The new Midshipman is very sturdy, about to take his first steps. He slept in this morning so I got some coding work done. I'm debugging the gunport code at the moment but it is mostly written out. For the moment some new screens (sans ports).Originally Posted by Bligh
Last edited by Aaron; 02-03-2019 at 09:58.
Update: I had a major win during my lunch break. I got to try out a partial implementation of my dynamic "hole" punch code, used in this case to place gun ports. I say partial because it went ahead and identified where in the geometry mesh targets are to modify the shape. I rendered two ports and it found the triangles and "punched" them out. The code to reconstruct the area to fill back in the needed solids is standing by to be called but I ran out of time. I still have to take the polygon shapes and earcut them back down to triangles and append them to the existing geometry which should be a days work tops.
Here's a quick shot of the moment I got it to work..
If home is quiet I will get a little more done after work.
-Aaron
Yes It is all looking very good Aaron. i can only marvel at your programming expertise.
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
update: I ran a quick prototype code that comes back in and shapes up the port while retaining the original curvature. In the screen below it added the required shape to fill the triangle while at the same time shape up the port. When the code is finished it will repeat this for all of the removed triangles. It got the shape correct. Moving forwards!
update: I'm attacking the bugs. I'm down to ones that only show up some of the time (the worst ones). It is coming along though slowly. Hopefully by the end of this weekend I will have whipped this into a fighting ship again.
2 partially working ports on the ships port side.
None on the outside yet.. only the interior is working.
Here is a behind the scenes example showing the complex geometry to carve out ports on a curved hull.
edit: Closing it down for the night. I found 2 bugs involving a missing sort and a missing coordinate lookup. There is still something causing some ports to look as if they lived through the 4 day battle.
Last edited by Aaron; 02-08-2019 at 20:39.
Rather you than me sir!
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
That's what grog is for..... :)Rather you than me sir!
Rob.
I have succeeded in cutting the external gun ports. I had to continually man the water pumps towards the end to stay afloat but she made it back for refit. I haven't drawn in the depth of the ports yet so they look paper thin but that chore is trivial. Looking at the shading of the areas around the ports reveal that I need to do some extra work on the normal vectors so it will blend in seamlessly with the side of the ship, right now it looks like patches.
Some results..
Lifting the ship out of the ocean for a better view. I am also going to be placing in the gallery doorway, bridle port, sweep ports and possibly scuttles but I have to add one piece of code for smaller ports within one triangle boundary before the latter can happen.
Here you can see shading artifacts at the front of the ship. Keep in mind that there is no texturing in these examples. The final result will look night and day different when textures are laid out such as my water example from earlier posts. *sigh* I need to model some other armaments to replace the 18s on the quarter deck.
My next task will be to place the wale along the ship side by having it bump out and coloring it black (or whatever). At the same time that code will be targeting the bottom of the ship for copper plating or coating. Thankfully this will not be intensive such as the last coding segment.
A few more examples and then I am off for the night.
Two wireframes showing shapes.
Gallery Door and quarter deck gunport trial.. seems to work.
Fire!
Attempt at adding an exaggerated wale. It appears one of the ports exploded at the bow.
Last edited by Aaron; 02-11-2019 at 08:18.
Update 2/14/2019 - I got the shading of the surrounding port walls straightened out so now it looks smooth all the way down the side. Also I started boxing in the gunport sides to the curvature so it now looks 3D.
smooth shading:
Port Sides:
I'm currently working on getting the port lids shaped up and then on to the deck beams and carlings, hanging knees, waterway and clamps.
Last edited by Aaron; 02-14-2019 at 09:25.
Now that is starting to look impressive Aaron.
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
got the start of the beams going...
Trying out some interior lighting approaches. I may have to add a few more vertices to the beams to get the normals to project correctly as they start rounding right off the bat.
The first instance of a knee appears!
Last edited by Aaron; 02-19-2019 at 06:20.
Working on the decks a little more... cutting out the openings. I need the deckbeams to look for openings and cut off short.
I still need to finish the knees.
My word Aaron, things are looking good.
Even if not quite the bees Knees yet. (Sorry) It just slipped out.
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
That's a good one.
crude lower decks.. its a start
Your work is appreciated Aaron. I had never realized just how like building a real ship from the ground up it was to design a program. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, but he can certainly appreciate someone performing them.
