[How many of us are captains etc]

I started as a cadet at New York Maritime College (the oldest maritime school in the US), then sailed as an officer in the US Navy (aboard a destroyer, then a cruiser). I finished my 20 years in the Navy Reserve and worked in the computer software industry. I started sailing again about 7 years ago and hold Master Limited and Third Mate Unlimited licenses. In the mix I've sailed on all sorts of sailing and power vessels, taught sailing, drove charter boats and did deliveries. I now teach other mariners part-time, sail on research ships part-time, and develop software part-time. My aspiration is to become a professional surfer / kite-surfer... any interested sponsors? :lol:

[New project - Pilot Boat (updated)]

Hopefully someone following has more knowledge than I, and can help me out :) I'm not sure about the lights on the mast...

Ok, lemme see if I can explain it without drawing a picture:

This pilot boat will have several light configurations:

1. motor vessel underway - red and green running lights ( port is red, stbd is green) white masthead light, and white stern light.

2. pilot vessel underway - red and green running lights, white all-around masthead over red all-around masthead (pilot's designation lights) and white stern light.

3. vessel at anchor - white all around light at masthead

4. pilot vessel at anchor - white masthead over red masthead.

So working our way down the mast in your photo:

at the top looks like a white all around anchor light

next is a forward only- white masthead/steaming light

next are white (forward only and aft only)

followed by red (forward only and aft only)

and the bottom should be a white stern light.

Hope this helps...

P.S. - Realistic? Where's the darn coffee maker? You expect me to believe that there's a pilot boat out there without a coffee maker :lol: (just teasing, she looks beautiful!).

[Always wondered this, anyone help?]

Naw, Ron's right. Darn near everywhere on the planet channels have ships pass port to port. If someplace were to be different, the attorney's would have a hay-day with all the collisions that would result. Remember, we've got all types out there driving stuff that floats.

I've never been through the locks on your side of the ditch, but in the US, the lock operator decides who goes where, when and how. Usually they save the big locks for the big guys, and the little ones for the rest... that's usually, but things would be too boring if they always did things that way.

Hey, do they still charter canal barges over in the UK? Is that still a fun thing to do, or is it just too touristy? I dunno why, but this photo reminded me that I want to do that someday...

[HIGH IMPORTANCE ALL VS USERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

Okay, Cap'n, don't get yer panties all in a twist. A couple bits of advice, shipmate:

First off, VS 7 is a BETA version, in fact it's an early Beta version, which means it is expected to be a bit buggy. Ilan is kind enough to make this early preview available to all us feature-hungry sailors. If it doesn't work on your system, by all means go back to VS 6.8: grab your original VS 6.8 install file and install it over 7.0 (ie., use the same directory). If that doesn't work (and I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't) contact Ilan directly, he can help you. Once you've installed 6.8, you'll probably need to re-enter your registration number.

Second off, PLEASE DON'T USE ALL CAPS.

And lastly, you gave up on VS 7 and only joined this forum yesterday? That's not much of an effort, matey. How'd you ever make captain... over night? I think not ;) A bit of patience might be helpful.

Good luck.

Edit: I re-read your post (sorry, my speed reading is a bit faulty) and if I understand you correctly, after you installed 6.8 you deleted the original download ...oops!

Ok, here's the link to VS 6.8 http://www.hangsim.com/demos/vs_demo.exe

When you install it, it will be a "demo version". Then try using your original serial number (when you bought the program). That should work, but if it doesn't, email Ilan at support@hangsim.com . Explain the situation to him and I'm sure he'll be able to help.

Another thing: when you post problems about running an application on a forum like this, it always helps to include your system specs. Have you run Direct X games on this computer before? VS requires DirectX 9, and if you don't have it installed, go to the Microsoft site and download it first.

Hope this helps.

[boat.cfg questions?]

Could someone please explain the following configuration settings please? I've read the page on Ilan's website and searched the forum, but I need more specific info:

cdf - drag coefficient of submerged part.

