Orbiter Screenshot Thread

[LadyCroussette]

Is this a space station you're developing now?

yep!

 

[CurlSnout]

Orbiter 2024 has rekindled my enthusiasm for shooting things into the virtual sky. I am (slowly) reclaiming my novice status with regard to using Blender to build a model and (also slowly) re-learning how to use Multistage2015 to get a model off the ground. Here are a few screen captures illustrating my first attempt, currently a work in progress.

The Russian V-5-V rocket is a geophysical derivative of the R-5 missile developed in the mid 1950s. This particular model (1970s) carries the 'Vertikal' payload - consisting of a cylindrical instrument compartment (instruments to study the ionosphere and solar radiation) and a spherical recovery container.













Still work to do, but for now the head end is up, the tail end is down, and it goes up and away into low Earth orbit when I push the proper button.

Hi-Ho,

cs

PS: Sincere THANKS, again, to Blake for developing and sharing his Blender plugin for creating Orbiter mesh files and to fred18 for Multistage2015.

 

[LadyCroussette]

Shuttle reentries and landings are so pretty!

 

[CurlSnout]

Work on the V-5-V continues. Current state with textures:







Hi-Ho,

cs

 

[LadyCroussette]

Decided a few days ago to do a flight like Soyuz T15, where the crew did a Mir-Salyut 7-Mir, but with my DG and my own space stations.

So, Sailiniq Expedition 1 left the Sailiniq Space Station to visit the Canadian Space Station, get some equipment, and return to the new station afterwards!


Arrival at the CSS.

Docked! We can begin loading in the equipment.

And we're leaving the old station.

We're back at Sailiniq!

 

[Piorun]

Vega launch from the Guiana Space Centre (WIP):

https://flic.kr/p/2qLV1LC

https://flic.kr/p/2qLVXou

https://flic.kr/p/2qLV1UP

https://flic.kr/p/2qLV1Wc

 

[Piorun]

Korolev's R-5M (GRAU: 8K51, NATO code name: SS-3 Shyster) medium range ballistic missile - one of the very first missiles of this class. Here: on combat alert somewhere in the GDR, during their brief historical deployment in summer 1959. The Vertikal sounding rocket was developed from this particular MRBM:

https://flic.kr/p/2qLTUhE

https://flic.kr/p/2qLPfBt

https://flic.kr/p/2qLV21W

Orbiter 2024 has rekindled my enthusiasm for shooting things into the virtual sky. I am (slowly) reclaiming my novice status with regard to using Blender to build a model and (also slowly) re-learning how to use Multistage2015 to get a model off the ground. Here are a few screen captures illustrating my first attempt, currently a work in progress.

The Russian V-5-V rocket is a geophysical derivative of the R-5 missile developed in the mid 1950s. This particular model (1970s) carries the 'Vertikal' payload - consisting of a cylindrical instrument compartment (instruments to study the ionosphere and solar radiation) and a spherical recovery container.

Here are some additional reference images of the Vertikal with alternate payloads - they might be helpful:

 

[CurlSnout]

Thanks very much, Piorun, for posting those images. I've been working from 2 line drawings in Peter Alway's book 'Rockets Of The World' (plus one small grainy photograph) and aside from those, up until now have not really had much to go on. There is a nice drawing of the V-5-V with VGAS payload in Alway's 2002 supplement - but, again, the image you have posted offers additional details. I can't tell what color is specified for the fin tips of WERTIKAL-1 (the fins appear all white in the reference I have). Is there any chance you could send me copies that are larger versions of the images you posted?

Your R-5M model looks great! The launch stand adds to the immersion factor.

Thanks again,

Sam

 

[Piorun]

Thanks very much, Piorun, for posting those images. I've been working from 2 line drawings in Peter Alway's book 'Rockets Of The World' (plus one small grainy photograph) and aside from those, up until now have not really had much to go on. There is a nice drawing of the V-5-V with VGAS payload in Alway's 2002 supplement - but, again, the image you have posted offers additional details. I can't tell what color is specified for the fin tips of WERTIKAL-1 (the fins appear all white in the reference I have). Is there any chance you could send me copies that are larger versions of the images you posted?

