Project Shields (non-sci-fi-ones)

[d2k]

Uhm seems this documentary is impossible to find, maybe the french Orbinauts can help? Or the new zealanders, australians, canadians, Am I the only one who saw this, I don't want to believe, no, please ...my research skills are freaky and I couldn't find it.

It was no Fata Morgana and I wasn't drunk twice when watching! :tiphat:

/edit: Another thing I can recall: It was a deepspace scene, Mars was small far in front, a alert happened, electromagnetic particle storm, the crew turned on "the shield". It was a real like spacecraft, something ugly and usefull, the shield effect appeared in the center of the ship, it was a slight rotation, almost invisible, when particles collided colours appeared here and there, a small radius effect of ?three spiral-arms changing colours. It was a CGI effect of course but now I recall another thing: They said something like this (re-imaginated and translated to english): "To stand against the dangers of deepspace travelling our mars astronauts would need to use a certain kind of technology, unlike sci-fi just a shield againts radiation nothing more, this device would produce colourful ?outbursts keeping the crew safe at least when medium solar flares take place or if they enter an area of deepspace with cosmic rays". Then they said something like "this could be a real world shielding system that could be enhanced by stronger hull platings and the use of composite materials".

Somewhere some years ago I red about a NASA magnetic shielding system, it was popular science news. The documentary / movie was made before that afaik but remember, the docuMovie was made with the help of space agencies.

/here we go ladies and orbinauts: solving at least one thing Yay: I found resources, people behind the real project:
english: http://www.space.com/6128-star-trek-deflector-shield-envisioned-mars-mission.html
german: http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/...hnik-soll-raumschiffe-schuetzen-a-478308.html

/well as I said freaky research skills (extraction/translated, source: astronomics forum, even more data is available there):

Radition dose - radiation moon flights: max. 200 mSv/h (2 hours means 400 mSv)
German dose limit: 20 mSv/a means 400 mSv/healthy
Brazil dose limit: 200 mSv/a
Sun flares: 400 mSv/h
Human measure limit: 250 mSv (2003)
Radiation dose at 3.000 meters: 1,1 mSv/a

 

[Izack]

This very much sounds like the BBC's Voyage to the Planets, as Loru said.

Was this the spacecraft?

It had a magnetic shield generator that had that aurora effect you're talking about, and premise IIRC identical to what you described.

 

[d2k]

Yes, that's it! (I'm 99.9 % sure about it).

Thanks for solving and sorry Loru, sure you were right! :thumbup: ~S~ (stands for skill).

/ All "the story behind it" things can be marked as done for now. All of you = ~S~ *applause /

The only thing makes me wonder is there really maybe was another french thing as I said, but it could be that the magnetic shielding features ain't got mentioned at all – could have been a Fata Morgana to be honest. Maybe one day I see the french thing again, be it just to tell you how great this docuMovie was.

/edit: Now that we have scientific proof of concept we could continue the development brainstorming. One thing is on my mind (even it may not be usefull at all): Theres this MFD MagCompass. I love to turn it on but I have to add I didn't take a closer look at what it says. The author said usefull if you want to find the magnetic pole, I say but I duno, maybe also usefull to find to add an magnetic pole onto/of a ship.

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3960"]http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3960[/ame]

 

[Andy44]

/here we go ladies and orbinauts: solving at least one thing Yay: I found resources, people behind the real project:
english: http://www.space.com/6128-star-trek-deflector-shield-envisioned-mars-mission.html
german: http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/...hnik-soll-raumschiffe-schuetzen-a-478308.html

/well as I said freaky research skills (extraction/translated, source: astronomics forum, even more data is available there):

Radition dose - radiation moon flights: max. 200 mSv/h (2 hours means 400 mSv)
German dose limit: 20 mSv/a means 400 mSv/healthy
Brazil dose limit: 200 mSv/a
Sun flares: 400 mSv/h
Human measure limit: 250 mSv (2003)
Radiation dose at 3.000 meters: 1,1 mSv/a

Interesting. Doesn't say in that article how strong the mag field must be, though.