What units is this in? Example values?

stability_factor - leverage factor for heel angle and banking calculation.

What units is this in? What is the range for typical boats?

clmax_sailb - maximum lift factor obtainable by the main sail

clmax_sails - maximum lift factor obtainable by the jib sail

What units? Example values?

hydro_propoise - propoising amplitude angle when hydrofoil effect is max (rd)

hydro_omega - propoising frequency when hydrofoil effect is max

What units? Example values?

wing_sur - wing surface sqrm. ( flying sub )

wing_cd0 - wing zero incidence drag coefficient. ( flying sub )

wing_cla - wing lift line slope. ( flying sub )

wing_ki - wing induced drag coefficient. ( flying sub )

wing_al0 - wing install angle. ( flying sub )

Can anyone direct me to examples for the aircraft values? I've got the SH-60, but have never gotten it to fly properly.

I'm working on a new model that has me pretty excited... I just need some info to tweak the settings...

Thanks!

[looking for name an explanation of a docking manouver...]

You want to know the "name" of the maneuver? On a two screw ship, when one engine is ahead and the other astern, the maneuver is commonly called a "twist" in American English. When you combine a twist and the bow thruster to move the ship sideways, we commonly refer to this as "walking the ship sideways" or "walk the ship to port". These are the common terms for these maneuvers, I have know idea (and I've been sailing for nearly 40 years) if there is a more traditional or exact term.

Hope this helps.

[Why bother with Sketchup when you can get these free?]

Something which isn't really evident in programs like wings.

Wings3D difficult? Jamie, you are certainly entitled to your opinion, and I can understand that learning GMAX or Blender could be considered "challenging" to a complete 3D newbie. But Wings3D? It's about the easiest, and most flexible app I've tried to date (and I started working in 3D back in the 80's and have used dozens of apps).

The icons in Sketchup are very inviting to a new user, no doubt. But it lacks even the most basic tools you'd want to model boats and other curved objects. Keep in mind, it's really intended as a quick modeling tool for architects.

Wings lacks the friendly icons of Sketchup (or Truespace or Amapi for that matter), but don't let that put you off. It's a very easy, fast and powerful application that is designed for game/polygonal modeling. Follow this link http://www.static-lift.net/virt_sail/brorial.html to a great boat modeling tutorial and try the tutorials on the Wings3D website. I'd be surprised if by the end of 3 or 4 tutorials (maybe a weekend of effort) you didn't have the basics to model just about anything. And I don't consider myself a Wings3D expert by any means. I've only used it for a couple weeks total, and although I have nearly a dozen 3D apps on my system (from freebies to high end), I keep on going back to Wings3D because it's easy to use.

But hey, everybody's entitled to their opinions ;) I just wouldn't want someone to go out and buy Sketchup thinking it was a great tool to model boats for VS with, when for absolutely free, that same person could fill their hard drive with a half dozen better tools for the job.

[Why bother with Sketchup when you can get these free?]

For those of you thinking about creating your own models, I thought I'd pass along a list of free 3D apps I've assembled over recent weeks:

Free Commercial 3D Apps:

GameSpace Light

I ran into this today and thought I'd share with the community: GameSpace Light ( http://www.caligari.com/gamespace/gsl/gsl.asp ) is a free version of Caligari's 3D modeling program for game design. What's most interesting about GameSpace is that (unlike GMAX) it natively supports import / export of .X files. It also looks like it has a fairly complete and impressive feature set.

TrueSpace 3.2

I've had an older version of Truespace (also by Caligari) for a while and it's really a very nice 3D app, I just haven't had many opportunities to use it. It also supports import / export of .X files. You can also download a full working copy of Truespace 3.2 here: http://www.caligari.com/Products/trueSpfault.html

Amapi Designer 6.0

You can also get a full working version of Eovia's Amapi Designer 3D v. 6.0 here: http://www.eovia3d.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=1 I use Amapi Designer v. 7 every once and a while. It's a very powerful 3D design tool, which includes Nurbs (a powerful curved surface tool).

