Suggestion for the next Orbiter version: Docking animation ?

[Blacklight]

Okay, it's not a MAJOR issue, but one thing about every Orbiter version always kind of bugged me a little, and that's the docking animation, or lack thereof. When you dock, it looks like a crappy spliced jump cut.
Yeah, I know it's kind of nit picking and I'm sure there are more important issues to handle, but I would love to see a more fluid looking docking.

 

[hribek]

something like if you playback the docking?

 

[Blacklight]

something like if you playback the docking?

What I mean is that if you're looking at the external view of the docking, the two ships or ship and station kind of jump together when the docking ports get close enough instead of it being a nice fluid motion. It looks a little sloppy.
Once again, I know it's nit picking, but I'd love to see this altered to make it not jump like that and make actual capture look more fluid.

You can see what I'm talking about in this amazing Tex video at about 3:40 or so.
[ame="http://www.vimeo.com/1489956"]'Apollo 11: Remastered' - An Orbiter Film on Vimeo[/ame]

 

[Izack]

Odd. To my knowledge and experience, that was fixed in Orbiter 2010.

 

[Hielor]

Have you tried docking in Orbiter 2010, or are you still using 2006?

 

[Blacklight]

It still does it in Orbiter 2010. I just tested it by undocking the deltal glider from the ISS and then re-docking to the same port and they jumped together just like in the video. The only time that it doesn't do it is if the alignment of the docks are 100% perfectly aligned. If there's any deviation, they jump together.

I think it's the matter that no matter what rotation you are compared to the dock, when you dock, it instantly turns your ship to the proper rotation and angle that you should be at the dock. I just undocked the delta glider from the ISS, rotated it 45 degrees to the right, and then docked again. Upon docking, the delta glider "snapped" back over 45 degrees to the left. I would say that when you dock, your ship should stay oriented to the same rotation that it docked with unless the dock has a mechanism to change your orientation, in that case, it should slowly rotate you to the proper orientation.

 

[tl8]

Yes, that is right, that is because docking ports must be perfectly be aligned to dock IRL. In Orbiter you must also account for new users as well as experienced ones.

The jumping must occur as docking ports are not "loose". There is only one way to position a docking port with another
Maybe you can suggest a solution to the problem?

 

[Blacklight]

Doing a little more experimentation. How about a module that you can activate where you can only dock if you are at the proper rotation and angle with respect to the dock if that's possible. Or maybe a check box somewhere in the Orbiter start menu. something like "Realistic Docks" or something like that so that the new user can learn and the more experienced users can set the docking up more realistically ?

 

[kuddel]

Hi there,

I have an idea, but I am lacking the knowledge of the Orbiter SDK (API) to
say if this is really possible or not. ...Request to gurus

Heres the plan:

1. Create a vessel that represents a docking port.
   This is only a docking port (Marked "D" in the diagram below)
2. The "D" stays always at some distance to the Stations 'real'
   docking port.
3. It has a very low mass, so that it will snap towards the Ship,
   when the Ships docking probe comes close enough.
4. After docking between "Ship" and "D", the (virtual) thrusters of "D"
   will slowly align the (now combined) 'Ship+D' structure towards the
   Station.
5. In the end the 'Ship+D' structure docks to the (now perfectly
   aligned) Station port to create the final 'superstructure'.

---+                  _______
 S |                 /
 T |                /
 A |  +-+     +----/
 T |  |D|     |        Ship
 I |  +-+     +----\
 O |                \
 N |                 \_______
---+

---+               _______
 S |              /
 T |             /
 A |    +-++----/
 T |    |D||        Ship
 I |    +-++----\
 O |             \
 N |              \_______
---+

---+           _______
 S |          /
 T |         /
 A |+-++----/
 T ||D||        Ship
 I |+-++----\
 O |         \
 N |          \_______
---+

What do you (gurus) think of it? Though there are still some open questions for me:

• During docking, does the less massive body jump to the more
  massive body? I hope so.
• Keeping the "D" always some 60 cm from the stations port should
  be possible, or? Just so far off, that it looks OK and does not dock
  to the station when not attached to another vessel (Ship)
• Extra: Maybe the "D" vessel can be removed after the final step
  to clean up.
  It has to re-appear of cause when we like to undock, so I think
  this is more complicated than its worth.

So this was my idea.

Happy orbiting (docking?!)
Kuddel

 

[hribek]

If you do a slightly imperfect docking and record a playback of it, and then go play it, the docking will not be jumpy.

An example of this can be seen in the Orbiter 2010 "Welcome" scenario - shuttle docking with ISS. This is a feature of the playback mechanism and was most likely present in 2006 as well.

 

[Columbia42]

In real life does it even matter what rotation angle you dock at? I've seen many pictures of (especially) soyuz spacecraft rotated in all sorts of directions. If this is so, maybe in Orbiter you should be able to dock at any rotation instead of having a fixed rotation that Orbiter rotates you to when you dock.

 

[clickypens]

In real life does it even matter what rotation angle you dock at? I've seen many pictures of (especially) soyuz spacecraft rotated in all sorts of directions. If this is so, maybe in Orbiter you should be able to dock at any rotation instead of having a fixed rotation that Orbiter rotates you to when you dock.

Depends on the docking mechanism. The type that Soyuz has is a cone with a stick, so I think it doesn't really matter. The Shuttle, on the otherhand has leaves (for lack of a better word) on both male and female ports that have to line up.

As for the topic, AFAIK, AMSO has a smooth-docking animation. I imagine it'd be possible to look at the code (or ask, as the case may be) to ask how they did it, then incorporate it into other vessels (or the Orbiter core, if Martin so desires).