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
Thank you Bligh. I enjoy sharing it here. I hope one day this may inspire 'new dogs' to learn about the age of sail and the age of discovery.
Let's hope I get the chance to finish this.. I will keep plying along and hope my project avoids this fate...
I applaud your ideology Aaron.
Guess I should have said Old sea dogs.
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
The business of today is getting the ship's bow trained up like a sea dog, "bow-wow"
I hope my existing coding approach can tackle this and I can avoid additional coding to complete the bow. I can see the knees poking through..
Starting to look...
Last edited by Aaron; 02-25-2019 at 10:32.
update: I fixed a couple of hard to find bugs. I'm in the middle of redoing the hull mesh so that I can use multiple materials along the side, mainly so I can color beneath the water line and the wales. Also the hull mesh redo will fix the bow sections which currently are extending down to the keel and not tapering up.
I also typed in the the frame sections of HMS Achilles in anticipation of creating a 4th rate. I will be revealing this soon (hopefully in a week). I will then use this new model as a test case of further creating an acceptable 3D model inside and out.
enhanced for data gathering...
My current frigate will soon be resigned to a target practice ship.
Last edited by Aaron; 03-03-2019 at 14:31.
Behold!! The first sighting of HMS Achilles.. she's beautiful to me.
I wanted to share a "blooper". This is the first time I got the new ship mesh code to work but I can clearly see I typo'd some numbers in her profile. I also haven't placed the framing into the actual spot along the keel, these here are just equally spaced until I have time to measure them off the ship plan. But alas, I can see the form taking shape. The bow actually curves away from the keel bottom and I can see the area designated for a wale (Shading is more flat in that area).
I will have to go and review my numbers to fix the jumbled mess in the middle and then properly space out the frames then it will look more like the plans. A lot behind the scenes had to "go off right" just to get this shape on the screen so this is a major victory for the "close to final" form of my hull building code.
This coming week is spring break so I will also take a break from coding starting monday thru the week. I still have a few days to iron out the wrinkles above.
a day shot with 2 trial wales bumped out.
Last edited by Aaron; 03-08-2019 at 08:32.
Reminds me of my Wings of Glory Balloon just after I touched the plastic with the hot air paint stripper.
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
That's funny.. but not really knowing that the balloons are hard to get. I fixed the "balloon" below :)Reminds me of my Wings of Glory Balloon just after I touched the plastic with the hot air paint stripper.
Rob.
So you did Aaron and a jolly good job you did too.
All I could do with mine was turn it into this.
See the similarity?
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
I do see it! I have a small collection for WoG
I also got my SoG table mat in:
The gunport code held up to the demands of a 4th rate. These are roughly placed, not exact according to plans. Testing to see if it blows up or works. I still need to tweak the shape of the ship along the top and one spot on the bottom.
Here's a wireframe model showing what had to cut out to place the ports
Done coding for the night.
Update Status: I’m still here but progress has stopped for the past month due to life events. I’m still working on other aspects of the game. For instance, I have modeled the sun’s location based upon time, day of the year, latitude and longitude. You can use the suns angle and the solar declination to estimate latitude. It’s neat watching the sun rise and set over the ship on the open seas. I will try and get a video of this soon.
I’m also adding in dead reckoning navigation which uses half hour readings of knots and uncorrected compass readings. These are then used with estimated leeway, currents and compass variance to plot the north/east leagues which can be used to get lat and long. This will simulate the way real navigation was performed with the same level of guesswork.
As far as 3D modeling goes, I’m in research mode on how I want to do the topology of the land masses. I hope to resume ship building soon but the free time to do it properly is lacking at the moment. I did get to work on both sides of the new ship mesh. I will get other small tasks completed in the interim though.
The frigate patrols..
Last edited by Aaron; 04-10-2019 at 19:20.
I recorded a short video showing the changing lighting during the day cycle.
https://youtu.be/XxXa6TR8eQ4
You work is amazing, Aaron!
Thank you Naharaht! I am adding in some major stars, these traverse the sky with time.
Here is a location closer to the equator..
Last edited by Aaron; 04-15-2019 at 20:14.
Bligh may be good at this sort of thing, butI am going to need my Norton's Star atlas and Nautical Almanac to navigate this way Aaron.
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
You can just use your trusty astrolabe to get the latitude from the angle from Polaris down to the horizon. Can you find the north star below? Latitude for this is 28 47' 42".
