Author Topic: Stellar enhancements  (Read 91686 times)

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Offline Admiral Nelson

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These missions all use Lightspeed's nebulae, except TSM-104 thru 106, which I will fix later.  This package also has M87s retail stars in them, which are used presently for the fantasy star systems in FS2 -- the nebula system and the unknown binary system.

On Lokis vs. Hercs, the flak put out by an Aeolus is nothing next to the flak one gets when changing _anything_ in the stock FS2 missions. :)  Improvements to the sound files would be much appreciated.

Revised Sirius Coronae:





The effect is a bit subtle with Sirius as it is a white star; perhaps Etamin would be a good test subject for the next batch?
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Offline Koth

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Well, I would be quite grateful if you gave the Iceni and the Hinton separate waypoints. The way it is now the Hinton is either blown up by asteroids, destroyed by Vasudans or if it survives all that it is rammed to death by the Iceni at the jumpnode.
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Offline Admiral Nelson

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Someone mentioned fixing that in an earlier thread; I'll dig it up for the final release.  Note in here is an alternate version of A Flaming Sword (sm2-10a); give it a try.  This mission is even more broken than Their Finest Hour.
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Offline M87

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The results of the first test turned out much better than I was expecting. :) Here are the colored corona textures for Vega and Etamin.

[attachment deleted by ninja]

 

Offline Admiral Nelson

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Re the Hinton/Iceni bumpercars; Version 2.3 of the Port included bugfixed FS2 missions.  Among other things, this was fixed.  I will include those missions in the next iteration.

Vega with new coronae:


And Etamin:


And stars needing coronae for FS2 (nebular and Unknown binary optional):
Vega
Deneb
Gamma Draconis
Nebula System (unknown)
Epsilon Pegasi
Capella
Polaris
Sirius
Unknown Binary System (Knossos)
« Last Edit: January 15, 2008, 05:45:38 pm by Admiral Nelson »
If a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, it is certain that his opinion is against fighting.

 

Offline M87

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Here's Deneb and Enif. Also, I have completed new textures for the retail stars.

[attachment deleted by ninja]

 
Yes, they are.  The first one is a set of improved graphics for FS2's default Red, Blue, Green, etc stars.   The second set are system specific and require table modification to enable in game, unlike the retail replacements (not actually new, they were originally posted somewhere in the middle of this thread), hence the inclusion of modified missions to take advantage of them.  Installing both of them won't hurt anything; you'll just see better versions of the retail stars whenever a mission isn't referencing the customized less unrealistic ones.  The second pack will definitely look better of course, but you'll have to modify any other mission/campaign you'd like to see them in (or wait until somebody else does it for you).

Thanks for the excellent info.  While I am almost always trying to get the most out of FS2, I don't think I'm going to be finding myself ambitious enough to be editing tables for specific missions and campaigns/mods (and downloading new mission files) -- which sort of makes me want to ask -- what are the chances the appropriate tables and missions can be made/altered in time for these system-specific stars to be included in the grand 3.6.10 official release?  If these are truly really cool upgrades, they belong IN the SCP release, along with the required mods to the various tables :)  (in essence:  will someone be idiot-proofing these things for the masses?)  :)
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Offline Admiral Nelson

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Deneb:



Enif:



These are really pretty idiot proof as it is.  M87 has two systems (but seven stars) left that need new coronae. We'll se what DaBrain has to say about the mediavps.

One issue with retail stars is that the size of the coronae do not vary with the size of the star.  Thus a tiny sun will have the same sized lens flare as a big one.  There isn't anything that can be done about this except code changes, or hand tuned tables for every system.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2008, 06:55:42 pm by Admiral Nelson »
If a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, it is certain that his opinion is against fighting.

 
These are really pretty idiot proof as it is.  M87 has two systems (but seven stars) left that need new coronae. We'll se what DaBrain has to say about the mediavps.

One issue with retail stars is that the size of the coronae do not vary with the size of the star.  Thus a tiny sun will have the same sized lens flare as a big one.  There isn't anything that can be done about this except code changes, or hand tuned tables for every system.

