Defining Orbiter Bases for "Standard" PreludeII Locations

[Ursus]

The PreludeII base is really nice, but since orbiter considers it a vessel, rather than a base, it lacks a few nice features
that a base in orbiter normally has. The three lacks with which I am primarily concerned are a VOR signal, an "ILS" for the
landing pad and the ability to pinpoint the base on the Map MFD.

I was thinking that a solution for those two deficiencies would (well, might...) be a series of regular base .cfg files, with
just VOR and landing pad definitions, for certain standard locations for PreludeII bases. The first four of these standard
locations would be the locations of the four PreludeII bases in the "Year 2120" scenario, which have the same locations as
they have in any of the other included scenarios that have any of these bases. (Mars: -100.52, 12.74; Phobos: -118.711412,
30.599855; Moon: 180.4375 [Which would be the same as -179.5625], 41.118407; Tethys: 88.376843, -1.333454)

I've been tinkering around with that idea. So far, just about all I've done is locate the position of the center of the
landing pad for the moon base (as closely as I could, eyeballing it with an UMMU), and the big antenna at the moon base
(anyone else notice that there's another landing pad hidden under the dome?), which I was thinking of using as the VOR
location (yeah, I know; a VOR array looks nothing like that tower, but...).

I noticed that landing pad frequencies are tied to the landing pad meshes in the .cfg files. Is there a standard "blank" mesh
one could use? I guess a person could just scale the standard landing pad mesh down to a little dot that may or may not be
covered up by the PreludeII mesh...

Anyway, enough rambling for now. Does anyone have any thoughts on this idea? Has anyone else started working on this?

[DanSteph]

Ursus a écrit:
Anyway, enough rambling for now. Does anyone have any thoughts on this idea? Has anyone else started working
on this?

Doc page 23, it speak about shadow but it's exactly what you search for

Dan

[MattNW]

It's best to set up the regular base first. Give it a landing pad and VOR then put a DGIV on the center of the pad. Now
create a Prelude base and use the scenario editor to move it around so that the Prelude pad is centered on the DGIV. Now you
have two options. First you can leave the regular landing pad alone and set the Prelude base to no pad. This gives you the
landing pad lights with a regular Orbiter landing pad.

The other way is to now edit the base pad so that it has 0 dimensions like a bunch of the default Orbiter bases on Earth. You
still retain the VOR and VTOL instrument capabilities but those will be located at the center of the Prelude pad.

Example:

LPAD2
   POS 0 0 0
   SCALE 0 0 0
   TEX Lpad02
      NAV 129.40
END

[Ursus]

DanSteph wrote:

Doc page 23, it speak about shadow but it's exactly what you search for

Dan

Thanks. I was looking at that, but didn't think it's *quite* what I needed. I was thinking of a setup in which a user could use without editing a scenario file someone else has provided (as long as the scenario author put the PreludeII "vessel" in the right place), and in which a scenario author could provide a scenario without concern over whether the end-user has the base configuration files. If the user has them, great; if the user doesn't, then... well he'll have to land visually, but the base will still look good.

I just did a little experiment, and found that the VOR beacon works wonderfully as a landing beacon, also, so I decided just
to put the VOR in the center of the landing pad. Of course, that means it won't show up as a pad (with occupied or vacant
status) in the information dialog, but... I, for one, don't really need that information. I know there's a pad there, because
it's a PreludeII base, and I know it's vacant because I didn't put a vessel there.

Here's what I came up with for the moon base. I modified the Brighton Beach file and saved as
"[OrbiterPath]\Config\Moon\Base\Asimov.cfg":

BASE-V2.0
Name = Luna-Asimov
Location = -179.5625 +41.1184070
Size = 500

BEGIN_NAVBEACON
VOR LWA -179.559499 +41.119601 124.10 500
END_NAVBEACON

; === List of visuals ===
BEGIN_OBJECTLIST

END_OBJECTLIST

I probably didn't need to leave the empty object list in there, but it doesn't seem to hurt anything, and I might move the VOR and add a zero-scale pad, like MattNW suggested.



Post Edited ( 05-25-07 06:26 )

[DocHoliday]

Personally I think MattNW's solution is better.

I mean the end result in both cases is that you have proper landing guidance; in both cases the base .cfg must be
edited/added, BUT..

As you found out yourself Matt's solution is a fully functional landing pad without the visual mesh/texture and without any
other tradeoffs. Hence better than a VOR beacon. Or am I missing something?

I've been working on something like this, I'll probably also make a brand new LPAD texture based on Dan's Prelude pad, of
course without the nifty lights, but just so that the other pads are "in style" with the main pad.

The "hidden pad" you noticed inside the dome is basically just the repeated ground texture and has no function at all.

[DanSteph]

will write somes doc or upload an addon about that

PreludeII with shadow and ILS/VOR



Dan

[picto]

How do you obtain such shadows ?
On my Orbiter, they are always like this, a deep and awful blak.
Am i missing something with Orbiter's configuration ?





