Route plotting from cockpit perspective

[psyantologist]

I wonder if the already existing tech in Elite which generates the skybox would allow to select a star visible from the view of the cockpit canopy (like a shorty-key that puts a cursor on the screen) get the distance on click and plot a course to it with a held-click, using what the Galaxy Map route plotter can do without having to open the galaxy map.

I suppose the viability depends on whether the information used to create the current skybox can still be accessed and used in this direction (and possibly, if at all, how much of it, if anything, is a nifty use of smoke and mirrors)

Not that it would be very useful in itself, but it would just be wicked cool and appeal to the tiny explorer in me ("Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning") - it's also a thing that pretty much half the people I showed Elite to asked whether it was possible.

 

[Dormant account - pls delete]

Unpossible with the Skybox technique, unfortunately. "Skybox" is a term of art in game development which describes a specific technique for creating the illusion that you are in a huge 3d space (in this case, the entire universe, no biggy).

The technique is to create the map once at a low level of detail and paint it on the inside of a cube (or more complex shapes if you're feeling like you might have spare CPU/GPU).

Unfortunately the once in ED's case is when you first jump into a system. It works out where you are in the galaxy now and creates that one-off painting which provides the illusion.

Once that magic paint has been painted onto that magic cube, that's it, you're sitting inside a beautifully painted cube but that cube has zero knowledge about what has been painted onto it; you could paint a picture of bacon and eggs on it instead of stars, and the game logic would not change one bit.

You could add a HUD mode which reused all the code from the Galaxy Map but made you sit "in" it and projected it onto your canopy, that would be fun, but I suspect you'd then find out the skybox painting is lo-res and has a million computation shortcuts so it wouldn't be accurate enough to then overlay an accurate map on it, so the rendered star would not line up with the map version of the star.

 

[psyantologist]

Thank you for the explanation - I do follow the train of thought yet do not quite see where it falls apart - knowing the angle of the players perspective in the skybox cube and having done the calculations to paint the skybox, unless you throw away that information after painting, that would be all you need to correlate <what is the player clicking on/looking at> with <this is star system x>, wouldn't it? But maybe that part is what you mean with inaccuracies and shortcuts, so it wouldn't work reliably (then again... who could really tell the difference as long as you start going somewhere xD)

 

[angusmadmac1]

It would be nice as an explorer I sometimes see something and wonder what the heck is that and spend time trying to jump towards it or trying to line up and guessing .

 

[HRDiagram]

Unpossible with the Skybox technique, unfortunately. "Skybox" is a term of art in game development which describes a specific technique for creating the illusion that you are in a huge 3d space (in this case, the entire universe, no biggy).

The technique is to create the map once at a low level of detail and paint it on the inside of a cube (or more complex shapes if you're feeling like you might have spare CPU/GPU).

Unfortunately the once in ED's case is when you first jump into a system. It works out where you are in the galaxy now and creates that one-off painting which provides the illusion.

Once that magic paint has been painted onto that magic cube, that's it, you're sitting inside a beautifully painted cube but that cube has zero knowledge about what has been painted onto it; you could paint a picture of bacon and eggs on it instead of stars, and the game logic would not change one bit.

You could add a HUD mode which reused all the code from the Galaxy Map but made you sit "in" it and projected it onto your canopy, that would be fun, but I suspect you'd then find out the skybox painting is lo-res and has a million computation shortcuts so it wouldn't be accurate enough to then overlay an accurate map on it, so the rendered star would not line up with the map version of the star.

And now I want a bacon and eggs galaxy!

 

[Gabriel H]

I'd settle for having a system/galaxy map that doesn't entirely obscure my view. It can get a little nail-biting waiting for the map to load, then do what you need to do, then exit, while wondering what is happening right in front of you.

 

[Dormant account - pls delete]

Thank you for the explanation - I do follow the train of thought yet do not quite see where it falls apart - knowing the angle of the players perspective in the skybox cube and having done the calculations to paint the skybox, unless you throw away that information after painting,

Yes, that information is thrown away after painting. If the game kept that information it would need to rotate the model of the entire galaxy every time you moved your head.

The painting is "just good enough" to be accurate for something that by definition is the very background of the background of what the player can see, so it's not designed for navigational accuracy.

The reason you can whizz the 3d map around is because it makes some very aggressive decisions about what to show you or not and therefore just doesn't have to deal with a large number of stars at all, and you've probably experienced the issue where you can't persuade it to show you a particular system because the algorithms are a bit arbitrary. Can't have that with a skybox because that would mean bits of the view out the window appearing and disappearing. So they're done two different ways for the two different needs. And come to think of it that doesn't need to be particularly accurate either, it's more like a map of an underground railway and you're just choosing a station.

There's actually a third problem anyway which I didn't think of before, which is that in-ship rendering is designed around orbital scales, so asking it to accurately position something that's 5,000 light years away in the view is a completely different problem in terms of decimal places.

 

[Ameeleean2]

I would be satisfied with ability to plot course for bookmarked/favorite target, even if it would work in crude way of opening relevant window, selecting target and closing said window once course is plotted.

 

[CMDR X]

You mean how Space Engine does it amazingly from day one? Yeah, I've been wanting this since I first saw the stars from my Sidewinder cockpit.

There's a free version of Space Engine still floating around out there if you want to try it. You can fly in a ship too if you want but no combat or exploration and stuff.

Search for SpaceEngine 0.9.7.1.

Obsidian Ant has a bunch of great videos covering it. o7

 

[Dormant account - pls delete]

You mean how Space Engine does it amazingly from day one? Yeah, I've been wanting this since I first saw the stars from my Sidewinder cockpit.

Could you make us a quick demo of doing this in Space Engine? Even a screenshot? Looks really cool, but also looks like the free version is MILES behind the paid version (fair enough) and I'm curious but I'm not "unexpected £50 in November" curious...

 

[CMDR X]

Could you make us a quick demo of doing this in Space Engine? Even a screenshot? Looks really cool, but also looks like the free version is MILES behind the paid version (fair enough) and I'm curious but I'm not "unexpected £50 in November" curious...

I don't have it installed right now, but here is a 10 minute video from OA showing it in action.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLn6zUN7kYE


The free version is surprisingly complete and gorgeous. Loading screen free travel from stars to planet surfaces, the works. You won't be disappointed. It's a great learning tool as well because of real life data.

The Steam price for full version, as of today, is 28,99€.

Maybe cheaper during upcoming Christmas sale (Nov. 27)