Ultimate space simulation software

 
A-L-E-X
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Re: Image Dump

08 Dec 2022 07:13

Not my best, but the night sky view from a planet in this neighborhood must be quite spectacular.

990-00474.jpg
Is it near a place where three galaxies are merging?
Looks like you're into 990 now!
It is a merger of three galaxies.

I use both, depends on what I'm looking for, or to do.
Thanks, have you found settings that work for you in 0.990?  I have had to drop down to "medium" for graphics quality because the ship I am using (Argon Light Fighter) has intense graphics and when I set up my 8 cameras (the set up process has improved a great deal), the program would always crash when I went to Camera number 6 (which is a view out of the right side of the ship towards the wing and outside).  I tried both ultra and high which caused the program to crash as soon as I went to switch to that camera (or more accurately, the program stalled and so did everything else on my computer, including the windows clock-- and I patiently waited for an hour and everything remained nonresponsive!).  Now with the settings at "medium" I have been flying for 48 hours (knock on wood!) without any issues.  I did notice that if I leave the computer unattended when I come back it takes longer to switch cameras as opposed to if I am constantly doing it, when it happens almost without delay.  I wonder why that is?  Also, I have 4 browsers with a dozen tabs each running and I have 140 addons on SE running lol.  The only ones I unsubscribed to were the two related to Rodrigo's clouds (do you use those?) which was a good idea since it  reduced the lag somewhat.
 
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Re: Image Dump

08 Dec 2022 07:17

Something I've never seen before- a planet visible in full detail from another completely unrelated planet. You can see the other planet go behind the sun and back out within a 2-hour period or so.

0.990, RS 8496-928-0-0-10 for anyone interested.

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EDIT: An update to yesterday's picture. This is what the second planet looks like from the first planet at their absolute closest point, IIRC the apparent size was something like 2°45'. It's also close enough to reflect light onto the first planet like a moon

Probably not the most interesting phenomenon in the grand scheme of things but I've been looking for something like this for a while
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Are they part of the same star cluster?  I wonder how they'd be so close, being from separate star systems!
I thought he meant two unrelated planets as in one was not a moon of the other, but still in orbit about the same star.  I once came across something similar in .9.8.0 — two planets in orbit about a red dwarf, the inner planet was a gas giant. The first pic shows the gas giant from the surface of the other planet, but this is at, or very near, opposition. That planet is about to pass behind the red dwarf sun. The second pic is from the same location on the outer planet, but zoomed in as the gas giant passes behind the sun. (A multiple system, most of the light comes from a more distant but much brighter companion star.)

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Wow, that's a very interesting system, both for lighting and for the landscape.  The one I am exploring right now is called Pandora, which is a life sustaining moon of the planet Polyphemus (who came up with these Greek names lol?) orbiting the main star in the Alpha Centauri triple star system (you can't find that star by that name through search for some reason.)
 
Mr. Abner
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Re: Image Dump

14 Dec 2022 10:49

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Re: Image Dump

15 Dec 2022 05:13

Wow spectacular!  I guess I should keep the settings on Medium since it's the most stable-- I've been on the same flight for 9 days now lol (knock on wood), trying to get to 10.
 
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Re: Image Dump

20 Dec 2022 13:40

Glow-in-the-dark rings. ;)
990-00477.jpg
 
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Re: Image Dump

22 Dec 2022 03:45

Interesting rings, journeying through them should be a real trip!  I want to try it-- it's in 0.990?
 
Mr. Abner
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Re: Image Dump

05 Jan 2023 00:26

Interesting rings, journeying through them should be a real trip!  I want to try it-- it's in 0.990?
It is, but I don't recall the address. It's just an auto-exposure thing anyway. :)
990-00461.jpg
990-00489.jpg
990-00497.jpg
990-00502.jpg
990-00535.jpg
 
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Re: Image Dump

05 Jan 2023 18:24

Interesting rings, journeying through them should be a real trip!  I want to try it-- it's in 0.990?
It is, but I don't recall the address. It's just an auto-exposure thing anyway. :)

990-00461.jpg
990-00489.jpg
990-00497.jpg
990-00502.jpg
990-00535.jpg
Wow, they're so realistic but especially the first one!  What settings do you use?  Ultra or High at 1080P or higher I'm guessing? I'm using Medium even at 1280x1024 to try to keep it running as long as possible.  Did you use the Flight Simulator for these?

