Afar across the universe (retrospective to alpha8)

[Vuzz]

@ Gernot , stp arrete de causer de Genesia comme si c'etait un projet ,( c'est mon trip et ca le resteras) ca eviteras a chaque fois d'avoir a expliquer a des gens qui ne prennent pas la peine de lire les notes incluses dans le jeux qu'ils polemiquent sur un truc perso ( C'EST un MOD ). on s'en sert si on aime ou on oublie si on aime pas , point final.

[DraQ]

@ VuzzCould you please use English, which is pretty much the international language today? Nie damy rady siÄ™ porozumieć jeÅ›li każdy bÄ™dzie pisaÅ‚ we wÅ‚asnym jÄ™zyku.

[Vuzz]

Nie damy rady siÄ™ porozumieć jeÅ›li każdy bÄ™dzie pisaÅ‚ we wÅ‚asnym jÄ™zyku. that's just plain awful.Justement ! J'ai pas envie de communiquer avec toi mon ptit gars

[Potsmoke66]

"schpillt doch kei rollä ich verstah nä so oder ä so" (in case, just use the "idiotikon" which will explain allemanic idioms to you) nah, ok... before i answer to anything, welcome "Potsmoke66" back. i finally made it to have web in one of the wealthiest countries in the world and that's FINE, GREAT, just FANTASTIC! from now on nothing can be wrong... [attachment=2680:Minusch01.jpg] he, he, no one can look as relaxed as such a predator like her.i miss her, but she's well and still hunting. this cat is marvellous (like most of them) i had to leave her alone (i moved to a city which is no place for *such a cat) after my divorce, but she managed it to stay a year alive (even in winter), until someone picked her up. *such a cat, she never knew how to handle cars, usually when i returned from work she was awating me, not at home, in front of the railroad station, now someone should tell me now that cats can't be friends just like dogs. one day she only heard me walking by, ran over the street to "greet" me and nearly lost her life under a car (such a friend). btw, she's a farm cat, she grew up to handle life by her self, the only "food" farmers give to a cat is some watered milk, they have to live by prey to keep the rats off. Minusch, Mish, however, i used to call her "Mish Mash" for two reasons "Mish" is maghribian for cat, "Mish Mash" is her fur. just like a wiches cat she used to sit on my shoulder (when she liked to attract me and i have to say i trained her to do so, she never felt really comfortable in this situation). somehing different, it didn't really belongs to Pioneer, but i was not little surprised when i started "FFED3D" on my machine and this happened(wear some cheap blue/red 3D glasses) [attachment=2681:ScreenShot_074.jpg] it's actually the ONLY game on which NV 3D vision responds, which i have installed, but what do you think you can get out of it if a game supports it natively? of course i wasn't lazy in the past few days:(today i'm a little drunken, excusé moi) sunrise over "Olympus Mons" [attachment=2682:screenshot-20140720-053107.png] and "guess the name of the Ship": [attachment=2684:screenshot-20140718-141454.png] 

[Potsmoke66]

would esperanto help? it turned out to be english, french would work as well as a international language, a old battle between two large empires.it seems still it goes on. erm, i guess depending on majority i should be chinese... ok, that won't work well, imho. phew, i remember well how angry the my ex got, when i told her something like: "look latin letters have a enormous advantage to most written languages"hmpf, i shouldn't have said such to a arab.but well, the words are build in a comprehensible way from individual different letters.even more, the letters are designed such clever that you can cut off half of the visibility and it's still readable (try it, it works)show old gernot one language resp. written word with wich you can do this. big respect, arabs drove ornamentical art based on their letters to a highest peak.(if they invented the written word i'm not so sure about, hmm... i referred once to the system north american indogenes invented to "write" musical notes (in a farer sense)the difference to symbols like chinese or i.e. aztec is hat they used no symbols, "only" a system of knots in laces, a system, systematic build, that's the main difference.the purpose is to me secondary, important is this, a comprehensible system.well for some is "bla bla" important, for others it was the sound of music. but what i really liked to say is you can't top ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTUVZ, no language exept the latin ones can offer this, clean, comprehensible, logical, perfect.forget a dot in arab and it means something complete different.paint a symbol in chinese a little bit tattered and it becomes unreadable. strike whole letters out of my text here, the sense didn't get lost. i can almost do with them what i like, invert them, mirror them, hide them by showing only parts of the letters, still it's readable (in uppercase). i guess what happened with english is pretty much the same, it's easy to learn for most.you can make yourself understood quick. and still we have sometimes problems when one is spain, one german, one english, one polish, one french and so on.but it seems to be a matter of will "do i llike to understand", if not, two can speak the same language natively and still they don't understand each other. one thing i know for sure deaf ppl have less problems of this kind, their language is international.also to speak loud is difficult  further, the cultures differ much and this means if i say "red" another one understands "blue".to give a example i have to refere again to the north american natives. to most of us (europeans) the color white represents purity, innocence, short all good things and behaves, black we see as, bad, dangerous, uncertain.to them it's pretty much vice versa, black represents purity, is divine and so on. speaking the same language often didn't helps, but to be kind and willing to understand helps a lot, even if you have to use your feet and hands. "real" latin languages like italian and (brasilian)portugese are easy to understand to, pronouncing is clear, what you read is how it sounds, not to much or no special phonetic characters.(portugese? yes, i had a preacher from brasil, i can't speak portugese, but nonetheless i understood most of what he said after a short time.sorry vuzz, but french is still a riddle to me, i was teached french three years in school still i don't understand it, english i learned... - i didn't had to learn it, please forgive a saxon like me). in this sense, esperanto would be fine, invented exactly by following these rules, easy, pronounced clear.it's artificial i know, rarely spoken, i neither can speak it, but had once the idea to learn it, exactly because of the named reasons.it would be perfect as a international language. however, english works well and this forum is in english. yes we have this "german pioneer thread" but it didn't looks like a good idea to me, to be fair we would need theen a spanish, a polish,a whatever language forum to, obvious that this isn't possible. well and if i lke to write in alemannic then i visit a alemannic forum, but pioneer won't be the thematic we discuss there. --- @vuzzthat wasn't nice of you my friend, why do we meet here in this forum? to communicate, that's the purpose of a forum. then well, let's not get picky such destroys any communication between different cultures. "think big" my friend. "généreusement", if you like that better. we exchange thoughts and ideas, we like maybe to have a little fun by the way, and of course it's a sort of entertainment, when we use it wisely. i didn't think DraQ lliked to insult you, maybe he chose the wrong terms?how often do i used a wrong term or even you? "think big" and "understatement" aren't just words, it's a way to go (a way of living, but "a way to go" i like better) "null problemo" - no problem vuzz, everyone has caprices. make some sunshine (like my daughter said once: "it seems to me everytime i have a bad mood the weather turns to be bad")stay naive as a child,aim at the heart,but aim high! ---- don't take the following to serious, but isn't it funny? a german mediates between a pole and a french. get allies or i... 

