Decided not to upload the large Isle of Man route At 45 km. Will keep to about 25km max., so deleted previous message, Does anybody on these forums (using Blender only) make maritime simulations or the ancient, medieval world etc, but not just static art and open source only not commercial !
At present I seem to be the only one, which i don’t think will further the Blender Maritime cause much on my own, more than I do already with free downloads, etc.
I won’t include any further scenarios as you can easily make your own anyway as regards collecting cargoes or whatever with drivable ship/boat. Same with drivable boat copy and paste works from route to route for ships, roaming camera etc, at least with windows 7.
I will however be concentrating on AI routes as detailed in my previous posts, as the AI only needs 2 cilcks of mouse.keyboard to cover 10 miles, plus creating interesting manoeuvers leaving and enter harbour. See Silloth route, online at time of writing.
Does anybody make SMALL coastal steamships as I have made a few tries but making the solid sailing ships seems easier using just line of sight for the hull.
Change of plan both for this forum and my site. I think I will make any more posts on this forum text only and the same applies to my site.
As far as I am concerned I am not trying to popularise a game or to show the progress made, and the same applies to my site.
Working on the basis that if you are interested in maritime then you might investigate further one of the downloads on my site if the link is active. Simple as that.
As mentioned previously, interested in discussion and feedback (whether routes download OK, etc). As there is nothing available for critique you can always discuss matters. Some routes will have nothing done to them except maybe rivers opened up. Others might have had a grass texture. Back to the age of sail also otherwise becomes all too complex.
If you have an interesting non commercial site relating to maritime then maybe I will link to it and so on. If you make maritime routes then whether very basic or more complex they can all be of interest regardless of any ‘critique’. There certainly won’t be any critique from me. (smile)
Forum no longer suitable for various factors.
Blender no longer suitable at present for further downloads by others.
So further downloads will be discontinued and WKnight02 can add further 10 to his total of 20.
B
Due to the removal of the game engine from version 2.8 Blender I have decided to cancel further downloads for the time being. I might continue these pages without the downloads and perhaps use mini-screenshots. The routes incidentally are not that important as too basic and a pale reflection of the past ages and reality. I think to make one really realistic route could possibly take years as buildings, etc and changes to harbours would all need to be researched.
I hope that the ‘Interactive mode’ planned for 2.8 can accommodate your simulations. They’re a great concept and provide insight into key internal trade routes of the present and past.
Ian - Thanks for the post. Things might become clearer at a later time but at my age not a very later time. At present it wasn’t realistic to expect people to download a back version of Blender (before 2.8) to run a maritime route.
Difficult on my own as have no real idea what to do, so removed the downloads for now. It is not only Blender Artists as the site will be read worldwide.
Maybe I owe it to the few who are interested in maritime to put back on routes for download and sort routes at same time.
For now, on my site, Instruct with link to download 2.79 ver. to run the routes. Before I mentioned 2.78c and 2.79 whuch might cause confusion outside of BA.
It would need to be embedded, then see what happens with UPBGE or BGE at a later date as regards embedded of some form.
Also instead of including coastline with no harbours just include coastline with harbours. OSM overlay for position of harbours, then remove osm map, but oblong at about 12km x 20km just about fits the computer screen. That will reduce the numbers of routes to work on.
I seem to run into a brick wall at times but keep trying different methods and tend to look too far ahead with the limited Blender choices available.
Daedalus thanks for post. Bit beyond me i’me afraid trigger open blend logic but sounds interesting. But at barge speed 10mph I think short distances might be best. Hour at most, half hour maybe .
stuck 6 back on line.
I did not know about the idea of opening seperate blend. Not sure how to trigger that. Have used it to open bridge many years ago with Blender. Also is that still part of 2.79 and does Blender then ignore the previous blend as regards frame rates. Just a few thoughts and will have to look further into that option.
The removal of the game engine from 2.8 means everything in the route then has to depend on 2.79 when downloaded…also by people who know nothing about Blender Artists and in theory will download 2.79 to run the routes.
Have thought about steamships but tried a few times and gave up on that idea. Needs other people to help with that one? They could have a faster speed if larger than say a schooner square root of waterline x 1.34 as nautical mile. (looked it up and only recently understood nautical mile … curved mile not straight line).
That idea might work as I still have to remake Ellesmere Port barge docks about 10 miles upriver from Liverpool. I made a version of Liverpool docks 1830 at 3 miles but a lot of flickering as extruded many of the quays to shape. Current Liverpool Mersey route online at one and half miles c1800. So 1800 and 1830 would need different versions of Ellesmere Port. So just musing about seperate blends for Lpool docks and Ellesmere Port in same route.