A question I had for you about the 8 camera positions for each ship, I've set those up for multiple ships but I try to keep them close enough to the ship to see at least the nose or tail of the ship so it gives some perspective on where the land is versus where the ship is.  Do I have to make the camera position much more negative to get it close to the ground? I'm talking about the middle number in the top sequence of 3 numbers (the lowest I've made it for any of my cameras is -180).....how much lower would it have to be to get the camera close to the ground if I was say, 10-15 km above the ground?  Also when in autopilot and hold altitude the altitude often changes between say 10 km and 20 km, what happens to the camera if it is close to the ground at 20 km and the ship then lowers to 10 km....would it crash?  And sometimes I am at 10 km and I run into mountains and only clear them by a few km....would the camera crash into those mountains?

Also, what does that -180 mean? Is it 180 meters below the ship? I'm not sure what any of those numbers mean, but I try to keep them to where I can actually see the colored squares in the image (so they're usually 100 or less, plus or minus, I do have a couple higher, like one at 120 and one at 180.....I want them to face all four directions to give a view of both the ground and the sky and the ship in at least a small part of the picture for perspective.)

Here is an image from my current voyage.
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Re: Image Dump

05 Jan 2023 18:27

I want to position a camera low enough to see the river much more clearly as well as that island I see in the river.  What kind of numbers would I need to do to do that?  I'm guessing a middle number in the top row a lot lower than -180? Are those in meters?

Also, a different question-- how do I change direction of movement quickly?  I know I can't do it in autopilot with hold altitude on but if I turn that off, the ship starts to veer wildly up and down and from side to side and won't fly level.  Is there a way to keep the ship level and get the left and right bearings to move smoothly with the right and left arrow keys or using the number pad?  Thanks!
scr20003.jpg
 
Mr. Abner
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Re: Image Dump

05 Jan 2023 19:32

Interesting rings, journeying through them should be a real trip!  I want to try it-- it's in 0.990?
It is, but I don't recall the address. It's just an auto-exposure thing anyway. :)

990-00461.jpg
990-00489.jpg
990-00497.jpg
990-00502.jpg
990-00535.jpg
Wow, they're so realistic but especially the first one!  What settings do you use?  Ultra or High at 1080P or higher I'm guessing? I'm using Medium even at 1280x1024 to try to keep it running as long as possible.  Did you use the Flight Simulator for these?
I don't think I have anything special going on, as a matter of fact, Vlad and the boys seem to think I have a potato PC, and have no qualms about telling me so.

Monitor native resolution is 1920 by 1080, custom settings, which I change when I find a good screenshot to take (I'll crank up the settings, and I'll wait — I'm patient).

Still with the ship camera questions! Give me a minute, I'll take a screenshot or two to help...
 
Mr. Abner
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Re: Image Dump

05 Jan 2023 20:15

One thing that might help, turning on "Show axes". They are depicted with three coloured arrows — red, green, and blue (you can remember "rgb" — they coincide with "xyz", as in the red arrow is along the x-axis, the green arrow along the y-axis, and the blue arrow along the z-axis. They point towards the positive side of each axis.
990-00542.jpg
When you have a camera (or other item) selected in the editor, the numbers in the middle row of the "Position" section are the x, y, and z coordinates of the current selected object with respect to the ship's 0,0,0 reference point in meters. That's usually the middle of the ship, but doesn't have to be.

The two rows of numbers above and the two below the coordinates are actually buttons. You can use those to adjust the current coordinates. Holding down the shift key will allow some larger movements. You can of course, just type in numbers.

The second group of numbers shows the rotation of the object or camera around each axis, relative to its own centre, not the ships!
990-00541.jpg
In this pic, the selected camera is number "4", a cockpit camera. It is the yellow object towards the left of the screen (it actually flashes between red and yellow, I do believe, as the selected object) — a sphere inside a cube. The view is from one of the other defined cameras — the red grid is the view from inside the camera object sphere. It is also rotated, as you can see by the numbers in the Rotation parameters — pointing backwards.