With clever design of the magnet apparatus I think you can make an electromagnet with an area of low field strength inside, where the people and critical equipment can reside; not sure about that, though.

 

[d2k]

ENT

Interesting. Doesn't say in that article how strong the mag field must be, though.

With clever design of the magnet apparatus I think you can make an electromagnet with an area of low field strength inside, where the people and critical equipment can reside; not sure about that, though.

I agree, they must have thinked the same way, providing a little space between the onion like sheets of magnetic waves. That reminds me of StarTrek, were they used to modify the warp bubble deformation which ended up once locating a stealth ship behind the ENT Enterprise (btw even I'm a TNG the ENT was a good prequel (not talking about TOS), Archer was a good good Captain. But I'm done with StarTrek, too fictional IMO, same goes for every sci-fi, I only allow myself to enjoy close-to-real-sci-fi from now on). Close-to-real-shields to beginn with.

200 mSv/a is the value that should be covered, 400 is the value were the warning messages would have to appear. However if there would be some quiet spots or hotspots that could be avoided or navigated (means if there would be some physical radiation simulation). Theres always a strong need to avoid any radiation above earth's norms. You could spend your time tracking the MFD, having a tea and plotting potential courses. I don't know much about such things, maybe some 1 Megajoule generator or how about cheating with free-energy (like some mighty little darkmatter-reactor)? No way on the magnetic field strength or the power source, I have no idea at all, only fiction to offer.

/edit: I'm sure most of you could do the math part since if not you, who else could I ask? I call that Super Orbinautic Powers – still working on mine (because I use the force of creativity, maths are a language I don't speak that well). *Observer mode on

BTW we could codename it the Pegasus-Effect named after the ship showed in that BBC documentary.

/edit: The german article says this about the mag field strength:
Flow Density: 15 Nanotesla ...should be enough. They make an example with a compass needle and they say it's only 10 % of the power needed to move that needle.
Range: The mag field around the ship could have a range of 20 – 30 Kilometers ...the article adds. I add: The visibility should be totaly different to that just a few meters wide (speaking of visual effects).
Usage: The articles speaks of a moon base (I add: Or large spaceships), they say: Unmanned drones and manned spacecraft.
Conclusion of the article: It's no myth, it's possible and they know how, the only thing ain't working yet is a clever construction solution (e.g. how to put that as a module into a spaceship). It's a made in UK research topic.

/edit: Sorry for overwriting and overediting my posts and since I did it again why not post a random inspiration:

"Since decades many people said and still say human space colonization ain't possible because of too much exposure to radiation. Now let's make them all believe the moon landing was true – because it was true and they had luck with some low sun activity. In fact, it was very risky but it worked out!"
d2k

 

[Loru]

Project at this point is just called Magnetic Shield and now I'm more concern about getting it to work than simulating anything.

I took this project because it would look cool in screenshots. Parts of framework & methods developed for this project can be used in adding animated 3d flames, animated plasma during reentry or even tracked vehicles (crawler-transporter).

Also it's fun to push default orbiter's renderer to the limits and investigate what can be achieved.

More news later. I just got up.

 

[RisingFury]

I've been working on the code that manipulates the shield mesh UV coordinates, but I've hit a snag.


According to the Orbiter's API, there are two way of doing this in a general way:
- oapiMeshGroup(...) This allows you to get the pointers to the mesh group and it allows you to modify the mesh vertices directly.

- oapiEditMeshGroup(...) That one does the same, but is intended for use with other clients.

I've tried both, none have worked. I can give more data:
Using oapiMeshGroup, the change CAN be made, but only in the first frame, in the first call to clbkPreStep that runs. The mesh will no longer be modified in PostStep either.

I have to be clear here. I can change the MESHGROUP::Vtx[N].x value. But even if I change it, the rendered mesh is not changed.

I have tried calling VESSEL::MeshModified(...) in the hopes that it would force Orbiter to make a change, but is has not.


Any ideas?