[Geraldine]

"Gernot Wrote: don't take the following to serious, but isn't it funny? a german mediates between a pole and a french. get allies or i..." Perhaps call in the Raumpatrouille? :girlcrazy: 

[Potsmoke66]

yep! "mc lane, this goes too far, you can not simply ignore the directive"-"as long as i bring the bowl safely back home, you can't demand anything from me out here"

[Potsmoke66]

just for the fun of it, the name is the motto what follows is all scripted geometry, incl the "cathedral" lookin-a-like sealed groundstation, ah, i know the ships look very familiar.... and this somewhat new "bulk ship" 

[Potsmoke66]

if humor belongs to music it certainly belongs to a game as well sometimes the results of the random name concatenation are really funny or even fitting well [attachment=2720:screenshot-20140819-130934.jpg] [attachment=2721:screenshot-20140819-131022.jpg] probably Vuzz is interested to get this funstuff in genesia? however it's rather simple, just a few lines of code and a large table for the "names" to put in "lmr_functions.lua".... ...i forgot you don't have this, i set up "lmr_functions.lua" to have all functions relevant for th LMR in one file, some i took from "lmr_models.lua" in the "data" folder,the rest are functions which became handy over the years, such as the "selector" or "missile helper" functions.i placed them to "lmrmodels" folder and named it "00_lmrfunctions.lua" to grant that they will be executed in front of all model scripts. one could also join these two files (lmrmodels.lua & 00_lmrfunctions) to "lmrmodel.lua" as well. it's a "work in progress", but most functions should work as expected.(a reason why i fumble around with the basic models, it makes it easier to keep them updated for the new functions if you haven't "100 models" to take care of, further all scripted geometry is in a single large file. also i made for this a "01_submodels.lua" which includes all untextured sub-models i need for this experimental alpha30 release, but i guess this won't work so easy for "Genesia"). some changes i made to the "missiles helper", thus it won't work with "Genesia", except you update all the models which use this functionthe function call is now: missile(index,vector_position,vector_x,vector_y,scale) and pylon(index,vector_x,vector_y,scale),misseles usually won't need a orientation (vector_x,vector_y), but i need one for the pylon and the vectors replace the former "orientation, 1 or -1",makes it first easier to understand what it is for and second both functions accept the same arguments (handy for a "FOR loop").missile and pylon use the same "index" and if a missilie is fired the apropriate pylon will be removed (should, needs testing).further it keeps the missiles in scale 1:1 but you have to enter the final scale of the model therefore. missile(index,position,vector_x,vector_y,final_model_scale) not "missiles scale"!!!same forpylon(index,position,vector_x,vector_y,final_model_scale) many other functions have been refined and a few new i have added, such as: "counter":simply counts from 1 to 10 in seconds stepping(!) and stops at 10 (could be useful to animate something which else can't be animated, e.g. open the doors after docking. other purposes will be anything where a stepping rate becomes useful and you like to start/end the execution at a given timepoint.i need to work on that but that's the idea behind) --- "rot_gear":a simple rotation helper to easier animate landing gears, it returns the full vector you need to rotate a model after entering, rot_gear(degrees,vector,delay,offset,[timer]) "degrees", obviousely degrees to rotate,"vector", specifies the vector/axis you like to rotate around, negative values are allowed, resp. suggested to change between clockwise and counterclockwise rotation.the function adjusts the difference between them and keeps any (sub)model in it's ordinary alignment at start of the animation ( = 0 ).but you can also enter negative degrees to reach similar."delay", at which timepoint the animation will start"offset", at which timepoint the animation will end"timer" is optional, probably one likes a different timer as "wheel_state", for whatever pupose.it has limits and it's not possible to pre-rotate (correct position of) a wrong aligned (sub)model. edit: actually i'm thinking if i shouldn't pass a "correction" argument (degrees to prerotate) to it, it won't be wrong i guess.also i guessed once to pass the whole "call_model" argument's to it incl. the name of the model to call.even more simple yet flexible and it would even allow to get around the prerotating for a "Z" rotation it would generate a new submodel itself, but this is a heavy change to itit would look then like "rot_gear(degrees,vector to rotate, delay, offset, model_name, v_pos, scale, [timer])" and will call and rotate the (sub)model by itselfvector_x and vector_y doesn't have to be passed to it, the function will determine them by the desired vector to rotate around).quite a few more arguments, but therefore you don't have to take care about anything. tell me what you think about that idea, i guess it's worth to try, but will change the whole thing. to rotate along "Z" axis a (sub)model must be prerotated, since i liked to keep the call simple i assumed a given pre-rotation which is"+Z" (rear) becomes "+Y" (quasi, tilt "nose" down). example:local wheel = rot_gear(90,v(-1,0,0),.33,1)call_model('gear1_wheel',v(0,1.2,0),v(1,0,0),wheel, 1)"rot_clock":similar to "rot_gear", a simple helper function, it let's rotate something continously. rot_clock(vector,[fractions]) "vector", is again the axis to rotate around and CW or CCW movement."fractions" is optional. without it assumes "get_time()". the timer i used for the clock is fractioned in 1 second steps (that's why you have the default timer), to keep it 100% synchronized with the time in the game(the small error of Pi = 3.1416... will lead else to a wrong time on a analogue clock after some days)"fraction" means "seconds/minutes/hours/days", no fraction specified means "it will use simply get_time()"1 = seconds60 = minutes60*60 = hours60*60*24 = days (resp. 60*60*12 for a analogue clock) example:local vector = v(1,0,0)if lod > 1 thenlocal minute = rot_clock(vector,60)local hour = rot_clock(vector,60*60)local hrs12 = rot_clock(vector,60*60*12)call_model("clockhand", v(0,0,0),vector,minute, 0.65)call_model("clockhand", v(0,0,0),vector,hour, 0.65)call_model("clockhand", v(0,0,0),vector,hrs12, 0.45)endto use it to rotate i.e. a "scanner" you would call the function:"rot_clock(v(1,0,0))" as a example. it's possible to lower (or upscale) the speed of "rot_clock(vector)" if no fraction is specified by simply divide (or multiply) the returned vector, i.e.:local rot = rot_clock(v(1,0,0)) * 0.5call_model('rotate_me',v(0,0,0),v(1,0,0),rot,1)this needs some testing for the "default rotation", but the "clock" works 100% accurate. i will see, i know i have a accurate working(i guess, this one isn't easy to make proof of, since it has no "clockhands" resp. are replaced by "dots" which circle around like a "planetary clockwork",e.g. minutes circle around the hour "clockhand", seconds circle around the minutes "clockhand")"clock" (sort of) which doen't uses fractioned seconds and will animate seconds smoothly. [attachment=2723:screenshot-20140819-225613.jpg] --- a not so much needed, translation helperwhich simply adds the delay & offset to the "vlerp" function. translate(v1,v2,starts,delay,offset,[timer])timer is again optional else it's "get_animation_position("WHEELSTATE")"same as for "rot_gear". delay and offset mark the start and end timepoint.v1 and v2 are the vectors to translate to it's very similar to vlerp, the difference is it returns a single vector and you can set delay and offset, instead to use the "math.clamp" function. for both, "rot_gear" and "translate" you don't have to take care about the duration of the clamped time, it's calculated always up to 1. --- something i know marcel wished it years ago  autoscale_text(scale,offset,string_input) it scales any textstring to a given size scale, is the default scale of the text you choose, i.e. the scale you have though the label is sized properly on the ship.offset, is the length of the string which uses the full space you have in glyphs, i.e. 7 for the label.string_input, is simply the string which will be displayed, thus to autoscale the text (all above models use this to scale the "legal names" to the size of the label). also useful to scale the textstring of a spacestation, of course. it simply returns the scaling value, example:local shipname = legalname()local textscale = autoscale_text(.5,7,shipname)text(shipname,v(-1.87,-.6,-6.3),v(-1,0,0),v(-.1,0,1),textscale,{center=true})for a stations label it looks like this:local label = get_label()local text_scale = autoscale_text(20,10,label)text(label, labelpos, v(0,1,0), textdir, text_scale, {center=true})in this example the length is "clamped" to 10 glyphs, means as long as the string is shorter as or equals to 10 the scale will be the defined scale of 20,as soon as the string is longer as 10 it will be scaled down to use the same space as for 10 glyphs. --- now, the funny "legalname" function  legalname()needs no arguments and simply returns some string like: "LOUSY OATH", "RUSTY SUN" or "UNLEASHED SARDINE" (i like that, a "unleashed sardine"),but also cool stuff like "GALACTIC HELLCAT".("PAST HACKER" as well as "FUTURE HACKER", "FINAL TRUTH" as well as "FIRST LOVER", "SKY WALKER" as well as "PLANET EXPRESS", depending on if this will be ever selected) in general the "prefix" is a verb and a noun follows, but there are exceptions to this in the table(s) because of "which will fit to what", thus you find the nouns "Sky" and "Planet" in the prefixes.the reason is simple "FINAL STAR" doesn't makes as much sense as "STAR FISH", "STAR CAT", "STAR WALKER", on the other hand, "STAR SUN" or "SKY SUN" is neither much senseful, but a exclusion which won't appear often. of couse "PLANET" is a noun and both tables could contain it, but a possible "PLANET PLANET" or "PLANETARY PLANET" is most of all shitty.doesn't makes sense always but i can't get enough of the funny combinations, it tickles me to read "SILLY PROMETHEUS" or "ONE EYED COMET". i chose the table where a word belongs to intuitive, not based on a given rule, combinations came to my mind while i was writing the script. sometimes it's stunnig what results of it e.g. the "ROSY VERA" on a red/pink ship. besides "VERA" is one of the very few names i used, if not the only one.but when i started it out i took referencies from the web and searched for famous naval ship names, "VERA" is one of them and i kept it.i moved then to airplanes thus we have a a "SPITFIRE" as well. --- a few functions i would have liked years ago, like "mirror x" (to mirror a vectors "x" value) or "interpolate" (evaluate "halfway" of vector1 to vector2)both handy for localized vectors in scripted geometry. --- let's see if i'm in the mood i will fix the functions once everything works fine for "Genesia". but to change all the models to the new functions.... it will need a lot of time and work. --- ah well and finally added a few lines to "main menu" which displays a random quote at start of the game:"any working program is obsolate". --- the functions script:[attachment=2722:00_lmrfunctions.zip] the fluffy is still alive on SSC --- @geraldine a question,do you know if the "Armstrong Whitworth Whitley" Bomber was named "Flying Barn Door" (easy target) only by the germans, or does that makes sense to you as well?just because of interest and while i was looking for names of planes. besides today this term is used for any oversized clumsy airplane in general and if you search for "fliegendes Scheunentor" you get quite a lot results to it.but the genuine "fliegendes Scheunentor" is the Armstrong[/url] Whitworth Whitley ---- @Vuzzif you ever read this (?) i found it handy to localize certain things on top of a models script. this is the scale, the bounding radius and the lod_pixels for all (sub)model of a ships model. e.g.local bird_scale = 0.8local bird_radius = 50 * bird_scalelocal bird_pixels = { 50 * bird_scale, 100 * bird_scale, 200 * bird_scale, 0 }(it's named unique here because i have more as one model in the "ships.lua" script) for two reasons,a) if i like to change the size of a ship, slightly or not, i only have to look at top of the script for the scale, bounding_radius and lod_pixels will be scaled as well(therefore the "xxx_radius" has to represent the radius of the unscaled model) B) i transfer "scale" and "radius" to the ship specifications, to calculate proper thrusts with this little helper function (script) which is to place into the "ship" (specifications) folder--THRUST CALCULATORthrust = function(grav,tara)return math.floor(grav * 9806.65 * tara)endin the ship specifications it will look like thislocal scale = 1.5local radius = 25*scale--tara = hull_mass + fuel_tank_masslocal tara = 50local main = thrust(18,tara)local reverse = thrust(9,tara)local lateral = thrust(4.5,tara)the idea behind was to calculate the thrust for the empty ship (not the ladden), "tara" weight in other terms.scale and "br" i need to calculate a rough angular thrust value (of course one can use the "brutto" weight as well, but my decision is "tara"the idea was that a shup probably can hold up to 100tons but probably can't lift fully ladden, transporters mainly).a fighter will have a very high thrust "tara" but it will never be "empty", usally the engine and some equipment uses up most of the capacity.my the idea was 10G is something we can stand, i've read that the "RLM" (Reichsluftfahrtministerium) tested pilots for their rocket driven planes up to 20G?!!that's extreme! extreme extreme!ergo my fighters will have a thrust when ladden roundabout this value of 20G. "tara" this will somewhere between 30 and 40G's.3200 or 1939 a human can survive up to, let's assume 20G (usually 10G).erm "pressure suits" well, hmmm.... never heard of one who survived being thrown in a tank of blood plasma, even if we could "breath" this, theoretically,practically our mind won't accept this and i assume you will die, before you start to breathe a liquid.besides who would dare to be the first voluntary for such a experiment?all the rest of ships have a rather low thrust which is "tara" somewhere between 15 and 20G, this to avoid that a medium ship is when empty "faster" as a fighter.to me this seems to be reasonable, however one could set 100G as thrust if he likes to ( i won't).lower specced ships are more fun to play and in my second setup for alpha30 which using everything except FE2 and SW shipsmy "thug" the "Maneuverable Cargo Unit" (now it's called "Lander" and the triple version "Lifter") is the starting ship and has a rather low thrust especially lateralneeds to take care what mission you subscribe to. INTERMISSION btw. I NEED LOCAL TAXI JOBS! who likes to write them?i like to start the game with "nothing", a interplanetary vessel & 100 credits, no autopilot no anything, nothing but the rotten "Lander".since i started now a few times in this way i find the autopilot alreadey boring in some sort, nothing to do for me except to point and click.i never liked "point and click" games much.Walterars "Scout" missions are a refreshing exception, at least you have to do a little.i would have some suggestions to that, Walterar... Walterar?.... (still alive?)i would like i.e carry someone to a given point, long and lat we can request or set, one only would have to display this optionally on the hud.besides does