Sky textures.

[ryan]

Hey guys, i had an idea well you know when your walking on the moon you cant see the stars unless your on the night side, so why doesnt alter Oribter to do that. ( I would have no idea how to do it). Also when you go up into space, theres no air pollution around to block the sky, so why someone doesnt add the clouds and nebulas. For example if you go into the nightside of the moon you can see a faint but visible purpleish could covering the stars, it would make Orbiter more beutiful. I also have ideas for a add-on to raise the textures of the oceans on Earth, currently there just blue ground, how about we add some zing into make it more real, maybe when a spacecraft or aircraft lands on the water it get animated to look like its bobbing up and down in the waves, that would be cool. Also this is to Dr Martin, when your loading Orbiter up, something might be going on in your computer and you need to get off the Orbiter loading screen fast. So how about a abort key, for example maybe, this is just off the top of my head maybe the Tab key.
Thanks.
Ryan.

 

[ryan]

I have this in mind for the night sky stars.

Obviusly this is a bit tampered with, but hopefully you will get my point.

 

[unussapiens]

I like the idea of an abort key. Although I don't think using tab is a good idea, as it is used in key combos such as Alt+Tab, and I know that I regularly miss keys on my keyboard. I think Esc might be more suitable.

 

[ryan]

So what does everyone think about having a better sky texture?

 

[tomek]

I'm not sure why you believe you can't see the stars on the lit side of the moon in the first place. It might be hard to get a photo of the stars above lit landscape (you'll end up either with stars unseen or landscape overexposed). But human eye is more adaptive to brightness.

 

[ryan]

I was just saying when you go up into space, maybe in Oribter we could see more than some blochs in the sky, add some zing into it.

 

[tomek]

Most of that zing is quite faint, and visible only with telescope, assuming it's in visible spectrum at all. You are definitely more than welcome to see and add it, however.

 

[unussapiens]

The easiest way to get more 'zing' is to turn up the star count on the launchpad. It won't add you nebulae, but you will get a nice full sky.

 

[ryan]

But when you go into space for real, isnt there some sort of faint cloud in space?

 

[MJR]

I doubt it. Depending how far you go. Things like that are mostly nebula's and other things of that sort. They are really far from Earth so I do not know why you would see one. You would have to use a telescope to see something that distant.

 

[ryan]

What about the picture at the top.

 

[MJR]

The problem is that that is a temporary thing. It deos not happen every night so if you made an enhancemment add-on, you would have that every time it is dark.

 

[ryan]

But it will be nice to see, when you go up you see more then stars.

 

[MJR]

In space, or on Earth?

 

[ryan]

In space, or on Earth?

In space of corse.

 

[MJR]

In the picture it seems like it is on Earth. In that case, you would have to make it as a planetary object and add it to a specific place in the solar system. I am not sure how you would make it, but I got a good idea how to set it up.

 

[pete.dakota]

I doubt it. Depending how far you go. Things like that are mostly nebula's and other things of that sort. They are really far from Earth so I do not know why you would see one. You would have to use a telescope to see something that distant.

Distance has nothing to do with it. It's all about relative distance and brightness. Nebulae don't specifically have to be farther away than stars.

When I was in Australia a few years back, we stayed in a very remote cabin in the outback. We were over 100kms from anything that would constitute a village or town, let a lone a city. Fortunately it was a new moon that night, the Galactic core was so bright, that after spending around 10 minutes outside, it was easily noticable that our own Milky Way was casting a shadow on the ground. It was VERY faint, but you could notice it. The sky that night, is how I imagine space would look from the dark side of the moon and in the shadow of the Earth in LEO if you allow your eyes to adjust.

This would be nice to see in Orbiter, obviously. But with the current restrictions on the graphics engine, you would either see it all the time, or not at all. Just as you can now with the star field.

 

[ryan]

I was about to say the same thing, well almost the same thing.

 

[MJR]

It would have to be very bright then. I still find it difficult to actually put it in Orbiter and then see it all the time. I mean, Orbiter has restrictions and like you said in your little story, it casted a shadow. I doubt what we are talking about can do that in Orbiter at the moment. You would have to zoom up on it and view it like that. All the images we see that are close up images are taken by telescopes because it is far. In Orbiter it would be really hard to simulate it like in real life.

 

[pete.dakota]

It would have to be very bright then. I still find it difficult to actually put it in Orbiter and then see it all the time.

Put what in Orbiter? Are you trying to replace the star field a texture?

I mean, Orbiter has restrictions and like you said in your little story, it casted a shadow. I doubt what we are talking about can do that in Orbiter at the moment. You would have to zoom up on it and view it like that. All the images we see that are close up images are taken by telescopes because it is far. In Orbiter it would be really hard to simulate it like in real life.

I wasn't implying at all that Orbiter's star field should cast a shadow on bodies.

Technically you wouldn't have to 'zoom in' on the galaxy to see it how I did in Australia. I was there with my bare eyes, looking up at the night sky. If I can see a night sky like that from inside Earth's atmosphere, then any astronaut would be able to see it from space, given that he/she allows their eyes to adjust.

Not all the pictures that you see of impressive night sky's are zoomed in. They simply have long exposures. Such as the picture that Ryan posted. You will notice that it has a high FOV and it not zoomed in at all.