[0.25] RasterPropMonitor - putting the A in your IVA (v0.18.3) [8 Oct]

[Mihax209]

Fantastic mod, can't believe only now found out about it.

But I do feel there's one thing missing, is there a way to see an orbital map within the displays? There are all the numbers there but seeing it visually really helps, for me at least.

[Hyomoto]

@Mihara: Could you add the ability view Hullcams through the monitor. Something like a list where you select all the cameras on the vehicle.

I'm not entirely sure why you would want to do that, since the purpose of the hullcam is to give you an external view. Besides, the mod HAS external cameras. But if you are just in love with the way they look (since they are pretty cool) you could modify the part.cfg to turn it into a rasterpropmonitor instead. Here is the documentation, but it requires you to also know something about the model, the parent transform that will be used as the camera. I don't know if that's just something you can look up.

Fantastic mod, can't believe only now found out about it.

But I do feel there's one thing missing, is there a way to see an orbital map within the displays? There are all the numbers there but seeing it visually really helps, for me at least.

He's working on an Orbiter style display for that.

[techstepman]

great mod!its really immersive and makes u feel more like a modern astronaut! is it ready for 0.23?got some issues in the alcor lander.

[DasBananenbrot]

great mod!its really immersive and makes u feel more like a modern astronaut! is it ready for 0.23?got some issues in the alcor lander.

It is ready for 0.23 for a while now (since shortly after 0.23 release actually) but alcor wasn't updated until recently, so sure you updated alcor pod (if not compatible with the recent version of RPM, problems can arise)

Btw, I would define those issues more detailed so Mihara can help you better

[Guest]

Mihara, I'm sure you're sick to death of hearing people sing your praises, but you'll have to humour me a bit. Thanks to your monitors and cameras, I was able to nail down and eliminate an SRB-induced wobble problem with my Apollo SLS. Also, now that a lot of flight ops can take place IVA, I now have procedural checklists. Not sure that's a good thing as I loathe paperwork, but I'm too busy enjoying myself to care.

[Mihara]

@Mihara: Could you add the ability view Hullcams through the monitor. Something like a list where you select all the cameras on the vehicle.

Not directly. Hullcams have programmable axis orientation, the straight RPM cameras do not. I can't just hook on their transforms and expect to see anything. To turn these transforms around like RPM needs, I'd need to get at the orientation configured for Hullcam, for which I would either need to hardlink to the Hullcam DLL (unacceptable) or parse it's config file (too complicated at this point). If a hullcam model has a JSIExternalCameraSelector module on it, the same transform can be tuned to be an external camera for RPM in the usual fashion, they will coexist just fine.

A menu of all the ExternalCameraSelector instances around the ship is a possibility, though.

But I do feel there's one thing missing, is there a way to see an orbital map within the displays? There are all the numbers there but seeing it visually really helps, for me at least.

See PLANS. This particular feature, however, requires so much mathematics which I do not know, that it's getting pushed back repeatedly and probably will keep getting pushed back repeatedly until someone steps forward with the formulas.

great mod!its really immersive and makes u feel more like a modern astronaut! is it ready for 0.23?got some issues in the alcor lander.

At the very least you usually need to show me your KSP_Data/output_log.txt and describe EXACTLY what is the 'issue' that you're having.

Being a mad scientist, I'm superintelligent, not psychic, there's a difference.

[theSpeare]

Hi, I've gone through the documentation and wanted to use the VDS hull camera models personally to replace the ones that came with this mod. However I'm completely stumped, I can't really figure things out - specifically with this line 'cameraContainer = RCSthruster'.

I read the pdf and couldn't really understand what it was talking about with cameraContainer, and how I would go about finding its equivalent for the VDS hull camera models. Help please !

[Hyomoto]

Hi, I've gone through the documentation and wanted to use the VDS hull camera models personally to replace the ones that came with this mod. However I'm completely stumped, I can't really figure things out - specifically with this line 'cameraContainer = RCSthruster'.

I read the pdf and couldn't really understand what it was talking about with cameraContainer, and how I would go about finding its equivalent for the VDS hull camera models. Help please !

That's the transform located on the actual model itself that the raster prop uses to display the camera. If you read Mihara's previous response, the one above yours, you'll see he actually just explained this. A bit of the ol' read the last page, eh?

[Mihara]

Also, now that a lot of flight ops can take place IVA, I now have procedural checklists. Not sure that's a good thing as I loathe paperwork, but I'm too busy enjoying myself to care.

Share them?

I read the pdf and couldn't really understand what it was talking about with cameraContainer, and how I would go about finding its equivalent for the VDS hull camera models. Help please !

You need to know a little about Unity and model hierarchy first. To get properly positioned in 3D space, the cameras of RPM need a Transform model element somewhere, they look for it by name. A transform is basically the term for a position of a named game object in 3D space. That transform needs to have a particular orientation - cameras point in Z+ direction, so that X+ is on the right of the screen. If you're making a model from scratch, it's easy to include a transform in it, but in case you're using a model you didn't make, you can't exactly edit it's orientation. You also can't exactly rename it, because if you do rename it, you will have problems finding it by name later.

To get around this, JSIExternalCameraSelector creates a child transform -- i.e. it creates another transform model element and sticks it beneath the 'cameraContainer' in the hierarchy, so it can be turned the way RPM camera module likes it and named the way RPM camera module wants it to be named. That model element isn't getting saved with the ship, but JSIExternalCameraSelector just recreates it when needed.

So you want 'cameraContainer' parameter to be the same as what MuMechModuleHullCameraZoom has for "cameraName". But then you will need to rotate the camera to match by adjusting "rotateCamera" parameter so that it matches what Hullcam camera sees.