Your R-5M model looks great! The launch stand adds to the immersion factor.

Thanks again,

Sam

Hi CurlSnout,

Thanks, I had begun making this R-5 a long time ago, but I focused on other projects, so I shelved it. There are still a bit things to do: the steering surfaces behind the nozzle require remodelling, the texture has to be more detailed, I need to add protective covers to the launch table, therefore your Vertikal appears to be a far more matured, refined and ready-to-use work — especially with the textures!

My apologies — I haven’t noticed that not only the images in the post were compressed, but also the attachments too: so I’m reuploading them into the zip folder below. They originate presumably from the communist era magazine titled „Modelarz” (lit.”The Model Maker”) from ca. 60s-70s, which has remained a valuable source of various reference drawings until the current day.

The descriptions say as follows:

• Rakieta geofizyczna „Wertikal-1” — „The geophysical rocket „Vertikal-1”"
• Skala 1:48 — „Scale 1:48” (it must be the scale of the original print)
• Wymiary rakiety - „The rocket’s dimensions”
• Rzut boczny rakiety między 4 a 1 statecznikiem — „Lateral projection of the rocket between the 4th and the 1st fin”
• Rzut boczny rakiety między 2 a 1 statecznikiem — „Lateral projection of the rocket between the 2nd and the 1st fin”
• Rzut boczny rakiety między 2 a 3 statecznikiem — „Lateral projection of the rocket between the 2nd and the 3rd fin”
• Rzut boczny rakiety między 3 a 4 statecznikiem — „Lateral projection of the rocket between the 3rd and the 4th fin”
• Przekroje w odniesieniu do stateczników 1, 2, 3, 4 — „Cross-sections in relation to the fins no. 1, 2, 3, 4”
• Spaw — „Welding”
• Spaw elektryczny — „Electric welding”
• Spód rakiety — „The rocket’s bottom side”
• Oznaczenie kolorów — „Color marking”
• Biały — „White”
• Czerwony — „Red”
• Czarny — „Black”
• Srebrny — „Silver”
• Beżowy — „Beige”

The other plan lists also Brązowy — „Bronze”

As to the terminology, the Russian Cyrylic letter В/в is transcribed to Polish as W/w (similarly as e.g. in German) rather than V/v as in English — hence the „Wertikal” and „W-5-W” on the drawings instead of the „Vertikal” and „V-5-V” (for the same reason, we refer to the Восток spacecraft as „Wostok” instead of „Vostok”, and to the Ми-24В helicopter as „Mi-24W” instead of „Mi-24V”, moreover we know the cosmonaut Валентина Терешкова not as „Valentina Tereshkova” — we write „Walentina Tierieszkowa”, and so on).

My R-5 is based upon a Russian drawing from, presumably, a similarly themed Russian magazine „Modelist Konstruktor” (also attached) which offers some additional details — my strategy is to prepare meshes of ballistic missiles as the first ones (as they are chronologically „primary”), and then to move on to derived rocket designs (as they are chronologically „secondary”) — just like their designers did in the real life. For example, the R-12 ballistic missile after some additional works might be remodelled as the Kosmos-2 launch vehicle (work in progress). I also almost finished the Thor IRBM and the Agena B upper stage, so I will be able to match them into the Thor-Agena B space launcher, and after some further modifications: into the Thor-Agena A and other Thor/Delta family members with relatively little effort. My intention is to release all of them some day for our community as a highly standardised addon, or a modular bundle of addons.

I put there also a couple of incredibly useful but rare photographies taken in a Ukrainian spaceflight museum from Korolev’s hometown — Zhytomyr, which I collected a couple of years ago from the depths of the Web. They depict a Vertikal rocket — it must be exactly the same specimen, as the one that we can see in the photo in the R-5’s article on Wikipedia. I couldn’t find their source, and the site inscribed on them apparently no longer works — The Author, whoever he is, has done us a huge favor, for which we are sincerely grateful to him.
It appears to lack the movable rudders on the ends of its fins — a photo of another specimen shows the rudders and the way how they are jointed to the fins.

