Project Project - Outposts
- Thread starter Steve
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Luke Skywalker
Rebel Alliance Hero
That cupola is so highly detailed...
Donamy
Addon Developer
It looks exactly like mine, as do the other modules. I do hope they are not ripped.
[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=4504"]http://http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=4504[/ame]
[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=4504"]http://http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=4504[/ame]
Last edited:
Steve
Addon Developer
Resemblance
Yes your cupola does look similar I have to say, however you can clearly see there are differences too. I take this as a compliment that you think my work is of a similar level to yours. Rest assured I have not ripped any materials from anyone, this is all my own work which I have spent over the past year working on. I assume you have used the same source photography and diagrams I've used from NASA's and ESA's archieves.
You will see my models have a striking resemblance to those of the Space Islands Group. It is true to say I have used their concept art work to shape the style of my space station modules.
There would be no point in plagiarising other peoples work, its self defeating and wrong. As a professional 3D modeller and software engineer of over 10 years working in the games and simulation industry I have strong views on this subject.
It looks exactly like mine, as do the other modules. I do hope they are not ripped.
http://http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=4504
Yes your cupola does look similar I have to say, however you can clearly see there are differences too. I take this as a compliment that you think my work is of a similar level to yours. Rest assured I have not ripped any materials from anyone, this is all my own work which I have spent over the past year working on. I assume you have used the same source photography and diagrams I've used from NASA's and ESA's archieves.
You will see my models have a striking resemblance to those of the Space Islands Group. It is true to say I have used their concept art work to shape the style of my space station modules.
There would be no point in plagiarising other peoples work, its self defeating and wrong. As a professional 3D modeller and software engineer of over 10 years working in the games and simulation industry I have strong views on this subject.
Cras
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This looks great. You can just tell from the pictures a lot of hard work was put into this, and I thank you for doing so and sharing your work with us fellow Orbinauts.
I look forward to the release.
Cheers
I look forward to the release.
Cheers
Pinguinboy
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Thank you for developing this package, Steve. It's really wonderful! Will these modules be selectable in the Scenario Editor?
Hlynkacg
Aspiring rocket scientist
Izack
Non sequitur
Hooray! I was really hoping this project wouldn't be abandoned. 
Hooray for Wet Workshop!
A few questions:
1. Your models look really detailed (which is good), which is somewhat intimidating to those of us with 'lower end' machines. What is the typical polycount of one of these stations?
2. I must admit I did not read through thoroughly, so I may be missing something here, but will any of the stations (at least eventually) be simulated as single vessels?
3. Apparently one of the issues with the ET station concept is the SOFI flaking or 'popcorning' off on-orbit, in addition to providing poor MMOD protection. What is your 'backstory' to combating this problem?
4. How will one be able to take the ETs into orbit? Will the outfitting of the tank for habitation be simulated?
A few questions:
1. Your models look really detailed (which is good), which is somewhat intimidating to those of us with 'lower end' machines. What is the typical polycount of one of these stations?
2. I must admit I did not read through thoroughly, so I may be missing something here, but will any of the stations (at least eventually) be simulated as single vessels?
3. Apparently one of the issues with the ET station concept is the SOFI flaking or 'popcorning' off on-orbit, in addition to providing poor MMOD protection. What is your 'backstory' to combating this problem?
4. How will one be able to take the ETs into orbit? Will the outfitting of the tank for habitation be simulated?
Steve
Addon Developer
Scruce - you are right about what you say. Do it right or not at all, thats why I have been taking my time. There are many expansion packs I plan to release in this series, all will link into each other to tell a story. Knowing when to release can be difficult there is always more you can tweak with, but if we tweak forever we would never release anything! I can only hope I have got the mix right for you all. If not I will endeavour to correct this pack for you. When I release I will be supplying an email address for support questions and yes I will answer all queries as best I can.
Pinguinboy - Yes you will be able to select all of the modules in the scenario editor, create them and adjust perameters. I have been doing this to create the screen shots you see now. In addtion all modules come with a built-in docking tool window which allows you to perform the same docking operations as the scenario editor. Also the tool window lets you attach/detach vessels using any of the attachment points on the vessel if there are any available. This will allow you to connect 'Furniture' items such as COMs dishes and antennas to increase the customisation of your stations. This feature is already implemented and tested.
Hlynkacg - Absolutely correct! I will be releasing a modified version of the stock Atlantis supplied with Orbiter. The Orbiter SDK supplies a number of example software projects for the vessels available in Orbiter. All credit goes to those initially involved in there development, all I shal be doing is extending the Atlantis functionality. The software for the extended version of the Atlantis will be supplied in my addon package. I was trying to keep this a secret till the release. Oh well.