anyone ever used the "low thrust", this is depracted for real it has no use to me, but to show the lat. long. without pressing "CTRL-I"would be handy for missions to write, taxi "carry me to planet "x" cooordinates lat. "y" long "z", pick me up at "some day"".or "need data/probe from planet "x" at coord. "y" "z", and so on, these things can't be handled by the autopilot and this means action without fighting.ever tried to reach a given coordinate on a planet?it's a real challange. i give you some coordinates to find on mars (best use genesia with the proper height map, that's a cool one) "Cydonia" "Olympus Mons" (actually on the foot hills of, cool sunrise) "Utopia Planitia" (erm, "close to" it's a large region, Viking2 landed somwhere there):latitude 50.16716° :latitude 22.917251° :latitude 66.108268°:longitude -4.654306° :longitude -42.495296° :longitude -60.305812° i made a small "error" when i was looking for the landing coordinates of "viking2", i thought "dammit why does the program didn't show the lat and long for some objects?"i haven't noticed yet that it's shown on the very right bottom corner, no matter where you point with the mouse, a drawback of big screens, you won't see all of it at once. ah well, now you know where to place these cities...do it it's worth a tryboth,find the coordinates yourself using "CTRL-I"orplace the cities at the above coordinates, together with the height map they are some nice "landmarks" to visit. what about "Boreo Syrtis" and "Syrtis Major"? well even these coordinates are known. if you like i can give you the coordinates of any known and named volcano, crater, mountain or landing pos in our solar system.the software i use for this is "P.M. - 3D-Atlas des Sonnensystems 2.0" it would cost a little fee, but i have it from a retail disk.it's not the newest one (2006), but comfortable to use (unfortunately it's in german language)."redshift" offers something similar, i own a old release of "redshift", this new solar system atlas would even cost a little, but i assume it's as good as i expect it from "redshift". a cool "open source" program is, Celestia[/url] END OF INTERMISSION anyway you just enter the desired thrust per one tonne and it returns the thrust for the specified mass (no more guessing in what thrust it will end up)."math.floor" i used to get rid of the unneeded values behind the floating point.name='Corsair',model='corsair',forward_thrust = main,reverse_thrust = reverse,up_thrust = lateral,down_thrust = lateral,left_thrust = lateral,right_thrust = lateral,angular_thrust = lateral*radius,how you set up "angular_thrust" is left up to you, i decided for lateral multiplied with "bounding_radius" (in fact it's the max. diameter of the ship)it wil weaken the ships, but you can use "main*radius" to get more agile ships. (the value will be divided by two in the program, i even wonder why?because "J.J" explained once to me that a simplified calculation would use the diameter of the ship and the (main or lateral? i can't remember) thrust)however it's up to you how you like to use the "thrust_calculator". now if you probably change the size (scale) of a ship, you only have to enter the new scale to the ship specs and the rest will be updated automatic.change hull mass, fuel tank (or capacity) in the specifications, then reflect this in the localized "tara" (or brutto) and it will keep the desired thrust. besides still there is obviousely something wrong in the engine, if i move a ship with the mouse it's like pointing with the mouse, there is no (no more, it wasn't always like this, compare to the alpha8 i linked) "delay" respectively inertia to "feel", while if you use the joystick or keystrokes it is delayed or logarithmic, how ever it isn't the same and moving with the mouse is ODD!!! it's like you would play "missile command" with the mouse. changes which have been made of which i never was convinced if they are apropriate.it looks to me like the angular thrust is calculated or changed by the engine to keep a given relation between main thrust and angular thrust (?)if that is true, then it's wrong as wrong can be.a thruster has a given power and not a power based on linear thrust, which would mean "oh btw, this thruster is only to rotate the ship, but in fact the thrust is higher as the main thrust to make the ships more agile" (or whatever strange idea was behind this). if a lateral thruster has a given thrust the angular thrust can't be higher imho, how should that work if it's "smaller"?and if this would be true i would use the angular thrust to accelerate if it's stronger. actually (i stated this before) "space ships" as far as we have such, have very low lateral and resulting angular thrust,it's only used to correct the course in free fall and "steam power" is enough to reach this. ok it's 3200, but still a lateral thruster can't be stronger as the main thrust, in maximum it is to imagine all thrusts are the same if you imagine a "antigravity" engine, i.e. however, something smells fishy here, i checked different setups and had the feeling whatever i enter to "angular_thrust" there is no difference noticable.which let's me assume the whole thing has been changed and angular thrust has become "depracted" (like other tard). economy is another weird thing, i changed a few things in the source and the result was unpredictable resp. not what i expected, it looks like "mining" type hasinverted specifications for goods to import/export (?). anyway if i say "produces carbon ore" for mining systems, it returns in the game "longs for carbon ore".the rest is ok and a "outdoor world" longing i.e. for robots longs for robots in the game, a "industrial world" set longs for meat, longs for meat in the game.only the type "mining" looks like it's inverted for desired and produced. but i need more experience with this to say if this is true and i think it isn't a good idea to respect this in the production / longing, the error must be somewhere else.(actually my mining worlds produce anything except what would be to expect, carbon ore, metal ore, whatever mining produces, they long for them nowtwo possible reasons i see behind this, first i could guess of "let's make mining worlds longing for everything", second, "i like to dig for ore and to get a good price a mining world has to long for ore", both would explain it, but it's still wrong to me. obviousely the price for any ore will be very low in a mining world. ever played "ports of call"?if i carry to much goods of a certain kind to the same destination the price gets inflationary, obviously and apropriate. in other terms, i don't have to sell potassium to argentinia they produce it and the price will be low as low can be, trading coffee or sugar to brasil will neither be a good deal. we say "Eulen nach Athen tragen" if one does so.(but trading a "secret crater" of weapons to iraq will make you rich but prob. you loose your ship, one could never know in iraq. or you have to accept that after such every now and then your ship is in quarantaine, that's a sort of "economy" which certainly belongs to something like pioneer. do something illegal, maybe you won't get charged for it but you have to live with the drawbacks of your acting).imho the idea of mining is dig for ore and sell it where they are in need of them, e.g. a industrial world, mining worlds will have more then enough ore of any sort and the price will be inflationary resp. should be, we haven't "real economy" like in "ports of call". besides would this be a big task? selling the same goods over and over to the same destination should lower the price. but it's not essentially, essential is that i can depend on what is "production" and what is "need", then i can setup a working economy). sorry, looks like i'm sober and my posts turn to essays.

