Hey everyone,

Well, here they are at last, the long awaited screen shots of my Lunar Flight Sim (Apollo model - probably forever to remain a work in progress). These images have been converted to jpgs from the original bitmaps and have suffered somewhat from the compression (especially the stars which have become very "blurred-out"). Depending on how your browser is set, a scroll bar should appear on the bottom of the view window to allow you to pan the full-image. Or if not, to minimize the distortion, be sure to click on the "Expand to Fullsize" icon that in this case, should appear in the lower right hand corner of each image, if you hover your mouse pointer over it momentarily. Then use the scroll bars that appear to view the whole image - this restores the sizing as your browsers may compress the image to fit the page - which basically ruins the image.

Image #1 is from high Earth orbit looking towards the moon (the small blob to the right). I actually had to write a separate program to pre-render the alpha-blended cloud image on top of the land/sea image in order to lighten the workload of the GPU.

Image #2 is a portion of the moon prior to orbital insertion, showing the level of detail available.

Image #3 is at orbital altitude (116km) with the Command Service module - I haven't added the antenna yet and I'm going to redo the RCS quads in 3D - but I like the way the command module turned out (I found a nice head-on image at NASA which I applied a conical mapping to).

Image #4 is basically on the surface directly below where the CSM was in the previous image.

Image #5 is a little further around on the surface in a mountainous area to show the 3D surface better.

Image #6 is from lunar orbit but just to show the quality of the star background image - this took about 2 weeks to write another program to directly build the spherically mapped image from the approx 2 million star HIPPARCOS database. So every star is accurate although the individual magnitudes are difficult to represent properly - however you should be able to make out the Orion constellation standing upright near the horizon of the moon.

Basically after looking at Celestia, Orbiter, Eagle Lander and a few others I found there were things I liked about all of them - but none of them were exactly what I was looking for and I figured I could learn a lot of new things in the process and more or less let it develop in whatever direction I was most interested in at the time. The object is to see if it would be possible to land and then rendezous in complete manual - no gyros/computer/nav or guidance and control. All you get is a clock, altimeter and remaining fuel guage. I was close to this at one point, but when I was working on orbiting with the CSM I realized that I needed a major re-write to overcome the single precision limitation fundamental to DirectX. Now, I'm almost back to where I was a couple of months ago - except now the precision problem is fixed (mostly).

Not ready for beta testing yet (p.s. - don't hold your breath!! ).

Cheers, David Barr (aka DMV)

• RE: Lunar Flight Sim Screen shots,vgbaron, 01:16z, 04-10-05
• RE: Lunar Flight Sim Screen shots,Ben_Chiu, 19:58z, 04-10-05
  • RE: Lunar Flight Sim Screen shots,David_MultiView, 03:30z, 04-12-05
    • RE: Lunar Flight Sim Screen shots,Ben_Chiu, 03:53z, 04-14-05
  • RE: Lunar Flight Sim Screen shots,andor, 01:13z, 04-26-05

Simply put David - beautiful work! This looks like a labor of love. Can't wait to try the beta - you KNOW we're going to start nagging you now don't you?

Vic

Hey David!

Simply awesome! Can't wait to try it/beta test it.

The moon program is what got me interested in aviation when I was a boy. I remember studying everything I could get my hands on regarding the Apollo program because I (like most everyone) wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up.

A couple of questions:

- What control (computer input) system are you using for the sim?

- Is there a "dark side" of the moon?

- What do you get to control (CM and/or LM)?

- What are the minimum computer specs to run this?

Great job!

Ben

Hey Ben + Vic!

Thanks for the encouragement (I need it!!)

>A couple of questions:
>
>- What control (computer input) system are you using for
>the sim?
I would call it "Brutal Mode" - sort of a blend of 2-jet Direct mode and 4-jet Emergency mode. Basically we know that you can land on the moon and return safely - but what if you had to land without computer assist (full-manual) not even gyros or sophisticated instruments could you still land and rendezvous (say for a rescue mission)?

>- Is there a "dark side" of the moon?
According to Pink Floyd....there was in the beginning, but I didn't like the wall of blackness effect, so both the Earth and Moon are 100% daylight - although I might bring back something like the dim side eventually.

>- What do you get to control (CM and/or LM)?
At the moment, its LM only, I'll have to see how enthusiastic I am after supposedly finishing the LM !!

>- What are the minimum computer specs to run this?
Video card - 5200 series with 128Mb onboard minimum, probably anything that will support that will be OK - anything less and the textures won't fully load and it will turn into a dog.

cheers, David

Hey David!

>>- What control (computer input) system are you using for
>>the sim?
> I would call it "Brutal Mode" - sort of a blend of 2-jet
>Direct mode and 4-jet Emergency mode. Basically we know
>that you can land on the moon and return safely - but what
>if you had to land without computer assist (full-manual)
>not even gyros or sophisticated instruments could you
>still land and rendezvous (say for a rescue mission)?

Cool! What I was after is how does the user control the spacecraft? Joystick, keyboard, mouse(!)?

>>- Is there a "dark side" of the moon?
> According to Pink Floyd....there was in the beginning,

LOL!

>>- What do you get to control (CM and/or LM)?
> At the moment, its LM only, I'll have to see how
>enthusiastic I am after supposedly finishing the LM !!

So you only land it now. There's no return to the CM/SM? T'would be really cool to add that (and multiplayer! <hint, hint, hint!>

>>- What are the minimum computer specs to run this?
> Video card - 5200 series with 128Mb onboard minimum,
>probably anything that will support that will be OK -
>anything less and the textures won't fully load and it
>will turn into a dog.

So CPU speed and RAM are secondary issues. Interesting. Can't wait to try it.

Get back to work!!

Ben

G,day David,

WOW!!! just what have I been missing.. incredible screenshots David.. Can a lowly C152 driver aspire to a CM/LM.. cannot wait to try.
Catch up tomorrow I hope,
Great work,
Andy