Orbiter becoming a procedural universe..

[tornadotodd]

I love this program. I also love space engine as well, and celestia. Being open source and having the advantage of many minds as opposed to some limited projects and engines out there why not make orbiter to include the universe?? Similar to Space Engine and Celesta. It would not be impossible or terribly hard with many at work on it, and maybe some cooperation from the SE community or Celestia could be in order or from scratch... Having the realism with a procedural universe and an option to explore in free mode or use ships, even fantasy, would make this the best program ever period.. Especially with such a great modding community and would keep it growing. Include all the cataloged stars and systems and procedural generate the rest, galaxies, planets, moon, ect. Use real data, up-gradable mods for the rest... Maybe its just me but every space sim. or engine that I love lacks what the other has. For instance if I could combine Space Engine and Orbiter that would be the perfect sim. So then in the future it would appeal to a wide variety and consistently be updated, ranging from the historic missions, to shuttle, to now, to sci- fi community.. Just an idea, and I know it's unlikely that it will be received well or ever be implemented but I am open to criticism and would love the communities input. Just imagine being able to simply veer off from your simulation and simply explore the universe. nebula, stars, galaxies, all in one simulation..!!!!.. I wish I was a programmer lol.

 

[Urwumpe]

Being open source

Danger! Danger! Danger!

 

[Xyon]

I wish I was a programmer

Orbiter is, while not open source as you assert, a fantastic place to get stuck in and a good learning platform for developing computer programs in C++. There are a vast amount of resources all over the internet about learning how to program.

In short, nothing is stopping you becoming a programmer and making your ideas reality! The future is you! et cetera.

 

[Urwumpe]

In short, nothing is stopping you becoming a programmer and making your ideas reality! The future is you! et cetera.

And its not about becoming the "greatest of all times". Its good enough to cover some basic skills and eventually specialize on something else. If you get headaches from programming but are great in making meshes, you are still doing fine here.

Again, the trick here is, that the people really LOVE people who contribute and create, and are not caring too much about who just consume.

 

[Artlav]

why not make orbiter to include the universe?

Tried that, no one cared - http://www.thespaceway.org

Thing is, Space Engine is good because of the browse mode - you start it and you are flying across all the interesting worlds.
Orbiter, on the other hand, is good as a space sim - you get a realistic impression of spaceflight with historical or plausible vehicles in the real solar system.

Combining the two into a procedurally generated universe with real spaceflight physics, however, removes both advantages and leaves you having to learn and endure real spaceflight physics in order to see some nice places. Turns out that does not make for a fun game.

TL;DR: Mixing fruits and steak sounds like it should be awesome, but tastes horribly.

 

[statickid]

personally I would be happy with procedural surface micro-details like next-gen Orulex. By that I mean having the excellent and accurate stock 3-D terrain from 2016 then augment it <1km details like small craters on the moon or boulder fields and things like that. :hmm:

 

[4throck]

If there's time to spend programming, I'd rather have an importer for real data* (that we have), than something that just makes up stuff...
There are some tools already, but this type of thing requires some advanced interpolation on very large data-sets.

(* Pluto data set, some landing sites, etc)

 

[tornadotodd]

Believe me, it's not a complaint as much as wishful thinking.. Some games have free mode and space flight mode. I do not know how tough it would be to create something full scale like that. I just have always really liked the idea. I am surprised that more people here are not as friendly towards the idea but that's ok. It's just a thought. As for the last response it would be all known real data, as for the rest would be generated like SE. Or even a Celestia type deal.. Wasn't meant to be an offensive thread just a thought. Nothing more nothing less. SE is full of real stuff, data, terrain ect.. What is generated is further out into the unknown. And like celetia if its cataloged or has existing data its there and updated. As for open source i simply misspoke I merely meant that a free mode engine with people working together to set it all up would be a neat idea thats all.. Cheer's

---------- Post added at 02:55 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:50 AM ----------

Orbiter is, while not open source as you assert, a fantastic place to get stuck in and a good learning platform for developing computer programs in C++. There are a vast amount of resources all over the internet about learning how to program.

In short, nothing is stopping you becoming a programmer and making your ideas reality! The future is you! et cetera.

And you are right about that. I am by profession a storm chaser/photographer. Takes up a great deal of my time but due to interest in this program and SE I am beginning to learn code. I am most definitely a noob, although I have done some 3d modeling. But this has definitely been a fun way to be introduced into the world of writing code, and already has possible future implications in sensory equipment I am working toward to put into a video tornado probe that I have ready to deploy this year.

 

[boogabooga]

Some games have free mode and space flight mode. I do not know how tough it would be to create something full scale like that. I just have always really liked the idea. I am surprised that more people here are not as friendly towards the idea but that's ok.

People are not friendly to the idea because it is nonsense. It would be extremely difficult to implement and impractical to use.

Orbiter's niche is that it actually integrates all of the forces acting on you to calculate your position as a function of time. Ideally, you need to track position to sub-meter accuracy. That barely works on a solar system scale- we already have floating point issues popping up around Uranus or so.

You are talking about adding squillions more gravity sources, at distance that are impossible to track because of floating point limitations. Not to mention what kind of time compression you would need to simulate a spacecraft traveling there and still have the simulation finish in your actual lifetime. (Going to Saturn is something that I would do on an entire day off on full time compression.)

