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Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: FreeTerran on January 10, 2004, 11:57:01 am

Title: better planets
Post by: FreeTerran on January 10, 2004, 11:57:01 am
did someone remember at the planets from freelancer ?,... i work on it to support it in freespace 2

the quality is atm very worse but i work on it ;)
Title: better planets
Post by: Lightspeed on January 10, 2004, 12:47:17 pm
planet models with atmospherical effects?

Do you still need them in ships.tbl or are they defined otherwise?

Can't say how much i'd love this ;7
Title: better planets
Post by: Nico on January 10, 2004, 12:55:52 pm
Well, since you're in the SCP team, you should know better than us if bakground pofs have been implemented or not ( and afaik, they're not ).
Title: better planets
Post by: Lightspeed on January 10, 2004, 01:01:32 pm
Since someone's being slow and I still have no internal access, the means of verifying it are quite limited, you know :p

Also, who says he handles it as background POFs?
He could just have a dynamic sphere stretched to values you set in the mission file, applying the texture there (it's possible) and then add the halo effect... It'd be like a model you place in your mission, then.
Title: better planets
Post by: Nico on January 10, 2004, 01:17:00 pm
Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I meant that if you have to drop it in fred, you are obliged to have a pof entry in the ship tbl.
Title: better planets
Post by: FreeTerran on January 10, 2004, 01:39:01 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Lightspeed
Do you still need them in ships.tbl or are they defined otherwise?

well atm you need only the texture the code calculate an sphere

hmm maybe will scp internal forum access usefull for me *g*
Title: better planets
Post by: Nico on January 10, 2004, 01:45:06 pm
My bad, I'm 100% wrong :D
Title: better planets
Post by: FreeTerran on January 10, 2004, 02:21:57 pm
i forgot.... the coulds turn around the planet :D
Title: better planets
Post by: Nico on January 10, 2004, 02:33:36 pm
Well, I hope you can set that, coz you realize if you can see the clouds moving, they're probably traveling at mach 10 :p That's some serious winds ;)
Title: better planets
Post by: Lightspeed on January 10, 2004, 02:34:21 pm
try getting a decent halo effect first. :)
Title: better planets
Post by: FreeTerran on January 10, 2004, 02:36:52 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Lightspeed
try getting a decent halo effect first. :)

well the clouds turns allright :D

btw what halo effect ?

@nico: nah they turn realy slow ;)
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on January 10, 2004, 04:41:55 pm
Is there a tutorial for POF planet making? I'm going nuts getting my planet models to display. I think its a size issue. I need to know more details on how to make background models. Any insight would be GREATLY appreciated.
Title: better planets
Post by: Nico on January 10, 2004, 04:43:46 pm
no size issue, that's for sure, but do you have the right SCP build? coz if you have one with the low render range, well, no planet for ya :p
Title: better planets
Post by: Lightspeed on January 10, 2004, 04:51:59 pm
Quote
Originally posted by FreeTerran

well the clouds turns allright :D

btw what halo effect ?

@nico: nah they turn realy slow ;)


atmosphere. That Glow around a planet, which points towards the sun.

something like in this picture here:

(http://www.pcplayersclub.net/events/gc/pics/big/freel05_b.jpg)
Title: better planets
Post by: FreeTerran on January 10, 2004, 05:05:58 pm
well if we could get some hi res texture und i change the code that the sphere is in high poly
Title: better planets
Post by: Lightspeed on January 10, 2004, 05:08:11 pm
Then there still isnt any atmosphere, i'm afraid.

-edit: and whee, someone fixed my access :)
Title: better planets
Post by: FreeTerran on January 10, 2004, 05:10:43 pm
have i say that i make not an atmosphere ? :D

and scp internal access would be realy usefull ;)
Title: better planets
Post by: Lightspeed on January 10, 2004, 05:42:02 pm
Quote
Originally posted by FreeTerran
have i say that i make not an atmosphere ? :D
 


no but I said you should start working on this *first* :)
Title: better planets
Post by: Setekh on January 10, 2004, 06:31:49 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Lightspeed
Then there still isnt any atmosphere, i'm afraid.

-edit: and whee, someone fixed my access :)


I am so glad we're on vB now... you wouldn't believe how tedious that simple operation would have been for me if we were still running UBB. Oh, you're welcome. :)
Title: better planets
Post by: Lightspeed on January 10, 2004, 06:54:48 pm
I hate the way vB inserts vB code into your messages. It's impossible to enter formatting after your text is written since it simply refuses to put anything elsewhere than at the end of your post. Especially crappy if you're inserting URLS or the like (gotta type everything yourself.)