Open Source:

FreeShip

I've talked about this one alot already: http://www.freeship.org

Blender

Very powerful app, I've used it on a number of projects, and has a huge support community. Worth the extra effort to learn. There's also plugins to import / export .X files. http://blender.org/cms/Home.2.0.html

Wings3D

My current favorite 3D modeling app. Simple, clean, powerful and fast. Supports .X export (there's a plugin link in the forums) which works very nicely. http://www.wings3d.com/

This list is by no means complete, there's alot more out there. Please feel free to add your favorite free 3D apps here...

[VS beta was updated - new thread goes here]

I'd like to be able to push or shoulder with a tug or smallboat.

I believe this is possible with the ver. 7 beta. The physics isn't perfect and the "collision alarm" constantly sounds, but I've pushed one boat with another numerous times. I'm guessing that the physics can be made more life-like by adjusting the different vessel's config files. Several of the ships I've played with turn and accelerate much faster than real life.

What you can't currently do (at least I don't think you can) is pull from alongside. This would be a nice feature for the future.

On the topic of pushing / pulling another boat, the towing feature is fairly accurate in a number of ways. One thing though, is that I've noticed the the towed boat will give off exhaust based on the speed at which it is towed (huh?).

I'm looking forward to what new features the next beta version might hold...

[Sketch Up Help!]

Or forget the fads and just get the free one...

Here, here ;) Or get "Wings3d" http://www.wings3d.com/ and follow this great tutorial http://www.static-lift.net/virt_sail/brorial.html

The likelyhood of finding a tutorial on using "Sketchup" to build boat models is pretty slim. It's not exactly the best app for that task (although a couple people here have done quite nicely with it). There just isn't a huge group of folks out there designing boats, so there won't be alot of tutorials. You'll just have to take what you find and apply it to whatever app you decide to use.

And don't you also have Maya? Why in the world don't you learn Maya and use it? It's a -much- more powerful app and, although the learning curve will be pretty steep, I think it will be time well spent.

And lastly, I think the -easiest- way to model hulls is with FreeShip http://www.freeship.org . You can trace in profiles and smooth the hull, then export as an .obj file to Maya (or Wings3d or Anim8r or .... ) and finish the design there. The site even has a dozen or so sample hull models to get you started.

I also own Maya 7 Unlimited. Is their a way to change sketch up files into Maya files.

According to the Sketchup website, version 5 supports exporting to .obj and .3ds files. Maya unlimited should support importing both these file formats...

[convert?]

http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=44804

[PLEASE HELP !]

Hi,

Thanks for all the replys. I managed to export the file but when I come to converting it into a .x with 'X-convert' I get an error message which says,

Error !!! the source path should not contain any space. Browse again and then you can change directori's name with right button(add underscore for example)

Again, sorry for the questions :oops:

James

That's a bug in "X-convert". You'll need to move the file to a folder that has no spaces in it's name. Try creating a folder on your drive like "c:\ship_projects" and copy your .3ds files there. That should work.

That will get you an .X file that VS can read. You'll still need to "texture" the model, that's where "LithUnwrap" comes in. LithUnwrap can also read your .3ds files and convert them to .X. The tutorial I posted above will walk you through the entire process...

[PLEASE HELP !]

Is, 3DS max a download ?

You don't need 3DS Max to convert a Sketchup model to VS. If you had searched this forum before posting you would have found numerous posts on this topic, including this one:

http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.p19ed31dd18

That will get you a file with the extension " .3ds". Then follow this tutorial on texturing:

http://www.static-lift.net/virt_sail/brorial.html

Kugelfang's tutorial (very nicely done, BTW) uses "Ultimate Unwrap 3D", but you can accomplish the same thing with "LithUnwrap" which is it's predecessor. If you Google for "LithUnwrap", you'll find it's available for download here:

http://files.seriouszone.com/download.php?fileid=198

This should get you going...

Moderator: Hey, Charlotte, is it me or does it seem that this question is asked alot? Might make a good sticky?