[Potsmoke66]

the ladybug... erm, ladybird it gets more and more classic - only scripted geometry - only greyscale textures from a repository

[Potsmoke66]

tell, think, say what you like, but to me nothing looks as cool as scripted geometry, it's somehow like the difference of listening to a soundtracker module or a mp3.one is "fresh" "alive", even though it's made by the machine, the other is hmm... odd?i guess it's the artificial look and feel which makes the difference, it's super clean. and of course the feeling that you crafted a model, some satifactional moment you get when you reached the goal.this was a rather quick one, i started it right after the post i made in the "total mod genesia" thread and finished it a hour ago.it took me quite a while to get good photographs and a blueprint of the Sputnik. PS-1 has diameter of 580 mm, lenght 588 mm (with that pimp at the rear of the sphere). 2 antennas were 2400 mm in lenght, other two - 3900 mm, angled to 35 grad to spacecraft symmetry line. if like to get a closer view to the russian space program, check this website: http://www.russianspaceweb.com/index.html[/url]

[Potsmoke66]

name the ship "i have ben thrown out for such a long time" the walrus said "but wait for my comeback""finally i found my balance and no longer i have to tilt from one side to the other" 

[Geraldine]

name the ship ;)Easy! Goo goo goo joob goo goo goo goo joob :girlcrazy:

