Building structures

A Block is an object that can be used to create structures on bases. It is a cube or rectangular prism consisting of three dimensions, length, width, and height, and it can use any of the textures that are listed in the base.cfg file (Orbiter\Config\base.cfg), although some may not be appropriate for a block.

The description of a block is written into the config file of a base (Orbiter\Config\<Planet>\Base\<BaseConfig.cfg>).

Textures

Textures used for building a block are found in the directory Orbiter\Textures and are listed in the file Orbiter\Config\Base.cfg. Note that there are a number of textures in the \Textures directory that are not listed in the Base.cfg file that could be used, so, if you like type in the filename without the extension into the Base.cfg file so you can use them in building structures, such as door01, but, not, let's say, Exhaust.

So, let's build a block building. Launch any scenario where any ship is located at Habana base. If there is a ship at Pad 1 select it as your ship, if not, move one to Pad 1 with the Scenario Editor and orient it to 270° (west).

Open the Habana.cfg file (Orbiter\Config\Earth\Base) in your favorite text editor such as Notepad or Notepad+. Place your cursor at the end of the line BEGIN_OBJECTLIST and press Enter. That moves the first TANK object down one line. Here enter the following:

BLOCK
POS 60 0 -100
SCALE 1 1 1
ROT 330
TEX1 0 0 0
TEX2 0 0 0
TEX3 0 0 0
END

Save the file, you can keep the file open as we will be editing this block. Exit the scenario, then re-launch it. Now, you will see a small cube sitting on the ground about 100 meters in front of you. In the scenario editor, change the time to about 14:00 hours, that puts the Sun behind you to the left so you can see what effect shadows have.

Now note the block is white on the side facing you slightly to the left and gray on the right facing side, the right side is in shadow, Orbiter shades it gray to show it's in shadow, the gray shade changes depending on time of day.

The block should look something like this:

Image of a BLOCK 0 0 0

This block is a cube 1 meter cubed. Now, let's edit the block in Habana.cfg as follows:

BLOCK
POS 60 0 -100
SCALE 1 1 1
ROT 330
TEX1 Fcd01 1 1
TEX2 Fce03 1 1
TEX3 Roof01 1 1
END

Again, save the scenario, exit to the Launchpad and re-launch.