The TARDIS and Hello!

[Wintermute]

Hello there!
My name is Dante, and I'm a member of the NAGTY Forever Organisation, a teaching group designed to teach some of the
brightest kids in the UK, as well as extending our membership to other European countries (and hopefully, in time, the US)

I function as their diplomat (of sorts) and one of their teachers (specializing in Quantum Physics, Psychology and Creative
Writing) trying to procure items to assist in the long-distance teaching of these people.
We've been using Orbiter for some time, particularly the Delta IV (nice work!) to provide an example of orbital dynamics.
Recently, however, our Media Studies group have asked myself to ask you talented developers if you'd be so kind as to assist
in making a craft for machinima (films made in simulators/games).

The craft itself is the TARDIS, and whilst there is a TARDIS available, its only a simple mesh (granted, with engines
powerful enough to knock the ISS halfway across the solar system)
I've been working on a few plans to construct this, but due to my disability, I cannot program or build it (I'm using speech
to text for writing this)

The idea behind the plan came about after playing with the Msss MFD (very clever!) to which the same idea I hope to include
with the TARDIS's ability to move in both space and time (time travel being re-texturing the planets whilst the TARDIS
generates the illusion of the 'Vortex' around it) Hopefully, with a little bit of luck, perhaps even the Big Bang can be
watched....(though of course, the TARDIS will have to go back to it's previous time, Big Bangs, after all, are known for
being extremely unhealthy to be around :P)

I would appreciate your feedback,

-Wintermute

[Urwumpe]

I would suggest using Celestia for that - it is closer to the described mission than Orbiter is. Orbiter deals mostly with
the nuts and bolts of spaceflight, while you seem to be more interested in astronomy and extraterrestrial geography.

[Wintermute]

The nuts and bolts is what we're after, sadly.
The idea is for machinima and release to other Dr. Who fans. We've got Second Life running the insides of the TARDIS, yet
actual scenes such as taking off from Earth are not possible in Second Life.

Part of the reason we cannot use Celestia is that it, whilst very beautiful, does not seem to of been designed with the
purpose of controlling spacecraft, rather, it seems to be more of a tool for examining the solar system and objects within
it, then actually controlling those objects. Another is the fact that most of my students are between the ages of 13-17,
which makes acquiring a rather fast computer needed for the simulation of Level 9 and above textures impossible.
(As you may of guessed, we don't use any other textures for the planets other then what was with the basic package)

So, thank you, Urwimpe, for the suggestion, but it isn't what we're looking for, I'm afraid.

-Wintermute

[Urwumpe]

Well, it is true that Celestia does not have simulating spacecraft in mind, but Orbiter also gets problems with some aspects
you desire:

- Non-newtonian spacecraft (That are, spacecraft which are not based on the principle of reaction)
- multiple solar systems in the same scenario (MSSS does help less the problem, but is far from perfect)
- Astronomic phenomena like black holes, binary stars or even non-main sequence stars.

You could also try making a modification for VegaStrike (A modern form of Elite), which is also pretty capable of showing
other star systems and travel between them, while also having the focus of space travel. The problem is just that modifying
it is far harder as modifying orbiter, so maybe Orbiter would be the less worse way to do it. Also Vegastrike requires more
computing power.

Making a difference between internal size and external size like in the example TARDIS is no problem in Orbiter - but the
performance requirements for Orbiter are also not low.

PS: A 15 year old should be capable of affording a useful computer for most software bases I mentioned. You don't need a
large budget today, if you can buy smart.

PPS: And it's Urwumpe - weakly interacting massive particles and posers can leave the hall.



Message modifié ( 08-04-2008 18:23 )

[Wintermute]

Ah, sorry about the name, not intentional.

