Meshing Question VC Panel development

[CDGA]

Hello everyone!

I'm a big VC fan, i like to fly with joystick and Track IR, VC works very well with Track IR.... I have some experience in 3d modeling and I'm currently working on modeliing VC panels, but my coding experience is literally 0. I'm wondering if all you master coders out there would be willing to collaborate on a project to put some nice looking VC Cockpits on the XR series. i understand that most addons are closed source, so i don't even know if it's possibe... wanna give it a shot, just think about it, an awesome, Blender made VC cockpit for the XR1, 2 and 5. let me know if someone is interested. cheers

carlos

 

[MaxBuzz]

mesh of the XR series is coded and immutable, this can make the idea difficult

 

[N_Molson]

I think the XR source code has been released, but the meshes are under copyright (I might be wrong). In theory you could replace the existing meshes with yours.

 

[n72.75]

mesh of the XR series is coded and immutable, this can make the idea difficult

The XR2 mesh is not open source. The others are all licensed under GPL3

GitHub - dbeachy1/XRVessels: XR-Series vessel add-ons for Orbiter Space Flight Simulator

XR-Series vessel add-ons for Orbiter Space Flight Simulator - GitHub - dbeachy1/XRVessels: XR-Series vessel add-ons for Orbiter Space Flight Simulator

github.com

 

[CDGA]

Thank you all for your replies... so let me see if i'm getting this right, i read the github post, so this means that it is possible to replace the VC in the XR1 and XR5 but not the XR2? if so then i'd be willing to model theese 2 in blender, but i'd need some light into how to make it work, if anyone is willing to share their experience or work, let me know, i'd be happy to help improve on theese great vessels for all those VC lovers out there... cheers

carlos

 

[gattispilot]

I know there maybe a tutorial on VC panels. I have done some simple ones.

 

[n72.75]

Thank you all for your replies... so let me see if i'm getting this right, i read the github post, so this means that it is possible to replace the VC in the XR1 and XR5 but not the XR2? if so then i'd be willing to model theese 2 in blender, but i'd need some light into how to make it work, if anyone is willing to share their experience or work, let me know, i'd be happy to help improve on theese great vessels for all those VC lovers out there... cheers

carlos

I believe so, @dbeachy1 would be the one to ask.

 

[dbeachy1]

There are a few parts to the VC questions from a legal and ethical standpoint:

• The XR1's mesh and VC is licensed under GPLV3, as that is a derived work from the now-MIT-licensed original DeltaGlider mesh and VC. This means that if a ship mesh or VC mesh is derived from XR1's mesh, and not just the original DG mesh, then that derived mesh would need to be licensed under GPLV3.
• The XR5's mesh is entirely new and is licensed under GPLV3. Any derived mesh from this would need to be licensed under GPLV3.
• The XR2's mesh is still licensed under the original license terms that Coolhand specified, which is that it cannot be modified or be used for derived works without his express consent (and to-date nobody has been able to contact him). However, it is both legal and ethical to create an entirely new XR2 mesh from scratch that is not based at all on the original mesh (meaning, not copying its shape, textures, or VC panel layout). It would have to be a "clean room" product, in other words. In effect, this would be an entirely new, separate XR vessel appearance-wise and dimensions + animation coordinates-wise, although it could retain exactly the same performance characteristics and systems as the XR2, as that is entirely driven via the code.

This means that for the XR2, anyone could make a totally new mesh and textures and then extend the XR2's GPLV3 code base to create a derived version of the code to make the new mesh active, with the derived vessel named differently so it's not confused with being an "official XR2 release". This entirely new mesh and corresponding textures themselves could be licensed under whatever GPLV3-compatible terms the author wanted, including MIT. The derived vessel's XR2-based code, however, would still need to be licensed as GPLV3, which means that the derived vessel as a released product would have to be licensed under GPLV3.

EDIT:
To clarify further, vessels derived from the XR1 and XR5 must also be named differently from the original vessels in order to comply with Trademark Law so as not to be confused as an official XR vessel release from the original project. As an analogy, you can't take Firefox's open-source code, build it, and call it "Firefox Version 2". You have to name your derived work something completely different.

