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Making sci-fi aircrafts (star wars, star trek, blade runner)

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Making sci-fi aircrafts (star wars, star trek, blade runner)

Postby Curtis » Sun Jan 05, 2020 3:10 am

Hello,

I wonder if flightgear can allow authors to build sci-fi aircrafts ?

Usually sci-fi aircraft have unrealistic features (no ailerons, no rudder, they can take-of vertically, fly at very high-speed without damage structure), I wonder if the flight models of flightgear (jbsim, yasim) may add restrictions when building these aircrafts ?

I saw "The Mandalorian" tv-series (a Star Wars spin-off), and it would be great if a flightgear version of the main character's aircraft is possible :

Image

this aircraft flies both like a jetliner and like a helicopter :

Image
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Re: Making sci-fi aircrafts (star wars, star trek, blade run

Postby xDraconian » Sun Jan 05, 2020 4:07 am

Hi Curtis,

I think the UFO, Bluebird, and Tardis would be a good starting point to examine for inspiration.
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Re: Making sci-fi aircrafts (star wars, star trek, blade run

Postby Thorsten » Sun Jan 05, 2020 7:59 am

I wonder if the flight models of flightgear (jbsim, yasim) may add restrictions when building these aircrafts ?


YaSim will restrict you pretty thoroughly because it fundamentally assumes that you're an aircraft (you can't get into space with YaSim).

JSBSim solves physics equations, which means you;ll be restricted by equations of motion, but it does allow you to introduce external forces - which may simulate anti-gravity devices or such, However, your SciFi needs to be expressable in forces - magic or cartoon it doesn't do.
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Re: Making sci-fi aircrafts (star wars, star trek, blade run

Postby D-ECHO » Sun Jan 05, 2020 8:42 am

Adding to the above, using the ufo FDM (I think that's what the bluebird and the ufo use) will allow you to create vastly "irrealistic" aircraft and should be the most easy way to get there. If you are up for a more interesting experience, I guess modelling such a Sci-Fi/fictional aircraft with JSBSim forces as Thorsten described is the way to go although it might take you a bit more understanding and time.

Totally besides that, you might need to be careful what models you are actually allowed to use/publish/etc. as film studios are normally holding the right on those creations. The license notes on this site http://www.seahorsecorral.org/flightgear_aircraft.html might give you an idea of what problems license-wise you could face.
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Re: Making sci-fi aircrafts (star wars, star trek, blade run

Postby D-EKEW » Sun Jan 05, 2020 12:00 pm

That is not sci-fi, that is a DO 31!
Well...almost
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_31
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Re: Making sci-fi aircrafts (star wars, star trek, blade run

Postby DFaber » Sun Jan 05, 2020 1:31 pm

xDraconian wrote in Sun Jan 05, 2020 4:07 am:I think the UFO, Bluebird, and Tardis would be a good starting point to examine for inspiration.


The ufo is not ideal. It is unable to loop and lacks other features. But one can create a Scifi-DM on top of the Autopilot system. It runs at Simulation rate and can do anything you need. I am using this to implement the bridgecommand source code, to get a somewhat decent Ship Dynamics Model.

Greetings
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FlightGear Development:
http://flightgear-de.net

my 3D-Art:
https://www.sol2500.net
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Re: Making sci-fi aircrafts (star wars, star trek, blade run

Postby Hooray » Sun Jan 05, 2020 2:00 pm

a scripted FDM using Nasal means "the sky is NOT the limit" ;-)
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Re: Making sci-fi aircrafts (star wars, star trek, blade run

Postby tdammers » Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:27 pm

D-ECHO wrote in Sun Jan 05, 2020 8:42 am:Totally besides that, you might need to be careful what models you are actually allowed to use/publish/etc. as film studios are normally holding the right on those creations. The license notes on this site http://www.seahorsecorral.org/flightgear_aircraft.html might give you an idea of what problems license-wise you could face.


