This animatic of the last 2 minutes of the landing is the first step in the "Apollo 11 - A Living Diorama" project. The animation was created in trueSpace and compiled to video using Sony Vegas. The upper left is the view from the ground and represents the view as it will appear in game. Lower left is the original video of the landing. The right side is the view from the animated lander used to approximate the flight path.

The image of the ground was taken from an LRO image of the Apollo 11 landing site. The descent stage, it's shadow and other smaller items left behind can be seen in the image. The sun and earth images are from pictures taken during the EVA. The text is from the audio transcripts of the flight. The balls are simplified representations of the larger rocks in the area.  There are also some random geometry left over from other tests.

The ultimate goal is to recreate the landing on the moon and the EVA activities using the UDK game engine. The player will be an observer and will not interact with the events that take place.

The next step is to import the result into UDK. A particle system will be added inside the UDK for the dust effects and the player will be given a HUD to display the text of the audio events. After that the final models will be built for the LEM, the terrain and the rocks.

This is the actual start of the project.  This screenshot shows a 3D view and a script node that was used to coordinate the movements of the astronauts.  Click the image to see more.