Project Explorer (Babylon 5) Deep Space Vessel

[n122vu]

Remove the empty lines between BEGIN_SHIPS and END_SHIPS

Will do that this evening.

Always the little things that come back and bite me it seems LOL.

Learning more about Orbiter every day. Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Izack]

I sure am glad for this thread. Otherwise, I'd be asking all these questions myself. :rofl:

 

[n122vu]

Remove the empty lines between BEGIN_SHIPS and END_SHIPS

That did it. Thanks man. Had some time over my lunch break to build it. Successfully loaded and flying!

Need to seriously tone down the thruster strength now. Spinning like a top LOL. Will get that tweaked over the rest of my lunch and get a new zip uploaded for those interested. Only thing remaining is the animation of the grav wheel. Then I'll be ready to start getting UMmu and UCGO support added.

 

[n122vu]

Ok. Here is the latest version in all her custom dll-based glory. Calling it an alpha since the grav wheel animation is still missing. Also, the thrusters are still a bit strong. Still working on strength and placement to get them where they should be, but shouldn't take much more tweaking.

ToDo:
Animate the grav wheel
Fine-tune the RCS thrusters
Upload for testing prior to release

UCGO and UMmu will have to wait just a bit longer. Hopefully by end of the month, but realistically may be early next month.

As always, any and all feedback is welcome.

Regards,
n122vu

 

[PhantomCruiser]

I'll test her when I get home from work!
Thanks for giving up some of your free time in upgrading this baby.

 

[n122vu]

I'll test her when I get home from work!
Thanks for giving up some of your free time in upgrading this baby.

:speakcool: Thanks.

Having fun with it. Really enjoying coding something that doesn't involve meeting a deadline or having management breathing down my neck, especially something that's not VB.NET.

Also enjoying putting the education to use that I paid for LOL. Guess I absorbed a little more in my C++ class 6 years ago than I realized. Coming to me easier than I thought it would.

:hail:

 

[PhantomCruiser]

It might be my setup I don't know...
I moved out the "old" Explorer with the generic mod enabler, and moved in the "new" and it's invisible, and I've got no thruster control or main engines. Swapped out the new one for the old and she's fine (the original with your SC3 upgrade) and there she is. Working fine.

Tried various combinations including having both installed but no joy, the .dll version isn't there and have no control. I do however get the generic cockpit view and can cycle through everything (huds, MFD's etc).

Side note, tried an IMFD trip to Jupiter and it CTD when I selected autoburn.

I've got to run (drive) to a meeting this evening, so I can't "troubleshoot" any more.
I'll try to install this on a pristine version of Orbiter tonight when I get back home.

 

[n122vu]

I don't think it's yours. I'm getting a CTD on scenario load now on my home PC.

As a matter of fact, I'm getting the same on all scenarios. going to try a vanilla Orbiter install and see if I can track down what's going on.

**EDIT** My issue is completely unrelated. It seems the sound card on my old T42 laptop has failed or is having issues. More on that later. At any rate, it is OrbiterSound that is causing the CTD, since there is no sound card detected.

Installed a vanilla Orbiter, no OrbiterSound. Everything loaded fine. Will test with JSGME (on another machine) to see if I get the same.

Thanks for testing,
n122vu

---------- Post added at 08:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:07 PM ----------

It might be my setup I don't know...
I moved out the "old" Explorer with the generic mod enabler, and moved in the "new" and it's invisible, and I've got no thruster control or main engines. Swapped out the new one for the old and she's fine (the original with your SC3 upgrade) and there she is. Working fine.

Tried various combinations including having both installed but no joy, the .dll version isn't there and have no control. I do however get the generic cockpit view and can cycle through everything (huds, MFD's etc).

Side note, tried an IMFD trip to Jupiter and it CTD when I selected autoburn.

I've got to run (drive) to a meeting this evening, so I can't "troubleshoot" any more.
I'll try to install this on a pristine version of Orbiter tonight when I get back home.

Was able to reproduce the "invisible mesh" bug, as soon as I enabled IMFD 5.5.

Can you disable the IMFD module and confirm that you are then able to see the mesh?

**EDIT** After that, re-enable IMFD and see what happens. I disabled all "3rd-party" plugins that don't come with the stock installation, then re-enabled one-by-one to specifically isolate that it was IMFD. Now I have them all enabled, including IMFD, and the mesh is visible. To quote Captain James T. Kirk from Star Trek II:TWOK - "This is damn peculiar."

Thanks,
n122vu

 

[JonnyBGoode]

n122vu, when you get done with Explorer, you think you could take a look at Babylon 5 and the Agamemnon and figure out why the rotation animations don't work and issue a patch? Thanks!

 

[n122vu]

n122vu, when you get done with Explorer, you think you could take a look at Babylon 5 and the Agamemnon and figure out why the rotation animations don't work and issue a patch? Thanks!

I'll add it to my list to have a look, but I had planned to spend some time making skins for the XR2 after I was satisfied I had done all I wanted with Explorer.

Might be easy though, since I need to figure out rotating meshes for the Explorer also. May have a quick look before I dive into skinning.

**Edit** Well, that was MUCH easier than I thought (looks for his Easy button).

Make sure you have spacecraft3 installed along with the 2006P1 patch. Then just change the ship definition in the scenario from agamemnon:Spacecraft\Spacecraft to agamemnon:Spacecraft\Spacecraft3 and Bob's your uncle.

