Project Orbiter Galaxy

[jedidia]

do you use a dll for the atmosphere model so you get accurate pressures at various "altitudes"? I doubt that the standard atmosphere model will provide very useful results...

 

[donatelo200]

No i didn't use a dll for the atmosphere as i do not know how to creat or use one...... I think the standerd atmosphere model works enough. It is a very extreme envirorment and very few spacecraft created for Orbiter can function well in it. Very interesting to launch a probe into though.

 

[jedidia]

But how do you do it that you don't just hit a wall of atmosphere at a certain altitude? My guess is you don't do it at all... I don't quite like that solution. bloody unpredictable. But I'll download your system and take a look at it.

 

[donatelo200]

Yea i made shure that u dont hit a wall. It is a soft atmospheric entry and i base my atmosphere cutoff on pressure and density so that there isnt just a wall of atmosphere. I think i made the cutoff high enough for aerobraking but im not shure if i did.

Edit: I think your engine is already capible of producing the atmospheres of the giants. You'll just need to limit the pressure to a million atmospheres.

 

[sulheru]

What do you need for this proyect? I can make a generetor with random stars and star systems.
Now I have a cuestion: Can I use blender to create 3D models of anithing? (Stars, planets, ships, space stations, etc.)

 

[jedidia]

What do you need for this proyect? I can make a generetor with random stars and star systems.

That part is already done, although it sure will see a slight revision or another, so there's nothing currently needed on the coding front.

Now I have a cuestion: Can I use blender to create 3D models of anithing? (Stars, planets, ships, space stations, etc.)

Stars and planets don't use models, and texture generation is handled by Artlavs' texture generator. You can make completely custom systems and integrate it into the galaxy generator, of course, if that is what you want. It works just like doing any system for orbiter, only an additional file to specify extended parameters is needed (there's a complete documentation in the download). Or you could help creating alternate color schemes for the randomly created planet textures, in which case I'd have to send you the version of the generator that uses external colormaps for testing.

As for models, there isn't any immediate need for them, but I will be needing lots of building models and space stations at some time in the future, so if you want, you can make as much of them as you like, it'll just be a while until I get around to implement procedural starports (since I've got kids coming up, I can't currently say when I'll get there. A very optimistic estimate is 6 months until I can start working on the starport generator, but it's probably going to be a lot longer...). The models will have to be in standard .msh format, there are blender converters for that.

 

[donatelo200]

Hey, I have noticed a bug. The axial tilt of the planets in game dosn't match up with what the genorator says. Most noticible in terra planets witch axis is told to be around Earths axis of 23 degrees but is well over 90 dergees when flying around in the system.

 

[jedidia]

Very observant, thanks a lot. Probably a difference in measurement between the generator and Orbiter (although I don't quite see how yet, Orbiter isn't using radians for axial tilt... or is it?).

 

[donatelo200]

Her is the code from Earth axial tilt data in orbiter.

Obliquity = 0.4090928023       ; [rad]

So im guessing it is radian. I've never known till now i always did a guess and check as i had no idea what it was.

 

[jedidia]

Not sure yet what's going on, but it's clear that the obliquity in the exported config files is utter garbage... Must have a conversion error in there somewhere, shouldn't take too long to find. Once I find the time to look at the code, that is.

 

[Bonanza123d]

Here are my 2 cents. I think that there should be a different map. THe map is somewhat hard to understand. I see lines going down to the grid, and external stars i cannot select which always get in my way. When i was looking at maps. EVE maps always seemed easier to look at and understand. If you could make it easier to read (and load textures faster) than I think it will benefit in the long run.

 

[jedidia]

I think that there should be a different map. THe map is somewhat hard to understand. I see lines going down to the grid, and external stars i cannot select which always get in my way.

The Eve-Map looks pretty much the same (well, a lot nicer for sure, but the same principle)

You can deactivate stalks and surounding stars in the drop-out GUI if they get in your way, though.

(and load textures faster)

Textures aren't loaded. They are generated from scratch, compressed, and written to disk. Depending on system and texture resolutions, that's hundreds of megabytes getting crunched. It simply can't be optimised much more. The only way to make it go faster at this point is a faster graphics card, I'm afraid...

---------- Post added at 05:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:09 PM ----------

As for the axial tilt problem, most epic conversion fail ever: I was using the conversion from radians to degrees to convert degrees to radians... I guess I can ask for a Job with the Mars program now, I hear they hire people like me... :lol:

Will be fixed in a future patch, I'll give it some time to see if anything else comes up. Thanks a lot for pointing it out!

 

[donatelo200]

Oh i have two other bugs i've noticed. The first is is that the system generation takes over an hour in the current version where it took 5 minuts in the previus with the same settings. The second bug is that some terra, ocean, ice and venusian planets are misclassified as gas dwarfs. I have a very exreem example too. (i was quite shocked when i found a terra 10x more massive than Earth) The planet itself is not a bug but it's classification as a gas dwarf is. The cordanits are 845/215/8 and the star is 104.2i0.5e43001.5a and the missclasified planet is the 1st one.