[Potsmoke66]

"everybody... no i don't repeat this here - just guess of my former nickname" Beatles, wow, i wasn't sure if i'm trippin'... must be because i work so fast, the clip & the music seemed to me like it's in slow motion. --- "pimp my ship" - next one the only thing i wonder is why i haven't made this before? TomM's ships don't look bad once they are textured and some details are added to them even to replace the standard gear i could have done long ago (and have had in some way), really new is only the gear which is to place under the wings as for the Walrusand uses a little less space in depth. a second thing i puzzled out is a table to get a idea for the capacity of a ship, base will be the volume i.e blender shows you for a object,then i took the maximum load which is still useful for hyperspacing as a maximum, roundabout 2000tons and the minimum 10 - 12 tons,maximum volume is a cube (my spherical ships come close to) with 100m sidelenght, larger won't work with our stations.assuming the 100m sphere can hold 2000tons (which is "low", but i imagine a lot of free space in such a giant ship, space there would be for times more, but it's not useful if you can't hyperspace,well multiple engines - no that "lunatic" or isn't it?...)i have now a table from which i can read the capacity for a ship, which is surprising low up to a certain limit of volume. i had the idea after i noticed that 300tons for the downscaled "Walrus" are far to much, i guessed then 100, but wasn't sure like often when i have to guess a capacity for a ship.according to my table it can hold now only 60tons, but that's not bad for a ship of 30m length and comes close to "FE2's Viper". realistic or not i don't know, but at least it's handy to have such a table to get a rough idea of the capacity, a few tons more or less won't matter, but not 300tons instead of 60 to 100tons.a little space for "creativity" must be left, i assume anyway that ships with wings can hold less cargo, the wings can hold maybe fuel, but not large amounts of cargo,while a spherical or cube shaped ship can hold cargo up to the rim. --- i'm really satisfied with the scripted models, it's a different thing and a real challange, needs quite more as just to work with a software.even that is can use for this special edition standardized sub-models and textures, apart from that i decide how many equipment a ship should showand how many of that will be animated. the ships might be simple, nonetheless they are fun to play with. "brand gernot" if you like, but it seems to me this isn't a bad brand. --- "rot_gear( 'model_name', position, vector_x, vector_y, scale, degrees, direction(axis, cw or ccw), starttime, endtime )"

[Geraldine]

Nice to see these big ships getting some attention Gernot! :girlcrazy:

[Potsmoke66]

 i had the stupid idea to convert the Ladybird to SGM (.dae), but it didn't worked out and i have no idea why, any other i made last year work fine.spent a night for nothing except a f*** up brain. and again i feel "good old LMR, everything turns out as expected". besides, talking 'bout horrible issues,i was looking for a error i made for about two days, guessing i've done something wrong while i was working on the source of alpha30, ... until occasionally and as a last try i thought "maybe it wasn't my fault" noticed that the new release adds some lines to the config file which older releases won't accept. edit: i forgot genesia stores the stuff in a own folderthough if anybody has problems to run "alpha30" after running a new release of pioneer, he has to delete the config file. "horrible issues" because pioneer leaves you in the dark, showing no error message to either, like often (since quite a while)when it crashes.and where you like to start to search if you haven't just a tiny hint what has caused the crash? the config file was really the last i could imagine...

[Potsmoke66]

comparison no big difference at first sight, however it leaks certainly of all the extras, doesn't lands on his gear and shows the ship wrong in the preview window (gear is half retracted). the only thing i like is the specularity map for SGM, the rest isn't worth the effort imho. HOWEVER this is anyway my last model for SGM and i only made it for Marcel, if he says i like to have it i will finish the model(it misses lower detailed meshes, but it won't cost much to make them). still i think collada isn't suitable, sorry, but in every program you open a collada it gets displayed different, it's a mess if you ask me. further i have no idea if it will work with a recent pioneer, after all the changes? intentionally i liked to convert all of TomM's ships for SGM, but now i'm not so sure about, it depends if this will honored by somebody i guess.

[Marcel]

Sure I'd like to have it! I started on an SGM conversion myself. Only the hull was converted, so it has no landing gear. I got burned out trying to convert my original textures to fit the model properly. There was quite a bit of stretching of textures on the LMR model. I've got it so it looks ok if you don't look too closely, I have all the thrusters in place and it flies really well. You're inspiring me to go back and work on it again, but there's so much to learn that I get stymied. Converting the original Pioneer models to SGM is a good idea, imho. I think of them as old ships from pre-3200 that can still be found on the used market. I'm not certain of this, but I think the original models were made by John Jordan for Tomm as placeholders to use in his "Frontier Elite 2 clone".About the ship not resting on its gear, did you make the collision mesh include the landing gear? I've read that you must do this, but I can't give you advice on it.A thought on the FlowerFairy; I've had the idea in my head for quite some time now to use a version of the hexagonal textures you made for the Sidewinder on it. There's a center hex of one color surrounded by a second color. It reminds me of flowers and could be the rationale for why the ship is called a FlowerFairy.