"Free Mode" basically means you ignore physics and fudge time, distance, and speed. Why do we need a separate "free mode" here? If you want Space Engine, play Space Engine.

BTW, welcome to O-F. :tiphat:

 

[Face]

People are not friendly to the idea because it is nonsense. It would be extremely difficult to implement and impractical to use.

Well, I don't know if other folks are not friendly to the idea because of what you said, but these are certainly not my reasons.

It can be done, and it can be done in a usable way.

However, I'm in Artlav's camp here: no one will care. Not after the initial novelty wears off. He even demonstrated it. Therefore, I'm not friendly to the idea, because it would be a complete waste of time. Besides the learning effect for the coder(s), perhaps.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, Space Engine did a lot right on the other hand, so I doubt its easily summarized as "procedural universes are bad" or even "Space Engine failed". You also need to remember that Space Engine did not happen alone in the universe - just look which 1.0D8-dollar-budget-games with procedural universes also appeared in the mean time, and which are mostly successful.

But I think for Orbiter, its better to use a limited universe to fully enjoy it, because that is where it has its strengths. Still this limit does not mean you can't have procedural generated content.

 

[Artlav]

Ideally, you need to track position to sub-meter accuracy. That barely works on a solar system scale- we already have floating point issues popping up around Uranus or so.

You are talking about adding squillions more gravity sources, at distance that are impossible to track because of floating point limitations.

Actually, that's the easy part. In Spaceway i had three grids - local, interstellar, intergalactic. As you approach the error limit of a lower grid, you are moved one step on the next level grid, while being shifted to the opposite end of the lower one. Thus, you get seamless space at indefinite precision.

Not to mention what kind of time compression you would need to simulate a spacecraft traveling there and still have the simulation finish in your actual lifetime.

There is nothing inherently hard about adding more zeroes before X.

 

[Enjo]

Again, the trick here is, that the people really LOVE people who contribute and create, and are not caring too much about who just consume.

They love them so much, that they even tolerate their unsocial behavior.

 

[4throck]

Some games have free mode and space flight mode.

... people working together to set it all up ...

As you say, such games already exist. The best still is Microsoft Space Simulator, regarding scale of the universe and simulation.
Kerbal or Space Engineers are nice for creativity and exploration. Hard to top that.

As for working together, things are moving in that direction. Most add-ons under development right now have many people involved. But they are complex so you can't expect fast progress.

 

[Face]

They love them so much, that they even tolerate their unsocial behavior.

Another trick here is that as a user you don't have to tolerate the alleged unsocial behavior of creators. You can quietly use their results of free labor without having to deal with them.

However, many users think that they somehow have the right to demand this free labor (bug fixes, feature requests, help support) whenever they feel like so. Those folks then - ironically enough - are the ones whining the most about unsocial behavior of creators if they do not obey.
In a twisted spiral of feedback loops, this behavior consequently leads to many creators becoming distrustful when it comes to "fans" of their work. Which in term makes them look unsocial, ... ad nauseam.

"Love" for software I don't see often anymore. The narcissists of the new generation that -talk everything-and-its-pet on "social"-media just for the lulz(TM) far outnumber those who really care.

I'm confident that this will change soon, though. :tiphat:

 

[Thorsten]

I'm confident that this will change soon, though.

Out of curiosity - where does this confidence come from? I fully agree with your observations, but it's a pattern I observe for a long time and it shows no sign of improving as far as I can see.

Personally, I value one person who actually has a technical discussion with me about some piece of software I wrote (even if we disagree) much more than a gazillion of Fakebook likes - at least that person invested some time.

 

[Face]

Out of curiosity - where does this confidence come from?

Let's just say I've become a believer .

 

[Urwumpe]

Let's just say I've become a believer .

Same here. But its already obvious if many elders of the internet era talk about asocial media. Instead of getting the best out of social collaboration, they generate media attention by division and hate... and that is a destructive path.

I think, the only good cure for that is watching Bob Ross for 48 hours.

"I got a letter from somebody here a while back, and they said, 'Bob, everything in your world seems to be happy.' That's for sure. That's why I paint. It's because I can create the kind of world that I want, and I can make this world as happy as I want it. Shoot, if you want bad stuff, watch the news."

I think it should be the same about add-ons. Create the kind of world you want and make it as happy as you want it.

 

[Blake]

...Blake imagines a series of Orbiter development tutorials hosted by Bob Ross.

 

[Thorsten]

Well, at the core of it, in my view there seems to be something about the internet (which pre-dates social media): People behave in ways online they'd never consider offline.

I've been involved in hobby linguistics at one point in my life a while ago, and I saw people frequently interrupting expert discussions about some grammatical form to demand translations be done for them. I don't think people storm actual Egyptology departments at universities and interrupt seminars because they want hieroglyph tattoos - but online the same behavior is fairly normal.

Somehow, many internet users feel entitled to free answers, services etc. in a way that would never fly in real life.

Social media have just capitalized on this trend by reinforcing the illusion that the whole web is about *you* - you can lift or lower your thumb all the time, everything appears to care for what you think,...

As a fellow developer has once put it: "There's two sorts of people approaching a free software project - those who believe they owe the project and those who believe the project owes them - I care about the former and try to ignore the latter."