Best regards and high apogees,

Michał

 

[CurlSnout]

WOW - thanks very much, Michal, for sharing these rare (and to me very valuable) resources. Thanks also for clearly and concisely translating the descriptions - it looks like I need to change some colors. I had already begun modifying the tail end of my model based on the images you posted previously. Now I can see that I have further work to do. The documents you shared are the first I have seen that provide detailed insight into how the rocket appeared from below - and your R-5M_big.jpg is the only hint I have seen so far that offers a glimpse of any engine work associated with this series. I'm not sure I will undertake a separate model for the launch stand. I still need to configure the Vertikal payload as a separate stage that can be deployed.

I appreciate your modelling strategy regarding 'primary' ballistic missile designs and 'secondary' rocket vehicle derivatives. I look forward to seeing your Thor family. I have the 'old' (2003) addon that George Kennedy provided (Thor-Able/Delta/Agena/IRBM with associated satellites) but an updated collection that works well with current Orbiter installations is long overdue.

Thanks again for sharing, and for listing some of the sources - this material can be hard to track down and what is available to some can be essentially nonexistent for others.

Peace,

Sam

 

[BrianJ]

EscaPADE "Blue" orbiter MOI, 04 September 2027.


Launched on NewGlenn (MS2015 version) 16 March 2025
After a 2.5 year journey via Sun-Earth L2 halo orbit and Earth gravity assist + 1800m/s dV DSM, arrived at Mars with 850m/s dV remaining for a 200km x 40,000km orbit

 

[Gondos]

Took the day off, ended up farting around a bit too much

White thin icons look like crap when rescaled, we would need an artist to make a better job of it if we want to pursue in that direction. The nice thing is that it would enable removing/adding new menu items compared to the currently hard coded menu bar.

 

[misha.physics]

Personally, I think the static design for menu icons (as it is now) looks very good, whereas the dynamically changing size icons distract from the simplicity and convenience of Orbiter. But we definitely need more/new performances for Map MFD, Map Window, etc since now they drop FPS a lot (especially when dragging a map).

 

[Urwumpe]

Took the day off, ended up farting around a bit too much

White thin icons look like crap when rescaled, we would need an artist to make a better job of it if we want to pursue in that direction. The nice thing is that it would enable removing/adding new menu items compared to the currently hard coded menu bar.

First thought: Could we add support for SVG icons (e.g. by including Cairo)? Since they only need to be rendered once on session start, it would be no major performance penalty, the format would be an open standard...

Second thought: Could the icons be an Orbiter mesh instead? Then it would be following the "eat-your-own-dogfood" rule and each graphics clients could have their own way of handling them.

 

[Gondos]

Personally, I think the static design for menu icons (as it is now) looks very good, whereas the dynamically changing size icons distract from the simplicity and convenience of Orbiter. But we definitely need more/new performances for Map MFD, Map Window, etc since now they drop FPS a lot (especially when dragging a map).

Yeah, this is kind of a gadget but you can have the old behavior by setting the "small" and "hovered" sizes the same. The end goal it to have some kind of oapiRegisterCustomMenuItem function, similar to oapiRegisterCustomCmd but that adds the command directly to the menu. I grow tired of having to open the "Function" dialog to then open an external MFD or a Lua console...

 

[Arvil]

Now his hard drive is full with QuickSaves.

 

[CurlSnout]

The newest iteration of the V-5-V Vertikal includes some small refinements - I rebuilt the tail section and added some color to the fin tips (as well as the central control surfaces). I also added the flags that manifested on the payload section, and which reflect a spirit of international space cooperation. Flags (small but scaled properly) are those of Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, USSR, and Czechoslovakia.







Hi-Ho,

cs

 

[Buck Rogers]

@CurlSnout, Looking really good
Why not open a dev thread

 

[francisdrake]

Axiom is considering a new layout for their upcoming space station. Solar panels shall be added directly to the hab modules.

 

[misha.physics]