Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: jdjtcagle on May 30, 2004, 10:24:41 pm
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I made this in Photoshop and wondered what it would look like in-game so, how would you get this (http://swooh.com/peon/jdjtcagle/Star-Field.tga) 4mb TGA as a in-game skybox??
pic
(http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/350/Star-Fieldcopy.jpg)
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that is a good star map, but I don't think it would make for a good sky box, the reason being that sky box textures are suposed to be the big all encompassing nebulus stuff, with no stars atall, in fact inadvertently leaveing stars in makes the sky box look very bad usualy.
but it does make for a good star map if you should ever need one.
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Well thanks I'm glad you like my star map, but I guess I can learn to make nebula or something, since this wouldn't work. :p
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It still looks really cool
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Very:nod:. Did you do that withg Greg Martin's tut?
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I don't dislike stars in the textures of a skybox but those are too dense, too big and blurry and the image doesn't seem tileable. Not bad btw
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Originally posted by Bobboau
that is a good star map, but I don't think it would make for a good sky box, the reason being that sky box textures are suposed to be the big all encompassing nebulus stuff
?? so if I understand you right, a horsehead nebula running from one horizon to the oposite side is ok, but a sky filled with stars stretching the same distance isn't?
Well...I've still to find a skybox mission that works so I can not judge myself, but what you say does not seem logical unless serious stretching is done by the engine, causing stars to become stripes...
@jdjtcagle: I like it, there's however a couple of straight edges in there resulting from pasting in stuf...get rid of them and it looks great....and then I would not mind using it as backdrop...:D
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The problem is JarC is that if the stars are stretched beyond even one pixel in either direction, it becomes noticeable. The problem is curable with work, but it's work no-one needs to do.
The starfield is great, btw, though, as JarC says, there are one of two points where you've deleted a line of stars, and you can see the edge, but it's easily repairable :) I see the silent hand of Greg Martin moving across many starfields on here ;)
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I don't like it.
For the following reasons:
1) Theres odd cutting edges in it (ugly ugly ugly)
2) The stars dont look like stars
3) The stars are grouped in kind of ... "wobbles"? with black parts between them. This reminds me of the way X² star backgrounds are - which is a very bad thing. To put it more precise, I hate the way the blue looks like as if it's just been paintbrushed in. The mix of small & big stars also is pretty much odd.
4) In-game it would look totally unusable, as in addition to the reasons above, it would look rather ugly like any image with pre-done stars would. They just dont mix with FS2's normal star system. Leave it always to the engine to create the stars.
On another side note, it's not even tileable so I guess its unsuitable for any skybox model anyway.
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Originally posted by Flipside
The problem is JarC is that if the stars are stretched beyond even one pixel in either direction, it becomes noticeable. The problem is curable with work, but it's work no-one needs to do.
figured as much it had to with stretching, that be the only reason why it could be looking worse...as I said, haven't been able to get one working here...still, I even more dislike the idea of a nebula stretching from one horizon to the next if you're not flyin in one...
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Originally posted by Lightspeed
I don't like it.
For the following reasons:
1) Theres odd cutting edges in it (ugly ugly ugly)
2) The stars dont look like stars
3) The stars are grouped in kind of ... "wobbles"? with black parts between them. This reminds me of the way X² star backgrounds are - which is a very bad thing. To put it more precise, I hate the way the blue looks like as if it's just been paintbrushed in. The mix of small & big stars also is pretty much odd.
4) In-game it would look totally unusable, as in addition to the reasons above, it would look rather ugly like any image with pre-done stars would. They just dont mix with FS2's normal star system. Leave it always to the engine to create the stars.
On another side note, it's not even tileable so I guess its unsuitable for any skybox model anyway.
Sorry you don't like it lightspeed... I'll post a nebula in a minute, see if you like that.
BW: I made it with Greg martin's tutorial :nod:
I also think it looks really cool, but there will always be something wrong with my stuff now won't there lightspeed?? :p
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Here's a nebula I made... WIP, if I get around to finishing it that is :p
(http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/7256/Nebula-01.jpg)
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Sorry to say, but if there (IMHO) is something wrong I say it.
If you dont want to hear any honest feedback simply don't post your stuff :)
This is nothing personal, i'm not trying to offend you or anything - i'm just trying to point out what's bad/needs improvement with your work.
Look at that nebula for example. It looks like anything, but not like a nebula i'm afraid. :doubt:
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Agreed. It sort of looks like extremely red fire, not a huge cloud of gas.
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it looks like you had a red blob and a white blob, used smudge on full power, then dodged the midtones randomaly with a 9 pixel brush
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it looks like some red plants with a white blob on them, somehow.
