Discussion Atmospheric Expansion Pack for Orbiter

[T.Neo]

Atmospheric Flight Simulation Expansion pack for Orbiter.​

Features:​

-Solar system with all bodies removed except Earth, Moon and Sun.
-Alternatively, Solar system with all moons other then Earth’s Moon removed, non visible planets (Uranus, Neptune) removed, and visible planets given only low-res textures.

-Hi-Res texture coverage for Earth.
-Atmospheric enhancement for Earth
-Landable topography

-Weather plug in
-Cloud generator plug in

-Major airports as surface bases
-Foliage generator

-Non player aircraft (possible?)

-Comprehensive aircraft SDK allowing for aircraft-specific features, and other advanced features.
-Revised and improved MFDs to simulate radio communications, GPS, etc.
_______________________________________________________________________

So, anyone interested?

 

[Stripe]

Not really orbiter then is it? Or am I missing the point? Some of what you say sounds interesting, weather and so on but I think that's already been done? - sure I saw something like that on OrbitHanger recently.

 

[T.Neo]

Not really orbiter then is it? Or am I missing the point? Some of what you say sounds interesting, weather and so on but I think that's already been done? - sure I saw something like that on OrbitHanger recently.

It still is Orbiter, definately.
It is an expansion pack installed over the Orbiter base package.
And yes, there have been weather, etc. addons on O-H, the idea is to put updated and improved versions of them into one package.

 

[Jarvitä]

Interested but doubtful as to whether it can be done.

 

[T.Neo]

Interested but doubtful as to whether it can be done.

What in particular are you doubtful of?

 

[garyw]

Not interested. It's not orbiter if you only have the Earth, Moon and Sun.

 

[Jarvitä]

What in particular are you doubtful of?

Weather, atmospheric enhancement (supposedly for the purpose of more realistic atmospheric flight), non-player aircraft.

 

[T.Neo]

Not interested. It's not orbiter if you only have the Earth, Moon and Sun.

But people could also install the pack without overwriting the Sol.cfg file or planet texture files, and retain the other Orbiter stuff, I guess.
And it would probably not have only the Earth, Moon and Sun, but simpler renditions of all of the planets visible in the night sky.

Weather, atmospheric enhancement (supposedly for the purpose of more realistic atmospheric flight), non-player aircraft.

I believe there was a weather plugin done. Not sure how well it functions, though.
And by atmospheric enhancement I meant primarily visual enhancement.
Could non-player aircraft be handled by Orbiter's flight recorder?
Or maybe they would need an autopilot coded into the .DLL

 

[liber]

I think it's great idea...
Wish that already exist.

 

[Pilot7893]

Eh, worth a shot.

 

[Max Pain]

I would love to see weather simulation, landable terrain (something better than orulex with generic generated stuff) and so on on other planets. Doing this just for earth would degenerate orbiter to an flightsim.
Imagine diving into the cloudy worlds of the gas giants where strong winds tear your spacecraft apart, or descending onto the vulcanic active ground of Io, or liqhid oceans of methane on titan and flashing bolts over the whole sky.
For simulation of spaceflight Orbiters Earth is rather OK at the moment. The only things I'd like to see is weather simulation (maybe slowly moving clouds from space and wind forces) and liquid water.
I hope this can be accomplished by ovp.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

I think it could be good...

 

[T.Neo]

I would love to see weather simulation, landable terrain (something better than orulex with generic generated stuff) and so on on other planets. Doing this just for earth would degenerate orbiter to an flightsim.
Imagine diving into the cloudy worlds of the gas giants where strong winds tear your spacecraft apart, or descending onto the vulcanic active ground of Io, or liqhid oceans of methane on titan and flashing bolts over the whole sky.
For simulation of spaceflight Orbiters Earth is rather OK at the moment. The only things I'd like to see is weather simulation (maybe slowly moving clouds from space and wind forces) and liquid water.
I hope this can be accomplished by ovp.

Well, the idea of the Atmospheric Expansion Pack is to degenerate Orbiter into a flightsim.

But I don't see why such advancements could be adapted to work with all planets.

After all, this idea is either a flight sim expansion pack, or a realism enhancer.

But it'd be pointless to make people trying out a flight sim download a whole lot of unwanted data for other planets they have no interest in visiting.

And I'm also waiting for liquid water.

 

[Stripe]

I think you're doing it wrong.

Orbiter was never designed as a flight sim. If you want a flight sim i'm sure there are many other simulators out there already for you. Taking a lot of 'orbiter' out of orbiter just feels wrong on heretical levels.
If we had a flight sim and you were proposing flying in space, again i'm not sure i'd agree with that either. Like I say a few of the things you mention sound good but I don't like the aim.
I think you're going to meet a lot of resistance from a lot of people who feel the same way. Finding something that was programmed with what you want in mind already would be a much better experience, rather than trying to pull the rug from out underneath an already written and installed code base.

 

[T.Neo]

I think you're doing it wrong.

Orbiter was never designed as a flight sim. If you want a flight sim i'm sure there are many other simulators out there already for you. Taking a lot of 'orbiter' out of orbiter just feels wrong on heretical levels.
If we had a flight sim and you were proposing flying in space, again i'm not sure i'd agree with that either. Like I say a few of the things you mention sound good but I don't like the aim.
I think you're going to meet a lot of resistance from a lot of people who feel the same way. Finding something that was programmed with what you want in mind already would be a much better experience, rather than trying to pull the rug from out underneath an already written and installed code base.

You are intitled to your own opinion.

I have always seen Orbiter as a do anything, go anywhere type of sim.

The idea would be that people could download this package to supplement their Orbiter installation, or it could be used to specialize Orbiter into a flight sim.