So, it might be more practical on the admin side, but for users it's worse than good old UBB. :)
Title: better planets
Post by: Setekh on January 10, 2004, 07:20:30 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Lightspeed
I hate the way vB inserts vB code into your messages. It's impossible to enter formatting after your text is written since it simply refuses to put anything elsewhere than at the end of your post. Especially crappy if you're inserting URLS or the like (gotta type everything yourself.)


:confused: I add in 100% of my vB code manually, and I did that for UBB too. What special tags do you need that you can't memorise?
Title: better planets
Post by: Lightspeed on January 10, 2004, 07:44:20 pm
[ URL=http://is highly annoying to insert manually]this something like this or something like this[/URL ]

[ COLOR=skyblue]or if you
want to make[/COLOR]
[ COLOR=orange]coloured
lists like i want to
[ /COLOR] [ COLOR=green]then its a pain to write all[ /COLOR]
[ COLOR=darkred]the names of the colours, etc[ /COLOR]

then theres the [ quote] quoting [ /quote] since you normally get all mixed up with several quotes in your post. and, of course the quick smilie box.
Title: better planets
Post by: StratComm on January 10, 2004, 08:09:07 pm
Then enter it and cut/paste it from the end.  It's not that hard.  Honestly, how do you think we use the quick reply box? :rolleyes:

In reality, planet models in a mission simply take effort out of correctly making and placing good background images.  I can't say that they are ever needed, unless you intend to destroy them in-mission.  And even then, the way the planet would explode would not be, well, pretty.
Title: better planets
Post by: Nico on January 10, 2004, 08:16:45 pm
I don't cut/paste, I highlight, drag and drop :p
what, you don't care?
Title: better planets
Post by: StratComm on January 10, 2004, 08:18:08 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Nico
I don't cut/paste, I highlight, drag and drop :p
what, you don't care?


Since that's a Microsoft-invented shortcut for cut/paste, I can't see any difference.  But it depends mainly on how close my hand is to the mouse.
Title: better planets
Post by: FreeTerran on January 11, 2004, 03:28:51 am
waaah don't use my thread for vb workshops :D

back to topic...
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on January 11, 2004, 04:19:36 am
Has anyone tried making the planetary atmosphere glow using a glow point with an uber radious? Since glow points use greyscale transparency, you could just make a ring texture with fade in and fade out to black. Just a thought. I still need help with making a POF model planet to be visible but not approachable. (background model)
Title: better planets
Post by: Black Wolf on January 11, 2004, 04:56:32 am
Given the scale a planetary model would have to be at, I can pretty muich guarantee it's not going to be approachable - FS2 blows you up at 80 kms after all.
Title: better planets
Post by: Lightspeed on January 11, 2004, 06:43:53 am
firstly it blows you up at about 200 km, and planet models CAN be pretty useful. Imagine launching from a station in the planet's orbit... or even the planet itself ;7 (although you'd start some kilometres off the surface, certainly)

Real planets are really useful, as long as you're still able to use the 2D backdrop ones.

That glow point idea... well, i dunno if it will work, but i think you'd have to have a 4096x4096 texture to have it look good, and that would slow down most people again :rolleyes:

Maybe you could add a Planetary fog that creates an atmosphere effect when you near the planet too close.

I'm thinking of something pretty simple, like blending a screen sized ANI over the display and adding the atmosphere hue to it. But it'd be sooo cool ;)
Title: better planets
Post by: FreeTerran on January 18, 2004, 05:14:00 am
well a first showable version are done atm its not included in the freespace 2 source code... the quality is atm not that great


plz tell me what you think

>> Download << (http://pn.bundderaltenreiche.de/dl/planet.zip)

(http://pn.bundderaltenreiche.de/dl/planet.jpg)
Title: better planets
Post by: Lightspeed on January 18, 2004, 06:04:54 am
Very good. Next steps:

Title: better planets
Post by: TrashMan on February 03, 2004, 03:30:44 pm
Actually, the distance of the clouds is more-or less o.k.


