[preview video] Your Journey start from home

[DanSteph]

See preview video:

http://www.dansteph.com/publie/UcoAbfoPreview.wmv  (17mb)

Another video that show UCO handling and somes features: (low quality for size concern)
http://www.dansteph.com/publie/UcoPreviewFeature.wmv (20mb)

Goal:

Add more virtual reality, transport your astronauts from home to launch pad, explore landing area with rovers. Have
fun with vehicles, explore amazing towns & area.

Possible devellopment:
Interactive house, bar ?
Carry payloads with trucks (fuel? rocket payload?)
Helicopter, flying engine ?


Open:

-Picto's town are modulare by area, mean it's very simple to construct new towns with a few lines in a config file.
-Adding new car just require a mesh fil and a config file, no programming. You can see an example of actual config file
for the van: http://www.dansteph.com/publie/UCOCarVan.cfg

As it is now one can add things as rovers, boat, truck, whatewer. I plan to add more possibilities by config file like
more anims (door? turning radar ? other?)

Release:

Not before winter or spring 2008, Picto and I have real life work to finish, ABFO & UCO work already but we want to
add more stuff and get it almost perfect.

Voila

Dan



Message modifié ( 22-11-2007 03:41 )

[Brando14100]

Looks amazing. Thats going to be one small step for a developer, one giant leap for Orbiter. <(^_^)>

[woo482]

ummu??? when will thear be a beta And i will test

[Urwumpe]

Look similar to the idea I work(ed) on with City.DLL, but i planned to make the cars just plain AI objects and part of the
city scenery, including them into the level of detail calculations (Yes, I still have not found the needed time to debug the
quad tree )

How are your plans with the advanced buildings?

[Ryan]

Very awesome, for a second I thought I was watching Grand Theft Auto!

Can you reveal a rough estimate of what the system spec. requirements might be to run this add on?

Thanks always
Ryan

[sunshine135]

I think our UMMu friends may need a mesh change. Seems a bit strange to me that he would ride a bus on Earth and wear his
space helmet to the bar. They need is an atmosphere switch to tell them to be out of their space suit/ helmet when on Earth,
otherwise, they would need their space suit and helmet.

It is an awesome start though Dan. I sense new adventures where you not only fly to a place, but go to a bar and party, or go
find an object, or drive cargo from the terminal to the DGIV.


I will eagerly await my beta testing/ scenario creation duties!!!

[Brando14100]

sunshine135 wrote:
I think our UMMu friends may need a mesh change. Seems a bit strange to me that he would ride a bus on Earth and
wear his
space helmet to the bar. They need is an atmosphere switch to tell them to be out of their space suit/ helmet when
on Earth,
otherwise, they would need their space suit and helmet.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Wouldn't the UMMu's run out of O2 if hey had to wear their suits.

[DanSteph]

Urwumpe a écrit:
How are your plans with the advanced buildings?

Difficult question, I have several thought on this, one problem is the lack of "persistency"
IE: appart orbiter base wich are inactive every "vessel" have to be in scenario.
Not very user freindly if you have to copy/past dozen lines in each scenarios.

Other problem is that you can't have zillions object moving, this would cause problem
with the main purpose of Orbiter.

My last thought on wich I tested the concept was to have a global "persictency" DLL
wich would be in charge to spawn vehicle based on a "global scenario" file.
At start of scenario if the vehicle is not in current scenario the dll add it in scene
and the vehicle will be saved with the scenario, mean that it will be saved in the new
position (if it has moved) = persistent world.

Parameters could be set inside Orbiter using the "custom module" feature.
enable/disable - make vehicle appear in the F3 list or not etc etc. - select vehicle (if disabled from f3)  - Reset position  etc etc.

Anyhow we can't put a full town animation because it would mean hundred objects,
high end computer could maybe support that and also remain playable but not
current one. So probably there will only be by default some bus track. (one can add news
"Cars" there is a "waypoint menu" so it's very simple to define new track that are saved
in scenarios)

About "advanced" we are not really fixed on this, possibilities are infinite, for example factory
that would product "payload" fuel, o2, etc etc wich would then be carried to launchpad
by truck to resuply station, home with advanced feature, musique, ummu, animations...

but probaly version 1.0 will just be "advanced" because the buildings are far more complex
than default one.

Ryan a écrit:
Can you reveal a rough estimate of what the system spec. requirements might be to run this add on?

Picto is a great modeler and know well optimisation, as towns are "modular" we plan at least
to make two versions, one for current/high computer another one with smaller town for low end
computer. I'll test that on my old P400 so it remain playable. With 2-3 modules (wich are already big)
I don't see any framerate issue on my computer

sunshine135 a écrit:
I think our UMMu friends may need a mesh change. Seems a bit strange to me that he would ride a bus on Earth and
wear his

This is another reason for delay, I plan to work also on UMMU 2.0
with "usual cloth" and some other features.

Dan



Message modifié ( 21-11-2007 20:01 )

[Urwumpe]

DanSteph a écrit:
Anyhow we can't put a full town animation because it would mean hundred objects,
high end computer could maybe support that and also remain playable but not
current one. So probably there will only be by default some bus track. (one can add news
"Cars" there is a "waypoint menu" so it's very simple to define new track that are saved
in scenarios)

I got most problems in my project when I exceeded 2000 objects (buildings) in the city, but mostly because of the line of
sight calculations on my slower PC. I was working on that problem, by sorting all objects into a quadtree and only pay
attention to the corners of each node. The main problem which slowed down progress was reorganizing the nodes each time a
object travels from one node to another.