 

[jedidia]

The first is is that the system generation takes over an hour in the current version where it took 5 minuts in the previus with the same settings.

????

By current and previous version, do you mean after upgrading from 0.6.2 to 0.6.3, or do you mean from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2?

What you describe sounds like the generator falling back on the CPU. If that happend between 0.6.1 and 0.6.2, I have no idea what could be going on, as stability and compatbility on GPU was significantly increased during that time. Hearing that it doesn't work anymore on some GPUs would be a bit alarming (assuming you are using the same computer with the same graphics card).

If it happened between 0.6.2 and 0.6.3, that would still be unexpected, but very valuable information. There were some minor tweaks in the generation for further optimisation, and if that reduced compatibility again, that would be very good to know.

The second bug is that some terra, ocean, ice and venusian planets are misclassified as gas dwarfs.

I am aware of that one for quite some time, actually, I just never got around to fixing it yet, but it's on the list. Just not very high on the list, currently, but I should probably move it upwards. It's been around for too long by now...

 

[SiberianTiger]

Dear jedidia, I'm not quite clear whether your addon supports any way for STL ships moving from one system to another? For instance, if I take a Hius Interra and drive it at near c towards a generated star system at 10000x time accel, is there a chance a system switch over happens somewhere in between source and destination systems?

 

[jedidia]

Dear jedidia, I'm not quite clear whether your addon supports any way for STL ships moving from one system to another? For instance, if I take a Hius Interra and drive it at near c towards a generated star system at 10000x time accel, is there a chance a system switch over happens somewhere in between source and destination systems?

Sure there is, the MFD even provides you with a vector and some (very) crude burntime and fuel calculations, but for a vessel like the Hius that renews fuel on the flight they are of course not accurate at all.

The distance from the source system at which you want the switch to occur can even be specified in the config file. Once you reach that distance, orbiter will propagate time forward, will load the new system and again propagate time until a certain safety margin (which also can be specified in the config) before the estimated deceleration burn should take place.

This time propagation, however, is calculated as pure coasting phase, so it is again not appropriate for the Hius, since you'll want to thrust most of the way, and since during time propagation there is no propellant regeneration going on. But if you set the switch distance to zero in the config, no time propagation whatsoever will occur, and the system will simply switch when you reach half the distance.

The condition for all of this is still that you target the system in the galaxy map, so you can't just point to a star and get going without telling orbiter galaxy that you want to go there. This limitation is majorly due to the export process of course, but considering that the Interstellar Nav MFD will give you quite a precise vector, you'll want to target the star anyways. It's amazing what an arc-second off course can do to you when you're aiming for a target several light years in the distance... :shifty:

Anyways, you'll best refer to the section "getting to a star the real way" in the manual. The really hard part will not be getting there, but doing an insertion burn from a significant fraction of c. There's just no tools in Orbiter that can handle that. The Orbiter Navigator does the most decent job at it, but it too won't work reliably for a vessel that replenishes propellant...

 

[donatelo200]

????

By current and previous version, do you mean after upgrading from 0.6.2 to 0.6.3, or do you mean from 0.6.1 to 0.6.2?

What you describe sounds like the generator falling back on the CPU. If that happend between 0.6.1 and 0.6.2, I have no idea what could be going on, as stability and compatbility on GPU was significantly increased during that time. Hearing that it doesn't work anymore on some GPUs would be a bit alarming (assuming you are using the same computer with the same graphics card).

If it happened between 0.6.2 and 0.6.3, that would still be unexpected, but very valuable information. There were some minor tweaks in the generation for further optimisation, and if that reduced compatibility again, that would be very good to know.

It was 6.2 to 6.3. I don't know why it's ben forcing it off my GPU generation witch work very well in the version befor taking the generation time from 5 minuts to over an hour.

 

[jedidia]

It was 6.2 to 6.3.

damn!

Could you post your shader.log? (located in Orbiter root directory).

Artlav will have some fixing comming up when he gets back from vacation...

Until then, do the following: Install 0.6.2, then apply the 0.6.3 patch, but DON'T overwrite texgen.dll. This way you'll have the bugfixes from 0.6.3 with the old texture generator (actually, it'd be easier to just overwrite your current texgen.dll with the one from the 0.6.2 zip...). But if possible, let me see your shader.log first, it might contain a clue of what's wrong. Artlav's gonna need every clue he can get, I'm afraid...

 

[SiberianTiger]

This time propagation, however, is calculated as pure coasting phase, so it is again not appropriate for the Hius, since you'll want to thrust most of the way, and since during time propagation there is no propellant regeneration going on. But if you set the switch distance to zero in the config, no time propagation whatsoever will occur, and the system will simply switch when you reach half the distance.

Oh-h-h, superb! I think the least I should do is to review the coolest Orbiter addons in my blog, so more people would know about how a PC can be turned into a world-of-dream simulation station. Orbiter Galaxy should take the prime place in the list.

 

[jedidia]

Orbiter Galaxy should take the prime place in the list.

I'd certainly appreciate the advertisement! :lol: