Request Lights MFD

[Talon1]

Hello, I was wondering, can someone please make a "Lights MFD", one that can light up a ship so it's visible because when I go to the dark side of any planet or moon, I can't see my ship. Also when I try to make an EVA, I have no idea where I'm going.

Thanks in advance for considering my request!
-Talon1

 

[Bj]

If you want, you could go to Ambient light level under visual effects, and set it up higher.

255 looks like your in sunlight, although not really realistic. Try it about 100, see how that looks

 

[tblaxland]

Orbiter only supports a single light source (the sun) at the moment. Your best bet would be to increase the ambient light level in the Visual Effects tab (I normally use a setting of 12).

 

[Talon1]

Orbiter only supports a single light source (the sun) at the moment. Your best bet would be to increase the ambient light level in the Visual Effects tab (I normally use a setting of 12).

Okay, thanks, but I still prefer having a lights MFD... Also tblaxland, if you want to see how my Orbital Ion Cannon is coming, go to the "ORBITER ADDON COMPETITION DEVELOPMENT THREAD", and to see how I really look, go to the "Putting a face to the name" thread.

 

[Tommy]

A "LightsMFD" as you propose is simply not possible at this time. Some add-ons have "Lights", such as the landing lights on the TX Lifter, or launch tower lights at Cape Canaveral, but they are simululated. Basically, they are thrusters with next to no thrust, and the exhaust texture simulates lights. These lights don't actually light up anything, they simply fake the nimbus of a light.

Future versions of Orbiter may use a more advanced version of DX, or use Open GL, both of which allow for more than one light source. Until then, a lights MFD is simply not possible unless each ship is coded to allow it using emissive textures. If I'm not mistaken, Computerex released an add-on that faked lights but it didn't actually light up anything, just gave the appearance of a light. That's the best that Orbiter allows at this time.

Tommy

 

[wehaveaproblem]

What Tommy says. But also, the only way you can currently actually light something up (like the DG cockpit is) is to raise the ambient light level of the mesh's material itself. However, this makes things look very flatand washed out in daylight.

The only way I can see this being doable is to actually have 2 meshes of your vessel, one lit, the other not. You would then need some coded mechanism to destroy the one and create the other when you pass into darkness/light. This can obviously be done because multistage.dll changes/loads meshes on command. The question is whether there is a function to recognise if a vessel is in daylight or not.

and of course then the question, with future versions of orbiter in development, is it worth the effort to code?

 

[garyw]

Computerex had something like this. It allowed you to put flashing lights on a ship - similiar to the DG's strobes.

 

[tblaxland]

Computerex had something like this. It allowed you to put flashing lights on a ship - similiar to the DG's strobes.

Yeah, its in his addon pack on OrbitHangar:
[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3508"]Computerex Add-on Pack[/ame]

 

[tgep]

What Tommy says. But also, the only way you can currently actually light something up (like the DG cockpit is) is to raise the ambient light level of the mesh's material itself. However, this makes things look very flatand washed out in daylight.

The only way I can see this being doable is to actually have 2 meshes of your vessel, one lit, the other not. You would then need some coded mechanism to destroy the one and create the other when you pass into darkness/light. This can obviously be done because multistage.dll changes/loads meshes on command. The question is whether there is a function to recognise if a vessel is in daylight or not.

and of course then the question, with future versions of orbiter in development, is it worth the effort to code?

I use an emisive level of 0.055 on exterior parts sometimes. It really helps out on some but not all material groups.

 

[tblaxland]

The only way I can see this being doable is to actually have 2 meshes of your vessel, one lit, the other not. You would then need some coded mechanism to destroy the one and create the other when you pass into darkness/light. This can obviously be done because multistage.dll changes/loads meshes on command.

That is one way. You can also change the mesh material emissivity directly through code.

The question is whether there is a function to recognise if a vessel is in daylight or not.

I wrote a function for computerex to do this some time back, it is not terribly difficult. It is in an archive of PMs at work but I'll dig it out when I get a chance.

 

[Dig Gil]

I've also tried to do something like that:dry:... It was the Lightinator project, but obviously that fail.:suicide:

 

[tblaxland]

I wrote a function for computerex to do this some time back, it is not terribly difficult. It is in an archive of PMs at work but I'll dig it out when I get a chance.

As promised:

bool night(OBJHANDLE vesselObject)
{
    double rs_angle; //rbody to sun angle
    double rh_angle; //rbody to horizon angle
    VECTOR3 rppos, rspos;
    VESSEL * v = oapiGetVesselInterface(vesselObject);

    v->GetRelativePos(v->GetSurfaceRef(), rppos); //rbody position
    rh_angle = asin(oapiGetSize(v->GetSurfaceRef())/length(rppos));
    rppos = rppos/length(rppos); //normalise
    v->GetRelativePos(star(), rspos); //sun position
    rspos = rspos/length(rspos); //normalise
    rs_angle = acos(dotp(rppos,rspos);

    if (rs_angle > rh_angle)
        return true;
    return false;
}

 

[EliNaut]

Hm so you guys couldn't do like a texture change?
I know something like that would have to be made for each vessel and the only thing an mfd would be able to do is to toggle it, not make it universal, but it would work, nontheless, no?

 

[Dig Gil]

So you are thinking about making lit versions of ALL textures in Orbiter. Remember that should include all those ADDONS (go see the numbers of OHm), and also filtering the obsolete AddOns and all that gigabytes of textures?
Or you could get an algorithm or equation for converting the textures automatically, but that could go unrealistic due differences in material type or textures are being used.

 

[Andy44]

A lit-up version of a mesh will only work if the light source is fixed to the vessel being illuminated, and cannot pan or tilt. You will not be able to, say, shine lights from the shuttle's payload bay onto the ISS and see the ISS light up, unless you can somehow code the two vessels to interact with each other, and then you have to have a seperate lit-up ISS mesh for every possible angle and distance the shuttle's lights may possibly shine on it. But it may work for a single vessel whose lights are fixed to the spacecraft body and thus the light patterns will always be the same whenever the lights are switched on.