Izack - Your questions answered:
1. Your models look really detailed (which is good), which is somewhat intimidating to those of us with 'lower end' machines. What is the typical polycount of one of these stations?
Understandable and I have thought of you all. All of my images are of the high res version which have a typical polycount of no more the 200,000 for something like the 7-ET-Cluster station depicted. Now for most typical gaming graphics cards polycounts such as this would not even get them breaking out in a swet. The professional flight and driving simulators I design at work have far higher polycounts in there scenes than this, for example 1,000,000 +, and we can run them on high-end gaming cards at 60Hz like an NVIDIA 8800GT (GeForce 8 series). so if you have a GeForce 8 or better then you are laughing. I have two machine specifications at home which I develop on; Core i7 (2.80GHz), 6GB RAM, ATI Radeon 5570 HD (1GB), 1TB hard drive, Windows 7 and a more modist AMD Athlon (2.3GHz), 1GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 6 (512MB), 100GB hard drive, Windows XP. My Hi Res station pack runs on both system at about 30Hz or higher.
Texture memory is the biggest problem though, not having enough on board graphics RAM means more texture cache misses and thus more unloading and loading of textures from main RAM to graphics memory. This can seriously reduce your frame rate. What you want is all your textures for your scene loaded up into graphics memory and not have to rely on swaping textures in and out of your graphics card. Another problem is too many small mesh groups all using the same materials. Each time a group is processed a material needs to be applied, this means swaping a possible texture and lighting properties. This can be very costly. All my models have been optomised to reduce material swaps to the minimum. Also my textures are optomised to make use of as much available space in the texture area as possible, thus reducing the amount of memory required.
My entire collection of modules correctly stands at only 133MB of texture memory. This is using the Hi Res textures, using the Low Res textures is significantly less! If you have a 3D graphics card that has 256MB of RAM and a reasonable clock speed of 400MHz say then you should be fine to run the low resolution version of this addon pack.
What sort of machine do you have?
2. I must admit I did not read through thoroughly, so I may be missing something here, but will any of the stations (at least eventually) be simulated as single vessels?
Good question and no you have not missed anything.
Originally I had planned to just as you have suggested, but changed my mind to individual modules so people could play at station construction in space. I am always happy to return to this idea, though I have no idea as to when I may release it. This would reduce the polycount a little bit too!
The pack will come with a number of scenarios to get you started. There will be a few varieties of station style for you to play with or copy into your own scenarios.
3. Apparently one of the issues with the ET station concept is the SOFI flaking or 'popcorning' off on-orbit, in addition to providing poor MMOD protection. What is your 'backstory' to combating this problem?
Ah, now thats part of the entier backstory to the Project-Outposts series. In the addon pack along with the user manual will be a story outlining the history of events that leads to these stations being constructed.
Here is a brief outline of the back story:
Due to an enviromental catastrophe that changed the worlds economics, manufacting of certain materials had to be moved off world to LEO or beyond. The cost of waste processing and polution control quickly became unaffordable to the worlds industries, taxation rose to a never before seen high and economical disasters shook the world. The race was on to find a way to reduce costs and some looked towards space for the answer, the only problem was cost. A new space race was formed, one to cheapen the cost of vehicles, launchs into orbiter, and their payloads. NASA who had undertaken a study in the early 2000's, had an answer. In the race people revisited the idea of using modified ET's as work shops. They were cheap to manufacture and had large areas to build factories inside.
The problems of Micro-Meteoroid Orbital Debris (MMOD) and 'Spray On Foam Insulation' (SOFI) were revisited. After the inventions of the new kevlar based materials used in to Cupola sheilds and bigelow Aerospace inflatable modules a solution was found to cover the ET's in a light coating of this new material. Its properties helped invert a new polymer, which could be made clear, for building windows that reseal under the conditions of a micro-meteoroid hits. The material heats up an liquidizes during a puncher and reseals (again true, NASA are developing such a material intended for the manned Mars program). This material was applied to the exterior and interior of the ET outer wall.
NASA wrote a paper about the feasibility on an idea which came from science fiction, most notably Arthur C. Clarke who invisioned a space elevator (this is actually true). It was found technically possible to build such a system but the locations where one could be built were limited. Most sites on Earth were in remote 3rd world countries with difficult political alliances which soon would gain from the economical disasters. The project would bring all countries closer together and unite man kind in a new vision. One was built.