and it does give the planet the atmosphere look...
Great work FT!:yes:
Title: better planets
Post by: StratComm on February 03, 2004, 03:47:19 pm
Yeah lets not fall into the pit of planets rotating fast enough to notice it.  If it's a jupiter that rotates every ~10 hours, then yeah, you might be able to notice it on a moment-by-moment basis.  But for a 5 or even a 15 minute mission, you won't see a significant change in a planet's appearance due to its rotation, especially when it takes as long as it does for Earth.
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on February 03, 2004, 11:01:23 pm
I wouldn't call it a pit StratComm. From a certain distance, like today's footage from the International space station, the earth seems like its rotating but its the orbit of the station. Ships and stations don't just sit at an absolute position (actually nothing really does within this universe). I think its safe to have a rotation if the planet is taking up half the background. Thats my rationaliztion for putting a rotation on my earth.
Title: better planets
Post by: redmenace on February 03, 2004, 11:31:26 pm
Maybe very high atmosphere missions.
Title: better planets
Post by: Bobboau on February 03, 2004, 11:39:21 pm
if you are rotateing around the planet, then exerything else sould be rotating with it too, especaly the sun(s)
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on February 04, 2004, 12:15:19 am
I hate the sun. Oh well. In my opinion, rotating planet models look better than a stationary one as long as the rotation is very subtle. I recall a nifty episode of Voyager when they encountered a planet that was temporally out of sync with the universe. Time was rediculously accelerated around the planet, so it looked like a planet with silly rotaional blur.
Title: better planets
Post by: FreeTerran on February 04, 2004, 02:37:30 am
well the rotating thingy is fixed but i can't implent it in the fs_open source cause i ever got the freaking compile error "error spawning rc.exe"
Title: better planets
Post by: Setekh on February 04, 2004, 07:53:01 am
That's looking fantastic right now. How are you planning on getting her in-game? :)
Title: better planets
Post by: FreeTerran on February 04, 2004, 08:28:03 am
thats the point :doubt: i donno how to implend it in the source but i work on it so keep cool ;)
Title: better planets
Post by: Bobboau on February 04, 2004, 11:24:41 am
I 'spose you could make a skybox with all the nesacary rotations
Title: better planets
Post by: FreeTerran on February 04, 2004, 12:14:26 pm
well i try it if i got the compile working untill the "error spawning rc.exe" error isn't fixed i can't do anything

darn....
Title: better planets
Post by: StratComm on February 04, 2004, 02:37:02 pm
Yeah Omni, it's not just the sun.  The entire lighting would have to change dynamicly, as though you were in an environment with a 30 minute day or something.  And from the perspective of Freespace, well, you're not in orbit very long.

I just think about games which do have rotation on their planets.  The Armada games do, and it looks stupid (in fact, one Earth model, not sure if it's the normal or Borg variant, rotates backwards).  Hegemonia has them too, but no one is going to call space in that game realistic-looking.  Those are the only ones that come immediately to mind.  If the planet in the background of the Halo title screen does, well it's a gas giant and that can be excused.  But rocky planets should NEVER have visable rotation from a location where the sun is fixed in the sky, and that is the only way to look at it.
Title: better planets
Post by: phreak on February 04, 2004, 02:39:14 pm
i figuring of doing some sort of tech demo with atmoshpheric entry and exit.  i've been swamped with homework so i doubt it gets started (or finished)
Title: better planets
Post by: RandomTiger on February 04, 2004, 02:43:25 pm
Since you are talking about planets..

Who can get alpha transparrency working with planets and who cant? Any who cant please try this TGA planet from the first non training mission and see if it works:

http://mysite.freeserve.com/thomaswhittaker/c_code/freespace/planetf.rar
Title: better planets
Post by: TopAce on February 04, 2004, 04:48:49 pm
What's Blikweite?
The planet atmosphere is similiar than the athmosphere in Imperium Galactica 2.
By the way, who could use an Earth planet in FS2? TWVP?
Title: better planets
Post by: Solatar on February 04, 2004, 05:00:36 pm
Well, TVWP will need a Mars, Earth, and Luna one for sure if we use them, but I think we've got some kickass backgrounds from Lightspeed.
Title: better planets
Post by: TrashMan on February 04, 2004, 05:29:52 pm
Blikweite = (blik - view, weite - distance) = view distance
Title: better planets
Post by: FreeTerran on February 05, 2004, 06:56:24 am
hehe perfect translation trashman
Title: better planets
Post by: Lightspeed on February 05, 2004, 07:57:41 am
it's "der Blick" though. CK.

:)
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on February 05, 2004, 09:36:36 am
God bless NASA. Thanks to them, I birthed my UBER Earth!!!

(http://www.penguinbomb.com/omniscaper/WIPS/E1.jpg)

(http://www.penguinbomb.com/omniscaper/WIPS/E2.jpg)

(http://www.penguinbomb.com/omniscaper/WIPS/E3.jpg)


It has eight 2048x2048 textures for the earth and clouds have another eight textures of same size. I'm not sure if this is an efficient way of handling textures, but using a single spherical mapped texture didn't produce the level of detail that tickled my fancy.

My only problems with this version are the texture seams and shading issues with specular. What are the best settings for auto-facet? I toyed with a number of settings which all still produce a faceting effect with the speculars. I really wanna keep the water shine.

The model is 45,000 meters in diameter as to keep it within clipping distance when far away and is composed of 2 5k poly spheres (60 sides in truespace)

Any help or suggestions for better auto-facet settings,  texture handling and seam reduction would be appreciated.
Title: better planets
Post by: J3Vr6 on February 05, 2004, 09:42:45 am
Is that in Freespace???  Let's see your star base next to it...
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on February 05, 2004, 09:58:49 am
You calling me a fraud!?

(http://www.penguinbomb.com/omniscaper/WIPS/E4.jpg)
Title: better planets
Post by: Bobboau on February 05, 2004, 10:00:17 am
for that model your going to want to go full smooth, and wow that's a lot of texture space, yeah, that's gona be about a gig of video ram (just did some calculation, that number isn't mear speculation)
actualy 2 gigs for the clouds too
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on February 05, 2004, 10:03:02 am
Really!? It was actually playable on this crappy Geforce4MX P4 2.56ghz of my uncle. Then again I did us DDS for all textures. Using JPG was a nightmare.
Title: better planets
Post by: Lightspeed on February 05, 2004, 10:03:07 am
I dont like it so far. There's flicker lines in the model, and you can easily spot the texture edges.

And the oceans look really fake :)
Title: better planets
Post by: Bobboau on February 05, 2004, 10:05:19 am
oh, if your useing DDS then it'll be less, a lot less, probly take up the same amount of space in your card as the file does, what's there total size
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on February 05, 2004, 10:06:05 am
Thats why I post up screen shots here, need extra input to really make it the Earth. The specular map I used was a simple silhuette of the continents and a grey ocean. I didn't use speculars on the last model. Perhaps I should give the grey some more OOMPH.

All the DDS textures = 85mb, I'm still gonna add to the speculars, so it will get higher.
Title: better planets
Post by: J3Vr6 on February 05, 2004, 10:08:02 am
I think it looks sweet., then again I can't see it in game.  Do the clouds move or no?
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on February 05, 2004, 10:10:58 am
There is a slight rotation on the clouds. I put a rotation of 500 on the POF. Its very slow, but just enough to notice motion.

I had an unconventional idea in regards to "faking" a speed boost away from the planet. It takes quite awhile just to circle the darn thing nevermind leave orbit. I was thinking about using LODS that are quite smaller than the actual model. It will obviously not be a smooth transition as you get further away, but it was just a thought.
Title: better planets
Post by: IncendiaryLemon on February 05, 2004, 02:20:37 pm
How difficult would it be to create an original work of that fidelty, without NASA for textures?
Title: better planets
Post by: Bobboau on February 05, 2004, 06:45:38 pm
imposable
Title: better planets
Post by: Fineus on February 05, 2004, 07:04:08 pm
Not necessarily, just very long winded. It could be done though...
Title: better planets
Post by: Bobboau on February 05, 2004, 07:09:32 pm
ok, prove it
:)
Title: better planets
Post by: Stryke 9 on February 05, 2004, 07:23:16 pm
Yeah, Thunder, take hours out of your life to prove some niggling point to a guy you barely know on an internet forum!


You think some peer pressure from other largely anonymous strangers will help?

DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! [others join in]






Anyway. That resolution really isn't necessary for the subject, and it'd be a system killer to run. It doesn't improve anything to have it so... uber, and as was mentioned the tiled textures seem to give it rather ugly problems around the edges. A single texture of 2048xsomething would be plenty, I think, plus at the distances where you'd even be able to notice individual pixels people'd already be too busy going on about "WHAR IS TEH GRAVITIE" to notice the nice tex job on the planet.


It's a cool job, but really background stuff like planets is just there so people have a setting for the action- if people are going sightseeing in a shooter, you've probably done something wrong, and it's a pain in the processor to handle stuff like that- especially when people'll be wanting to spend that memory and ****e on things that actually have a real bearing on the game, like cruisers and bombers and Christ knows what shooting at you.
Title: better planets
Post by: Fineus on February 05, 2004, 07:23:49 pm
Hey, I said it was possible - I never said that I was the man for the job ;)

*glances at Lightspeed*
Title: better planets
Post by: Flipside on February 05, 2004, 07:48:15 pm
Omni, I think you'll find no matter how much smoothing, you will always be able to see the specular polygons to a certain degree because specular is calculated on a per-vertex basis (I think) the more polys you have in an area, the less noticeable the 'poly' effect. Once pixel shaders are implemented however..... ;)

Also, I am assuming you are surface baking on the textures? If so then I've found that lightwave doesn't account for smoothing whilst doing this, so it can actually make polygons more noticable.

Anyway, don't know if that's any help whatsoever, but that's my pennies worth :)
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on February 05, 2004, 08:01:28 pm
I guess I'll have to either reduce polygon count or remove shinies all together. I really don't want to give up water shinies, it looks so purdy.

No surface baking here Flipside. The photos where that good. I would think bumpmap baking may look better better when composited with diffuse textures. Lightwave sucks at baking spheres though.

In regards to original textures, whats wrong with using satellite composites from NASA when it comes to our home planet? There are lots of wonderfull sources for Earth photos, it would be ashame to not utiliz them. I would be willing to work on original textures for other planets.

I'm more of a painter (oil and acrylic)  than a photoshop guru, but I'll take up an original project via traditional media thanks to scanners and digital cameras. I can take care of 2 birds with one stone with this art project. It will take awhile though.

I just exploded earth a little while ago and it takes quite awhile for a 45000 meter model to finally disintegrate. I believe it took a good 3 minutes for it to finally disappear. Is there any way I can control the vectors of the debris? I'm working on an Earth defense mission and debris models are currently in the works. I was thinking of putting at least 10 debris models of molten earth.
Title: better planets
Post by: Bobboau on February 05, 2004, 08:03:48 pm
been watching enterprise I see
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on February 05, 2004, 08:07:49 pm
Enterprise!? You mean the Captain Cheese Beagle series? I feel insulted. I haven't watched that show for over 4 months. I gave up on it's premise.

I'm REALLY having trouble removing the seams of those textures without obvious overlapping. Unless some can give me pointers on Truespace texturing. Any UV mapping I do in 3dsmax is altered by Truespace when imported. For I'll just have to stick with a single texture of 2048.

Hey Bobbaou, when your decal engine is perfected, I forsee awesome planetary bombardment effects, as long as I can control the decal size instead of have it locked to the weapon size.
Title: better planets
Post by: Bobboau on February 05, 2004, 08:12:51 pm
I only say that becase it has the coolest sceen of earth getting blasted to bits ever, man that was cool/ and the thiird season is great, if you just sit back and accept the fact that it's about a time war, not the foundation of the federation.

truespace displays things wrong, all textures will be off by one pixel.
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on February 05, 2004, 08:17:26 pm
Would it help to resize my textures to overlap by one pixel? That woul require an overhaul in photoshop. Truespace's materials editor is a joke compared to 3dstudio's. Its a poain to juggle texture alignment of 8 textures which requires precision. SEAMS ARE KILLING ME.

The last Captain cheese beagle episode I saw was of some probe making a slice at the eastcoast. It was nifty, I admit, but this expanse twist thing seems all to Voyager esque. Scott Bakula doesn't cut it as a captain unless Starfleet wants whiny captains. That Vulcan minx is quite a looker though.
Title: better planets
Post by: Turnsky on February 05, 2004, 08:18:52 pm
jesus man, you're really pushing the fs2 engine to it's zenith...

kudos.. i don't really care if there are lines on the planet, it is after all a first test... it can be improved over time methinks..
Title: better planets
Post by: Bobboau on February 05, 2004, 08:22:40 pm
that's were it started getting good
Title: better planets
Post by: Ace on February 05, 2004, 09:47:18 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Bobboau
been watching enterprise I see


I was thinking the same thing.

