Question Having cameras in spacecraft

[Dambuster]

Here's the thing: I'm trying to make a spacecraft, however the front of it (where the viewport should be) is opaque. Right behind this panel, there's a very big HUD, with the pilot immediately behind that.

Is there any way I could tell Orbiter to take what you'd see from the front of the spacecraft, and 'project' it onto the HUD?

Thanks in advance for any help,
Dambuster

 

[Andy44]

You could make the cockpit mesh part in front of the HUD transparent from the inside.

 

[tblaxland]

You could make the cockpit mesh part in front of the HUD transparent from the inside.

I'm not a modeller, so forgive this question if it is silly: wouldn't that require support for double sided surfaces? I thought Orbiter only supported single sided?

I suggest having separate cockpit and external meshes. When the user switches to the VC, the external mesh is made invisible and the cockpit mesh is made visible and vice-versa for switching to external view. The cockpit mesh would have a hole in it where the HUD is and you can also get Orbiter to draw the HUD lines on it (like on the HUD on the default DG). Often it is a good idea to have a separate cockpit and external mesh in any case (there are some rendering issues related to clipping). All this is assuming you are writing a DLL for your project...

 

[Andy44]

Basically what you said.

Make vessel mesh single-sided, so from the inside it is invisible.

Then, make the cockpit single-sided, so from the inside it's all visible, except where your "forward viewport" is. Put some sort of frame with rivets or something around it so it looks like a window or a camera viewscreen to make it look good.

Or, if the part of the vessel the cockpit is in is a simple shape, you can make it double-sided (sort of), by using the shell command in Anim8or. If it's not a simple shape, don't do this, as it will create a monstrous mesh.