Beautiful cruise during sunrise
Last edited by Aaron; 04-18-2019 at 09:16.
Super night sky. Big and little Dipper stand out like sore thumbs Aaron.
Sometime the Great Bear Ursa Major was known as King Charles's Wain or wagon, and the Plough. Also disrespectfully as the Saucepan. Follow the two pointers Dubhe and Merak to Polaris the Pole star in the tail of Ursa Minor.
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
Update for 4/28/19 - I worked on the moon, stars and planets position for the sky. I took a deep dive over the week on learning how to calculate object positions to within an accuracy of 1-2 arc minutes. The code is now working for the sun, moon and stars. I still have to code up the planets but it reuses most of the code for the moon. This was a fun side task to get the creative juices flowing again. The game can now reproduce the sky as it appeared on say... November 1st, 1787 at the player's latitude, longitude and the UTC time.
Since I know the sun and moon position I can use the shading of a sphere to properly phase the moon. It is turning out pretty cool. The day time moon needs work as it appears too dark in the sky, however it's a good start.
The available light at dusk, dawn and night will be important in spotting ships in the offing and horizon. If it's a new moon then there is a good chance of slipping away ;).
Light angle is wrong here but you get the idea.
Last edited by Aaron; 04-28-2019 at 15:01.
Even more impressive Aaron.
You will be including transits of Venus next.
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
I will put Venus up today around lunchtime and see where she sits in the sky.
I ran a test this morning to compare the moon for today. Here's this morning 4/29/19 looking east towards the rising moon at my loc (29N, 96W) and then from London (51.5N, 0.27W). I made an effort this morning when driving in to work to see if my predicted moon looks the same. I say it does.
Southern Texas, USA
London
The planets makes their appearance...
Last edited by Aaron; 04-29-2019 at 13:28.
What can one say, that has not already been said!
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
On May 3rd from your location (Notts?) you will have a cool moon sunrise with two close planets right before the sun rises. Might be worth looking at if it is not cloudy. I'm not making a weather forecast system - that's beyond the scope.. heh.
;)
That looks like a view I can't afford to miss if I can get myself up at about 3.30 am.
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
3:30 is early!!
I worked on the moon "shader". It is looking the part.
a new moon above while on the chains..
day moon...
looking abaft...
deep ocean sailing at night
Setting moon with planet and little dipper.. strange sail in the offing under the moon
Just a cool shot, no moon
Last edited by Aaron; 05-03-2019 at 10:48.
Super.
Keep them coming Aaron. It really lightens my evening.
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
Here’s a 10 second clip of dark heavy seas. This runs silky smooth on my laptop. Not sure why YouTube isn’t as smooth.
https://youtu.be/ZzRqCHiFsqM
Last edited by Aaron; 05-04-2019 at 12:39.
It's just swell for me Aaron.
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
Ha! Swell!
I'm trying out some land meshes to see how it looks. These are tests..
These use a height map for Martinique.
edit: fine tuning a bit..
Last edited by Aaron; 05-05-2019 at 09:41.
Well now those do give me grounds to congratulate you on your work yet again Aaron.
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
Sailing around Martinique, rounding a cape leading to hms diamond.
HMS Diamond just comes in to view.
From the hillside on the island looking down on a frigate nearing hms diamond.
So I'm surprised at the performance of the computer rendering the entire island without breaking a sweat. The next phase will be to roll the displacement map out of the material and into the actual vertices of the mesh. I can then calculate the normals and get smooth shading instead of the flat shading that is present, this will improve the look a lot. Then I will try my hand at a shader that will color in sand, forest, and steep mountainsides by using slope and height. That way the land will have a variation of color without a lot of art work. After that I am going to place a fort down and see how it looks.
Doing some land lubber work for a change.
:)
Last edited by Aaron; 05-06-2019 at 19:14.
More great stuff Aaron.
HMS Diamond Rock was one of the first Historical actions which I wrote about, having so much in common with placing the guns above Ticonderoga. also the fact that it figures in one form or another in several Naval novels.
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
I'm overhauling the sail model and adding studding sails. Early shot.
Last edited by Aaron; 05-10-2019 at 14:28.
Some sail destruction test
https://youtu.be/RvhIrVL0ikg
Nice shooting Aaron.
I wish I could do that at the range.
Rob.
The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.
bonus points if you can identify this island..
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