Stick with it. The upbge guys are working to make their stuff compatible with 2.8 which would support your blends. Alternatively, Armory has a graphical nodes based editing option which is easier to learn. This guy here has about the easiest tutorials to get into. See how you like go but a lot of people will keep running 2.79 and 2.8 just because 2.8 will take ages to become stable. By then the interactive mode may be available.
Thanks Ian upbge might be ths answer eventually, so no urgency as the future can look after itself. Different if your young I suppose.
I have stuck the Isle of Man route back on. Clipped the top of island off so down to 35km from 45km. Also more than halved the vertices by replacing the seabed with single sheet of 4 vertices except for margin around the terrain. Just the drivable barge added.
It might be easiest if I split these routes into two groups of five.
In the first group I will include routes that I might update fom time to time and occasionally replace with others.
The second goup will initially be basic terrains and sea etc. Basic to mean no additional photo textures or trees and probably no ports or harbours. Not all routes will have a harbour over the actual coastline in real life. By using this method I can rotate the second group, add new one to end and delete one from the beginning. Not written in stone but just a rough explanation. So the the second group should be available for about 5 days or more for download for each route. I will be making mores routes for a while then will see what to update and what rivers need opening up etc. Then maybe start to rotate the lot but that will be quite a while away.
So basically group one will only change occasionally and group two I will rotate add one to end remove one from the beginning. So each one in group two should be available for about 5 days (maybe more or less).
Alternativey might rotate group 2 full block of 5 each 5 days (more or less)
Remade links as they were not working correctly. Please inform if you find links not working.
I will probably keep 5 to 8 online which I might update from time to time. Also I might vary the routes depending on which routes I add content to. No point in listing mumerous routes from Solway to Land End which was my original idea and these types of forums are not suitable for that. 5 to 8 is about right not the previous larger amounts. Also drivable boats are just my own method.
So probably you can easily make your own drivable boats if you you wish. Same applies to scenario of collecting cargos which simply uses the invisible function on touch.
So the option to make preset routes in Blender I think will be the option to use for me in future, after trying drivable boats and ships etc, and spending many hours over the years on the problem. ‘rigid’ body on ship and collision box on ships and around sea solved it and settings to some friction.
So preset routes in future no drivable as a waste of time, little realism, and will start to remove these from routes already made. Download Details on my site. queries and relevent discussion fine, no ‘critique’ wanted.
I know all mentioned in past but as no one else appears to make maritime routes I make changes to adapt to various factors.
More thoughts … tidal but wihout boat movement between harbours.
Drivable is a waste of time (for me) and also moving ships on preset routes has its limitations in Blender. The main thing lacking is the way the seabed alters appearance between high and low water. So will move on to non moving ships and boats, but possibly floating and rising on say a tidal rise half rise of say 3 hours using 12ths rule. But need to experiment with this.
Default vert.sync still around 60. Probably osm maps will have enough details of the sandbanks and deep water channels of some harbours.
Regarding tidal I used that idea about 10 years back with Blender on the rivers Ribble and Alt. To make a rising tidal sheet is simple enough using twelths rule. The problem them was if you changed the tidal height the boat bounced off into space. Rigid Body became available but the same result so not worth any further time juggling with that in Blender.
As I have 30 routes from Solway Firth antI-clockwise I will start with 7 online and probably at intervals from a single day upwards add one remove one. At the same time continue onto Lands End or further. Problem though with further, as the Thames area is very flat.
B
As before discusion and queries fine. ‘Critique’ not wanted.
As routes need rivers making and many other feattures making they will be listed as they come from srtm2 data/hgt and probably basic 3DEM texture.
Furrther details will be on my site and will probably start the alterations from tomorrow.
The basic are roaming camera home/end and arrow keys.
Drivable ship/boat if included in the route…wasd. tfgh, ijkl
To start any animations is keyboard keys from 1 to 9.
Although very high tides in the Mersey at 9.3 meters further along the coast in say Wales it is about 7 meters so might have a look again at tidal rise. B.
Area of interest for me is Isle of Man to Ribble and Douglas and then around the coastline maybe ending at Conway, possibly around to Barmouth. Also any routes onlne will now be at random and probably one online from my own area of interest. Isle of Man route I will bring back. Whether they will run on other computers I have no idea, but so far they run OK on mine. B