My ideal is still the city rendering of Lock-On! (or Flanker 2.0, which was already similar), which does some good effect
with only few buildings per settlement (for a flight simulation).

[DanSteph]

One framerate killer is the numbers of "groups" in mesh Picto is merging as much a possible
groups with same material, this mean one "area of a town" (with 10-50 house) have
the minimum possible number of groups (and so material)

If you do at one time quadtree plan to group house and not add each house individually.

We'll not do any "active optimisation" computation because I think this has to be designed in engine
to be really effective and not cause odd side effect, I believe also that a well middle size designed
town is preferable to a very big towns. So heavy poly/material/group optimisation can do the job
and still render well.

Dan



Message modifié ( 21-11-2007 20:40 )

[Urwumpe]

Yes, thats correct. Sorting the groups is really important, as each material switch in orbiter takes some time away. If the
groups are sorted so that you have a minimal number of material changes during rendering, its sometimes better in performance
as a low poly mesh.

[GXE3]

This looks like it could change Orbiter for ever.

Will users of Orbiter be able to create these advanced bases like we do normal Surface Bases?

[woo482]

DanSteph wrote:


This is another reason for delay, I plan to work also on UMMU 2.0
with "usual cloth" and some other features.

Dan

yayy

[tl8roy]

               

Dan you are a true saint. This looks amazing, with or with out any extra's.

If you want ideas cargo handling and arms would be good, for an extra challenge trailers and trains and

how good is the AI?

[DanSteph]

tl8roy a écrit:
how good is the AI?

Perfect with less than one meter precision. You define waypoint and AI will navigate beetween
them accelerating/decellerating , lighting main light if there is night, or blinker if there is a sharp
turn. Waypoints are saved in scenario and cars will replay it forever unless you disable AI
with "A" key to take manual control.

At waypoint you have also some "action" choice, follow one speed limit for example
or stop "NN" secondes, if stop exceed 20 secondes cars stop engine and restart it
before continuing.

I'll post a "how does it work" video in a shot time explaining actual features and HUD menus.

Dan

[tl8roy]

Cool, really cool

[sunshine135]

DanSteph wrote:

Perfect with less than one meter precision. You define waypoint and AI will navigate beetween
them accelerating/decellerating , lighting main light if there is night, or blinker if there is a sharp
turn. Waypoints are saved in scenario and cars will replay it forever unless you disable AI
with "A" key to take manual control.

Dan,

You and Picto never cease to amaze me. Just when you think all of the possible gifts have been given, you guys come up with
newer and cooler things. The AI is on par with nice pay-ware (flight sim and FS Traffic come to mind). This really adds a
whole new dimension to the Orbiter.

[DanSteph]

Another video that show UCO handling and somes features: (low quality for size concern)
http://www.dansteph.com/publie/UcoPreviewFeature.wmv (20mb)

Dan

[reekchaa]

Man... Really exciting stuff.
This, and FsX making huge strides too.
I hope you don't burn out too much to enjoy the holidays, Dan!  

[James.Denholm]

Wow. Speechles. Now all I have to do is watch the video (over dial-up! Cringe)

Could allow some very complex senarios! Mission: Ram the DGIV into the-guy-who-stole-your-seat-on-the-bus's
house (Suddenly, things became a lot more violent).

I wonder what your wife thinks about all of this, and more inportantly, how you manage to fit this all in (you do sleep,
don't you Dan?).

[Tachyon]

personal opinion - and in keeping with the *what* orbiter is.  (although you seem to be redefining that all the time)

While this undertaking is a HUGE break thru and is a quantum leap beyond where and what most of us  
have imagined - I would be very interested in the possibilities of detailed bases or space ports and the areas
around the space ports. Space vessels that could be entered (seen and explored) while in space??

It's ashame that the orbiter's engine ( not the ones on the back dummy ) doesn't really have a collision
detection function for surfaces. I realize that this is probably the limiting factor in having a vessel interior that could
be explored.



Post Edited ( 11-25-07 19:51 )

[DanSteph]

Tachyon a écrit:
It's ashamed that the orbiter's engine ( not the ones on the back dummy ) doesn't really have a collision
detection function for surfaces. I realize that this is probably the limiting factor in have a vessel interior that could
be explored.

Technically I think it would be possibe, that's one of my "dream" for Orbiter and futur
addon. I'm not yet near to have exhausted all idea that I want to do.
Only problem is time to spend on it. (real life)

Dan

[ar81]

I watched the video, it looks soooo cooool...

I member that X Beyond the frontier (XBTF) and Independence War 2 had traffic too.
In the case of XBTF there was some sort of tracking of vessels.
I think that asking people involved in those projects might help.
I am no expert in this, and this could be a silly idea... so if it is, never mind.

[woo482]

DanSteph wrote:

.
-Adding new car just require a mesh fil and a config file, no programming. You can see an example of actual config file
for the van: http://www.dansteph.com/publie/UCOCarVan.cfg

Dan

Can You release that?

[DanSteph]

woo482 a écrit:
Can You release that?

The config file ? sure you have it already

Dan