If someone has a model of the NX-01 in FreeSpace, it'd be great to have a beauty shot of it and the Earth :)

Plus I'm thinking about Bob's decal code and a custom decal being used as a beam weapon re-enacts the east coast of the Americas getting zapped :)
Title: better planets
Post by: Bobboau on February 05, 2004, 09:59:53 pm
decals don't work for beams yet,
eh, technicaly they don't work at all :)

look for the eppisode "Twilight" all you need is the first five minutes of it :D
Title: better planets
Post by: Woolie Wool on February 05, 2004, 10:06:38 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Omniscaper
*snip*

It has eight 2048x2048 textures for the earth and clouds have another eight textures of same size. I'm not sure if this is an efficient way of handling textures, but using a single spherical mapped texture didn't produce the level of detail that tickled my fancy.

My only problems with this version are the texture seams and shading issues with specular. What are the best settings for auto-facet? I toyed with a number of settings which all still produce a faceting effect with the speculars. I really wanna keep the water shine.

The model is 45,000 meters in diameter as to keep it within clipping distance when far away and is composed of 2 5k poly spheres (60 sides in truespace)

Any help or suggestions for better auto-facet settings,  texture handling and seam reduction would be appreciated.


:eek::eek::eek::eek:

Now that clipping limits have been extended, blow it up to full size and release it! That just kicks so much ass!
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on February 05, 2004, 11:22:43 pm
Let there be night light. I decided to concede with a single 2048x2048 texture size. Until I fix the seam problem, I'll have to settle. Once I get my debris models finished, I'll release this single texture version.

(http://www.penguinbomb.com/omniscaper/WIPS/E1s.JPG)

(http://www.penguinbomb.com/omniscaper/WIPS/E2s.JPG)
Title: better planets
Post by: Turnsky on February 05, 2004, 11:28:21 pm
:eek2:
Title: better planets
Post by: Lt.Cannonfodder on February 05, 2004, 11:43:16 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Turnsky
:eek2:


I second that and add: :eek:
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on February 05, 2004, 11:59:49 pm
This is probably the funniest and oddest Earth detonation I'v e seen yet.

(http://www.penguinbomb.com/omniscaper/WIPS/Eboom.JPG)

(http://www.penguinbomb.com/omniscaper/WIPS/Eboom2.JPG)
Title: better planets
Post by: Ace on February 06, 2004, 12:19:37 am
I personally think the version made out of several 2048 textures looked better, despite having the seams.
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on February 06, 2004, 01:39:26 am
I always wished we had one of these.

(http://www.penguinbomb.com/omniscaper/WIPS/Ering.JPG)


(http://www.penguinbomb.com/omniscaper/WIPS/Ering3.JPG)

Still experimenting with transparencies. That station seem to have a different render priority from the ring. It ill not render through the rings if the earth is behind it. Anyway around this? The Hierarchy goes like this with Eath:

Earth
...Core
......Ring Group*               *(object grouped with light)
......Cloud Group*
......Cloud2 group*
......Land*
Title: better planets
Post by: Goober5000 on February 06, 2004, 04:23:42 am
Quote
Originally posted by Omniscaper
This is probably the funniest and oddest Earth detonation I'v e seen yet.
:lol: Mitosis!
Title: better planets
Post by: TrashMan on February 06, 2004, 05:41:27 am
Wow...great work guys..Alltough you might want to consider increasing the size of the cloud sphere a little. It gives a nice atmosphere efect when looking at the sides...
Title: better planets
Post by: Turnsky on February 06, 2004, 05:45:06 am
needs one thing, tho... an atmosphere glow..
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on February 06, 2004, 06:05:08 am
Sigh.... atmosphere glow. I've been researching that possibility for aawhile now without resolution. The best I can come up with is to fake a glow with a large disc shape behind the sphere, but that  would only work if you don't fly around the planet. Large glow points follow their own strange perspective rendering which looks funny when the planet and its glow are dancing around each other. For now, the best way to go is to really layer in those clouds.
Title: better planets
Post by: Carl on February 06, 2004, 06:09:42 am
Quote
Originally posted by Omniscaper
This is probably the funniest and oddest Earth detonation I'v e seen yet.


dude! you sploded the earth! now where are we gonna live?