[Potsmoke66]

cool, ok a hint to this, the model dumps of the modelviewer are nearly useless, it dumps all the geometry unscaled and unpositioned, thus called up sub-modelslike the wheels will be centered to v(0,0,0) and scaled as scripted (not as called by the model).to make my conversion(s) i use "GL Xtractor", the problem here is that the meshes aren't centered at "z" axis and that you have to make dumps for each LOD, means zoom as close as possible for lod4 and zoom out as much as needed for lod2, to get the collision mesh simply switch to it.to get the landing gear it must be lowered (or you have to edit the model though the gear is even present in state "gear retracted").to re-center the model to "z 0" is imo far easier as if everything is unscaled and centered to v(0,0,0).mostly you will have to disable "capture normals", else the modelviewer crashes when you snapshot a model.further since it's a simple snapshot, don't rotate the model, else the captured mesh is rotated as well.but all this is easier to handle and to fix in i.e. Blender as the "wrong" (ordinally) scaled and centered sub-models.it also dumps the textures by choice but of course they need to be flipped for Blender (due to the difference between a right handed coordinate system and a lefthanded)like i usually say "when ever in doubt, use your hands" (or as "Harald Lesch" said: "diesen da" - thumbs reflect "Y" and point upwards, middlefinger is "X" and has to point to the right, forefinger is "Z" and depending on the side of your hand it points "righthanded" to you, "lefthanded" away from you.whenever i got problems with rotational stuff i refere to this and it becomes obvious, "merci, descartez") i'm not sure who scripted the basic models, i assume it's Tom's and his wife Maude's work at least they are listed as "creatives" in the early releases.as far as i remember "John" contributed the cobby from oolite. no the gears in for most of my SGM conversions/models have no collision mesh, that's why the ladybird sits on the belly, usually i used a tiny triangle in the collision mesh toproper position the models.the reason is simply because conrods don't work with collada, basta, thus i use .x meshes for this that's stable and works 100%.simple rotational stuff works with collada ok,to let something just stick out of course even,but to "drive" something using pistons, e.g. named conrod, fails. (but i forgot; i sure can't handle this ) that's mostly because collada as a 100% portable format uses no matrix stuff, it stores the rotational data, it's very similar to a scripted animation this grants that a collada animation can be always resolved, therefore it leaks in possibilities to proper playback constrained animations. (still it's no good choice for a game imho, one can never know if they change the format and even of the most recent players each shows a collada model/animation different, it's lousy if you ask me). ermpf, lost half of the article due to a power failure (and unfortunatly i have to remove the batteries of the macbook, they are to old and overheat the machine useless, this causes else much troubles, new ones are a little to expensive for this old macbook imho, especially because we use it like a desktop machine). never mind, thanks to clever made SSC i kept at least most of what i wrote! however this will be the short version now and i don't like to repeat all the jokes i posted before. though i will step now directly to my blender project for the ladybird,it's from blender 2.49, because of above stated reasons of exporting conrods in a proper way, but you can easy load it to blender 2.71and snoop into it in what simplified way i make conrods. [attachment=2726:ladybird_sgm.7z] like i said it won't work for a collada model, because it's constrained and the constrained objects have no own "raw" translation or rotation data, one would have to write a clever python script which exports simply what is played back in blender as it was done for the "direct x 8" exporter for blender 2.49. still i'm not sure if it's possible at all with collada, because it's no matrix animation it's translation and rotation data, with this you simply can't have conrods working so easy. since it's similar to what i do in a script i know that it isn't easy, even if there is a mathematical solution to this. sorry but i dislike collada, it's not ment for games, it's ment for web presentations and to be 100% portable.and as usual you can have only either one, the apple or the dime, not both together.using collada for games is like working dressed in a smoking on the construction site, simply useless, it doesn't fits to the task.and besides show me a single model in pioneer which has a working conrod?there is none because it's not possible (i assume our modelers are clever enough to make a simple rigged animation, no?yep as long as you only translate and rotate in a simple way it works, but conrods need constraints to work and here starts the problem with collada. neither it's the idea to hand tweak a animaton, i have seen such, not for pioneer but else, but it's never precise and neither it's the proper way to set up a conrod. parented objects have no raw rotational or translation data and where is nothing there can't be stored something, the needed data get's calculated while the animation is running. so called "visual keying" should solve this problem but somehow it messes up the constraints, thus it's not useful, why it does this isn't clear to me, but is it my problem to take care for blender? )and i remeber well what "fluffyfreak" told me about skinned animations, nice one i know, but not with collada never!this needs matrix animations, not a resolvable rotation translation thing.working with bones which deform meshes COOL!, but it won't work with collada.thus i prefere 100times my dynamic bezier stuff before a collada, which is not suitable except... i better keep this to myself. besides once i understand the mathematical stuff behind a conrod i could set up a animation helper like the one i did already for"rotten LMR".i can setup a script to my longings, but i can't change the format and limits of collada.i would wish direct x meshes would be better supported, then you could have nice working models and even deform meshes with bones. this was my high hopes or what i thought "ok let them remove the LMR, maybe it will turn out fine""i'm pretty sure it can be made better today..."but it destroyed all of my hopes and the result with collada is simply lame. direct x meshes are ment for games and nothing else, it's their special task and their strongest side.therefore the matrix is not resolvable so easy and depending on how the mesh is build even impossible to resolve.but is this needed for a game?no.is it really needed that someone can resolve a games model?usually not, and if then well you have to live with this drawback. ts, some projects use even encryptable mesh formats, in the beginning i thought "mean",but well at least you don't have to care about your IP as a artist in this way, it's then your opinion to offer it to anybodyor only for the game.it's a lot of work and blood one invests in a model, thus why shouldn't he protect this?i understand this now well, it might not be my opinion, but i understand the need. a model is "just" a model, but on the other hand how coolhand said it's at least 50% of the visual stuff in a game, well said.it's not important and it's important nonetheless.we wouldn't need models for a good gameplay, but on the other hand...who would play today a game without them?except some retro freaks like me?besides if that would be the point, throw you computer out of the window and play a classic role playing game with your friends,it's fun as well, i grant you this! "look at those cool hairdo's - erm graphics i ment"

