Your own "Powers of Ten" movie--very neat!!

[canadave]

Well, maybe not actually "make" the movie, but at least simulate it.  Some of you will remember the "Powers of Ten"
movie I posted about some time ago.  Well, try this:

1.  Start Orbiter with a scenario that calls for a ship landed somewhere on Earth at a base.  I used the DG3 scenario
Landed at KSC.
2.  Switch to exterior view and maneuver the camera so that you're looking pretty much straight down on the top of
the spacecraft.
3.  Now hold down the Page Down button and watch yourself zoom out.  See how far it goes  You'll be surprised.  
Note the Distance measurement, top left of screen.

Also try it in Planetarium mode (F9)!


I discovered how neat that effect is, after finding out how neat ANOTHER effect is.  I undocked from ISS with the DG3,
switched to exterior view, and zoomed wayyy out.  You really get a great sense of the scales we deal with in Orbiter
without even realizing it.

I like these effects because so often we see everything in Orbiter from up close; even when approaching Jupiter, it
just looks like a big ball on a computer monitor.  By doing these zooms in and out, you can really appreciate the
distances involved.

[Schimz]

OMG

STAR'S MOVING ! ! ! 8o

[canadave]

hehehe....not quite.  Those stars are planets--check it out in Planetarium mode

Unless you went a lot further than I did???  But I don't think the stars move.  Now THAT would be simply amazing,
and I would honestly be incredibly impressed if Martin somehow managed to model that!!!

[Schimz]

well, after checkin', star's not moving (not yet )

I'll hallucinate :p

[canadave]

Yeah, the first time I saw those points of light moving (before I checked in Planetarium mode and saw they were the
planets in our solar system), I was like, "OMG...the stars are moving, I'll probably see the Milky Way galaxy next!"

One slightly-related thing--the way the planets appear now in Orbiter from a great distance is MUCH more realistic.  
Really beautiful.

Oh, and a last thing unrelated to what we've been talking about--try setting your star settings in the Parameters
section to 1,500 count, .2 brightness, and 5 contrast!  I find that gives the sky a much more realistic look. (you
might need to change the brightness slightly because my monitor is a bit dark).

[Atom]

Check it out with an MMU, even more appropriate!

[C3PO]

There's another neat thing to try out.

Go to external view on any craft in orbit, turn it prograde and rotate the camera to the front of the craft. Zoom out 3-4
km, open ground view and press current.

Orbital speeds are really high!!!

C3PO

[canadave]

Wow....you're not kidding!  Neat trick!

Just tried something else (maybe we should rename this the "Orbiter neat tricks" thread!):

Go into a DeltaGlider (the original or the DG-S) and start a scenario where you're in orbit on the day side of Earth.  
Now start up the virtual cockpit and start some gradual rotation in three axes.  Then using your right-mouse
button, start to pan around the virtual cockpit for about ten seconds as if you're looking around the cockpit for
something--then suddenly pan back so you're looking straight out the front window.  I don't know about any of you,
but when I did that, I felt a bit of real vertigo and disorientation!!!



Post Edited ( 01-19-05 01:30 )

[freespace2dotcom]

I think that there's an error here. the stars don't move for me at all.

I zoomed all the way out to 1e+250pc and didn't see any galaxy seem to form at all. the stars simply stayed in
the background. it's true that I did see them move from pixel to pixel, but that's because the camera was moving, (it's
focused to be relative to earth, which is moving in it's jolly orbit and rotating)

I trained the camera on the sun, and continued to zoom out, and no star in the background moved even a pixel.



Post Edited ( 01-19-05 10:27 )

[canadave]

actually we were just joking around about the stars moving...they don't move  Schimz was saying he thought the
stars were moving when he first tried the zoom out trick, but I pointed out that those were just the planets of our
solar system receding from view.  Re-read the thread carefully hehe

[freespace2dotcom]

No no..

I had assumed you were saying that the stars were defined as planets in orbiter, and thus you could do it.

*sigh*

perhaps I need to try to read harder instead of skimming everything,..

[Me]

yeah, i was pretty confused when i first read it, but i think it would be nice if it would be possible to have more than
one star to fligh to in the same simulation but i heard that orbiter doesn't support it so oh well

[Glitz]

Hi, I'm just new to Orbiter, but I like what I'm seeing.  This program involves a HUGE learning curve.  But that's what
spaceflight is all about though.  

I'd like to thank Canadave for the personalizing touch that he has added to this program for us Canadians.  As cool
as this program is, if you want to see a real power of ten movie, check out Celestia.

I think the two programs compliment each other nicely and when I build my cockpit (I will build it, I swear! lol) I think
Celestia will be on my 'Astrometrics' monitor.

Now if I could just get the two programs to talk.....

I do have a question and seeing as how I'm posting here, I'll ask it here.  

Is there a way to simply insert a satellite picture of Ontario, say, onto the current Earth .tex file.  I'm starting to use
pltex and it's alright, but I need a full picture to start from.  I know that I could e-mail NASA and have the Blue Marble
massive .tiff sent to me, but that could take a month.

[canadave]

Glitz,

Welcome!  Always nice to see another Canuck around here  Glad you found my small addon entertaining and useful.

I wish I could answer your question about the sat pic of Ontario, but I'm ashamed to admit I'm clueless about
working with pltex and textures in general.  I will say this--I use BigJimW's level 9 Earth textures, and as far as I can
recall, they used the Blue Marble textures.  Is that the sort of thing you're looking for, or are you looking for much
greater detail?  If Blue Marble is all you're looking for, the level 9 textures are on either avsim or orbithangar.com.

Again, welcome to Orbiter!

Dave

[Glitz]

Thanx for the reply.

I've already checked out BigJimW's level 9 textures and they are nice, but not what I'm looking for.  I have a satellite
picture of most of southern Ontario, it's about the same resolution as KSC in Florida, right down to road level.  I
guess I want to 'import' or 'overlay' my picture overtop of the region, kind of like they did with KSC.  Maybe I should
start a new thread asking this question, but I think I'll try more tinkering for now.  


Also if anyone knows of a link where I can get the big, full resolution .tiff without waiting, let me know.

I do have a question about your addon, Canadave.  I used your .scn file as a template, as well as the .cfg file and
added my own house approximately where it should be but I seem to be having some graphical glitches with it.  I see
the 'back' parts of the house through the 'front' part (the part that's facing me at any given time).  Is this the way it's
supposed to be?  Have i done something wrong maybe?  Not really looking for an answer to what I did wrong as you
really don't have enough information to ascertain that, rather just trying to eliminate possibilities.  It almost looks to
me like there are no textures, but it's not white.

If you need further clarification of what I mean exactly, I can take a screenshot for you.

[canadave]

Glitz,

As far as the texture question goes, I think you'd be best off posting that question in the SDK forum on the "official"
Orbiter forums on M6.net--sorry I can't help you much there

As far as the Canadian Bases goes....hmmmmm.  If you want to email me the cfg and scn file you've come up with, I'll
be happy to have a look and see if there's anything obvious that's wrong.  Mind you, Antonio Maia is the person who
developed the textures of the house and such, so in last resort, we can always solicit his advice.  Throw a screenshot in if you like, maybe it'll help.  Also, what version of Orbiter are you using?

My email is in my profile--remove the obvious

Cheers,
Dave



Post Edited ( 01-21-05 09:41 )

[kinga]

Glitz there is a tutorial for inserting your own map textures somewhere.

Do a search on the main Orbiter Forum.

I wish I had the URL for you but I don't