[The key??]

When you use the form on the VS website, a key is sent to your email address. Sometimes it takes a bit longer to receive the email (mine took a day or two) or the email may have been filtered out by your internet provider's spam blocker.

[GMAX TERMINATED - grab it while you still can.]

It may just be a coincidence, but Autodesk announced recently that they purchased "Maya", one of the best 3d (if not -the- best) animation apps out there. That may have more to do with the future of Gmax than anything related to FS.

Thanks for the heads up about Gmax. I've never tried it before and hope it will be helpful for building models for VS. As for free 3D modeling tools, there's also (in addition to Wings3D which has already been mentioned) Blender and Freeship, which are awesome tools.

[Multi-monitor configuration .]

Pardon my ignorance, but does the 6800GT have two video out ports? Are they VGA or AGP ports? I got the FX5500 because it seemed like a bargain ($50) for a 256mb video card...

[Multi-monitor configuration .]

Actually it's quite simple if you have a video card with dual output. I'm running a 6800GT in my system right now.

Huh, I hadn't thought of that. My GeForce FX5500 has both an AGP and VGA connector, so I guess I could connect a monitor on each. I'll have to check to see if the drivers support a wide screen like that. If so, it will be, as you say, real easy to do.

If it's possible, a custom control panel could be created that would fill only one side of the screen. Down side to this is that I would expect frame rates to drop considerably.

I'm just curious, what resolution have you tried with your graphics card? What kind of frame rates did you get?

But I take it that there's no way to have separate views on the different monitors? If you ran VS as an online session and logged in from two computers would you be able to have two views from the same boat?

Interesting question. Another thought would be to setup two virtual machines with VMware, network the two, and try to "tab" to the other machine, thus taking control... I don't have that much experience with VS running in multiplayer so I don't know if that would work.

[Multi-monitor configuration .]

... Another configuration could be 1 view ahead , 1 radar display and 1 map display...

I have requested something similar to this (NMEA data output from VS) and Ilan sounded interested in implimenting this. This way, you will be able to use a chartplotter (or nearly any NMEA compatible device) with VS to "navigate" through your virtual seas. I am also working on a RADAR simulator that would work with VS in this way. This is a fairly sizeable change to VS, and the RADAR simulator project is still in it's infancy, but I suspect that the more people ask for this feature the more motivated Ilan will be to create it.

If all you want to do is "spread" the existing VS controls across multiple creens, there's another way of doing it. There should be (at least there used to be) graphics cards that supported an "extra wide" display. You would have, for example, a 2048x768 pixel desktop that would be spread over two 1024x768 pixel displays. All you'd need to do this is (besides the graphics card and displays) for VS to support a "viewpoint" of that size, which programming wise, should be possible, but I don't know if Ilan has thought about doing this and I'm not sure how difficult it would be to adapt VS to this.

[Maya 7]

Google is your friend ;)

http://www.google.com/search?q=boat+tutorial+3d

Here's a half dozen or so boat tutorials for all sorts of 3D packages. I didn't see any specifically for Maya, but you should be able to adapt the techniques to Maya.

For what it's worth, if boat models are what you really want to create, your time would be well spent with FREEship (http://www.freeship.org). It's a free application that is designed specifically for designing boats and ships. There are a number of sample hulls to play with and you can export your hull design to Maya via OBJ files. Then finish the modeling and do your textures in Maya.

Another issue is model size. Maya is designed (AFAIK) for 3D realism, but what you're really looking for in VS (or any other DirectX game) is a low polygon model. Since I haven't used Maya before, I can't comment on how good it is at low poly design, but many game designers are using tools specfically for creating low poly models (like Wings3D and Milkshape3D).

