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Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Noise on October 04, 2003, 10:21:57 am

Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: Noise on October 04, 2003, 10:21:57 am
Had an idea.  I was wondering if it was possible to make a "dark sun", no glare, nothing, just a black disk in space.  The idea is that I need something like this to simulate getting closer to a black hole by using the supernova SEXP.  Next question, can the "SUPERNOVA WARNING:? seconds" be changed to "EVENT HORIZON WARNING: ? seconds".
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: Ashrak on October 04, 2003, 10:27:10 am
Gravitons (unprooved) move very fast so as soon as a black hole forms...your dead.....
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: aldo_14 on October 04, 2003, 10:28:54 am
IIRC, the engine treats black as if it was trnasprent when it comes to suns & nebulas..... so you'd have to try a very dark grey...
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: Noise on October 04, 2003, 11:04:52 am
Ashrak - Well sub-space is unproven too, but for games sake we'll just let that one go.

Aldo - How about the "Event Horizon"?  I'm totally lost, but sure that it can be done.
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: Solatar on October 04, 2003, 11:35:27 am
Go into strings.tbl and search for references to the supernova warning. Just change the text to Event horizon or something. I've changed loads of stuff in that table, sorta nifty.:)

Of course this would make it so it always said event horizon, but if you don't have a supernova in the campaign, then it won't matter.
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: SadisticSid on October 04, 2003, 11:49:43 am
Quote
Originally posted by Ashrak
Gravitons (unprooved) move very fast so as soon as a black hole forms...your dead.....


Agreed, if you had a matter of seconds before coming into contact with the event horizon you wouldn't be able to escape the gravwell without enormous thrust and a very strong hull.
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: kasperl on October 04, 2003, 11:51:28 am
i wonder, is there a point around a black hole where you can safily be, but if you go like 2 clicks further in, you're dead?

also, could 2 black holes exist next to eachother?
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: Noise on October 04, 2003, 11:52:44 am
Well, for simplicity, we'll just call it the point of no return.
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: Starks on October 04, 2003, 12:02:06 pm
Quote
Originally posted by kasperl
i wonder, is there a point around a black hole where you can safily be, but if you go like 2 clicks further in, you're dead?

also, could 2 black holes exist next to eachother?


2 clicks???? Make that 2 lightyears.

(The blackhole should at least be the distance to Knossos 3.)
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: Sesquipedalian on October 04, 2003, 12:15:28 pm
How to make a black hole in FS2 (you need fs2_open for the $NoGlare part to work):

1) Make a black (RGB: 0,0,0) circle on a green (RGB: 0,255,0) background with no antialiasing in your paint program, and save it as blackhole.pcx (make sure it is 8-bit colour) in your effects folder.

2) Make another image, this one just all black.  Save as reduce_ambient.pcx in the effects folder.

3) Make an entry in the first part of stars.tbl like this:
Code: [Select]
$BitmapX: blackhole

4) Make an entry in the second part of the stars.tbl like this
Code: [Select]
$Sun: reduce_ambient
$Sunglow: reduce_ambient
$SunRGBI: -1.0 -1.0 -1.0 -1.0
$NoGlare:


5) In Fred, place blackhole.pcx as a background image (scaled to whatever size you want) and reduce_ambient as a sun.  Put them at the same co-ordinates.

Tada!

(Note:  You won't be able to see either of blackhole.pcx or reduce_ambient in Fred since they are both black.  In FS2, you'll get a big blank spot in the sky and lots of darkness.)
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: Sesquipedalian on October 04, 2003, 12:18:28 pm
Quote
Originally posted by kasperl
also, could 2 black holes exist next to eachother?
Not for long.
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: StratComm on October 04, 2003, 01:21:50 pm
Yes they could, they would be orbiting around each other.  It's only if one gets inside the other's event horizon that you would have the swollowing effect.
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: kasperl on October 04, 2003, 01:32:28 pm
so, if you have two of them orbiting eachother, you could have a very small point where you could survive, and out of that point, you would die?
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: karajorma on October 04, 2003, 02:05:49 pm
If the two black holes had the same mass then the point halfway between them would have no net gravitational pull. (You can get the same effect with black holes of differing masses but it's harder to work out where the safe point is).