 

[CDGA]

seems easier to just build a new vessel!
so extracting the code for the XR2 and XR5 would still need a license? i can make meshes and textures all day long, but coding is a weakness for me

Thank you all for the replies

 

[dgatsoulis]

seems easier to just build a new vessel!
so extracting the code for the XR2 and XR5 would still need a license? i can make meshes and textures all day long, but coding is a weakness for me

Thank you all for the replies

About the XR family, the way I understand it is the following:

You can do whatever you want with the XR1 and XR5, as long as the derived meshes and code are published under a GPLV3 license and proper credit to the original authors is given.

The XR2 is a special case. The code is open source but the meshes and textures are not. So even if you recreate the XR2 from scratch, you still need the original creator's (Steve "Coolhand" Tyler's) permission in order to publish it. Without permission you can't even make something that closely resembles the XR2. The work would have to be transformative enough so that it could be considered as an original mesh.
So far all attempts to contact Steve have not been fruitful, as he seems to have left the community for many years now.
I did find this active twitter link, which uses the "Coolhand3D" handle, but I can't be sure if it's him. : https://twitter.com/Coolhand3D
Maybe it's worth a shot to try and contact him there, confirm that it's really him, inform him that Orbiter and the XR family code are now open source and ask if he'd be willing to release the XR2 meshes and textures under a GPLV3 license.

I think at this point it would be best if you could show some of the work that you can do, so potential collaboration partners can decide if they'd like to participate in a project.

Here is an example from last year with OvalDreamX and me: Project Shuttle-A Mk.IX
OvalDreamX created the mesh and released it as a resource to the community. I picked it up and adapted the Shuttle-A's code for the new mesh.
Unfortunately we got stuck during the development of the VC due to RL, but the project is still open and there are no licensing issues. Perhaps you can have a shot at creating a VC for the Shuttle-A Mk.IX yourself.

With that said, here are a few cool projects that I'd like to see in Orbiter:

1. Some new bases: Orbiter has this cool terrain but is seriously lacking on places to land on. A few bases to populate the inner and outer solar system would be a really nice addition. You can go for the following generic categories:
Scientific outpost, mining/resource extraction, refinery, commercial hub, solar farm, hollowed asteroid etc. If you can couple them with a few orbiting stations, it could really breath some life into the solar system and give us a few nice places to visit.
These can be done with little to no coding needed. Just the meshes a flat area to place them and a config file.

2. Floating station on Venus' cloud tops. Man, I'd really like to see something like that added in Orbiter. It would make for such a nice (and challenging) destination to visit.
I mean, aerobraking on Venus and landing on something that floats at ~50 km over the surface would be so cool. (Think Artlav's Shukra station but with a nice mesh)

3. Space elevator. Amazingly, Kulch's old addon still works in Orbiter2016 (and OpenOrbiter). The meshes though could definitely use an update. Speaking of Kulch's addons the Lunar Mass Driver was pretty awesome too. It also could use an update on the meshes/textures, but should work out of the box (or with a quick recompile in Orbiter2016).

4. More VCs. IMO having a 3D VC on a vessel really helps with immersion. You can find many open source projects in the add-ons and create something for those. The World of 2001 comes to mind, where you have an open source Orbiter project, with a complete ecosystem for the whole inner solar system, but very few of the ships have VCs and even fewer have good ones.

Anyway, I turned this thread into a wishlist, so I'll stop here. The community would greatly benefit from a talented 3d artist that is willing to share their work and release it as a resource for developers. Pick anything that you'd like to add to Orbiter, start a project thread showing your work and I am sure that at least some of us will be more than willing to help you turn it into a working Orbiter addon.