Here's the code:

void MagShield::UpdateShieldState(ShieldState *CurrentState, double SimulationTime, double SimulationDeltaTime)
{
	VESSEL3 *VesselInterface = (VESSEL3 *) oapiGetVesselInterface(CurrentState->Parent);

	if (VesselInterface == NULL)
	{
		return;
	}

	CurrentState->MeshGroup->Vtx[0].x = float(CurrentState->MeshGroup->Vtx[0].x - 500 * SimulationDeltaTime);

	sprintf(oapiDebugString(), "%f", CurrentState->MeshGroup->Vtx[0].x);

	VesselInterface->MeshModified(CurrentState->MeshHandle, 0, 0);
}

The UpdateShield(...) gets called every frame in clbkPreStep.


And the ShieldState struct:

struct ShieldState
{
	OBJHANDLE Parent;
	bool ShieldOn;
	double ShieldAlpha;
	unsigned int Mesh;
	MESHHANDLE MeshHandle;
	MESHGROUP *MeshGroup;
};

Parent, MeshHandle, Mesh and MeshGroup get filled in when the shield is added to the vessel. All handles are correct, I've checked them.

 

[d2k]

I will try to teach myself what you guys do by try and error. First I have to do a setup like the one you described. Unfortunately, right now I can't help you out Fury. I hope Loru has some words on this.

 

[RisingFury]

Ok, for anyone who might be interested in on-the-fly mesh manipulation, I have come up with an ugly hack that works. It involves copying the existing mesh, modifying it, removing the existing one and adding the modified copy all over again.

This is a bad hack, because it copies and deletes a mesh in every frame as well as modifying it. I'd still like to know if it's possible to change the mesh without this ugly hack, or if I'm doing something incorrectly.

Code, for anyone interested:

void MagShield::UpdateShieldState(ShieldState *CurrentState, double SimulationTime, double SimulationDeltaTime)
{
	VESSEL3 *VesselInterface = (VESSEL3 *) oapiGetVesselInterface(CurrentState->Parent);

	if (VesselInterface == NULL)
	{
		return;
	}

	MESHHANDLE Copy = VesselInterface->CopyMeshFromTemplate(CurrentState->Mesh);
	MESHGROUP *MeshGroup = oapiMeshGroup(Copy, 0);

	if (MeshGroup == NULL)
	{
		return;
	}

	MeshGroup->Vtx[0].x += 0.1 * SimulationDeltaTime;

	VesselInterface->DelMesh(CurrentState->Mesh);

	CurrentState->Mesh = VesselInterface->AddMesh(Copy);
	CurrentState->MeshHandle = Copy;
}

---------- Post added 9th Dec 2013 at 00:28 ---------- Previous post was 8th Dec 2013 at 23:20 ----------

Ok, so here's the first test of the system manipulating UVs on the fly. The quality of the video is a bit poor cos I threw it together in about a minute, but it shows the effect. You'll also notice a bug - a sort of broken bit of the image that moves across. Have yet to debug that.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td1W-l_GnrA"]MagShield test (Not part of OBSP) - YouTube[/ame]

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Hrm... re: aurora effect... I suspect that there would be enough gaseous material around a ship in deep space to have an effect during a major storm or entry into a radiation belt (Van Allen Belts around Earth and Jupiter in particular). And due to power restraints, that's probably the only time you'd want to fire that shield generator up.

As for the Arrow... I wonder if we could come up with some way to use the "warp nacelles" at the tips of the rear wings to house part of the field emitter... Probably not, but wth, it's worth a look, right?

 

[Keatah]

Angles of incidences and charge persistences, colors and frequencies - all features of Shield System 2.0 :yes:

 

[Mojave]

Might aswell not stop at shields. I bet you could achieve a similar effect trying to do this on reentry. But then you'd really have to make it universal.

Just a thought.

 

[Loru]

Hold your horses a bit. This add-on is for shields only. I want it to be released and not buried in developement hell because project scope is too big. We've seen this too many times.

Sure, the same bits of code could be used in other vehicles/effects but I see no point of "using glove as umbrella". This add-on's functionallity already can handle multiple meshes and textures so effect will fit various spacecraft, has multiple spacecraft support so single module can add shields to any vessel.

Settle down a bit please.

