Oolite Bulletins

Pretty sure i know the answer but is there no flyby view?

No, not at the moment. The next version will make it easy for someone to write an OXP that adds one, though.

I looked into the possibilities of doing so with existing tech. It was not pretty.
The maths relating to camera control is relatively easy to find, the problem is the method of implementation using Quartonions.

It could be done but if cim has a fix in the wings then I defer to his much better judgement.

cim wrote:

No, not at the moment. The next version will make it easy for someone to write an OXP that adds one, though.

If anyone makes this OXP can i request some sort of station docking bay viewpoint looking out of the bay towards your ship when it's under docking computer control? some sort of viewpoint like Tichy chose here in the screenshots thread
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.ph ... 79#p186579 would be awsome

I've found using the right-rear and left-rear views can give some good docking shots. This is one I took recently of the (slightly beat-up!) Bilbo Maru docking at Xetila.



Also the front view when you are very close gets some of the dock in the image as well.

that does look good! Do you think it might be possible to 'detach' the camera from the players ship when it's under docking computer control and position it inside the docking bay looking back out at your ship as it glides/scrapes its way into the bay, sort of like a 'port authority office window' viewpoint or something?
Hmm, now i've written it out, it sounds like it would be a scripting nightmare to get the camera to track the ship etc

Griff wrote:

that does look good! Do you think it might be possible to 'detach' the camera from the players ship when it's under docking computer control and position it inside the docking bay looking back out at your ship as it glides/scrapes its way into the bay, sort of like a 'port authority office window' viewpoint or something?
Hmm, now i've written it out, it sounds like it would be a scripting nightmare to get the camera to track the ship etc

It takes a little bit of work to get your head round all the quaternions, but that only needs doing once. I put this one together a few months ago: Missile Cam (trunk only)

With a little bit of work I can probably turn it into a camera library: specify the camera position and the point in space you want to look at, and it handles the tracking for you.

I did have a go at a docking camera at the time, so I've probably got the code for that to dig out, somewhere.

That sounds awesome! Don't divert too much of your dev time into it though cim, you've probably got more than enough on your plate - it was just a throwaway wish-list idea i had after seeing Tichy's new screenshots in the thread

That's a wish-list item lots of people have had for a long time..

Would it be possible to use the mouse (or trackball/trackpad/nipple) to control the viewpoint of the external view (in an OXP for the next Oolite version)?

I play by keyboard, I know many people use joysticks or controllers. I don't know if anybody is using the mouse to steer his/her/its ship, but it would be awesome to have a dynamic outside view and the mouse seems to be the best way to change the viewing angle & the mouse wheel to change the viewing distance.

Thargoid wrote:

...it is one of the Thargon's birthdays tomorrow so most of the weekend is a no-no.

<Smivs understands and offers some (totally useless) moral support and sympathy>

Griff wrote:

That sounds awesome! Don't divert too much of your dev time into it though cim, you've probably got more than enough on your plate - it was just a throwaway wish-list idea i had after seeing Tichy's new screenshots in the thread

Ah, it only took an hour with the code I already had, and quite a bit of that was trying out the various cameras.

Camera Drones (trunk only: will not work with 1.76)
- missile camera view
- flyby view
- docking bay view
- target camera view
...and extensible by other OXPs to add extra views.

cim wrote:

Ah, it only took an hour with the code I already had, and quite a bit of that was trying out the various cameras.

Camera Drones (trunk only: will not work with 1.76)

Looks really cool, cim :-)