All the best,
Dimitris

 

[CDGA]

dgatsoulis, Thanks for the reply.​

funny you mention all this. I was working on a new cockpit mesh for the XR1 just to get started.... about making it work? no idea. ill post some pictures when it's advanced enough. As for the scenery i did notice its easier to make scenery, so i deviated a bit to try and make a Moon base at the Apollo 11 landing site. I call it Tranquility Base, so far i have only a tower and a landing pad with a nav beacon. I'm already stuck at something. I want to put elevated landing pads, already made a Pad but can't figure out how to make the surface of the pad solid so a vessel can land there... can anyone offer a solution? heres the .cfg for the base so far

BASE-V2.0
Name = Tranquility Base
Size = 1000
Location = 23.473 0.674
MapObjectsToSphere = TRUE

BEGIN_NAVBEACON
VOR TQB +23.473 +0.674 110.20 500
END_NAVBEACON

BEGIN_OBJECTLIST
MESH
FILE Tower
OWNMATERIAL
POS 90 40 20
SCALE 8 8 8
SHADOW
PRELOAD
END
MESH
FILE LandP
OWNMATERIAL
POS 50 0 100
SCALE 10 10 10
SHADOW
NAV 130.30
PRELOAD
END
END_OBJECTLIST


i think this would be a key ability to make the floating station o venus!... if i can get away with this i might consider making some of those items of your list. cheers all

 

[Max-Q]

You can't do it without some (rather nasty) hacks.
You'll need a vessel with a dll to to this.
Check out BrianJ's Crew Dragon addon for an example, the recovery vessel has a landable helipad.

 

[CDGA]

I just read something that says it might be possible using attachment points on a mesh, i cant understand it very well, this is what i saw

BEGIN_ATTACHMENT
C 0.0 2.43 -2.65 0 1 0 0 0 1 arm
END_ATTACHMENT

 

[dgatsoulis]

Elevated landed pads are a bit tricky to get to work. There are several ways to do it, most of them (but not all) require a bit of code:

1. Attachment points: The code looks for certain criteria (distance to pad, relative velocity, orientation, altitude, etc) and when they are met it "snaps" the vessel that meets them to the attachment point.
2. Docking ports. Similar to the previous, but you use docking ports instead of attachment points. In both cases, your base (or at least some parts of it) would have to be Orbiter vessels.
3 Altering the vessel's landing points: When above the landing pad, the vessel's landing points are altered to add the required altitude to land on the elevated pad.
4. Changing the altitude of the terrain at the pads: This wouldn't require any coding, but you'd have to "hide" the elevated terrain by making the pad slightly bigger and placing it on top of the elevated coordinates.

 

[CDGA]

Thanks again dgatsoulis.... Option 4 sounds good, how exactly can i raise the altitude of the terrain at the pads location?

 

[Urwumpe]

Don't we have vessel to vessel collisions yet?

 

[DaveS]

Don't we have vessel to vessel collisions yet?

No, never did. Only vessel/terrain collision.

 

[Urwumpe]

Then the video was just a demo back then, I meant Artlav had done something there.

Anyway, somebody could also write a plugin to provide landing capability on flat elevated surfaces.

 

[n72.75]

Then the video was just a demo back then, I meant Artlav had done something there.

Anyway, somebody could also write a plugin to provide landing capability on flat elevated surfaces.

You're probably thinking of Meshland or his ColisionSDK I thought the source code was on his GitHub but I'm not seeing it.

If anyone is suggesting we impliment that as a feature, it's probably worth looking at how Orbiter does terrain/convex hull collisions right now, but any further discussion probably merits it's only thread so we don't drag this too far off topic.

 

[Urwumpe]

You're probably thinking of Meshland or his ColisionSDK I thought the source code was on his GitHub but I'm not seeing it.

If anyone is suggesting we impliment that as a feature, it's probably worth looking at how Orbiter does terrain/convex hull collisions right now, but any further discussion probably merits it's only thread so we don't drag this too far off topic.

You are right there, I suppose its new topic then.

But for implementing something like a flightdeck capability, again, a general plugin might be more beginner friendly than a special C++ solution in each vessel and could allow using such a function in generic vessels (cfg, multistage, spacecraft4, vesselbuilder) as well.