There's different levels of idiot-proof for everyone, but for most people, hand-tuned tables for every system =/= idiot proof.  I guess for me it's not truly idiot-proof until you install the game, load it up, and there it is -- someone has ensured that the tables are tuned when you boot it up.  I mean, these look great -- the coronae extend at differing lengths, the stars are different sizes, brightnesses, lenz flares, colors -- by all reasoning, these things should be in the next release.
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Offline Admiral Nelson

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This is a problem with how stars are implemented -- luminosity and the lens flare characteristics are both set in tables.  This is very annoying, IMO, of course,  as one needs separate table entries for the same star close up and far away.  The "average user", however, will just download campaigns in which this is already done for them, and never even have to worry about it. 
If a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, it is certain that his opinion is against fighting.

 
Really, I noticed you switched the nebula's used in Surrender Belasarius! the ones previously were green not blue.  was that to match the new color of the star?

 

Offline Admiral Nelson

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That was just an earlier version of Deneb.
If a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, it is certain that his opinion is against fighting.

 
This is a problem with how stars are implemented -- luminosity and the lens flare characteristics are both set in tables.  This is very annoying, IMO, of course,  as one needs separate table entries for the same star close up and far away.  The "average user", however, will just download campaigns in which this is already done for them, and never even have to worry about it. 

Which sort of goes exactly to what I was saying -- these stars look great -- it would be great if the dev team could do whatever it takes to get them into the next release -- if it can be included in a user-created campaign, surely the appropriate steps can be taken for the retail campaign.
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Offline Admiral Nelson

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As long as he gets the other coronae done it shouldn't be a problem.  I am the same person who put the FS2 campaign with LS nebulae into the mediavps in the first place.  All of the FS2 missions have already been updated with his stars.
If a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, it is certain that his opinion is against fighting.

 
In that case...sweet!  ;)
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Offline M87

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Listen to this. I was going to show Admiral Nelson some images taken from Celestia. The images were supposed to be guidelines regarding how the FS2 scenery could appear, based on how Celestia handles differences in luminosity and radius. I manipulated the positioning of the stars in a way that would look comparable to the stars in Admiral Nelson's screenshots. As you can see, Admiral Nelson did a very good job setting up the scenery without needing any guidelines or images.


Sirius A and B.



Capella A and B.



Capella C and D. (They are the two red dwarfs centered in the image)



Polaris Aa and Ab.



Polaris B.

They don't call him The Master of Backgrounds for nothing. :) Anyway, here are the rest of the FS2 corona files.

[attachment deleted by ninja]

 

Offline Admiral Nelson

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Ha ha, thanks for the vote of confidence.  Here is a fresh campaign upload.  All FS2 missions now have M87's stars.  I have also included the modest bugfixes by Galemp/Goober that were included with older versions of the Port.  Kazan's version of Thier Finest Hour is also included as an extra.

All we need now is some testing, and probably to convert his stars to DDS, and these should be mediavp ready.

Download from Filefront

« Last Edit: January 16, 2008, 09:16:56 pm by Admiral Nelson »
If a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, it is certain that his opinion is against fighting.

 

Offline Zacam

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Good luck on the DDS conversion. I have had to do multiple save/re-saves to get things done just right.

To point out: While "Their Finest Hour" and "Flaming Sword" are renamed filename wise to remove them from the actual campaign pool, and while they are not the original "V" missions, they exist because they follow the spirit of our perceptions of the way it maybe might have been. Granted, these are the only two possible mission exceptions that I've ever seen, but they do exist.

"Flaming Sword" more than anything raises the point I want to make: the Astaroths are turned into Mara's in the "fixed" version, but turning two herc's into loki's is unacceptable? For all we know, the hercs were a simple fred mistake. Considering the deliberation of time that it takes for the audio files to be created, I find that a more plausible explination.

Can we atleast (or may I post) the alternative mission with that change for others to put to question if it unbalances things? Or at least a definitive statement (additional or otherwise) that states that it does categorically break something?
« Last Edit: January 16, 2008, 11:29:17 pm by Zacam »
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Offline M87

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Just stopping by to see how everything is going. For those who have tested the new stars, please express any opinions or critiques that you may have. I understand that the stars are not perfect, but I just need to know if they are acceptable for now.

I also have a large list of other stars that need to be completed, including the ones stated by Admiral Nelson:

Altair
Alpha Centauri
Beta Cygni
Regulus
Ross 128
Sol

If there are any extras that need to be created, just let me know.

 

Offline jr2

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Nice work!  =]

/wonders if some smaller versions of the lens flares would look good with large beam warmups and also large exlosions.