[preview video] Your Journey start from home

[willy88]

Dan, you are a genius. Perhaps you should include a fuel truck?

[computerex]

This is some quality stuff Dan! One question, what is the name of the song playing in the background of your second video?

[DanSteph]

Jean Michel Jarre - Millions of Stars

See a live on youtube:
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=95oH6C3HHRs

Original version is far better imho, (the one you hear on my video) but I didn't found it on youtube.

EDIT: forget the previous one, I think the original is here:
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=AcqIB1v5F90&feature=related

Dan



Message modifié ( 23-11-2007 08:35 )

[Art]

You know, I have a little add-on that might go well with this:  An animated walking figure.  You guys could use
someting along those lines, yes?

[DanSteph]

Much thanks Art but sorry, doing that would mean that I brake UMMU abilities
to use other mesh and thus the "universal" part of it.

Maybe in the future I may add walk as optionnal feature of UMMU but in this
case I preffer to do it myself, I love doing addons and I find doing a realistic
walk really intteresting as I'm also fond of AI and "robots" movments.

Anyway I think It's not easy with Orbiter to get something that is enough
realistic to not break the feeling or not look funny. (wich would be worse than no anim)
Direct X offer tools for that but we can't access them with orbiter (there is no skinned
mesh for example)

Dan



Message modifié ( 23-11-2007 08:45 )

[Urwumpe]

DanSteph a écrit:
Direct X offer tools for that but we can't access them with orbiter (there is no skinned
mesh for example)

Why not? I mean, switching textures is not the hardest task in Orbiter now (Its just two lines of code, without error
checking and surrounding infrastructure). Eg replacing the face texture could even be done without dangerous infrastructure -
the name of the astronaut would be enough to decide which texture would be desired. (Unless you also want funny expressions,
when somebody drops the UMMU astronaut in a lunar crash orbit )

[DanSteph]

Urwumpe a écrit:
Why not? I mean, switching textures is not the hardest task in Orbiter now (Its just two lines of code, without error
checking and surrounding infrastructure). Eg replacing the face texture could even be done without dangerous
infrastructure

By "Skinned mesh" I was meaning the abilities of DX8 to have "bones" and flexible skin as in this video:
http://www.dansteph.com/publie/SkinnedMesh.wmv (800kb)

Another problem of animated walking MMU is the complete different motion that you must have on earth
and on different planets... As said this is not a piece of cake and without great car the result might be
more "funny" and "disturbing" than really "immersive"... in brief, not a "two days" work

Dan



Message modifié ( 23-11-2007 15:05 )

[Urwumpe]

By "Skinned mesh" I was meaning the abilities of DX8 to have "bones" and flexible skin as in this video:
http://www.dansteph.com/publie/SkinnedMesh.wmv (800kb)

Another problem of animated walking MMU is the complete different motion that you must have on earth
and on different planets... As said this is not a piece of cake and without great car the result might be
more "funny" and "disturbing" than really "immersive"... in brief, not a "two days"
work

Ah you mean skeletal animation!

I agree that this won't be easy. I had one idea for an experiment in Orbiter, for seeing if its possible to overwrite the
vertex data in meshes (I wanted to impart harmonic oscillations on a parachute mesh), but i doubt I will make this experiment
soon. If somebody else would do this experiment, I would greatly appreciate it. I am really curious about its outcome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeletal_animation

If we could change the vertex data of a mesh in Orbiter, have a projection from vertex index to a position on the animation
model (eg the bones) and have a useful animation (actually, from Earth to micro-gravity, the range of human movement is
already researched), it would not be far to a skeletal animated astronaut.

[DanSteph]

Urwumpe a écrit:
I agree that this won't be easy. I had one idea for an experiment in Orbiter, for seeing if its possible to overwrite the
vertex data in meshes

I have changed the vertex in symphony radar but unless you have
access to DX's vertex function (so you can optimize transformation&transfert to card)
it will be costly for a great number of vertexs.
Given the fact that it's so "easy" in DX8 and so complicated in Orbiter (you have to write
your own transformation engine with a possible dramaticall impact in FPS) I would not
try this...