If the black holes were close to each other I suppose you could have a point where moving 2km meant certain death but before you got to that point you would start being pulled towards the hole more and more quickly and there is no way to get FS2 to simulate that.
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: Raptor on October 04, 2003, 02:08:29 pm
Quote
Originally posted by LLivingLarge


2 clicks???? Make that 2 lightyears.

(The blackhole should at least be the distance to Knossos 3.)


Astrophyiscists (Professional star gazers) say that black holes can have event horizons ranging from a few milimeters across to several lightyears.

Depends if you've found a baby one, or the Super-Mega-Black Hole at the centre of the Milky Way ;)
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: StratComm on October 04, 2003, 02:09:44 pm
I suppose that you could theoretically.  It all depends on how close they actually are to each other.  In terms of Freespace backgrounds, there is either nothing to indicate that the two black holes are the same distance away, and since the things are many light-years in diameter (the event horizon of any sizable black hole anyway) then you arent' going to be close enough to one to really have issues with its gravitational effects.  Except that it would possibly generate a gravitational field large enough to support intra-system jumps several lightyears or more in distance.
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: Sesquipedalian on October 05, 2003, 03:28:37 am
Exactly.  Which is what we... nevermind.  :nervous:
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: Setekh on October 05, 2003, 03:44:08 am
Quote
Originally posted by kasperl
i wonder, is there a point around a black hole where you can safily be, but if you go like 2 clicks further in, you're dead?


Define 'safe'. It also depends on how much you are accelerating and in what direction. For example, at a certain distance, you can have zero acceleration but be in a safe orbit around it. Closer still, your orbit will slowly deteriorate and you will eventually fall into the black hole.

If you're talking on a scale of 2 clicks, you have two alternatives. Let's call the further point "F", and the closer point "C". If you are completely 'safe' at F, you will only be falling very slowly towards the event horizon when you are at C. If instead you are guaranteed dead at C (ie. even light does not possess the speed to escape the gravity well), then when you are at F you will still be pulled very strongly toward the black hole. 2 clicks is a very small amount of space for black holes... you may just have to fudge it scientifically. ;)
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: Goober5000 on October 05, 2003, 08:28:29 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
Exactly.  Which is what we... nevermind.  :nervous:


Ooh.  Possible plot spoiler? ;7
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: Flipside on October 08, 2003, 02:42:01 pm
Ahhh... we are all forgetting that Freespace 2 ships are totally immune to gravity in any form, so you could quite happily have a battle at the mouth of a black hole :p

As for having an image, yes, in reality it would look like a big black er..... hole :nervous:  But it would be much nicer to have a more artistic looking one swirling gracefully round :)

Flipside :D
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: Raptor on October 09, 2003, 10:59:43 am
Quote
Originally posted by Flipside
As for having an image, yes, in reality it would look like a big black er..... hole :nervous:  But it would be much nicer to have a more artistic looking one swirling gracefully round :)

Flipside :D


Though all thoses gases being accelerated up to the spped of light will get hot, and start glowing (according to phyiscs..)

So you would have a black disc in the centre surrounded by glowing trails of dust/pebbles/gas etc (tends to be show as a spining disc..)
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: Woolie Wool on October 09, 2003, 11:17:25 am
Quote
Originally posted by StratComm
Yes they could, they would be orbiting around each other.  It's only if one gets inside the other's event horizon that you would have the swollowing effect.


If two black holes came in contact, there would be an enormous gamma-ray burst that would cook everything within around 10 lightyears.
Title: Dark Sun for Black Hole?
Post by: Nico on October 09, 2003, 12:17:29 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Raptor


Though all thoses gases being accelerated up to the spped of light will get hot, and start glowing (according to phyiscs..)

So you would have a black disc in the centre surrounded by glowing trails of dust/pebbles/gas etc (tends to be show as a spining disc..)


actually, i've seen a simulation of how a black hole is supposed to look like, and let me tell you it's wacky. looks like a big black sphere, with the accretion dis around it ( the acretion disk isn't larger than the hole itself, take the full black hole, the hole itself will took half the size easily ). Then that's the weird part: because f all that strange physics stuff, you see the part of the acretion disk that should be hiden behind the hole under AND above the hole, meaning that you can see both under and over that part of the disk at the same time. To picture it, imagine a 0 with an horizontal bar in the middle ( a round 8, if you want ) . the space between the lines is the hole, and the outlines are the acretion disk. And in motion, it... well I can't discribe iwith words, but it looks odd, to say the least.