Project Skybolt Client Development

[DaveS]

Dave, which Orbiter version did you used with Skybolt ?

The latest built from the orbitersim Github page.

 

[OvalDreamX]

Will the clouds be available for other planets too? And change colouring and coverage possible? Imagine these in Titan or Venus (or Cato neiodia or Bespin)

Screencap from supersonic71's video

Spoiler

And any eta on support for spec, rough and normal map support or is it still too early?

 

[MattR]

Will the clouds be available for other planets too?

Yes in principle it can be done pretty easily, the main thing is getting realistic cloud coverage data. I'd have to do some research to figure out typical cloud parameters for other planets such as base altitude, top altitude and a global coverage map.

And change colouring and coverage possible?

Changing colouring is supported in the engine. I'd have to expose the parameters so that they can be changed on a per planet basis.

Currently there's not way to change cloud coverage in orbiter, but in the Skybolt engine itself there are two cloud coverage modes:

1. coverage from global coverage map
2. coverage from a procedural tiling texture

Mode 1 looks good from space but doesn't provide a way to change coverage without pointing to a different texture. This is the mode currently used in the Skybolt orbiter client. Mode 2 allows for dynamic changing of coverage, but only looks correct within the atmosphere since the tiling looks unrealistic when viewed from space. Getting realistic looking dynamic coverage clouds from space is going to require some R&D and is a lower priority right now.

And any eta on support for spec, rough and normal map support or is it still too early?

That's something I want to do soon, maybe I can fit it in over the next few weeks.

 

[OvalDreamX]

Yes in principle it can be done pretty easily, the main thing is getting realistic cloud coverage data. I'd have to do some research to figure out typical cloud parameters for other planets such as base altitude, top altitude and a global coverage map.


Changing colouring is supported in the engine. I'd have to expose the parameters so that they can be changed on a per planet basis.

Currently there's not way to change cloud coverage in orbiter, but in the Skybolt engine itself there are two cloud coverage modes:

1. coverage from global coverage map
2. coverage from a procedural tiling texture

Mode 1 looks good from space but doesn't provide a way to change coverage without pointing to a different texture. This is the mode currently used in the Skybolt orbiter client. Mode 2 allows for dynamic changing of coverage, but only looks correct within the atmosphere since the tiling looks unrealistic when viewed from space. Getting realistic looking dynamic coverage clouds from space is going to require some R&D and is a lower priority right now.


That's something I want to do soon, maybe I can fit it in over the next few weeks.

Thats nice! Looking forward to trying some pbr textures in Skybolt

 

[DaveS]

Any idea what might have gone wrong for me?

 

[MattR]

Sorry, looks like I missed replying to some earlier posts in this thread.

I'm getting several errors like

000000.010: FRAGMENT glCompileShader "Shaders/Particles.frag" FAILED

000000.010: FRAGMENT Shader "Shaders/Particles.frag" infolog:
ERROR: 0:1683: 'OUT' : failed to expand macro

and I'm not getting the beautiful visuals, but instead bland meshes, no terrain or clouds and a gray rectangle covering the top-right quarter of the image.

That's a bug which was fixed in Skybolt 1.3.3. I'll release a new version of the OrbiterSkyboltClient containing the fix.

Any idea what might have gone wrong for me?

In regards to the error message

E:\GitHub\Skybolt>conan build OrbiterSkyboltClient --build-folder OrbiterSkyboltClientBuild
ERROR: conanbuildinfo.txt file not found in E:\GitHub\Skybolt\OrbiterSkyboltClientBuild

the conanbuildinfo.txt file should be generated by the conan install command which you need to run before conan build. If you ran that command I'd need to see a full log to get a better idea of why it's not working.

Thanks to supersonic71, I was pointed to pre-built package available on the Skybolt Github page so that bypassed the build sources step. It certainly looks good, but while using the standard Delta-Glider/DG-S Ready for takeoff scenario, I get very low frame rates, in the 20's. Also, from orbit the clouds look very blurry and low-res, I have attached a screenshot of this. Is this expected at this stage?

Yes, the clouds rendering tech in the current release (OrbiterSkyboltClient-1.0.2) suffers from poor performance and low res. Since then I've implemented temporal upscaling for clouds which improves both quality and performance. That will be in the next release.

 

[MattR]

This looks awesome, I'm gonna have to buy a new video card now ^^
Concerning your engine, how do you cope with the huge distances involved in planetary rendering and z-buffer accuracy? The D3D clients do some tricks by disabling z-writes/z-tests, playing with the clipping planes and rescaling the planets on the fly...
Do you do something similar or is a 24bit z-buffer enough to deal with the dynamic ranges involved?

I use a logarithmic z buffer to get better depth precision, which works well in most cases, however there are still a few z fighting issues here and there which I need to fix.

 

[MattR]

Orbiter Skybolt Client 1.0.3 Released



Improvements

• Normal and specular map support. Roughness maps are not yet supported.
• Cloud temporal upscaling. Improves resolution and frame rate of clouds.

Bug fixes

• Fixed 'failed to expand macro' shader compilation error affecting some hardware.
• Fixed bug where particles appeared black near bodies with no atmosphere.
• Fixed 1 texel misalignment of terrain height map data.
• Fixed horizontal banding artifacts in clouds caused by z-fighting with terrain.

 

[supersonic71]

Hi Matt, Is there a writeup/diagram of how the skybolt client works? Like a birds eye view of the relationship between Orbiter_ng <-> Skybolt plugin <-> Skybolt Engine
Trying to understand the code but not sure where to start

 

[Marg]

I still fail to launch it... Is there specific Orbiter version needed? 64-bit? and something more? SomeGitHub version? But they need to be compiled...

 

[OvalDreamX]

Hi Matt, Is there a writeup/diagram of how the skybolt client works? Like a birds eye view of the relationship between Orbiter_ng <-> Skybolt plugin <-> Skybolt Engine
Trying to understand the code but not sure where to start

Like the d3d9 graphics guide in orbitersdk/docs?
That would come in handy. Also, will it have the same map support as d3d9 or are you planning to add other maps like metalness down the line?
Now im gonna try those normal maps in supersonics71's mod in all their Skybolt glory ;-)

 

[gamer19]

I still fail to launch it... Is there specific Orbiter version needed? 64-bit? and something more? SomeGitHub version? But they need to be compiled...

== Requirements ==
* Orbiter 64-bit

 

[Marg]

== Requirements ==
* Orbiter 64-bit

Thanks, I realized I have 32-bit version, and where is 64-bit available?

 

[DaveS]

The 1.0.3 release works a bit better in the FPS department, still getting low-ish when on the ground though. Also, time-accelerating while in orbit leads to stuttering, probably from some kind of loading taking place? Also is there any way to remove the ugly gravel effect from the ground?

 

[OvalDreamX]

The 1.0.3 release works a bit better in the FPS department, still getting low-ish when on the ground though. Also, time-accelerating while in orbit leads to stuttering, probably from some kind of loading taking place? Also is there any way to remove the ugly gravel effect from the ground?

Maybe you can submit issues to OrbiterSkybolt's github page, Matt is quite active there

 

[MattR]

Thanks, I realized I have 32-bit version, and where is 64-bit available?

There are 64 bit development builds produced by the orbiter github CI server. Click on a branch, e.g "178 deploy highres vessel textures (#201)" and scroll down to artifacts.

 

[MattR]

The 1.0.3 release works a bit better in the FPS department, still getting low-ish when on the ground though. Also, time-accelerating while in orbit leads to stuttering, probably from some kind of loading taking place? Also is there any way to remove the ugly gravel effect from the ground?

The stuttering is probably caused by terrain tile loading. I'll investigate the issue for the next release.

I intend to improve the ground texture effects in the future. Currently there's no way to disable the ground detail texture, but you can replace it with a mid grey texture to neutralize the effect. The texture is located at Orbiter\Modules\Plugin\OrbiterSkyboltClient\Assets\Orbiter\Environment\Ground\Ground026_1K_Color.jpg

 

[MattR]

Hi Matt, Is there a writeup/diagram of how the skybolt client works? Like a birds eye view of the relationship between Orbiter_ng <-> Skybolt plugin <-> Skybolt Engine
Trying to understand the code but not sure where to start

There's no write up yet. It's on my TODO list.

 

[MattR]

Like the d3d9 graphics guide in orbitersdk/docs?
That would come in handy. Also, will it have the same map support as d3d9 or are you planning to add other maps like metalness down the line?
Now im gonna try those normal maps in supersonics71's mod in all their Skybolt glory ;-)

The shading model is a cut-down version of the Disney BRDF which can handle metalness. Currently I've only added support for normal and spec, but I want to add more map types. Do you know of some orbiter assets with other map types I can test with?

 

[Marg]

There are 64 bit development builds produced by the orbiter github CI server. Click on a branch, e.g "178 deploy highres vessel textures (#201)" and scroll down to artifacts.

Thanks, I got it