Beanstalk (space elevator) model

To be perfectly honest, after finding out about the orbit problems I'm really not too keen on using beanstalks in Asylum. If only I could slow down planet rotations!

I'll texture and convert the beanstalk model and then send it along to you guys to make into a station and/or station part. Would that be cool?

Well... limited success.

After seeing Cambragol figure out the surface name of the planet.pso file (not in a million years would I have considered something as simple as 'planet' ), I thought perhaps the same convention might be used to access the material shaders. So I named surfaces of the beanstalk with the shader names; Chrome, CastIron, etc. It did not work... the model is shaded with the default surface values I selected in LW.

Ah well... something to aim for later on.

Here's some screenshots of the beanstalk. Not attached to a station (in fact, just replacing the avatar of a fighter). But you get the idea. I'll hand it over to you Cambragol for texturing.



Composed of two separate models; so it can be animated later if if someone gets ambitious. And if it's too small just size it up in the LW scene.

Cambragol, if you could send me your email address I can get this to you.

Thanks for the feedback on this one. Cheers.

It looks really nice! Thanks!

I wonder if planets are sims that have been given fixed rotation values. If so, it might be possible to slow them from POG. I guess if you were far away, they should rotate normally. If you were at GEO orbit, they should not rotate at all. If you are closer, they will begin to spin in reverse as you orbit faster than the ground moves. But I guess that is just fussing. They really just need to spin slower.

[Edit] Setting the angular velocity to 0 has no effect on rotation. Tried the body object and the sim representing the body object. Well, it was worth a try.

Thanks a lot Shane! It looks really good. My email address is in my profile but here it is anyways: mourfin at spymac dot com

I should let you know how I found the surface name for the planets. I simply opened up the planet.pso file and saw 'Dplanet'. But after looking at a number of other .pso objects and the ones I was building, I saw that the D was unnecessary. Most of the surface names for any .pso object, can be found by opening the .pso object with a hex editor, find SHDR then the name after that, minus the first letter, is the name of the surface for the model. The textures are found in front of SHDR, and always use .lbm format it seems.

It's on its way.

Your hexing trick is a neat thing to know. One of these days I'll have to learn how to do that.

By any chance could I persuade you to open a modular station pso and find out some surface names? I'm almost certain some element of the name is what tells the engine to use a material surface. Names to look for would be: Aluminium, CastIron, Chrome, Copper, CopperDull, Glass, GlossPaint, MattPaint, SteelDull, SteelShiny.

Anything you could find out would be much appreciated. Learning how to activate the material shaders opens the way to custom built stations and additions which match the originals completely.

Speaking of such... I'm working on a new station type: the Refugee station. It's basically a poor settlement overloaded with hab modules. Want a copy for Epic when I'm done?

Thanks a lot Shane, I received the 'beanstalk' model.

Now I would be more than happy to open up some files for you to find surfaces. I have even noticed some of those names you mentioned when I was looking through .pso files previously. However, you might find it much easier to use a hex editor yourself. I downloaded one that is free, and works very simply. You just open the .pso file and the first thing you will likely see are the texture and surface names. Here is the link to the download:

www.hhdsoftware.com/hexeditor.html

If its still not working for you I will look into whatever models or files you want. Just let me know which ones. ( I would look into some right now, but I am not at my comp)

And yes! I would definitly like that Refugee station. I have been mulling over what models to use to represent systems settlements and 'cities', and what you are describing sounds ideal for the Middle States.