Gaming NASA Creating MMO Video Game

[Zachstar]

It looks like it will be ok. Not stellar but it does not have to be as this looks like its more of a "Excuse to use in Class" Thing.

We could use the interest in spaceflight again.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

HEY!!! THEY STOLE MY IDEA:facts:
*ISSU*

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Still, it'll never match Orbiter

And maybe, they'll make these meshes royalty-free & available to the public

 

[BHawthorne]

Still, it'll never match Orbiter

Not so sure about that, they've got NASA and the US Government to budget for it. They're already talking about community driven content for it in some articles. Just because Oribter is the best spaceflight sim at the moment doesn't always mean it will be. With some of the other MMOs coming soon using the same 3D engine, it'll definitely have a lot more capability than Orbiter does. Orbiter isn't even a functional DX9 title yet.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Not so sure about that, they've got NASA and the US Government to budget for it. They're already talking about community driven content for it in some articles. Just because Oribter is the best spaceflight sim at the moment doesn't always mean it will be. With some of the other MMOs coming soon using the same 3D engine, it'll definitely have a lot more capability than Orbiter does. Orbiter isn't even a functional DX9 title yet.

I agree that it's graphics capabilities will probably be far beyond Orbiter, however, what I mean when I say that it will never be as good as Orbiter is that it will probably never possess the realistic physics that Orbiter has. If they included real physics in the game, most people probably would not play it as they would probably find it too hard. The ability to launch onto a specific orbit, change your orbit, perform interplanetary transfers, etc, I should think, will not be possible in the game - all launches/transfers etc. will probably be autopilots only.

I think we'll see a lot of "Star Wars" style space physics in this game
(although that's not to say it won't be good)

 

[Eagle]

The ability to launch onto a specific orbit, change your orbit, perform interplanetary transfers, etc, I should think, will not be possible in the game - all launches/transfers etc. will probably be autopilots only.

I think we'll see a lot of "Star Wars" style space physics in this game
(although that's not to say it won't be good)

I would expect the transfers probably won't be much more than the equivalent of setting up a TransX plan. Likely a lot less than that.

I'm not really expecting 'Star Wars' physics for anything other than 'viewing the solar system' modes. EVA's should be in Newtonion . Maybe they can go a few steps beyond and give us the Zero G laser tag from Ender's Game.

 

[Kveldulf]

Your optimism ognores the fact that there'll always be a faction of players in any game like that, including Orbiter. :lol:

I said there wont be 10 million people . I'm aware that for any game there are annoying people and noobs (EVE-Online had a guy once who didn't know how to warp, and spent 3 hours complaining about the game as he flew at normal speed from gate to station). With a game like this though, they'll be few and far between.

 

[Spicer]

I recently saw an episode of NASA's podcast, "This Week at NASA," where grade school students were at Ames flight center. They had a girl playing a spaceflight simulator with a very familiar-looking HUD. That green crosshair is burned into my eyeballs, so I realized that they were using Orbiter as their platform.

No you're not imagining things. Is there any cooperation from Martins? Do we know?

 

[DaveS]

Well, judge for yourself. Attached to this post is a screenshot from Orbiter, with a POV very similar to the screenshot linked above as "picture1".

Hielor: Every 3D model is different even if they're models of the same thing(like a shuttle orbiter). Every 3D modeller has their own approaches and methods which subtly leaves what I called "ID marks", that makes it possible to ID the models.

And after having had the obriter shuttle mesh in GMAX for a long time now, I can ID every single little detail on it, including in the textures. And I can tell you with 97% certainity that orbiter in the screenshot is from Orbiter.

 

[Woo482]

well there is no way to be 100% sure with out having both models and then looking at them both but if the model in the MMO is the same one from orbiter why did they not ask for permission to use it ?

 

[Hielor]

I recently saw an episode of NASA's podcast, "This Week at NASA," where grade school students were at Ames flight center. They had a girl playing a spaceflight simulator with a very familiar-looking HUD. That green crosshair is burned into my eyeballs, so I realized that they were using Orbiter as their platform.

No you're not imagining things. Is there any cooperation from Martins? Do we know?

Now you're imagining things too. Assuming you're referring to the Feb 17th "This Week at NASA", which has the grade school students and a girl using a simulator (at 2:45), that is most definitely not Orbiter she's using. See for yourself: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/twan_index.html , the bottom section, the one from 2/17/09, at 2:45 in the video.


-----Post Added-----

Well, judge for yourself. Attached to this post is a screenshot from Orbiter, with a POV very similar to the screenshot linked above as "picture1".

Hielor: Every 3D model is different even if they're models of the same thing(like a shuttle orbiter). Every 3D modeller has their own approaches and methods which subtly leaves what I called "ID marks", that makes it possible to ID the models.

And after having had the obriter shuttle mesh in GMAX for a long time now, I can ID every single little detail on it, including in the textures. And I can tell you with 97% certainity that orbiter in the screenshot is from Orbiter.

EDIT: I'm wrong.

 

[DaveS]

Now you're imagining things too. Assuming you're referring to the Feb 17th "This Week at NASA", which has the grade school students and a girl using a simulator (at 2:45), that is most definitely not Orbiter she's using. See for yourself: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/twan_index.html , the bottom section, the one from 2/17/09, at 2:45 in the video.