and by that i mean: which one?
Title: better planets
Post by: Turnsky on February 06, 2004, 06:41:04 am
Quote
Originally posted by Omniscaper
Sigh.... atmosphere glow. I've been researching that possibility for aawhile now without resolution. The best I can come up with is to fake a glow with a large disc shape behind the sphere, but that  would only work if you don't fly around the planet. Large glow points follow their own strange perspective rendering which looks funny when the planet and its glow are dancing around each other. For now, the best way to go is to really layer in those clouds.


 hmm.. well, have you always seen a 2-d decal that shows you the same side no matter what direction you're facing?
Title: better planets
Post by: Woolie Wool on February 06, 2004, 11:57:50 am
Quote
Originally posted by Omniscaper
Let there be night light. I decided to concede with a single 2048x2048 texture size. Until I fix the seam problem, I'll have to settle. Once I get my debris models finished, I'll release this single texture version.

*snip*

You don't have to go all or nothing. Why not two 2048x2048 textures?

EDIT: Never mind...
Title: better planets
Post by: Woolie Wool on February 06, 2004, 11:59:45 am
Quote
Originally posted by Goober5000
:lol: Mitosis!


:lol:
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on February 06, 2004, 12:03:26 pm
Mitosis....wow I still remember my highschool biology class. LOL. its macroscopic cell division.

Has anyone come up with any ideas for an effective planetary glow?
Title: better planets
Post by: Taristin on February 06, 2004, 01:03:25 pm
...For the atmosphere glow, would a giant thruster glow in the center of the planet work? Make it just large enough to stick out around the edge?

Because the thruster glow is always facing you.

Only problem is, the night side will glow. Is that bad?
Title: better planets
Post by: Omniscaper on February 06, 2004, 01:13:33 pm
Its the same as a glowpoint. Any sprite based texture does not align with a sphere that large. While the game's FOV skews objects that reach the edge of the screen, the sprites do something else. Thats what I meant in the other post when i said they "danced" around each other.
Title: better planets
Post by: Goober5000 on February 06, 2004, 01:24:34 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Raa Tor'h
...For the atmosphere glow, would a giant thruster glow in the center of the planet work? Make it just large enough to stick out around the edge?

Because the thruster glow is always facing you.

Only problem is, the night side will glow. Is that bad?

So offset the glow just enough so that it isn't visible on the night side.  It'll be a bit thicker on the day side, but the atmosphere is thicker around the equator than at the poles anyway.
Title: better planets
Post by: Flipside on February 06, 2004, 01:25:47 pm
LOL@Omniscapers' Nvidia Earth Explosion...... So that's how they plan to build Earth 2 and find out what the bloody question is ;)
Title: better planets
Post by: Unknown Target on February 06, 2004, 01:57:42 pm
EDIT: Was already suggested  :)
Title: better planets
Post by: Lightspeed on February 06, 2004, 01:58:01 pm
@ flip: Thing is, they already found out, and the universe was replaced by something even harder to explain, making even less sense. Welcome to the real world™.
Title: better planets
Post by: Unknown Target on February 06, 2004, 02:00:06 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Omniscaper


(http://www.penguinbomb.com/omniscaper/WIPS/Eboom2.JPG)


What's that semi-transparant Earth thing aroung the left edge of the right-hand earth?
Title: better planets
Post by: TopAce on February 06, 2004, 03:18:57 pm
Damn! It looks weird. :nervous:
Is it a 256-color image? It looks so.
Title: better planets
Post by: J3Vr6 on February 06, 2004, 04:08:12 pm
When the thing starts to explode, shoudn't the clouds dissapear?  I mean, it's exploding... bye bye atmosphere.  Any way that's possible to remove when it starts to blow up or break up?

Plus, would be cool if you'd start seeing lava or something when it's breaking up....
Title: better planets
Post by: redsniper on February 06, 2004, 04:58:03 pm
I think you should just never destroy it in any real campaign, since those effects would be hard to do.
Title: better planets
Post by: Flipside on February 06, 2004, 05:07:15 pm
If you did the clouds as a rotating subsystem, they would probs dissappear at the point of explosion?
As for lava etc, I suppose you could use some nice lava textures on the rock for the material below the crust :)

Flipside :D
Title: better planets
Post by: FreeTerran on February 07, 2004, 03:52:41 am
well we need some ideas to make a glow around it...
Title: better planets
Post by: TrashMan on February 07, 2004, 01:05:50 pm
A better clouds texture..one with a little bluish/whiteish tone added to it..
Put it a bit greater distance then now and you should have that effect