[Maya 7]

FYI, the latest version of Blender (v. 2.37 available at http://blender.org/cms/Home.2.0.html ) now supports DirectX import and export. I just installed the latest version and gave it a try and it seems to import and export geometry pretty well. I still need to test its ability to import/export textures. .X import is supported by an additional Pthyon plugin (available here http://xoomer.virgilio.it/glabro1/import.html )

[VS beta was updated - new thread goes here]

Have you checked whether "Exponential Fog" is turned on or off in the graphics menu? Also open up the Logfile.txt in your main VS directory and see if it says "Adapter Can do VertexFog" and "Adapter Can do TableFog". That might have something to do with it. :?

Yup, tried that and checked "logfile.txt". Here's what it looks like:

Adapter is NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 (Microsoft Corporation)
Adapter Max texture size = 4096
Adapter Max textures = 8
Adapter Max stages = 8
Adapter Can do A1R5G5B5
Adapter Can do A8R8G8B8
Adapter Can do A4R4G4B4
Adapter Can do V8U8
Adapter Can do L6V5U5
Adapter Can do L8V8U8
Adapter Can do D24X8
Adapter Can do VertexFog
Adapter Can do TableFog
Adapter Can do BumpMaps
Adapter Can do Shaders

[VS beta was updated - new thread goes here]

Yup, tried that. No change. Also tried various times of day, graphics quality settings, etc. The effect is pretty wierd: load a scene, load a boat, run the scene and move the "visibility slider" back and forth. On my system the fog appears correctly until visibility is less than 5000m, then you seem to be able to see -beyond- the leading edge of the fog.

Another possible issue I may have found was while looking at my own boat underwater. If I go to a distant point (F2) then go underwater (number 2) and look at my boat, I can see the underside of the stern. Then as I swing around the boat from underneath (number 6) I see the underside of the hull (starboard side) until I pass the bow. At that point the hull (port side now) dissappears and all I see the the water above and the boat's wake.

I'll try to grab some screens if no one else can recreate this one.

Ilan, if you're reading this, I think there are two things that might make the entire visual effect a bit more realistic and is related to this fog/visibility issue. I think if it were possible to add "distance blur" and "distance cuing" to the water surface, it could nicely conceal the noticeable "repetition" of the water textures. Distance blur, "blurs" an object based on distance from the viewer, and distance cue darkens a surface based on distance from the viewer. I don't know if your development tools or DirectX 9 supports these features, but if they do I think it might be worthwhile to look into. A similar effect can be done by lowering the visibility, but the ability to blur just the water surface would improve the visual effect when there is no fog or haze. Just my 2 cents ;)

BTW, I'm not criticising VS 7 in any way. I'm used to beta testing software (been doing it for years) so the first thing I try to do with a new beta is try to break it ;) In spite of these minor glitches, VS7 is -very- impressive graphics wise and I know there are more developments down the road... keep up the great work Ilan!

[VS beta was updated - new thread goes here]

My appologies if this has already been posted. I just downloaded the latest VS7 beta and installed it on my new system (AMD Athlon XP, 1 gb RAM, GeForce 5500 w/256 mb, Windows XP Pro) and I'm getting this weird effect when I set the visibility to less than about 6 km.

And here's a different ship, different scene and different view:

[Open Topic September 2005]

...oooh, don't get me started.

I think it's a disgrace that my country, supposedly the richest in the world, can afford to fight wars overseas but not take care of it's veterans... or provide medical care for all it's citizens...

Me: LCDR USNR-R, 5 years active duty, 15 years reserve duty, and all I'm entitled to is a flag on my coffin. (Hope they don't cheat me out of that ;) ).

[Instruments Textures ???]

I don't know if this will help, but here goes: If you want "authentic" looking instruments for commercial ships, you probably will need to make them yourself (something I hope to do... some day...). Some sources for "inspiration" and information are the websites of the major manufacturers, including: JRC, Furuno, Raytheon, Kongsberg and others. You might luck out and find some good photos on their sites, but more likely will have to create the graphics using b&w illustrations from user manuals (that's how I would do it). When I get some free time I hope to create as authentic a "pop-up" control panel as I can... would be a fun and relatively small project ;)

Hey TLAM: Where'd you get your instruments from? A game or simulator or did you create them?