Centaur G/G Prime High Energy Upper Stage

Urwumpe

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Is anyone going to try to tackle the CISS animations? And speaking of the CISS and orbiter integration: We need to hid the Bay 13 TCS covers when we're flying the Centaur Mission Kit.

Is the Bay 13 PTCS already a separate meshgroup? If yes, we could configure it away in the scenario file and enhance the mission file to provide settings. Should be a trivial job.

Not sure if I have the time for the CISS animations now. Those had been complex but I remember we could solve them like the OWP panels on the FSS. Possible that I have to pass, because I have less time this weekend than needed for doing a solid implementation and I don't want to leave a half-finished job behind.
 

DaveS

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Is the Bay 13 PTCS already a separate meshgroup? If yes, we could configure it away in the scenario file and enhance the mission file to provide settings. Should be a trivial job.
Yes, everything on the mesh side is ready, it just lacks the code. Mesgroup label is PLB_BAY13_COVERS.

Not sure if I have the time for the CISS animations now. Those had been complex but I remember we could solve them like the OWP panels on the FSS. Possible that I have to pass, because I have less time this weekend than needed for doing a solid implementation and I don't want to leave a half-finished job behind.
If we could get the basics in, then that would be good enough for it to be considered a release candidate.
 

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According to the same document, the commands would have been issued by the Centaur MPS engineer's console under the commands from the Centaur Computer Controlled Launch Set (CCLS). The CCLS as far as I can ascertain would have functioned as the Centaur GLS and would have lived inside a Master Integration console like the Shuttle GLS.
CentaurGPrime_ER2.jpg

Thank you, so we would have most of its action hidden from the player and placed into the countdown activities.

If we could get the basics in, then that would be good enough for it to be considered a release candidate.

Will have to take a look. Next weekend I have an university appointment, that cuts into the available time and I wanted to focus on doing a tiny MFD tool to assist in developing and debugging SSU, especially the IOP functions of the virtual GPC partition, the MDMs and have a check of the IDP rendering. Very low level, very limited usability. Possibly cryptic.

Nothing that is in our plan right now, but the more I think about the problems it could solve without requiring a huge infrastructure, the more I like it. It is just nothing that would be a direct improvement for the player, it is just something for the development and testing of SSU.
 

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I can't do the CISS animations, but I found out that the mechanism is a "4 bar linkage" type.... not sure if that helps. :shrug:
Urwumpe, are you doing the cover thing, or shall I do it?
 

Urwumpe

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I can't do the CISS animations, but I found out that the mechanism is a "4 bar linkage" type.... not sure if that helps. :shrug:
Urwumpe, are you doing the cover thing, or shall I do it?

If you have the time to do it, I won't stop you. Can you implement it in a way, that we could also change it on run-time and test this capabilility?

I know that such reconfigurations are not always possible yet, but it should be no deal for this one.
 

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Will have to take a look. Next weekend I have an university appointment, that cuts into the available time and I wanted to focus on doing a tiny MFD tool to assist in developing and debugging SSU, especially the IOP functions of the virtual GPC partition, the MDMs and have a check of the IDP rendering. Very low level, very limited usability. Possibly cryptic.

[offtopic]
I have code to draw the CST display that shows self-test status and which busses are connected to which IDP, etc. You would still have to write the code to drive the it, but the graphics are done. I didn't commit it because it didn't have use... does it have now? :p
[/offtopic]
 

Urwumpe

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[offtopic]
I have code to draw the CST display that shows self-test status and which busses are connected to which IDP, etc. You would still have to write the code to drive the it, but the graphics are done. I didn't commit it because it didn't have use... does it have now? :p
[/offtopic]

Not yet, but if it works for you, commit it. :)

It will have a use in 2016, but don't nail me on a specific month. :facepalm:
 

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Thank you, so we would have most of its action hidden from the player and placed into the countdown activities.
Yes. Maybe for now we could create a GLS sub-class for the Centaur CCLS and have it issue the appropriate commands.
 

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If you have the time to do it, I won't stop you. Can you implement it in a way, that we could also change it on run-time and test this capabilility?

I know that such reconfigurations are not always possible yet, but it should be no deal for this one.

I was thinking about doing something similar to what I did with the SILTS pod: check what the mission file says, and hide/show accordingly.
When you say "change it on run-time", you're thinking about orbiter turnaround, right? If so, then I think this would work because when a new misson file is loaded, the parameter would be read again and it would change.
 

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Yes. Maybe for now we could create a GLS sub-class for the Centaur CCLS and have it issue the appropriate commands.

Yes, sort of this. I just wanted to make sure we have no complex decision making in the process, that requires a player interface.