---------- Post added at 07:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:36 PM ----------

Custom mesh and d3d9 compatibility confirmed:

 

[SolarLiner]

This very much sounds like the BBC's Voyage to the Planets, as Loru said.

Was this the spacecraft?

It had a magnetic shield generator that had that aurora effect you're talking about, and premise IIRC identical to what you described.

The first realistic space movie I watched ! I loved Pegasus ! Here's a screenshot of what the aurora looks like on the spacecraft:

I instantaneously thought of this when I saw the thread !

 

[kuddel]

... This add-on's functionallity already can handle multiple meshes and textures so effect will fit various spacecraft, has multiple spacecraft support so single module can add shields to any vessel.

Great! So is it generizable so much that it can handle meshes of any kind?
I am asking because this absolutely looks like an approach to render better reetry flames by graphic clients (D3D9Client e.g.).
If the code is generic enough, I think it should be included in the graphic clients!
Congrats so far!

 

[Loru]

Great! So is it generizable so much that it can handle meshes of any kind?
I am asking because this absolutely looks like an approach to render better reetry flames by graphic clients (D3D9Client e.g.).
If the code is generic enough, I think it should be included in the graphic clients!
Congrats so far!

Not exactly. Lemme explain:

Add on adds another mesh to the vessel. That mesh is defined in global config file MagShield.cfg with folowing syntax:

label meshname texture

where
- label is arbitrary chosen name for "type of shield"
- meshname is filename of meshfile located in Meshes\MagShield\ containing single meshgroup and arranged in way that'd render effect correctly
- texture is dds file with alpha map that'd appear on the mesh and be subject to UVW modification.

The idea is to link vessels with particular shield types but not limit user to use particular mesh. That will be achieved either via dialog or MFD.

For example you can enable shield on Deltaglider and then switch effect shape from that what you've seen in last video to let's say 30 meter sphere (different entry in global cfg file) to protect astronaut working on satelite.

As for reentry flames:

Maybe not exactly this add-on but similat technique can be used to produce 3d exhaust flames, better reentry effect or even tracked vehicles (like crawler-transporter for example).

 

[d2k]

Pegaus = EPIC!
Loru = EPIC!
Fury = EPIC!

I thank all you and everybody who answered on this topic. The crowd always wins creating the best stuff detail by detail!

Could you pass me the folder / files, please? Requesting permission to play around with it, beeing one the first to wear "superawesome-shield-system" *Jumping over the floor. I would like to play with the .dds file for instance and configs manipulation is also big fun (if it works with me).



//edit: I would recommend me open-art directing this, you loru and fury or whoever does the real work – pls, let me just make sure it looks something like Pegasus or at least mega-awesome-kewl. I can guarantee I have some skills (be it just by looking how things look or a little eidetic memory) /edit: I don't wanna receive any credits (e.g. no need for my name on it). But I will tell everybody that it can be found here at OH.

 

[RisingFury]

Updates! Get them fresh, get them while they're hot!

This video shows off the plugin's ability to manipulate the alpha channel on-the-fly, giving the appearance that the shield is being turned on and off. The number in the bottom left screen shows how "on" the shield is. Currently it's set to turn on and off in 5 seconds at a constant rate.

The shield can be turned on and off at the command of the user. Currently this is set to the 0 key (not numpad 0).


I still have some work to do. At the very least a dialog that allows one to add ore remove the shield from vessels while Orbiter is running. The shield can already be removed or added from the scenario file. Saving and loading are already implemented.

 

[Izack]

What kind of performance impact is there? The method you posted earlier looks like a real frame-killer.

 

[RisingFury]

What kind of performance impact is there? The method you posted earlier looks like a real frame-killer.

It kills between 3 and 10 FPS for me, out of 150+, without VistaBoost. Max it killed for me was 7%. Loru reported a frame rate drop of 15%.

These figures are preliminary as the complexity of the mesh makes a big difference at this point. Also, once Dr. Schweiger responds to my initial question and I can hopefully delete the hack that is currently copying the mesh, making a change to it and deleting the old one in every frame, the FPS hit should decrease.