There is currently no "translateCamera" to match Hullcam's cameraPosition parameter, but there will be later.

[theSpeare]

thank you very much! Very helpful

[theSpeare]

So it didn't really work for me :S

This is what was under VDS's NavCam cfg

MODULE

{

name = MuMechModuleHullCameraZoom

cameraName = NavCam

cameraForward = 0, 1, 0

cameraUp = 0, 0, -1

cameraPosition = 0.0, 0.045, 0.0

cameraFoVMax = 100

cameraFoVMin = 60

}

So I went out and deleted all of its modules and swapped it over with

MODULE

{

name = JSIExternalCameraSelector

cameraContainer = NavCam

rotateCamera = -90,0,0

cameraIDPrefix = ExtCam

}

But on the LaunchPad it doesn't get picked up, nor does any FOV cones show up in the VAB. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong, and how to fix it?

[Mihara]

So I went out and deleted all of its modules

Deleting it's modules is definitely not required, just tack one on the end.

But on the LaunchPad it doesn't get picked up, nor does any FOV cones show up in the VAB. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong, and how to fix it?

Err... Uhh.. Oh damnit. "cameraName" parameter in Hullcam actually does not correspond to a name of a transform, I was wrong.

For this particular camera model, this MODULE block works:

MODULE
{
	name = JSIExternalCameraSelector
	cameraContainer = hc_navcam
	rotateCamera = -90,0,0
	cameraIDPrefix = ExtCam
}

In the next release I'll probably just make a modulemanager patch for all the models of Hullcam VDS to add the camera selector module to them.

[theSpeare]

I removed all the modules simply because I didn't want their features - I just wanted the particular models. So the part name is enough to be used for cameraContainer? I'll give it a shot now, thanks for the help.

[theSpeare]

Okay, that sort of worked but now every camera placed defaults to id: 1. Maybe I'll just wait for you to make that patch when you have the time. I'd just like to find a way to make the current example part 'clip' in a little more so it doesn't stick out so bad.

[Mihara]

I removed all the modules simply because I didn't want their features - I just wanted the particular models. So the part name is enough to be used for cameraContainer? I'll give it a shot now, thanks for the help.

No, part name is NOT enough.

It just so happens that the name of the appropriately positioned component in this particular model is the same as the name of the part in the part configuration, this is not true for other models in Hullcam package.

[Hyomoto]

I think there may be a minor conflict with JSITargetMenu, or at least an undocumented one. It appears you cannot use 'text = ' to create an overlay, and if you omit 'pageTitle =' it simply does not draw that line. The second one is probably intentional though, it simply also isn't documented. But, this brings up something I hope you'd be interested in adding, but would it be possible to provide 'padding' for the built in handlers? Below is the 'basic menu', the menu overlay on the PFD (ignore the mess, in progress), but nothing shows up over the target menu (and even if it did, it would be overlapping the text):

[Mihara]

I think there may be a minor conflict with JSITargetMenu, or at least an undocumented one. It appears you cannot use 'text = ' to create an overlay, and if you omit 'pageTitle =' it simply does not draw that line.

Alas, that's the way it currently is -- there is only one text layer, page handlers do not create an extra text layer, they replace the only one there is.

You can use the overlay texture option to draw the button markers on it, though, and I'll see what I can do about enforcing margins from the page level for the text layer, but -- not this year.

[Hyomoto]

Alas, that's the way it currently is -- there is only one text layer, page handlers do not create an extra text layer, they replace the only one there is.

You can use the overlay texture option to draw the button markers on it, though, and I'll see what I can do about enforcing margins from the page level for the text layer, but -- not this year.

But there are so many minutes left! The overlay method would work with a buffer, but I'll just have to settle for manipulating pageTitle for now. I have another documentation question, headingBarPosition for JSIPrimaryFlightDisplay says it takes "x,y,width,height of the heading bar, in units." but looking in the config it is defined as "0.0, 0.65, 0.4, 0.05". Units of what? I thought it might be a percentage at first but ... nope, not really sure what it corresponds to.

[Mihara]

But there are so many minutes left!

Until the year ends - yes. Until I have to walk out the door -- no, only about fifteen.

EDIT: Oh, and those are world size units. The ball is exactly 1 unit in diameter, projection is orthographic, work from there.

[Hyomoto]

Thanks for the advice, answers and hard work!

[Krevsin]

Can anyone help me add the monitors to Bobcat's Soyuz descent module? Only I am a bit of a derp and nothing I tried worked.

[Herbert McCheese-Wang]

How easy is it to add some of the screens to the IVA of FASA's Gemini capsule?

[samhuk]

How do I get the map to work? There is funnily enough no information on this. OP, I suggest adding a slightly better/existent help page somewhere.

Thanks,

Sam

[MOARdV]

How do I get the map to work? There is funnily enough no information on this. OP, I suggest adding a slightly better/existent help page somewhere.

Are you trying to use an existing display in IVA to view a map? If so, you need the SCANsat mod, and you need to create a map using that mod, and you need to press the appropriate button on the IVA display to bring up the map page. With the example displays that ship with this mod, button "1" is the map view.

[samhuk]

Are you trying to use an existing display in IVA to view a map? If so, you need the SCANsat mod, and you need to create a map using that mod, and you need to press the appropriate button on the IVA display to bring up the map page. With the example displays that ship with this mod, button "1" is the map view.

Ah thank you very much MOARdV, very helpful.

I'm not sure if the info is somewhere but I couldn't find anything about this mod. The OP has posted loads about how to mod their mod, but no information about how to actually use it. Pretty silly IMO.

Again, thanks.

Sam