[Admiral Nelson]

Deneb is in Cygnus.

It should be in the existing MediaVps.

[Mobius]

Deneb is Alpha Cygni...

And really? It's there? Which MV(I no longer have 3.6.10 MVPs and I can't DL them all for a single bitmap)?

[shiv]

I'd like one, if you wouldn't mind, for my mod. for Delta Trianguli, the Tiigran home system. Evenly spaced Yellow and Purple nebulae. You can download my yellow ones from FSM. Anyway,

http://www.solstation.com/stars2/del-tri2.htm

No big chunks of nebulae please, just scattered stuff, but a fair ammount of it.

That's no problem. Just give me some time to fnish it...

Sorry for delays but I always finish my job finally. Your background is coming along nicely, Hellstyker

What a system to pick after recent events.. Thank you shiv.

[Ziame]

My GOD you're awsome, guys. Those stars really ARE great, I hope that you have much fun doing them!

MAKE MORE ME WANTS MORE STARZ

/mehowls

Editted ;D

[shiv]

Please go ahead and upload what you have.  There isn't any real info about Laramis or any of the other imaginary systems.  I'd suggest finishing up the real ones (Regulus, Tegmen and Tau Ceti in particular) before taking these up.

I'll fix that bit you were complainign about. It should be done this weekend. And then I want to do totally new system, just tell me what to do and what colours shall I use.

[Admiral Nelson]

Thanks Shiv --  I'll consult my spreadsheet when I get home tomorrow and see what systems remain unfinished..

I really need to put out in a package all of the LS backgrounds for each system -- I have one for nearly every common system by now.

[Hellstryker]

Please go ahead and upload what you have.  There isn't any real info about Laramis or any of the other imaginary systems.  I'd suggest finishing up the real ones (Regulus, Tegmen and Tau Ceti in particular) before taking these up.

I'll fix that bit you were complainign about. It should be done this weekend. And then I want to do totally new system, just tell me what to do and what colours shall I use.

I always thought regulus should be orange or red (or both) but if there's a canon color scheme of it, by all means use that.

[Mobius]

IMO we should use stars that really look like their Real Life counterparts.

[Herra Tohtori]

IMO we should use stars that really look like their Real Life counterparts.

Heh, well... Sun's apparent diameter at 1 AU is half a degree. If the field of view is 45 degrees on 1280 pixels wide display, the sun ends up 14 pixels in size. Of course, the glare of the immense brightness widens the perceived size of the bright blob quite a bit, since there aren't really any 10^9:1 contrast ratio screens available... So the current stars actually work reasonably well in my opinion.

Conclusion - it's almost impossible to simulate sun's appearance accurately in current games, and I doubt it'll ever be possible... Better to settle for what looks good and be done with it, in this case at least.

[Mobius]

I know, I was refering to the color. If in RL a star is red its FS counterpart should be red as well.

Question - do you have a Sol bitmap?

[M87]

I've attached the overdue stars and lens flares. These stars should be suitable until I have the time to create a replacement set based on the new template that I've made a few months ago.

@Mobius
I'm pretty sure that the Sun is included in the experimental set of stars that I provided earlier. If it's not in the .rar file, then it will be on its way as soon as the replacement set is complete.

I've made some 3ds Max animations of eclipsing binaries for my stellar astronomy course. These could have some use in the future (maybe), although these specific systems are not in the FreeSpace Universe. However, I am not limited to any particular type of close binary system so long as specific physical data is known. Here are some tests that I've ran so far:

EDIT:
I'm performing some maintenance on the videos. I'll repost them in the Celestial Objects Thread to keep things on topic.






[attachment deleted by necromancer]

[Admiral Nelson]

Thanks Matt!

Those are interesting animations.  I suppose the period of any of them is still too great for anything to be visible in the short term, but it would be interesting to be able to see some very distinct systems such as those.

I will get my spreadsheet updated, and give shiv_pl another system shortly.

