VIRTUAL COCKPIT
By José Pablo Luna Sánchez. 2008

Vinka has made 3 versions of spacecraft.dll:

Each version has a different name because of backward compatibility reasons.

Spacecraft3.dll implements the capability of having virtual cockpits (we will call them VC).
The 3D modelling skills to make your own craft will not be covered here.
We will start with 2 meshes, one for the virtual cockpit and another for the vessel.

TIP: TWO MESHES FOR VC INSTEAD OF ONE

When creating your vessel it is better to create two separate meshes: one for the external view and another for internal view.

Having the same mesh causes Orbiter to have more processing load as it draws polygons that are close but invisible when you are in internal view. Making a mesh for virtual cockpit makes unnecessary polygons not to take processing load.

TIP: HOW TO SAVE MODELLING TIME

A good trick to save some modelling time and make modelling easier, if you are a beginner, is to make the craft to have dark windows, so in external view you do not see the interior of the craft and then you make a detailed virtual cockpit for internal view.

It would save processing time and would make it more friendly for low end computers.

It is a bit hard to make the external view to fit the dimensions of the internal view and viceversa, so not adding the cockpit to the vessel is a good trick for newbie modellers.

As you improve your modelling skills you may try to model the internals of your vessel, for external view. It is more challenging.

TIP: KEEP POLYGON COUNT LOW

Try to keep the polygon count low. A low end computer should handle 10000 polygons just fine. 30000+ poly count would be hard for low end computers and 90000+ would make a beautiful mesh that makes Orbiter to be a slideshow for low end computers.

If you need details try to add them via texturing, not via polygons.

 

Example:

[VC]
MESHNAME="VCMesh"
MFD_LEFT=1
MFD_RIGHT=2
HUD=0
HUD_SIZE=0.5
HUD_CENTER=(10,0,0)

This example will read a virtual cockpit mesh called VCMesh.msh.
It will use group 1 as left MFD screen, group 2 as right MFD and group 0 as HUD mesh.
Be aware that groups used as MFD or HUD must be a square.

HUD size refers to the size of the HUD screen square in meters.
HUD Center refers to the center location of the HUD in mesh coordinates.