[Potsmoke66]

maybe some pictures which will explain what you will find in the blender project, resp. how i make rigged animations and conrods resp. to let it look like the pistons would drive the the linkage, while it's in fact in the animation vice versa the linkage drags the pistons and the wheel resp. in this case the yoke.the linkage is in other terms the "driver" which controls the whole animation. first, obviousely the linkage is centered to it's rotational axis, just like your upper arm is centered to the axle[attachment=2727:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 00.01.23.jpg] second, the yoke is centered to the lower end of the linkage, just like your lower arm is "centered" to the lower end of the upper arm.[attachment=2728:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 00.01.59.jpg] in fact the center of the yoke is exactly where i positioned a extra verticle, it's easy to achieve this, just select all vertices of the lower end of the cylinder, command now "snap cursor to selection" then duplicate a vertice (any) and command "snap selection (selected "active" newly duplicated vertice) to cursor". now we have a vertice on which we can parent the yoke.to this cursor position center even the yoke or whatever you like to drag behind the linkage or "actor" like i would call it.[attachment=2739:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 01.31.25.jpg] switch to object mode and select both first the yoke and second by holding "shift" down select the linkage object, it's now the active object.move to edit mode and select the the verticle which will be the parent verticle.open the "mesh tools" edit: use better "CTRL P" it's not longer available under "mesh tools" whysoever, i don't know which devil rides them sometimes. and select from "vertices" the option "make vertex parent", blender will ask "make vertex parent?" answer "certainly dammit what do you guess i'm up to?", i mean click "OK".[attachment=2740:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 01.35.04.jpg] that's cool try it, you can rotate now the linkage and the parented object follows the linkage wherever it rotates or translates to without loosing his alignment.ergo just like your lower arm follows the upper arm wherever it goes to, while if you use no power on the lower arm it will hang loose. that's already nice i guess, i don't have to mess with the alignment of the yoke, artificial gravity does the job for me.besides this works only if you parent a object to a vertice, if parented to the whole objecta: reference would be center of the parentb: it would be mounted stiff to it and not "hang loose" now we mess with the pistons, it's pretty the same here, create a new vertice at the point where the pistons should follow to,(i changed this already for both models, scripted and the new blender version have a extra cylinder instead that it simply sticks into thelinkage, but it won't matter to explain the procedure) ergo almost like before, "where i get the cursor positon from?"ok yes, let's assume the gear is in retracted position, center now the lowest piston to it's lower end, like before select the vertices of the lower piston in edit mode and and snap the cursor to it, then in object mode center already all pistons (you can select all toghether for this) to this cursor position "center object to cursor".[attachment=2744:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 00.03.36.jpg] you have the cursor posotion now where the pistons should be mounted resp. follow to.select the linkage object and switch to edit modecopy a vertice of the linkage and "snap selection (active vertice) to cursor position"[attachment=2745:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 02.30.06.jpg] now again in object mode select both first the pistons (all of them) and as last the linkage to make it to the active object.switch now to edit mode, select that damned little pig and tell blender again "make vertex parent".edit: i see right now this has changed a bit, it's now longer under "mesh tools", but you can always call "make vertex parent" upwith "CTRL P" (such changes to the surface i really dislike)[attachment=2735:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 01.18.02.jpg] cool, if i now move my "actor" the linkage, the pistons follow it to, half of the job is done we need now to set up the constraints. we need now a reference object for the pistons, resp. for the constraints, choose a simple name for it, it makes it easier, here it's named"raxle" that's typed quick and i know this is the "right axle", i.e. object "some_object.001" is shitty to type, neither i know exactly what it represents, else it doesn't matters and could be named whatever as long as the name is unique (it will be, blender adds a .00# for duplicates).you could use a bone or a empty object for this, i use usually a solid object, because it looks proper to let the pistons be mounted to something, a sphere or a cylinder.[attachment=2731:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 00.06.05.jpg]we have now a reference object for the constraints to set. next step is to setup the constraints for the pistons, recently they still would all simply follow the parent vertex.thus they need to be clamped to something, the "axle" in this case.it will look like this[attachment=2733:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 00.01.59.jpg]this constraint named "locked track" grants that the object won't follow simply the linkage (actor) it is now restricted to follow italong it's own Z axis, in other terms it's clamped to the reference object.cool if i rotate now the linkage the piston follows the linkage on this clamped path, we are nearly finished and for the lowest piston we need no else constraint. the other pistons will follow also to the end of the movement after setting this constraint, but we like to stop them at a chosen point.therefore we use "limit distance" again distance will be referred to our reference object "raxle" (or how it's named ever).[attachment=2741:Bildschirmfoto 2014-08-28 um 01.48.36.jpg] this is the standard procedure for a simple rigged animation and a conrod by using no bones, because we don't need bones, the gears parts itself are the "bones". it could be made as well by using bones and posers, but we don't need such, that's cool for other tasks but needless for a landing gear. the final big big problem is to set the keys and to export it properly.in principles and when i use the old direct x 8 exporter it's damned easy, i only have to set the rotation keys on a given timeline.some use 100's or 1000's but all this is useless for pioneer and other games, we have a given animation durance by the engine, it will play back 10 keys on the whole endurance the same fluid as 1000, depending on how complex the animation is, if i change rotation speed or direction in the animation and if it should be linear or a "bezier curve" (starts slow, ends slow, this is default in blender) one will have to set more as 10, but my experience is 30 keys are fine. for FFED3D and absolute linear animations i used 3 keys, start - movement - stop, that works and the animation is as fluid as with 20'000 keys. the problem is that common keying neither will respect the constraints nor the rotation of the parented objects, since the parent drives them.for this would be "visual keying" which should store the only visual present rotation and translation of the parented and constrained objects.unfortunately this fails gratefully in blender (for 2.71 i have to check this first, but up to 2.65 it was like this). that's why i first don't use collada for the animations, even if visual keying would work, collada has no "idea about" matrix animations (ergo no conrods),neither i use blender export scripts for direct x meshes higher as 2.49, because only this clever made script exports "stupidly" only what is played back by blender (not stupid, that's smart!). i don't need visual keying i only set the keys common, have no issues and a proper working matrix animation as result. i'm happy and satisfied and only this counts, the damned RESULT!