If you want to drop a camera near the surface and you are at 10km altitude, enter 10000 (or -10000) in the axis that is up/down for your ship. For example, in the pic above, I would put -10000 in the y-axis box (green is up/down on this ship, and negative is down). You may also want to let it trail the ship by a fair bit too, up to you. Another big number in the forward/backward axis — in my case would be 10000 in the z-axix to place the camera 10km behind the centre of my ship.

And, if all you want is to look left and right, or behind and down also, no point in defining extra cameras for that, just make the one, then if you want to look left or right, just change your view with the ctrl-numpad keys — if you let go of the ctrl key first before the number key, the view will stay locked in that position until you press another view key. For example, press and hold the ctrl key, press the numpad 6, the view will rotate 90 degrees to the right. Let go of the 6 first, and the view will switch back to forward view. But if you let go of the ctrl key while still holding down the 6 key, the view will lock to that view. Press another view key combination ctrl-6 again, ctrl-5, doesn't matter, as long as you release the number key before the ctrl key, and the view will unlock back to the forward view.  You can do that with left, right, up, down, or behind views, no need to waste camera definitions if all you want is 90 degree options.

Hope that helps.
 
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Re: Image Dump

06 Jan 2023 17:03

One thing that might help, turning on "Show axes". They are depicted with three coloured arrows — red, green, and blue (you can remember "rgb" — they coincide with "xyz", as in the red arrow is along the x-axis, the green arrow along the y-axis, and the blue arrow along the z-axis. They point towards the positive side of each axis.

990-00542.jpg

When you have a camera (or other item) selected in the editor, the numbers in the middle row of the "Position" section are the x, y, and z coordinates of the current selected object with respect to the ship's 0,0,0 reference point in meters. That's usually the middle of the ship, but doesn't have to be.

The two rows of numbers above and the two below the coordinates are actually buttons. You can use those to adjust the current coordinates. Holding down the shift key will allow some larger movements. You can of course, just type in numbers.

The second group of numbers shows the rotation of the object or camera around each axis, relative to its own centre, not the ships!

990-00541.jpg

In this pic, the selected camera is number "4", a cockpit camera. It is the yellow object towards the left of the screen (it actually flashes between red and yellow, I do believe, as the selected object) — a sphere inside a cube. The view is from one of the other defined cameras — the red grid is the view from inside the camera object sphere. It is also rotated, as you can see by the numbers in the Rotation parameters — pointing backwards.

If you want to drop a camera near the surface and you are at 10km altitude, enter 10000 (or -10000) in the axis that is up/down for your ship. For example, in the pic above, I would put -10000 in the y-axis box (green is up/down on this ship, and negative is down). You may also want to let it trail the ship by a fair bit too, up to you. Another big number in the forward/backward axis — in my case would be 10000 in the z-axix to place the camera 10km behind the centre of my ship.

And, if all you want is to look left and right, or behind and down also, no point in defining extra cameras for that, just make the one, then if you want to look left or right, just change your view with the ctrl-numpad keys — if you let go of the ctrl key first before the number key, the view will stay locked in that position until you press another view key. For example, press and hold the ctrl key, press the numpad 6, the view will rotate 90 degrees to the right. Let go of the 6 first, and the view will switch back to forward view. But if you let go of the ctrl key while still holding down the 6 key, the view will lock to that view. Press another view key combination ctrl-6 again, ctrl-5, doesn't matter, as long as you release the number key before the ctrl key, and the view will unlock back to the forward view.  You can do that with left, right, up, down, or behind views, no need to waste camera definitions if all you want is 90 degree options.

Hope that helps.
wow that's a great way to remember it-- I do have those axes on.  I noticed when changing the middle number in the top row that the colored box moved up and down.

so the second set of three numbers are for rotation but centered on the camera itself?  and it's in degrees so if I want to point it sideways I type in either -90 or +90 for the middle rotation number or 180 if I want to point it backwards? the first rotation number tilts the camera left or right and the third rotation number tilts it up or down?

thanks so the top numbers are in meters!  do you constantly change the camera height numbers depending on how high the ship is or do you just leave it at 10000 for y and z axis all the time?  do you ever use a large number for the x axis too?  thanks this helps a lot!
 
