Starting your First Sim

Installing Space Teams → Starting your First Sim

Up to date for Platform 0.17.0

Written by Connor Jakubik

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1. Open SpaceCRAFT/SpaceCRAFT.exe
2. Log in to your account
3. Click Demos on the top right
4. Click on Solar System Explorer
5. Click Start Demo in the bottom right

After some loading time, you should see the Earth from above, exactly how it should look if you were in space right now (besides the cloud coverage). The entire solar system is explorable in this demo.

NOTE: This sim by default has raytracing off. You can experience it with full fidelity raytraced shadows by going Sim->Singleuser->Search SolarSystemExplorer->Click SC_Demos/SolarSystemExplorer.json.

Controls & Tips (UIP2D_Spectator pawn)

• Press Tab to cycle between view modes
• Click the Help button on the top bar to display controls for the spectator pawn (the entity you are inhabiting).
• Many of the UI elements have tooltips that explain more when hovered.
• The camera controls are visible by default in the top right.
  • Using the scrollbar or number input, set EV to about 15.3 for proper Earth daytime exposure.
• If you leave the local area of a planet / moon, your pawn motion will be unconstrained from that planet.
  • This means you can rotate any direction (including rolling). When you can rotate any direction, you still have a "rotation origin" that is used as your "straight ahead" direction, and pitching the camera near 90 degrees up or down from that will result in the
  • Your velocity is now tied to solar system barycenter instead of the planet; the planet may leave you behind, especially at high timescale.
• Time control is done with ,, ., and /.
  • These are used for what their shift-keys would do. The , has a < on it, so it slows timescale down. The . has a > on it, so it speeds timescale up.
  • / freezes and unfreezes the simulation (freeze sets timescale to 0.0x, and unfreeze sets it to its most recent non-zero value).
  • If timescale is 0.0x, pressing , will change timescale to 0.001x, and pressing . will change timescale to 1.0x.
  • If sim time matches real-life time within ~2 seconds of margin, Realtime will show in place of the timescale.
  • Pressing RAlt-, will force time to flow negative, and RAlt-. will force time to flow positive.

What to Do

Post screenshots in the Discussions section of this repository!

• Find your home town
• Look at one of our Earth sites with high fidelity data:
  • Grand Canyon
  • Mt Everest
  • Hawaii
• Look at the Earth city lights at nighttime
• Watch the sun set over the mountains
• Look away from bright objects and see the stars and milky way (low EV and 40-degree FOV help)
• Find the moon in the sky, go to it
• Look at one of our Moon sites with high fidelity data:
  • South Pole
  • Apollo 15 & 17 landing sites
• Go to the other planets
  • The outer planets will require lowering EV to see them; they're far from the sun!
• Mars points of interest:
  • Gale Crater (Curiosity)
  • Jezero Crater (Perseverance & Ingenuity)
  • Valles Marineris
  • Olympus Mons