Newtonian Physics, though, 'pumped up' a little, it could give the illusion that it isnt.
Multiple solar systems; I don't think that's really the main concern, but I got to thinking "If the DGIV can be re-textured
without shutting down the simulator, surely a planet can be re-textured the same way?" Which would, of course, involve the
TARDIS creating the 'vortex' (rather an opaque item, the same shaped such as the 30 St Mary Axe building, though stood
horizontally with a moving texture) to hide this process (which would of course be pointless should the camera pan out too
far, but that should satisfy machinima)
As for the non-physical movement of the TARDIS, would it not be possible to have some sort of pre-defined co-ords that would
be activated and used by the scenario editor? All it would take would be the texture of the TARDIS fading in, then out, back
in, then out, then out (TARDIS is still there, just invisible) until the editor moves it to the desired co-ords?

As for the internal space, how would you go about that? the only solultion I can think of is having it underground with a
texture on top.

By the by, we're a small organization buying computers for our students is rather out of our price range, as well as most of
these kids using their parents computers.

[Urwumpe]

Celestial bodies and spacecraft are handled different in Orbiter.

Celestial bodies use either Kepler orbits or ephemeris tables for calculating their state vector, while spacecrafts are
simulated based on the actual forces on them.

Planets and spacecraft use completely different and unrelated APIs.

Planets can't have their textures swapped on runtime, spacecraft can have that.

Also, you can show a different mesh (visual model) for internal camera position/virtual cockpit and external camera position
for spacecraft.

Beaming the TARDIS to a position is possible in Orbiter by using a vessel module, as well as fading the visual mesh in and
out. But it requires you to find somebody who can make advanced vessel modules in the form of DLLs.

And don't the kids have any capitalist drive coupled with a desire for good hardware? When I bought my first own computer
, I managed to invest (converted) 1250 EUR into it. OK, other kids invested the money into a motorbike, which made more
impression among the girls, but at least, I was the hero of all geeks in my class.

The computer got retired only a few weeks ago - after nearly 12 years of service. It was still working well, just a bit slow...

[Wintermute]

haha, yes, desire for hardware exists, but like other things among students, it's rarely ever filled....
Good god, man! What computer were you using? What level of Orbiter graphics could it handle?

Haha, going back to the TARDIS, can you think of any other ways (or, indeed, Doctor Who loving developers) to try and get at
least newer TARDIS then the one sitting in OH?

-Winter

[Urwumpe]

Currently... a Sempron 2600+ with 1GB DDRRAM, 280 GB HD and a Radeon X850Pro GPU...  part costs: 800 EUR. Excluding the 100EUR
joystick. But the costs for the system also include many reused components from my second computer (Replacing these
components would add 150 EUR extra)

It can run currently almost everything I can throw against it, only Kulchs Surface bases and me forgetting to make textures
dynamic (Orbiter API insider) manage to push the frame rates below 25 fps. The typical test scenario of the latest Space
Shuttle Ultra build with the KSC high-res tiles and Earth Level 9 textures runs at 35 - 57 fps, stabilizes at 75 fps once
reaching orbit.

Making a new TARDIS: Get the mesh in 3ds format and convert it into the Orbiter format. Or use the many modeling software
suites with support for Orbiters Mesh format.

[Wintermute]

hmm..dynamic textures....please do spill the secret :P

What of coding, though? As in flashing the light, and trying to get ahold of someone who can make .dll's to drive classical
physicists mad, as well as deal with the thrust?

[Dig Gil]

I don't know if it is possible time travel trought Orbiter, but I think that is impossible to see the Big Bang trought
Orbiter without an AddOn (if there is any).
I don't know TARDIS, but I'm working in a project with such characteristics. A spaceship able to travel faster than light
by direct Matter-Antimatter reaction. I think I talked about it somewhere in this forum once...

[Wintermute]

Time travel itself? no, the illusion of time travel is possible, however.
To correct for the inabilty to re texture planets, is it possible to have a window open, showing a movie of the TARDIS is
transit, then reloading the sim when the re texturing is done?

[Dig Gil]

If you have memory enough in your computer to run Orbiter and other programme at the same time, then you'll only
need to change the configuration to run windowed.