with a VR headset, and responsive to user actions like twisting a knob, I could see making a training simulator with only a virtual control room for the operators. You might miss a little of the ergonomics, but not much. It would cost perhaps 5 million dollars less than a conventional simulator, and it could be used by trainees whenever and wherever they are.

Blender does have a game engine, which would allow you to create a real-time simulation, Though I haven't experimented with it yet. You can also create stereoscopic renders. Either the type that uses the red-blue glasses, or by rendering two separate images for left and right eye views when using either the Blender or Cycles render, but does not seem to be a feature available with the game engine.

 

[ElliotSmith]

I spent 18 years building training simulators for such control rooms. Your simulation looks like a lot of fun to me. In fact, if it could be made to work in real time and paired with a VR headset, and responsive to user actions like twisting a knob, I could see making a training simulator with only a virtual control room for the operators. You might miss a little of the ergonomics, but not much. It would cost perhaps 5 million dollars less than a conventional simulator, and it could be used by trainees whenever and wherever they are.

Really? That sounds awesome! Here is the .blend file if you, or someone you know, could turn this into a real VR training simulator for RBMK operators.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ansq7V5Mt2BrghE8DaXK5mt7R0oe

Important Note: It's not 100% accurate, I had to do some improvisation in areas where I didn't have detailed reference images of, such as the instrument panels and whatnot. It needs a complete overhaul.

But it's a good foundation to work with.

 

[berkeman]

You can see the entire 28 sec video here:

Pretty cool. What's that thing on the left wall around 0:20? A drinking fountain?

 

[Janus]

Pretty cool. What's that thing on the left wall around 0:20? A drinking fountain?

View attachment 243908

I have no idea. I doubt they ever gave it an actual function. As far as the filming the TV show goes, it was a movable prop that could be put in different spots as needed. This "walk-through" animation shows pretty much the entire extent of the corridor set used in shooting the show. They had a number of these type of things that could be used to dress the set. This way they could make the same set look like different parts of the ship.
So, for example, the door shown leads to a turbo lift. You'd shoot the actors walking into it with the prop there, and then shoot them walking out with it gone, giving the illusion that the turbo-lift took them somewhere else.

 

[ElliotSmith]

Check out my other 3D work, here.

https://www.artstation.com/outer_haven