Note that there are at least three areas of law in play here: copyright, which governs the copying of creative works and the financial exploitation of such copying; the related moral rights, which govern the author's right to determine who gets to do what with their copyrighted content; and trademark, which governs the use of distinctive / recognizable product features to identify brands, authors, producers, etc.

Copyright is relevant, because while ideas aren't copyrightable, specific expressions of ideas are, and if your fictional aircraft (or spacecraft) is based on something copyrighted, it may or may not be considered a "derived work" under copyright law. And if it is, then the original author's copyright extends to your work as well - if you then distribute your work, the original author is entitled to financial compensation. Even if you build and distribute it for free. There is a huge gray area, but at the very least, if you use movie footage, "official" pictures, models from sanctioned games, etc., for your model (or for textures), then you're probably in trouble. Even manually traced-over spaceship contours from a movie still might be considered a "derived work".

Moral right applies under the same conditions as copyright, but it is not about financial compensation, but about the right to forbid people to use or distribute the work. If your work is a derived work, then the original author can forbid you to distribute it.

Trademark is entirely different; it isn't about copying, it is about representing a product as belonging to a certain brand, or as being officially sanctioned by the owner of that brand. For example, if you build a flight simulator and call it "Boeing Flightsim", then Boeing will probably come after you, because the name of the sim suggests that the flightsim itself was authorized by Boeing, or even made by Boeing. OTOH, if you make a flightsim that includes simulated Boeing aircraft, and it is made perfectly clear that the sim and the model are not endorsed by or otherwise affiliated with the Boeing corporation, then you are not using the Boeing name as a trademark, and probably can't be sued over trademark violations.

Finally, it's also super important *who* owns the copyright. Not all companies are equally zealous about their intellectual assets. In general, trademarks that are still actively used tend to be defended more fiercely (also because failing to defend a trademark can lead to a loss of trademark rights) than those no longer used. And, also in general, anything owned by Disney will result in a legal deathmatch, and even if you're in the right, you will lose, because Disney can afford way more lawyers than you can. Which means that Star Wars is likely to prove problematic.

Oh, and, obvious disclaimer being obvious: I am not a lawyer, please do not mistake this for legal advice. It's my layman's understanding (as a working programmer and musicians) of the practicalities of copyright and trademark law.
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Re: Making sci-fi aircrafts (star wars, star trek, blade run

Postby tdammers » Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:31 pm

Oh, and on the subject of FDMs: YaSim is indeed out, it can put aircraft in space, but isn't equipped to provide anything anywhere near realistic. I tried. It's so ridiculously wrong when it comes to orbital trajectories, it's not even funny anymore. Its engine model is also woefully unprepared to handle the kind of hyper-efficient engines that you would need for spacecraft capable of making multiple single-stage-to-orbit launches, rocket-assisted re-entries and vertical touchdowns, and extended interstellar travel, on a single tank of fuel. I've been putting some work into a "Firefly" from the namesake TV series, but in order to actually make it work, I would have to switch from Yasim to JSBSim, and that is quite a daunting task.
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Re: Making sci-fi aircrafts (star wars, star trek, blade run

Postby wkitty42 » Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:59 pm

tdammers wrote in Sun Jan 05, 2020 9:31 pm:I've been putting some work into a "Firefly" from the namesake TV series, but in order to actually make it work, I would have to switch from Yasim to JSBSim, and that is quite a daunting task.

you could use the UFO FDM but it needs some love and attention for orbital mechanics... i just flew a ""launch"" from the cape on a 51.6 degree ISS orbit and instead of it looping back down toward the equator once it got up to 51.6 latitude, it just kept going on the 51.6 heading...

some time back i tried to see if i could find and extract the UFO FDM but not knowing much about the internals, i was only really able to just copy the UFO to another directory and replace the 3D model used... i've thought many times to have a ""regular"" UFO craft without all the model placement code that exists in our current UFO... that's too deep a dive for me at this point in time... i did get a successful X-Wing out of my attempts but it worked just like the UFO and i wasn't able to go too much further with it... it was just something to do at the time, too...
"You get more air close to the ground," said Angalo. "I read that in a book. You get lots of air low down, and not much when you go up."
"Why not?" said Gurder.
"Dunno. It's frightened of heights, I guess."
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Re: Making sci-fi aircrafts (star wars, star trek, blade run

Postby Curtis » Sun Jan 05, 2020 11:51 pm

Thanks for your answers.

