rodion_herrera
Moonwatcher
Hi all, I haven't been back in a while, and since now I'm sort of in-between jobs I decided to have a go again at making a simple add-on, this time yet-another-Brighton-Base (graphics/meshes) Upgrade.
The reason behind this is I've been playing around with the XR series of spacecraft as of late, making lunar flights, and while landing at Brighton I kept wishing it looked "at par" with the XR2 or XR5 in terms of mesh and textures quality, instead of having the "stock" landing pads and that ever-familiar cylindrical building in the middle. I am aware there are lots of Brighton Base replacements in OrbitHangar, but I wanted one with LOTS of meshes. The result of my fiddling in the last twenty four hours is this work in progress.
It includes all new landing pad meshes, with some detailing around it. I then changed the central building to my own design (I call it the coffeemaker building, because I've been drinking a LOT of coffee while I working on this hehe). I retained the monorail, and in fact the monorail still goes inside the new building. I later plan to add a destination dome/building at the end of that monorail.
Here it is, early lunar morning. Each pad has a sort of access door, that leads to a "viewing area" (not really accessible right now, but I might develop this later), and eventually leads to a tunnel leading towards the FUEL, APU, LOX resupply area. I added details like pipes and hoses on the pad, to give that feeling/impression that you can refuel using the pads.
Another angle. As you can see, the border around the pad is no longer octagonal. I got tired of looking at those octagons when landing so I decided to make them fully circular. BTW, I used McWgog's Brighton Beach Tiles, and Ark's (?) low mountain terrain mesh around the new base, to enhance the look. I may (depends on time) make my own surface tiles and some mounds/low hills, so that I won't need to "borrow" anything from another addon to enhance the surrounding terrain.
Playing with lighting effects off the XR2's hoverthrusters on one of the structures I built around the pads.
XR2 about to land on Pad 3. To simplify matters, I actually retained the old landing pads, I just made them super super tiny, so that the VOR beacon remains the same for each pad.
Kara flying around the new Brighton using her jetpack. Note the monorail going into the central structure.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
XR5 night landing...note that the base is still completely dark--I want to seek help with someone who knows how to script/program dynamic lights so I can use those instead of using "lighted" textures.
Among my plans is to do some simple animations around the base using Vinka's spacecraft3.dll, and perhaps some integration-work with UCGO, UMmu and others. My problem is time because like I said I am in between jobs, but I'm scheduled to be interviewed next week for a job at a local mini-planetarium in another city, but I hope to finish this before I leave.
It's clear to see that this addon will be quite mesh-and-texture heavy, so definitely not for older PC's. I might make simplified or optimized versions, but for now, this is for pretty decent PCs (I barely noticed any drop in frame rate on the PC I'm using).
Cheers! Comments and criticism welcome!
-RODION
The reason behind this is I've been playing around with the XR series of spacecraft as of late, making lunar flights, and while landing at Brighton I kept wishing it looked "at par" with the XR2 or XR5 in terms of mesh and textures quality, instead of having the "stock" landing pads and that ever-familiar cylindrical building in the middle. I am aware there are lots of Brighton Base replacements in OrbitHangar, but I wanted one with LOTS of meshes. The result of my fiddling in the last twenty four hours is this work in progress.
It includes all new landing pad meshes, with some detailing around it. I then changed the central building to my own design (I call it the coffeemaker building, because I've been drinking a LOT of coffee while I working on this hehe). I retained the monorail, and in fact the monorail still goes inside the new building. I later plan to add a destination dome/building at the end of that monorail.
Here it is, early lunar morning. Each pad has a sort of access door, that leads to a "viewing area" (not really accessible right now, but I might develop this later), and eventually leads to a tunnel leading towards the FUEL, APU, LOX resupply area. I added details like pipes and hoses on the pad, to give that feeling/impression that you can refuel using the pads.
Another angle. As you can see, the border around the pad is no longer octagonal. I got tired of looking at those octagons when landing so I decided to make them fully circular. BTW, I used McWgog's Brighton Beach Tiles, and Ark's (?) low mountain terrain mesh around the new base, to enhance the look. I may (depends on time) make my own surface tiles and some mounds/low hills, so that I won't need to "borrow" anything from another addon to enhance the surrounding terrain.
Playing with lighting effects off the XR2's hoverthrusters on one of the structures I built around the pads.
XR2 about to land on Pad 3. To simplify matters, I actually retained the old landing pads, I just made them super super tiny, so that the VOR beacon remains the same for each pad.
Kara flying around the new Brighton using her jetpack. Note the monorail going into the central structure.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
XR5 night landing...note that the base is still completely dark--I want to seek help with someone who knows how to script/program dynamic lights so I can use those instead of using "lighted" textures.
Among my plans is to do some simple animations around the base using Vinka's spacecraft3.dll, and perhaps some integration-work with UCGO, UMmu and others. My problem is time because like I said I am in between jobs, but I'm scheduled to be interviewed next week for a job at a local mini-planetarium in another city, but I hope to finish this before I leave.
It's clear to see that this addon will be quite mesh-and-texture heavy, so definitely not for older PC's. I might make simplified or optimized versions, but for now, this is for pretty decent PCs (I barely noticed any drop in frame rate on the PC I'm using).
Cheers! Comments and criticism welcome!
-RODION
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