A new space port connected to a new moon of Earth, one towed into a geostationary orbit by the people of Earth. Then a bridge system was constructed which lead down to the ground with multiple platforms. A new age for man kind in space had begun!
Early versions of the ET's were outfitted on the ground and adapted to launch from automated boaster vehicles as the age of the space planes was long gone! Later the units were tranfered to the space elevator for delivery to orbit.
4. How will one be able to take the ETs into orbit? Will the outfitting of the tank for habitation be simulated?
By rocket boaster or the space elevator. Yes I fully intend on building a real model of the space elevator for orbiter, ambitious I know and it will not be release any time soon. My current plans for release of the space elevator are some time end of 2012 or begining of 2013.
In the first addon pack all ET's will contain virtual 3D cockpits which are ready for habitation. The entire length of the ET interior is modelled and you can move freely from top to bottom. Addition scenic packs will be released so you can add more furnishings to your station interiors.
Pinguinboy - Yes you will be able to select all of the modules in the scenario editor, create them and adjust perameters. I have been doing this to create the screen shots you see now. In addtion all modules come with a built-in docking tool window which allows you to perform the same docking operations as the scenario editor. Also the tool window lets you attach/detach vessels using any of the attachment points on the vessel if there are any available. This will allow you to connect 'Furniture' items such as COMs dishes and antennas to increase the customisation of your stations. This feature is already implemented and tested.
Hlynkacg - Absolutely correct! I will be releasing a modified version of the stock Atlantis supplied with Orbiter. The Orbiter SDK supplies a number of example software projects for the vessels available in Orbiter. All credit goes to those initially involved in there development, all I shal be doing is extending the Atlantis functionality. The software for the extended version of the Atlantis will be supplied in my addon package. I was trying to keep this a secret till the release. Oh well.
Izack - Your questions answered:
1. Your models look really detailed (which is good), which is somewhat intimidating to those of us with 'lower end' machines. What is the typical polycount of one of these stations?
Understandable and I have thought of you all. All of my images are of the high res version which have a typical polycount of no more the 200,000 for something like the 7-ET-Cluster station depicted. Now for most typical gaming graphics cards polycounts such as this would not even get them breaking out in a swet. The professional flight and driving simulators I design at work have far higher polycounts in there scenes than this, for example 1,000,000 +, and we can run them on high-end gaming cards at 60Hz like an NVIDIA 8800GT (GeForce 8 series). so if you have a GeForce 8 or better then you are laughing. I have two machine specifications at home which I develop on; Core i7 (2.80GHz), 6GB RAM, ATI Radeon 5570 HD (1GB), 1TB hard drive, Windows 7 and a more modist AMD Athlon (2.3GHz), 1GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 6 (512MB), 100GB hard drive, Windows XP. My Hi Res station pack runs on both system at about 30Hz or higher.
Texture memory is the biggest problem though, not having enough on board graphics RAM means more texture cache misses and thus more unloading and loading of textures from main RAM to graphics memory. This can seriously reduce your frame rate. What you want is all your textures for your scene loaded up into graphics memory and not have to rely on swaping textures in and out of your graphics card. Another problem is too many small mesh groups all using the same materials. Each time a group is processed a material needs to be applied, this means swaping a possible texture and lighting properties. This can be very costly. All my models have been optomised to reduce material swaps to the minimum. Also my textures are optomised to make use of as much available space in the texture area as possible, thus reducing the amount of memory required.
My entire collection of modules correctly stands at only 133MB of texture memory. This is using the Hi Res textures, using the Low Res textures is significantly less! If you have a 3D graphics card that has 256MB of RAM and a reasonable clock speed of 400MHz say then you should be fine to run the low resolution version of this addon pack.
What sort of machine do you have?
2. I must admit I did not read through thoroughly, so I may be missing something here, but will any of the stations (at least eventually) be simulated as single vessels?
Good question and no you have not missed anything.
Originally I had planned to just as you have suggested, but changed my mind to individual modules so people could play at station construction in space. I am always happy to return to this idea, though I have no idea as to when I may release it. This would reduce the polycount a little bit too!
The pack will come with a number of scenarios to get you started. There will be a few varieties of station style for you to play with or copy into your own scenarios.
3. Apparently one of the issues with the ET station concept is the SOFI flaking or 'popcorning' off on-orbit, in addition to providing poor MMOD protection. What is your 'backstory' to combating this problem?