D-ECHO wrote in Sun Jan 05, 2020 8:42 am:Totally besides that, you might need to be careful what models you are actually allowed to use/publish/etc. as film studios are normally holding the right on those creations. The license notes on this site http://www.seahorsecorral.org/flightgear_aircraft.html might give you an idea of what problems license-wise you could face.


Yes it can be a problem, especially if Disney/Lucas Studios believe that these fan creations for flightgear could compete with official video games based on star wars ships.

As a workaround we can focus on sci-fi aircrafts not based on movies, where license is opensource, and someone has made a tutorial, in order to build a scifi aircraft from scratch :
https://www.blendswap.com/blend/21418

Other alternative : try to find a kind of "abandonware" scifi aircraft, where license is not open source, but the company has decided to not sue fans who try to build copy of the aircraft,
for example this beautiful spaceship of the "V" tv series of the 80's (Warner Bros was the distributor) :

Image
Image

schematics come from this artist :
http://www.modelermagic.com/?p=34157
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Re: Making sci-fi aircrafts (star wars, star trek, blade run

Postby Alant » Mon Jan 06, 2020 12:01 am

Flightgear is designed for flying in the earth´s atmosphere. It has been stretched to cover vehicles orbiting the earth. There is no extension that allows it to fly to and operate in other planetary or stellar systems.
That said, there is still a lot of fun to be had with this kind of project.
Best of luck.
Alan
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Re: Making sci-fi aircrafts (star wars, star trek, blade run

Postby Thorsten » Mon Jan 06, 2020 7:27 am

@tdammers: Yeah, I pretty much agree with your assessment of copyright and licensing issues.


you could use the UFO FDM but it needs some love and attention for orbital mechanics... i


Well, the ufo needs orbital mechanics. I don't think it knows anything about gravity, Coriolis forces or such like at all, it moves purely in earth-relative coordinates.

It depends on what you ultimately want to do, but if you want to fly your craft to a rendezvous with a target in orbit, you need to have the same physics for both of them. If your velocities come out even 0.5 m/s different, you can't even hope to dock.

It would be easy to do a whole SciFi zoo in ufo-world - a space station in ufo world would not be orbiting but would always be at a constant altitude above the same patch of Earth - and that the ufo could match easily.

In JSBSim it's a completely different problem - since the spacecraft flies in J3 gravity, any rendezvous target must also do that, which means you need a numerical solver, you need to think about intercept burns and targeting - we know how all of that works, but it's a handful. I don't remember Luke Skywalker ever deal with it - but maybe R2D2 always did the orbital mechanics for him...
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Re: Making sci-fi aircrafts (star wars, star trek, blade run

Postby D-ECHO » Mon Jan 06, 2020 8:07 am

Curtis wrote in Sun Jan 05, 2020 11:51 pm:As a workaround we can focus on sci-fi aircrafts not based on movies, where license is opensource, and someone has made a tutorial, in order to build a scifi aircraft from scratch :
https://www.blendswap.com/blend/21418


If you're not too heart-focused on a specific series or so, I think this would be the best way to go leading to cool-looking science-fiction aircraft without going through the hassle that these laws can sometimes be.

Also @tdammers thank you very much for the further explanation
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Re: Making sci-fi aircrafts (star wars, star trek, blade run

Postby Hooray » Mon Jan 06, 2020 5:10 pm

another option for the dynamics might be property rules, even though I believe these are framerate-coupled
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