---------- Post added at 03:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:27 PM ----------

I was thinking about doing something similar to what I did with the SILTS pod: check what the mission says, and hide/show accordingly.
When you say "change it on run-time", you're thinking about orbiter turnaround, right? If so, then I think this would work because when a new misson file is loaded, the parameter would be read again and it would change.

Yes, but now instead of just loading a mission file, think of a transition between a current state and a state needed for flying a future mission. We have no means right now to load a new mission file except by launching a new scenario, but it would be a small step to get from the current function towards having a more complex state transition.

MISSION0 -> SAFING -> PROCESSING -> MISSION1 -> SAFING -> PROCESSING -> MISSION2 -> ...

By having states between missions, we could do the transition much cleaner than by instant magic, since we could reset all subsystems into a defined state first and THEN do the switch to the next configuration.

Maybe we also need some more states between missions when doing VAB processing and RSS processing. But right now, these two should do it.
 

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Yes, but now instead of just loading a mission file, think of a transition between a current state and a state needed for flying a future mission. We have no means right now to load a new mission file except by launching a new scenario, but it would be a small step to get from the current function towards having a more complex state transition.

MISSION0 -> SAFING -> PROCESSING -> MISSION1 -> SAFING -> PROCESSING -> MISSION2 -> ...

By having states between missions, we could do the transition much cleaner than by instant magic, since we could reset all subsystems into a defined state first and THEN do the switch to the next configuration.

Maybe we also need some more states between missions when doing VAB processing and RSS processing. But right now, these two should do it.

So instead of calling the appropriate mission file member to get the state each time the info is needed, I should use a variable in the Atlantis class and "initialize" it with the mission file data. This way the mesh could be hidden/shown by changing that variable later. Would this work for you?
 

Urwumpe

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So instead of calling the appropriate mission file member to get the state each time the info is needed, I should use a variable in the Atlantis class and "initialize" it with the mission file data. This way the mesh could be hidden/shown by changing that variable later. Would this work for you?

Yes, that would be fine. :)
 

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Houston, we have a problem.
I can hide the mesh group, but I can't make the cavity show... I've even hidden the group using "FLAG 2" in the mesh and no cavity. Also tried to hide a transparency group there and nothing changed. No difference between MOGE and D3D9.
 

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Houston, we have a problem.
I can hide the mesh group, but I can't make the cavity show... I've even hidden the group using "FLAG 2" in the mesh and no cavity. Also tried to hide a transparency group there and nothing changed. No difference between MOGE and D3D9.

Do you have a screenshot to attach about the problem?
 

DaveS

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Houston, we have a problem.
I can hide the mesh group, but I can't make the cavity show... I've even hidden the group using "FLAG 2" in the mesh and no cavity. Also tried to hide a transparency group there and nothing changed. No difference between MOGE and D3D9.
Could be a problem with the transparency mesh. Could you check in what you got and I'll troubleshoot the mesh.
 

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I have checked in a fix for the Bay 13 cover issue. Please verify that you don't have any issues.
 

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I have checked in a fix for the Bay 13 cover issue. Please verify that you don't have any issues.

The cavities are now visible but the pipes stop there.... is it a limitation of the graphics or are they supposed to be seen? Also, below the T-4 cavities in the PLB, other pipes go straight thru the blankets... no cavities there as well?

BTW, the Centaur/CISS fluid connections are not well aligned... not sure if it's an attachment alignment or mesh problem.
 

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The cavities are now visible but the pipes stop there.... is it a limitation of the graphics or are they supposed to be seen? Also, below the T-4 cavities in the PLB, other pipes go straight thru the blankets... no cavities there as well?
Re: The pipes. This is a mesh order issue. We need to ensure that the Centaur Mission Kit mesh is rendered last, like in this order:
-Orbiter
--CISS
---CMK

BTW, the Centaur/CISS fluid connections are not well aligned... not sure if it's an attachment alignment or mesh problem.
Yes, I know. I'll fix this once we're done with the orbiter/CISS integration.
 

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Re: The pipes. This is a mesh order issue. We need to ensure that the Centaur Mission Kit mesh is rendered last, like in this order:
-Orbiter
--CISS
---CMK

I just checked and that is the order in which AddMesh() is called. I moved the Centaur stuff to 1º place and the piping now goes all the way to the back of the panel. Seems the last to be added are the first to be drawn. I tried MOGE and D3D9 and didn't see any adverse effects, so this seems to be the fix.
I'll have to clean up this and then add the same treatment to the ASE, as it and the CISS are "twin systems", so I'll only commit the changes later today or tomorrow.
 
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