Orbiter Screenshot Thread

[Matias Saibene]

Should I try a drag race?
Who will win front wheel drive or rear thrust?
After many attempts I am managing to convert my Blender models to MSH.

They're still not that great, but it took me a long time to get rid of that problem. I am going to make a post in the forum explaining what steps I took to solve it because it is a very strange and annoying bug.

By the way and for those who do not know it, it is not a Citroën 2CV, it is a 3CV, the 42-horsepower version that was marketed in Argentina.

 

[Matias Saibene]

Disembarking the Space Shuttle in VIP style.

 

[francisdrake]

Managed to land the Crew Dragon in the "Stable 2" position. This requires hitting the time acceleration button exactly at the wrong moment.

 

[Buck Rogers]

WIP: EAS Tempest Heavy Cruiser.

A DG docked in the Hangar.

 

[Buck Rogers]

Hangar Cam.

Dawn Departure.

 

[jedidia]

Pretty cool! Only, shouldn't starfuries dock with their rear?

 

[Buck Rogers]

I gave up thinking too much about this!
Dock with the rear?- I don't think so, atleast there is no door, and a lot of piping, I concluded it would need a very large front adapter so the front can swing open ( or a closed enviroment hangar (with gravity?), but it has no landing feet or mooring points, etc..).
Initially the Starfury was not of concern, at some point I thought it would be nice to have a screenshot of the Tempest with it's "native" craft. But the Starfury had a lot of problems and I ended up redoing the whole thing including rescaling, but it's still off (from canon and reality!).
Since delving into the world of Babylon5 tech I've come to the conclusion that it's full of bull... and suffers from excessive asthetics without logic (to put it mildly).
I made the hangar to be principly; versatile, fulfill it's main function: harbour many small craft, and look like a cool scifi 0g (semi realistic) docking facility. Unfortuneately probably not very canon conform (sorry for that). The DG docks perfectly though!
That said it's nearly finished and I hope to release a beta soon and would welcome any suggestions, and criticisms.

 

[Pioneer]

Having fun with the Chapman Probes

Falcon 9 liftoff

First stage separation

Above a familiar place

40 Mm lunar pass on the way out

 

[ggalfi]

In a parallel universe, on Apr 17th, 1970, at Fra Mauro highlands:
Apollo 13 CDR: Houston, we have a bit of a problem here.
Capcom: Go ahead, Jim.
Apollo 13 CDR: It may sounds odd, but we've found something of non-natural origin.
Capcom: You mean it is some sort of alien origin?
Apollo 13 LMP: Negative Houston. It is rather of human origin. Actually, it is the remnant of a LM descent stage...

 

[gamer19]

 

[Max-Q]

Lately, my thing has been visiting small objects.

Phobos. Because I was already at Mars, and why not?


162173 Ryugu. Featured in the book "Delta-V" by Daniel Suarez


4942 Munroe. https://blog.xkcd.com/2013/09/30/asteroid-4942-munroe/

 

[Gato Mafioso]

One of my best ones!

 

[Boxx]

162173 Ryugu. Featured in the book "Delta-V" by Daniel Suarez
View attachment 31663

As usual, asteroid exploration reveals unexpected images!!! Now that Ryugu has been imaged, it could become interesting to go to "rubble pile" meshes... I'm already involved in some add-ons and cannot go to that but, for sure, I will be greatly interested in some examples or parametric generator (maybe an "addon request"?)

Here is the rubble-pile shape of Ryugu:
by Hayabusa 2, JAXA, 2018

 

[Max-Q]

Here is a tool that can create whatever asteroid you want in Orbiter.
https://www.orbiter-forum.com/resources/mpc-database-asteroid-viewer-and-exporter-v2-0-3.2209/

If anyone is interested, I can throw a package of asteroids on OF. They're not great, the shapes and textures are generic, but it's still fun to fly there.

 

[francisdrake]

I saw footage of the Dragon capsule approaching the ISS with firing RCS thusters.

The real exhausts are long and stay remarkably coherent. They dont spread out wide, but the jets are quite narrow, until they dissolve due to expansion. I tried to re-create this effect as shown in the GIF-file, using the Dream Chaser as a test bed.

After finishing the trials I will publish the exhaust textures and stream settings.
Feel free to comment how to make them even look better.

 

[DaveS]

Here's a like to a collection of photos showing the RCS in action on the shuttle, including a couple taken during orbital night: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/q70dctjomhg2q98/AAD1aSl9cWXyixO4E9dW9GpEa?dl=0

And here's a video from STS-95 showing the Aft RCS undergoing the standard Landing-1(L-1) day hotfire checkouts. Note the leak from the L3L jet. The plume intensity/visibility is dependent on the sun angle, so it's more visible at low sun angles than it is at high sun angles which is why you tend see RCS firings better near orbital sunrise/sunset.

Also do note the amount of light the jets emit, they're quite bright.

 

[francisdrake]

Here I tried the modified RCS exhausts at BrianJ's Crew Dragon.
The length and width of the exhausts can be adjusted as required.

Note: In reality the particle stream is less blocky, more transparent. This is probably caused by the GIF-compression.

 

[Gargantua2024]

Farewell, InSight

 

[Matias Saibene]

Luna 3 in Linux, now with normalmaps!

 

[Piorun]

Tansei - Japan's second satellite completes its first orbit