-----Post Added-----




They are not the same. First off, the ISS is clearly different, so we can discard that

Let's look at the Orbiter. The heat shields are different hues (the NASA one is paler), the nose gear door is completely different, the area just behind the hatch is very different. Orbiter's textures also appear to be higher-quality, with fewer artifacts, and the texture on the bay doors is very different.

You guys are looking at two different representations of the same thing and saying that one looks a lot like the other, when in reality they're just close representations of the same thing.

Out of curiousity, where are the Orbiter textures from?

Hue: Comes from an effect that Orbiter doesn't have: Earth shine. Notice the blue hue? Yes, that's the Earth shine effect.

Nose gear door: Not the same render engine as Orbiter. Could also be a product of the conversion process, seen this myself a number of times. Not all 3D engines handles the models the same.

Same thing with the texture artefacts. Could have been down-converted and the texture lose sharpness and details.

Orbiter source: Was specially done by Michael Grossberg(hence the MG_* prefix on the default Atlantis texture filenames) on request.

Donamy was also involved in the process of getting Michael's Orbiter working in Orbiter.

 

[Hielor]

Hue: Comes from an effect that Orbiter doesn't have: Earth shine. Notice the blue hue? Yes, that's the Earth shine effect.

Nose gear door: Not the same render engine as Orbiter. Could also be a product of the conversion process, seen this myself a number of times. Not all 3D engines handles the models the same.

Same thing with the texture artefacts. Could have been down-converted and the texture lose sharpness and details.

Orbiter source: Was specially done by Michael Grossberg(hence the MG_* prefix on the default Atlantis texture filenames) on request.

Donamy was also involved in the process of getting Michael's Orbiter working in Orbiter.

I think then the more important question is: Why would they? They have access to models and textures that far exceed anything Orbiter has. Why would they use Orbiter's?

If you truly feel that copyrights have been violated, then you should contact NASA. They can do something about it; we can't. Actually, I'd be willing to bet that NASA has nothing to do with it, and it's one of the three listed game developers, if there is a problem.

Out of curiousity, would it be possible to determine if an IP address belonging to any of those companies has been used to download Orbiter and/or addons for it at any point?

 

[Coolhand]

They are DEFINATELY sharing the same texture sets for the heat shield(which implies that its the same shuttle model)

how can i tell this?

Look at the mirror artifacts in the texture for the heat tiles... they match up perfectly... the have the same errors where the texture has been mirrored and nobody has bothered to make them look anything less than 100% symetrical.

If 2 models share the same errors, they are the same model... no 2 models would be built, no 2 textures painted, which share the same errors.

mesh theft is something that we encounter a lot at SFM, and people are very good at telling the difference between models of the same thing, you steal someones work there and 100% guaranteed someone will recognise it.

I think this something that martins or the models original author should really contact nasa about, assuming they don't already have permission.

 

[willy88]

You should keep in mind that the textures for the shuttle (I think Donamy made it) were taken from NASA's own images.

 

[Coolhand]

You should keep in mind that the textures for the shuttle (I think Donamy made it) were taken from NASA's own images.

Really? i thought the artist had gone up there and taken his own photos...

Aside from that, so?


The point is that an artist has taken his time and produced something for free and no one's profiting off it in the orbiter community. NASA isn't really a commercial organisation but people who work there do get paid well for their time so if nasa is using this without permission then its fair that the artist get something for that (fair enough if he's willing to let them use it, it's his decision) but i'm sure whoever coded it and whoever produced the other assets are paid staff somewhere or other.

Also, it may not be NASA who produced the sim, but a commercial studio/developer who may have bid for the project and has taken payment for it, but passed none along to the original author. Is that fair? No.

 

[michael_GR]

You should keep in mind that the textures for the shuttle (I think Donamy made it) were taken from NASA's own images.

No, Donamy didn't make those textures. I did. I also worked very heavily on the model itself. I worked on the Shuttle model for months (well, on and off but you get the idea). I know every little scratch mark and I can tell this is the model I made specifically for Orbiter. But you don't have to take my word for it. Just look at the attached image. I rendered the image at the bottom myself this morning. The texture on some of the modules is different, but the one on the docking ring is unmistakable, and the black rectangles on the Harmony module where there are supposed to be white rings is an artifact of rendering the Oerbiter ISS mesh in an application such as 3ds max without letting the app know they should be handled as transparent. These are, without a question, Orbiter models.



I'm going to contact Donamy and David413 to see if they gave their permission to using this. This is seriously uncool.

 

[Hielor]

I sit corrected regarding the meshes and textures. They are quite clearly the same. I still don't feel that Spicer's accusation is correct, but that's not the point of this thread.

I doubt NASA had much hand in the copying, though--Probably someone at the game development studio was like, "hey, there's already these models and textures available, it'll save us time and money if we use them, which means we can bid lower." I highly doubt that they went to NASA and asked them if it was okay if they used someone else's models without giving credit.

 

[Donamy]

MG revised my model that I worked years on. The textures are his, with my collaboration. I gave no such permission.

 

[Urwumpe]

OK, the similarities are far too close to be just result of random coincidence - even the normals around the window area are identical, something which can only happen if you use exactly the same triangle structure for interpolating this.

Who did the Project Alpha ISS mesh with the four petal docking ports?

 

[T.Neo]

Andrew Farnaby. (?)