Message modifié ( 25-05-2007 12:40 )

[Ursus]

DocHoliday wrote:
As you found out yourself Matt's solution is a fully functional landing pad without the visual mesh/texture and without any
other tradeoffs. Hence better than a VOR beacon. Or am I missing something?

Actually, I'm wondering if a zero-sized pad would be fully functional. As far as the occupied/unoccupied status
goes, I'd think it would always report "free", because the vessel would never be exactly centered over it, or report
"occupied", because there's a PreludeII "vessel" over it. Still, I'm starting to agree that it's better to have a landing pad
beacon defined as a pad.

I've been working on something like this, I'll probably also make a brand new LPAD texture based on Dan's Prelude pad, of
course without the nifty lights, but just so that the other pads are "in style" with the main pad.

The "hidden pad" you noticed inside the dome is basically just the repeated ground texture and has no function at all.

I figured Dan had just reused a texture from the Symphony base, which was going to (and hopefully will) have two landing pads.

Dan wrote:

will write somes doc or upload an addon about that

...and here Dan's offering to do even more work! I'd suggest that Dan get some rest, but I guess working on these
orbiter projects is Dan's way to relax.

[DanSteph]

picto a écrit:
How do you obtain such shadows ?
On my Orbiter, they are always like this, a deep and awful blak.
Am i missing something with Orbiter's configuration ?

Launch pad->Video->Try Stencil buffer

Notice it also improve my FPS by almost 50% - Butter and money of butter

Dan



Message modifié ( 25-05-2007 13:08 )

[picto]

You know what ?
I'm happy
Thanks a lot !
Butter, butter money, and what about the butter sailer ?

[picto]

And what about this sort of problems ?
The only difference between those two scenes is ...

UNDERSHADOWS

on the cfg file of the mesh on the second picture
It's a base config, not a vessel one.

[DanSteph]

"false" ground have also  shadow...
you must separate false ground no shadow and house shadow...

Dan

[picto]

I was trying it ...
But there are also other problems.

To avoid the problem described on the other post i try this.
I detach a part of the mesh and make a new one in Orbiter's directory.
And i build a new config like this.Before it was only one mesh.

MESH              
        FILE 01_Buildings
        POS 0 0 0
        SCALE 1 1 1
        ROT 0
        OWNMATERIAL
END

MESH              
        FILE 01_Sol
        POS 0 0 0
        SCALE 1 1 1
        ROT 0
        UNDERSHADOWS
        OWNMATERIAL
END

Two problems.
Only Vessels gives shadows.



And the Sol mesh ( even it's the same texture than before seems darker.



Orbiter is not so easy to use ... concerning graphics.



Message modifié ( 25-05-2007 13:55 )

[picto]

Buildings with SHADOW in CFG file.
But the UNDERSHADOWED mesh  is really darker.
I tried a self illuminated material too ... but it only works at night.
It seems that undershadowed meshes are under the cloud shadows too.





Message modifié ( 25-05-2007 14:19 )

[DocHoliday]

Wow, Mos Eisley!

[KVodnik]

Nice Millennium Falcon, is that a real addon or just a model? Looks a little small compared to the DGIV

"Those aren't the droids you're looking for"



Post Edited ( 05-25-07 16:31 )

[woo482]

what base it that?

[picto]

Work in progress.
You will find it on Tatooine ...
On the third page of this thread, Level 10 planets.
DLLs for vessels, shooting, SW flying like in space and so on are in progress too.

http://orbiter.dansteph.com/forum/index.php?topic=6297.msg94573#msg94573



Message modifié ( 25-05-2007 19:23 )

[MattNW]

Ursus wrote:
Actually, I'm wondering if a zero-sized pad would be fully functional. As far as the occupied/unoccupied status
goes, I'd think it would always report "free", because the vessel would never be exactly centered over it, or
report "occupied", because there's a PreludeII "vessel" over it. Still, I'm starting to agree that it's
better to have a landing pad beacon defined as a pad.

You're correct about the Orbiter Information dialog. The pad is reported as free but everything else works OK. You can use it
with the VOR/VTOL instruments. VOR/VTOL just needs a single point for the center of the pad. It doesn't register the Prelude
vessel because Prelude is centered in the middle of the base which is just a couple meters into the dome.

If you really want the information dialog to report whether the pad is free or occupied you can use the default pad and set
the Prelude configuration so it doesn't have it's pad. The good news about this is that you can still have the guidance
lights. They show right through the default Orbiter pad.

[DanSteph]

New Prelude VTOL+Shadow addon work flawlsessly with "busy/free" state.
http://orbiter.dansteph.com/index.php?disp=dgIVMore


Dan



Message modifié ( 25-05-2007 22:37 )

[Ursus]

Cool! I just downloaded it and will try it out now.

Thanks, Dan!

[Tachyon]

With out first downloading and looking to see what you did..... Couldn’t we just use an old FS trick and double stack
airports.... err - sorry... bases?? I think that is the track you're on anyways.  When I read that you're thinking about a
zero dimension base with a PreludeII 'vessel' base over it.