Mr. Abner
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Re: Image Dump

06 Jan 2023 18:49

Well, play around with the numbers, you'll see the cameras move and or rotate. Click on the +45 or -45 buttons to quickly rotate them 45 degrees around that axis, you'll see the arrow pointing out of the front of the camera icon turn. You'll get the hang of it.

Another thing I forget to mention, while you have the editor open, you can still press the "4" key to cycle through the cameras (or even the "3" or "2" or "1" keys to detach from the actual ship cameras). If you edit the current active ship camera, you will see that grid (in the second pic above, it's the red grid that fills the screen — the inside of the camera icon sphere) move, as long as it is still in the field of view. Click on those 1 degree buttons, and you'll see it rotate.

Also, those bottom left two buttons on the ship menu? One looks like an "X", one shows a little orbit. The "X" button switches to camera views on the ship, the orbit button switches to, you guessed it, the orbit view of the ship. If you are editing the current ship camera, pressing that "X" button will update your view to the new location/rotation. Play around with the buttons, you'll get the hang of it. Don't think you can hurt anything.

I have used some large numbers, but mostly because the ship itself is just about 20km long. :) And I have made a "fleet" (more of a squadron, I guess...) that was well over 60km long all told.
 
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Re: Image Dump

06 Jan 2023 20:06

Wow do you have a lot of cockpit cameras in that 20 km long ship?
I forgot to ask, what's the difference between selecting cockpit camera, behind camera or auto? I normally just use behind camera.  Do the others work differently?

I'm thinking I should max out the FOV to 120 degrees before editing the ship cameras so I can see them even when far away from the ship?

When I detach from the ship cameras, how do I re-attach?

When you make a squadron does the squadron share the 8 camera positions or does each member of the squadron get their own individual 8 camera positions?  Thanks!
 
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Re: Image Dump

06 Jan 2023 22:26

Wow do you have a lot of cockpit cameras in that 20 km long ship?
I forgot to ask, what's the difference between selecting cockpit camera, behind camera or auto? I normally just use behind camera.  Do the others work differently?

I'm thinking I should max out the FOV to 120 degrees before editing the ship cameras so I can see them even when far away from the ship?

When I detach from the ship cameras, how do I re-attach?

When you make a squadron does the squadron share the 8 camera positions or does each member of the squadron get their own individual 8 camera positions?  Thanks!
Same number of total cameras for a ship, just eight — a mix of cockpit and behind cameras.

Not sure about the differences with the auto camera, I believe it is just a behind camera that gets placed a reasonable distance behind the ship without you having to worry about the exact placement coordinates. Two slight differences between the cockpit and behind cameras — with the behind camera, when the ship manœuvers, the camera lags behind a little. The cockpit camera does not (otherwise it would likely leave the cockpit!). And with the behind camera, right-click and mousing orbits the camera around the centre of the ship, the cockpit camera pans, as if you are looking around. At least, that's the way it used to work in .9.8.0 — with .9.9.0, right-click mousing does nothing with the cockpit camera (which still bugs me  :mad: ) But you can still pan that camera with centre-button click, but as soon as you let go, the view snaps back to forward view. (I don't find that nearly as useful, but maybe that's just me.)

Also, if you have a behind camera active when you switch to ship orbit view, the right-click mouse move orbits around the selected reference body, while having a cockpit camera active it will pan the view. Or it might, not sure with 990. A minor quibble.

To reattach to the ship camera, just press "4" again. If that does nothing, you'll have to go back to the ship menu, make sure the right ship is selected, and click on "Take Control", that should get you back on board.

A ship can be composed from modules, or just one complete mesh. The .sss file contains the module definitions used for the ship. Many models use just one module so the complete ship is one mesh. You can add multiple instances of that mesh as different modules, with different x, y, and z coordinates. So the various ships all act as one unit. But that also means they all rotate as one fixed unit, so not perfect. And since the .sss file also contains the camera definitions, the entire squadron or fleet is still limited to eight cameras max.

Oh... one more difference between behind and cockpit cameras. When going to warp, the behind camera always pulls out well behind the ship (I still find that annoying, too, but what can you do...), the cockpit camera stays in place. I turn the warp effect off, and enjoy the undistorted view from the cockpit when going to warp. Mostly.

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