Ah, now thats part of the entier backstory to the Project-Outposts series. In the addon pack along with the user manual will be a story outlining the history of events that leads to these stations being constructed.
Here is a brief outline of the back story:
Due to an enviromental catastrophe that changed the worlds economics, manufacting of certain materials had to be moved off world to LEO or beyond. The cost of waste processing and polution control quickly became unaffordable to the worlds industries, taxation rose to a never before seen high and economical disasters shook the world. The race was on to find a way to reduce costs and some looked towards space for the answer, the only problem was cost. A new space race was formed, one to cheapen the cost of vehicles, launchs into orbiter, and their payloads. NASA who had undertaken a study in the early 2000's, had an answer. In the race people revisited the idea of using modified ET's as work shops. They were cheap to manufacture and had large areas to build factories inside.
The problems of Micro-Meteoroid Orbital Debris (MMOD) and 'Spray On Foam Insulation' (SOFI) were revisited. After the inventions of the new kevlar based materials used in to Cupola sheilds and bigelow Aerospace inflatable modules a solution was found to cover the ET's in a light coating of this new material. Its properties helped invert a new polymer, which could be made clear, for building windows that reseal under the conditions of a micro-meteoroid hits. The material heats up an liquidizes during a puncher and reseals (again true, NASA are developing such a material intended for the manned Mars program). This material was applied to the exterior and interior of the ET outer wall.
NASA wrote a paper about the feasibility on an idea which came from science fiction, most notably Arthur C. Clarke who invisioned a space elevator (this is actually true). It was found technically possible to build such a system but the locations where one could be built were limited. Most sites on Earth were in remote 3rd world countries with difficult political alliances which soon would gain from the economical disasters. The project would bring all countries closer together and unite man kind in a new vision. One was built.
A new space port connected to a new moon of Earth, one towed into a geostationary orbit by the people of Earth. Then a bridge system was constructed which lead down to the ground with multiple platforms. A new age for man kind in space had begun!
Early versions of the ET's were outfitted on the ground and adapted to launch from automated boaster vehicles as the age of the space planes was long gone! Later the units were tranfered to the space elevator for delivery to orbit.
4. How will one be able to take the ETs into orbit? Will the outfitting of the tank for habitation be simulated?
By rocket boaster or the space elevator. Yes I fully intend on building a real model of the space elevator for orbiter, ambitious I know and it will not be release any time soon. My current plans for release of the space elevator are some time end of 2012 or begining of 2013.
In the first addon pack all ET's will contain virtual 3D cockpits which are ready for habitation. The entire length of the ET interior is modelled and you can move freely from top to bottom. Addition scenic packs will be released so you can add more furnishings to your station interiors.
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Steve
Addon Developer
Preparing the final release version
Hi everyone, again I missed the release date of the begining of Febuary this year. Once again work got in the way, but hey, it pays the mortgage.
I am currently preparing the final version of the documentation for this expansion pack for Orbiter. I now shall be releasing versions of this pack for 2006-P1, 2010, and 2010-P1 versions of Obiter. This should cover the majority of the community - I hope.
The pack now contains a modified Space Shuttle vessel built from the sample Atlantis project which comes with the Orbiter SDK developed by Dr Martin Schweiger and I believe other developers also. This will not replace the default version in Orbiter at all. It is contained within the Project-Outposts install directory and needs to be explicity created in your own scenarios. Of cause I shall release demo scenarios containing this shuttle.
My extensions to this vessel include a new option in the root controls menu obtained by pressing CTRL+SPACE. From here you can obtain the jettison control window known as panel C3 in the space shuttle. You can arm or disarm the jettison operations for the SRBs and the ET. You can also switch between automatic or manual jettison of each of these components. In the event something goes wrong on take-off the pilot may jettison the SRBs and ET just like you can with the J key in the standard Atlantis vessel. The J key is still supported in my modified version. However in the version to be released with Project-Outposts this will only work if you have first armed the jettison operations. If you choose to not ditch the ET you will be able to take this into LEO and transfer the ET to a higher orbiter if fuel allows. You may jettison the ET when you are ready, collect it with the robotic arm, then stablise its rotation and orbit. You are also able to take solar arrays and other modules into orbit using the shuttle. There will be a number of mission scenarios which will take you through building some basic space stations, step by step, just like building the ISS.
I want to stress that I do not intend the modified Atlantis vessel to replace the stock version or any other shuttle pack. In fact I would love to see other developers add the functionallity required to get the ETs contained in this pack up into orbit. If there is anyone that would like to consider extending their existing shuttle packs then please contact me. I also would like to release the code for the modified Atlantis as this was orginally a sample. I want to consult with Dr Martin before doing this though.