It isn't really trying to limit the software, it is trying to push the boundries
of what can be done, and to provide new experiences.

 

[Scrooge McDuck]

I believe there was a weather plugin done. Not sure how well it functions, though.

Well then... Wouldn't it be worth trying those existing addons before starting the discussion about what could be done to enhance orbiter?
It might give you much better knowledge about what can and cannot be done efficient using Orbiter's current addon/plugin functionality.

I like this idea. But sorry to say, that this is a bit like when someone would start a new discussion about creating a new complex Apollo addon without even trying the existing ones first.

 

[T.Neo]

I like this idea. But sorry to say, that this is a bit the like when someone would start a new discussion about creating a new complex Apollo addon without even trying the existing ones first.

Because there are already Apollo addons.
There is no "flight sim addon". There are addons like you describe, but not in one package.

Although, I now feel a little stupid that I haven't tried out these addons. :blush:
I'll have to do that soon.

Plus, many addons I describe don't exist yet. Foliage, Airport bases, Comprehensive Aircraft SDKs, etc.

EDIT:
I found these at OH
-Atmospheric enhancement for Earth- http://orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2379
http://orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3098

-Weather plug in-
http://orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2258
-Cloud generator plug in-
http://orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2782

-Major airports as surface bases-
http://orbithangar.com/search_quick.php?text=airports&submit.x=11&submit.y=6

I shall try them soon. Maybe tomorrow because it is rather late now.

 

[Tommy]

I don't see why anyone should be upset about this. If you don't like it - don't use it. On the other hand, a lot of my Orbiter sessions never leave LEO, rarely past the moon, and I tend to use glider type vessels. This would be a nice option for me, especially since it would be one unified add-on, rather than several add-ons which may not always play nice with each other.

If you want to do this, don't let anyone discourage you. It's your time and effort so you can spend it on whatever pleases you. Those that like the idea will use it. Those that don't like it will gripe and complain, but it's not like you are attempting to force this upon them so who cares?

I seem to remember when Doug first announce the XR-1 there were a few nay-sayers telling him it was a waste of time since we already had the DGIV. Look how well that turned out. Some people are just resistant to new concepts for familiar issues, and will stick to the first solution no matter what.

 

[Scrooge McDuck]

Plus, many addons I describe don't exist yet. Foliage, Airport bases, Comprehensive Aircraft SDKs, etc.

Some of the things already there:

- Aircraft SDK, I know there was one a few years back, but I don't know if there are updates/progress

- Bases: there are some addons containing most major realworld airports. But I think you mean with scenery too.

-Landable topography: worth giving the Orulex experiment a try. For my own scenery (other sim), I use the public SRTM data (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission), very good global coverage.

-Weather plug in / Cloud generator plug in: Artlav has some addons covering this. But also run into the limitations with the Current orbiter plugin capability.

-Non player aircraft (possible?): Yes, this is possbile (very well with current SDK)


-Hi-Res texture coverage for Earth:
Seen-from-orbit; quite high res already possible, also considering upcoming Orbiter. But I think you mean high res as seen from normal flying altitude. This is interesting, but adds some problems:
For another (flight) simulator we're working on scenery covered with high resolution (sat/aerial imagery). It turns out to be quite hard to find a good source for (legal) aerial imagery that has acceptable resolution for normal flight (we wan't to at least recognize buildings). By now we should all know that we are not allowed use Google Earth's (keyhole server) textures for anything (at least not legal). Therefore, I continued making the scenery using Microsoft's (Virtual Earth) images. Read throug the license, at first it seemed that they allowed this.
However, reading further through the terms of use and the additional "code of conduct", it turns out to be not allowed after all.
Landsat has no high res for my country, that's why I'm considering other image sources.

Remember when I was working for High res tiles Orbiter covering the Netherlands and Sint Martin island? I stopped further development because I can't legally release it...

Therefore, I'm currently considering to actually buy Terrametrics images for this purpose. I heard that there are price discounts for non-commercial projects. Sadly, it has much lower resolution than would have liked.

Anyway, if we're talking about global coverage, we are nowhere near using the same resolutions I mentioned earlier here (it would get hundreds of gigabytes big). So for this purpose, Terrametrics tiles (or other low-res source) + autogenerated scenery might be a better solution.
When you think about it, the only solution to apply this ultra-high res on a global scale, would be a system downloading/streaming the data on demand (a-la GoogleEarth).
Well, I figured we now have the ability to download the Google Earh imagery from the keyhole server from within Orbiter, but I have 2 problems:
- It needs to be put onto surface tiles yet in real time. I haven't tried to do this yet.
- Google's server will sometimes(!) block your IP for 1 day when it detects it's not the Google Earth application requesting the data.

This particular discussion might be worth a thread on itself...

regards,
mcduck

 

[T.Neo]

I see your hi-res argument, Scrooge. Best to leave that out, not a vital anyway.

Some of the things already there:

- Aircraft SDK, I know there was one a few years back, but I don't know if there are updates/progress

- Bases: there are some addons containing most major realworld airports. But I think you mean with scenery too.

-Landable topography: worth giving the Orulex experiment a try. For my own scenery (other sim), I use the public SRTM data (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission), very good global coverage.

-Weather plug in / Cloud generator plug in: Artlav has some addons covering this. But also run into the limitations with the Current orbiter plugin capability.

-Non player aircraft (possible?): Yes, this is possbile

Yes, I mean with scenery too. No use landing at a famous airport and not seeing the sites...

As for Orulex, I think the collision experiment is far better then earlier versions, but I still get a "hopping bug", etc. Plus, Orulex puts a crater around all bases, to make them landable.

Again, Artlav's Nebo is amazing, yet the clouds lights up at night, and only one type of cloud is simulated.