**Edit2** Seems to work for Agamemnon but not for Babylon5 Station. Getting a CTD when changing the scenario. Might have time to work on that one after Explorer is done. We'll see, no promises...

---------- Post added 11-05-10 at 11:47 AM ---------- Previous post was 11-04-10 at 09:32 PM ----------

I've begun work on the grav wheel animation. Here is the animation code so far:

static UINT groups[2] = {34, 35};
    static MGROUP_ROTATE gravwheel (0,groups, 2,_V(0,-20,0),_V(0,0,1),(float)(360*RAD));
    anim_grav = CreateAnimation(0.0);
    AddAnimationComponent (anim_grav, 0, 1, &gravwheel);

Need to create the functions for setting the animation state. Questions I have yet to find answers for are, how exactly do I define how fast the wheel spins/how long the animation cycle runs, and how to I keep it running in a loop until I press the associated key? Also, how do I set which keystroke controls the animation?

Regards,
n122vu

 

[Urwumpe]

I've begun work on the grav wheel animation. Here is the animation code so far:

static UINT groups[2] = {34, 35};
    static MGROUP_ROTATE gravwheel (0,groups, 2,_V(0,-20,0),_V(0,0,1),(float)(360*RAD));
    anim_grav = CreateAnimation(0.0);
    AddAnimationComponent (anim_grav, 0, 1, &gravwheel);

Need to create the functions for setting the animation state. Questions I have yet to find answers for are, how exactly do I define how fast the wheel spins/how long the animation cycle runs, and how to I keep it running in a loop until I press the associated key? Also, how do I set which keystroke controls the animation?

Keystrokes go usually into clbkConsumeBufferedKey - make sure you check the modifiers (Shift, control, alt) in it, for preventing strange effects.

For the animation, just make a simple addition in each time step:

state = fmod(state + rps*deltaT, 1.0);

With rps being the rotations per second. If you have 6 rpm, you have 0.1 rps. fmod(..., 1.0) just limits the state to 0 ... 0.9999999, (fmod(1.1, 1.0) = 0.1)

If you have stopped the rotation, you just don't execute the change in state. If you want to be funny, increase the rotation speed slowly and slow it slowly down on start/stop... you then need a extra state variable (beyond rps) for telling the state of the gravity section.

 

[JonnyBGoode]

I'm thinking the ship might be too big (and the Babylon 5 add-on, as well). According to Wikipedia, B5 was 8064.5 meters long, and Explorer was 6,103 meters. But my Orbiter object info window says B5's size is 16000m and Explorer is 8000m (I'm assuming by "size" the object info window means length?).

Also I noticed a small glitch with the RCS system: When you switch to translation mode and apply translational thrusters, the ship wants to also rotate.

 

[n122vu]

I'm thinking the ship might be too big (and the Babylon 5 add-on, as well). According to Wikipedia, B5 was 8064.5 meters long, and Explorer was 6,103 meters. But my Orbiter object info window says B5's size is 16000m and Explorer is 800om (I'm assuming by "size" the object info window means length?).

Also I noticed a small glitch with the RCS system: When you switch to translation mode and apply translational thrusters, the ship wants to also rotate.

Not sure why the size is reporting 8000 on the Explorer. I have the radius set at 3000. I'll look into that.

Which translation direction is adding rotational thrust for you? Is it all directions or only some? I will double check the thruster positioning and grouping to see if I can spot the cause.

Thanks for testing!
n122vu

 

[JonnyBGoode]

I know for sure that translation on the lateral axis (i.e. moving left or right) causes rotation around the longitudinal (x) axis (and a slight bit of pitching, iirc). I'd have to run the simulation again to see what the effects of the other thrusters were.

I was translating with docked craft in the hangar, that may also have been throwing things off. I'll jettison them and see if that changes anything.

---------- Post added at 02:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:08 PM ----------

Update: translation on the X axis (up and down) also caused rotation. Translation on the Z axis (front to back) was normal.

Jettisoned the docked craft, and translation was correct, no rotation.

 

[Izack]

That's not a problem with the Explorer so much as a 'feature' of physics. Force applied off the center of mass will create torque. There's no real way around that in Orbiter, unless your want to use attachment points (like incorporating Payload Manager into the Explorer module, which would be cool but time-consuming, and Universal Cargo Deck is a good substitute) instead of docking ports.

 

[Urwumpe]

Or you design the RCS in the DLL as such, that it automatically compensates CoG Shifts...which is also possible. It is just a not a bug, it is a missing feature.

 

[JonnyBGoode]

Or you design the RCS in the DLL as such, that it automatically compensates CoG Shifts...which is also possible. It is just a not a bug, it is a missing feature.

Essentially what I was thinking...

 

[n122vu]

Or you design the RCS in the DLL as such, that it automatically compensates CoG Shifts...which is also possible. It is just a not a bug, it is a missing feature.

Noted. That will go on the "future" list.

Was hoping to have animation coding completed this weekend. Unfortunately I have a sick kiddo, so I'll have to put things on hold for a few days.

 

[Urwumpe]

Unfortunately I have a sick kiddo, so I'll have to put things on hold for a few days.

Tell her to kill Bill!

 

[JonnyBGoode]

Tell her to kill Bill!

:facepalm: