Space Flight Sim Dev Thread

[Count_de_Money]

I finished modeling the second piece and threw it in so now you can visualize better how the interior will look. Also added two darker stripes on the floor where I plan to add floor pieces I modeled earlier.

[shot]http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/4439/piece21.jpg[/shot][shot]http://img853.imageshack.us/img853/1443/piece22.jpg[/shot]
[shot]http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/7237/ring8a.jpg[/shot][shot]http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/5426/ring9a.jpg[/shot]

[Hellclown]

What's happening with this? Any new updates?

[danimal']

We actually moved to a new engine, didn't really want to say anything here b/c to me it would seem ungrateful to Epic who have given us this great engine to learn with. We just moved for ease of programming (fully documented programming language) and a better licensing deal (big deal if you're indie), but of course in many ways Unreal's still the superior engine (boy do I miss the material editor). The project is now much further along in terms of flight (full mouse controlled flight), a few more art assets, but a new engine has meant I've had to program stuff from scratch (player spawns, a first person character etc). The upside is I can actually program there and we have the ability to have actual to-scale planets (ala Infinity if you've ever followed that game). Once we get a lil further along I'll try to remember to send you a link in PM so you can fly around a bit for fun. Here's an asteroid I've added.

[Hellclown]

Is there anywhere to watch the progress of this? PM me the link if you don't feel comfortable posting it here.

[danimal']

We'll throw one up fairly soon, and yah I'll PM you It's just in a rough state atm with pieces in and not in, random assets, etc. The full sized planet feature won't be in anytime soon, but if you wanna see a tech demo from the guy behind it and a sneak peak at his tech that we're planning on using, check out his work here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsaeF...eature=related

[Hiredicespecter]

You are planning to port his OpenGL/Unity3D code to UDK?

[EDIT] I missed your post stating that you are using another engine. I assume it is Unity3D?

[killerapfel]

I assume it is Unity3D?

looks like it

* ease of programming (fully documented programming language)
* a better licensing deal (big deal if you're indie)

* boy do I miss the material editor

but one guy on the forums of unity has done a very good job, building an awesome shader editor

Actually I find it very hard to code something in UnrealScript - but I bought a book on that, some days ago - waiting for amazon to deliver it

[danimal']

It's not that unrealscript is hard per se (it's not). It's the lack of thorough documentation. It's the lack of low-level access. Regardless, I'd rather not have a discussion about other engines, this is Unreal's backyard and it's a fantastic engine that got me started so I owe it a lot We just posted here in response to the question of what's up. We still follow UDK (it's far ahead of everyone else in pretty much every department IMO) and different people's projects, we've just, for very pragmatic reasons, moved. We're actually both really hoping UE4 really revamps it's approach to programming, it's literally the one thing that held us back in our admittedly indie-level-skills. Everything else UE leads in and everyone else rushes to catch up (whether that is the Material Editor or Kismet).

[tegleg]

We'll throw one up fairly soon, and yah I'll PM you It's just in a rough state atm with pieces in and not in, random assets, etc. The full sized planet feature won't be in anytime soon, but if you wanna see a tech demo from the guy behind it and a sneak peak at his tech that we're planning on using, check out his work here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsaeF...eature=related

f**k me now thats impressive
seems like a growing (and neccesary) trend is emerging with engine choice, hope epic are taking notice.

[danimal']

f**k me now thats impressive
seems like a growing (and neccesary) trend is emerging with engine choice, hope epic are taking notice.

What's impressive is that what you see there is his own custom C++ engine. Yet with low level access, he was able to implement it in an existing popular engine. Pretty much just ported his code over to an existing engine. That flexibility in design, to simultaneously allow relative indies like me high level script access (for ease of programming), while letting experienced guys like him the dirty low-level access he needs (including editor access) is what is seriously impressive. It allows for so much flexibility. But yah, there's lots of guys who have started on these spherical engines to simulate full planets, but this guys stuff is real (I've flown around his full level planets) and not just a video. He's an impressive guy I also hope Epic slightly retools itself for the upcoming next-gen. Better code access, better code documentation, including Editor access = win.

[Hiredicespecter]

I also hope Epic slightly retools itself for the upcoming next-gen. Better code access, better code documentation, including Editor access = win.

Agreed.

I assume you don't want to relase your custom UDK content so that others, like me, could use it? ;-)

[danimal']

Agreed.

I assume you don't want to relase your custom UDK content so that others, like me, could use it? ;-)

Lol, no because we're using the same assets in our current project We've just been porting it over, same stuff though, so it's not going to waste!

[tegleg]

totally understand.
any chance of releasing your vehicle code? or a cut down version of it at least maybe using the cicada mesh.
its no use to you now and would help a lot of people struggling with that kind of 3d movement.
not for myself of course but for the udk community

[danimal']

It's basically what I linked back in page 2, which is this: http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/...7#post27347357

I took that as my basis for how to think about the problem. There's several ways to tackle full 3d flight and the EASIEST to understand (unless you want to do Quaternion math), is this. There are two basic things that need to happen: (1) you need to rotate your object around in 3d space and (2) you need to apply thrust to move your ship.

(1) So how can we rotate an object around? That's really just Physics.Torque. Just apply torque to an object to rotate it in 3d space.
(2) How can we thrust? That's pretty easy too, it's either Physics.Impulse or Physics.AddForce, etc etc.

Handle the two objectives separately and it's pretty **** easy, and you don't even need to do complex math. Although my actual code looks different than what I linked, I'm still using the central concept he used, the two important lines of his code that illustrate this are:

Mesh.AddForce(AR_ForceApplication);
Mesh.AddTorque(AR_ForceRotation);

I analyzed his code and said ah, that's all he's really doing. He's rotating via Torque and thrusting via AddForce. Using this method, you can completely avoid gimbal problems and it's conceptually very easy to follow. Pretty much all there is to it

[frankit]

f**k me now thats impressive
seems like a growing (and neccesary) trend is emerging with engine choice, hope epic are taking notice.

It seems that Epic never read your comments Tegleg....
UE4 is pretty and all, but why are there no tools for this kind of thing in UE4?