I intend to release within the next two weeks but this will depand on whether I have the rights to release the modified code for the Atlantis Shuttle or even the vessel binaries themselves. I will keep you all informed.
Regards,
Steve
Hi everyone, again I missed the release date of the begining of Febuary this year. Once again work got in the way, but hey, it pays the mortgage.
I am currently preparing the final version of the documentation for this expansion pack for Orbiter. I now shall be releasing versions of this pack for 2006-P1, 2010, and 2010-P1 versions of Obiter. This should cover the majority of the community - I hope.
The pack now contains a modified Space Shuttle vessel built from the sample Atlantis project which comes with the Orbiter SDK developed by Dr Martin Schweiger and I believe other developers also. This will not replace the default version in Orbiter at all. It is contained within the Project-Outposts install directory and needs to be explicity created in your own scenarios. Of cause I shall release demo scenarios containing this shuttle.
My extensions to this vessel include a new option in the root controls menu obtained by pressing CTRL+SPACE. From here you can obtain the jettison control window known as panel C3 in the space shuttle. You can arm or disarm the jettison operations for the SRBs and the ET. You can also switch between automatic or manual jettison of each of these components. In the event something goes wrong on take-off the pilot may jettison the SRBs and ET just like you can with the J key in the standard Atlantis vessel. The J key is still supported in my modified version. However in the version to be released with Project-Outposts this will only work if you have first armed the jettison operations. If you choose to not ditch the ET you will be able to take this into LEO and transfer the ET to a higher orbiter if fuel allows. You may jettison the ET when you are ready, collect it with the robotic arm, then stablise its rotation and orbit. You are also able to take solar arrays and other modules into orbit using the shuttle. There will be a number of mission scenarios which will take you through building some basic space stations, step by step, just like building the ISS.
I want to stress that I do not intend the modified Atlantis vessel to replace the stock version or any other shuttle pack. In fact I would love to see other developers add the functionallity required to get the ETs contained in this pack up into orbit. If there is anyone that would like to consider extending their existing shuttle packs then please contact me. I also would like to release the code for the modified Atlantis as this was orginally a sample. I want to consult with Dr Martin before doing this though.
I intend to release within the next two weeks but this will depand on whether I have the rights to release the modified code for the Atlantis Shuttle or even the vessel binaries themselves. I will keep you all informed.
Regards,
Steve
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Izack
Non sequitur
Awesome! Does this mean you can launch the modified Atlantis with your different ETs?
As far as I can tell in the documentation, the sample code in the Orbiter SDK is free game for any developer to use; in fact that seems to be the intention of the source code.
As far as I can tell in the documentation, the sample code in the Orbiter SDK is free game for any developer to use; in fact that seems to be the intention of the source code.
Steve
Addon Developer
Awesome! Does this mean you can launch the modified Atlantis with your different ETs?
As far as I can tell in the documentation, the sample code in the Orbiter SDK is free game for any developer to use; in fact that seems to be the intention of the source code.
Yes it does my friend
. All the way into a circular LEO and perform an orbital transfer maneuver to a higher orbit if desired. The ISS operates between 330 km (205 mi) and 410 km (255 mi), where as the space shuttle typically achives orbit circularisation at ~300 km.I have created a number of mission based scenarios to build a basic space station. In fact it is possible to build the most basic ET station in a single mission. It requires one modified ET and the shuttle to carry two solar arrays in the payload bay. I have provided functional rigs that fit into the payload bay which you can fit the solar arrays to. The only part not simulated is the interior construction. That's just a bit too involved!
Having said this all modules including the modified ETs do have full interiors to explore. You can freely move within the full volume of each module and look through all the windows.
I too have come to the same conclusion about the usage of the sample code but I just wanted to be sure. The last thing I want is for this product to be removed from circulation due to rights infringement.
Thank you for your support.
Steve
Addon Developer
PhantomCruiser
Wanderer
Hey Steve, don't rush too hard. Orson Wells might have said, "We will release no add-on, before it's time" (from an old series of comercials he did in the 70's?).
But then again, I'm always ready for a tuesday :thumbup:
But then again, I'm always ready for a tuesday :thumbup:
Arrowstar
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Or perhaps Douglas Adams said it best:
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by."
Steve
Addon Developer
How true indeed
. He makes a very good point. Never the less I am please to inform you all that things are going well and it still looks good for a release next week.Its funny, I never seem to meet deadlines at work either.