Better to rewrite the whole Orbiter's engine

So you have "contact point problem" (can be overidden with Y animation of whole mesh)
Bone problem (hierarchical animations) Flexible Skin problem (no solution appart designing carrefully
the texture so it doesn't look too strange where two "bone" joint) and also different&complicated
walk motion on low gravity planet...

Not a piece of cake... intteresting, not impossible but *maybe* not as much appealing as we think.

Game that have ***realistic*** humain animation are not so frequent and they use DX8+
features and doesn't have problem of different gravity.  (you can import in DX8+ a 3dmax
model with hierarchical squeleton & DOF & skin, "finger in the nose" in this case)

Dan

[sunshine135]

I could see a problem with how the UMMu reacts on different planetary surfaces also. This would add great complexity to the
UMMu. For instance, on Earth, your UMMu would walk normally. On the moon, the UMMu would "hop" as they would on Mars. On
larger bodies, UMMu might struggle to move, as they would weigh more and the spacesuit would be bulky. I can already see how
UMMu v.2.0 could potentially be a very complex project.

Add to this the complexity of atmospheric conditions to change the meshes, and you may be looking at doing 2 or more
atmospheric meshes performing 3 different "walking animations" based on the gravity of the environment. As well, you may have
different animations for a zero g UMMu. This boils down to about 8 different scenario specific configurations based on
atmosphere and gravity.

This certainly seems like no small project by any means.


Regards,

[woo482]

DanSteph wrote:

woo482 a écrit:
Can You release that?

The config file ? sure you have it already

Dan

How do I make it work?? Make a txt in to a config?

[Ursus]

The text is a config. We just don't yet have the software to make the config meaningful.

[woo482]

oh ok

[woo482]

Picto how is the Irridium, mission to Jupite mod doing

[picto]

I was a little fed up with C++ as I am learning it in the same time I try to build Irridium.
So, as ABFO doesn't need any programmation for the V1, in my mind it is a recess.
I think I will work back on Irridium in January

[woo482]

ok how about a beta of this mod? just one car/van and will this have aircraft?

[picto]

I'm in charge only for ABFO.
I give a little help to Dan for the models for UCO so he can spend all the very little free time
he keeps to prog UCO. Actually, all works fine, but we want it to be nearly perfect for a V1
 release. May be for Christmas



Post Edited ( 11-24-07 18:43 )

[woo482]

will you need testers??? I helped in the Atv/Ctv mod

[woo482]

More vids?

[James.Denholm]

Hey, why did you keep this project so secret for so long? Or was I just wearing earmufs?

[picto]

It was not a secret. It's just that four weeks ago, this project wasn't existing ...

[James.Denholm]

Oh. You guys work FAST.

[Quick_Nick]

Ryan wrote:
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

I though maybe I was the only one thinking of GTA when I saw this.  It really is an amazing look and change for
Orbiter.
Congratulations and thank you to Picto and Dan!

[Zatnikitelman]

Got a question about the AI system. Will it be able to go to a certain dynamic target (ship) or go to and stop short of
that certain target? And possibly follow a path [road] to the target? It looks awesome as it is! Don't get me wrong,
I'm just wondering how far this is going to go interms of functionality.

[DanSteph]

For road no, appart keeping a "road" db and complex IA wich would add a lot of perf impact.
But by waypoints cars can follow road perfectly.

Target at first I would say no for 1.0 version but who know... ???
The problem is the lack of compatibility, maybe I can put a fuel truck
that reach your ship after landing and refuel you but how would other
addons react to that ? how to know if your "just landed ship" need
refuel or not.

In brief this will be decided at dev time (wich is not now, I have real life work
to do)

We plan yet to head to a "persistent" world in brief IA cars and town & bases
will always be here whatewer scenarios you launch.

The goal with picto is to bring a more appealing "Orbiter world" why making
billion km trip if it's just to reach empty area on other planet or a base
with two white cube. Not very exciting.

We head also on a P4 1.7Ghz with 64mb card minimal spec, by defaut you'll have
"low res" version of the world installed, a config program will let you choose
more detailled base % town for hig end computer.

Dan