[shiv]

Hellstyker, tommorow you should get your background

[shiv]

Hellstyker, here's your background:

Code: [Select]

$Num stars: 2000
$Ambient light level: 65793

;;FSO 3.6.9;; $Bitmap List:
$Starbitmap: nebulB2-main
+Angles: 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
+ScaleX: 5.000000
+ScaleY: 5.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulB1-main
+Angles: 0.349066 0.000000 0.174533
+ScaleX: 5.000000
+ScaleY: 5.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulI1-main
+Angles: 0.000000 0.000000 0.523598
+ScaleX: 5.000000
+ScaleY: 5.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulB13-whisp
+Angles: 0.349066 0.000000 0.785398
+ScaleX: 5.000000
+ScaleY: 5.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulI3-whisp
+Angles: 5.759582 0.000000 0.698131
+ScaleX: 5.000000
+ScaleY: 5.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulB3-main
+Angles: 0.000000 0.000000 1.047197
+ScaleX: 6.000000
+ScaleY: 5.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulI7-whisp
+Angles: 0.523598 0.000000 0.872664
+ScaleX: 5.000000
+ScaleY: 5.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulI7-whisp
+Angles: 0.000000 0.000000 1.570795
+ScaleX: 3.000000
+ScaleY: 3.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulI8-whisp
+Angles: 0.000000 0.000000 1.919861
+ScaleX: 6.000000
+ScaleY: 5.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulB13-whisp
+Angles: 0.000000 0.000000 5.759582
+ScaleX: 5.000000
+ScaleY: 5.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulI6-whisp
+Angles: 5.759582 0.000000 0.000000
+ScaleX: 6.000000
+ScaleY: 5.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulB10-whisp
+Angles: 0.000000 0.000000 3.141590
+ScaleX: 5.000000
+ScaleY: 6.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulB14-whisp
+Angles: 0.523598 0.000000 3.490656
+ScaleX: 5.000000
+ScaleY: 6.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulI6-whisp
+Angles: 5.235983 0.000000 0.000000
+ScaleX: 5.000000
+ScaleY: 5.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulB5-whisp
+Angles: 4.974185 0.000000 0.000000
+ScaleX: 6.000000
+ScaleY: 5.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulB6-whisp
+Angles: 4.712385 0.000000 6.108647
+ScaleX: 5.000000
+ScaleY: 5.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulI8-whisp
+Angles: 0.000000 0.000000 5.235983
+ScaleX: 5.000000
+ScaleY: 5.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
$Starbitmap: nebulI7-whisp
+Angles: 0.000000 0.000000 4.712385
+ScaleX: 5.000000
+ScaleY: 5.000000
+DivX: 5
+DivY: 5
Star not included, place it yourself in FRED.

[Mobius]

Why don't you reduce the number of stars?

[Droid803]

Because, the retail stars give nice streaks.
I like them.

[Mobius]

You like the weird effects they generate when the player maneuvers his spacecraft?

[Droid803]

Yes I do.
I don't like how the starfield stars appear so...dead, for a lack of a better term.

[Herra Tohtori]

Yes I do.
I don't like how the starfield stars appear so...dead, for a lack of a better term.

That's what they would look like in the vacuum. If we had cockpits, and shaders for cockpit glass effect, and proper motion blur, it wouldn't look dead.

The retail stars become a problem if there are any objects in the skybox aside from nebulas, since the stars are rendered on top of skybox - this can cause quite an ugly effect with skyboxes with, say, planet on them (you see stars layered on top of the planet...). Also, the retail stars are all same intensity unlike skybox stars.

If anything, the retail stars always looked artificial and dead to me. And, to insert a shameless plug, the 3.6.10 starfield will be better than the previous ones.

[Droid803]

Well, yeah, I have to disable them for planet skyboxes, obviously, but when there isn't one, I like them.
Until there's proper cockpit glass effect and proper motion blur, I'll stick with liking the retail stars

I usually use a combination of starfield.pof and retail stars...thus having different intensity AND the streaks