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:lol:
Ahhh... Lightspeed, I'm just messing with ya :)
I really don't care, I will just know you will be the one to find it :D
Mostly because I know I have know future in this field, I'm messing around to try make something and KNOW I will fail in the end, I always do... But, I enjoy to try and making better, or just see what people think ;)
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Originally posted by Turambar
it looks like you had a red blob and a white blob, used smudge on full power, then dodged the midtones randomaly with a 9 pixel brush
You would be right... Except they were scribbles not blobs :D
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Wrong moral there. If you 'know you will fail' you *will* fail in the end.
Creating eye candy is a very tough process and will take quite a while to be learned properly. Adobe Photoshop is generally a bad advice for people learning. It is very complex and not precisely easy to work with. However, once you know what you're doing the possibilities are (almost) unlimited and any form of 'helping tools' as you find in other tools would simply slow you down.
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I do believe you, but screw moral... who needs it, I got pride :D
Hmmm... Don't know if that made any sense.:nervous: But, yes you can make almost anything... LINK (http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/paintings_20001.html)
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It is possible to do better things than that. :D
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looks to me a lot like cigarette smoke in a dark room with a red light shining through it... not very nebulous at all
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Well... this isn't my worst work either lightspeed, look what I did with my new Flash program :D BigGuy Vs. LittleGuy (http://swooh.com/peon/jdjtcagle/GuyVS.BigGuy.swf)
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Was talking about your LINK.
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Ya, I know... I was just shoing you that I have a tendincies for making bad things :)
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its called a learning curve
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be glad you have a learning curve... I just have this straight line that starts and ends at 0 ;)
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Originally posted by Lightspeed
Sorry to say, but if there (IMHO) is something wrong I say it.
If you dont want to hear any honest feedback simply don't post your stuff :)
This is nothing personal, i'm not trying to offend you or anything - i'm just trying to point out what's bad/needs improvement with your work.
Look at that nebula for example. It looks like anything, but not like a nebula i'm afraid. :doubt:
now now LS, I know you're a good artist, but that don't mean you have the know-all-end-all inside scoop on how starry skies and nebulaes should or should not look. Nature and the univers have purdy much a way of their own to 'create' things that not in the least look like you would expect...
granted, this nebula looks more like cigarette smoke, but hell, who knows if there isn't a nebula somewhere that DOES look like smoke? and why shound't stars be scattered irregularly in clusters?
donut anyone? (btb, look at the irregularity of the star pattern shining thru...)
(http://freespace.kicks-ass.net/_images/fs/donutcloud.jpg)
Originally posted by jdjtcagle
But, yes you can make almost anything... LINK (http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/paintings_20001.html)
now there's an example of exactly how it should NOT look...what a bunch of fake!... the whole point of fs2 artwork is too have it look realistic, this has 'Artist Impression' written all over it in big pink neonletters
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Now THAT thing *does* actually look like a nebulaic item, JarC.
I know that I do not 'know-all-end-all inside scoop on how starry skies and nebulaes should or should not look' - but I know how the ones within our proximity (cough cough) look. This way I can tell how it's NOT supposed to look.
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how's this he has an opinion and he's expressing it, iy pisses me off beond all ends when someone sais "I don't like that" and someone else comes in with a "if you don't have something nice to say don't sa anything at all" atitude, it something I've consitered to be something of a weakness in this comunity for quite some time, our inability to be brutaly honest when something ugly is presented. I remember once someone had literealy stuc a sphere a cube and a pair of cylenders together and called it a ship, and everyone was saying how nice it looked, it was crap, and no one else was willing to say it.
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Now now guys, lets keep it civil at least - but how about this.
If you're going to say it's nice, say why you like it.
If you're going to say you don't like it, say why you don't like it.
I've no problem with criticism so long as it's helpful and allows the person who did the original work to learn why some didn't like it. Simply saying "no, that's not a good nebula" would leave me sitting there thinking "oh.. right.. so what the hell is then? eh?". It's not helpful.
Saying "it's not a good nebula, the colors are off and the contrast between light and dark is poorly done - not to mention the general shape doesn't look cloud/gas like at all.. more like plastic. Try bluring it a lot more around the edges" or something similar would give me something to work with and experiment with.
See what I mean? Be honest if you like, but be helpful while you're at it. It's not hard and it works out for everybody.
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Thats what I always try to do. :blah:
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Indeed, but it applies to everyone - not just you. At this stage it seems like something that needed to be said again. If criticism is to be encouraged then it should be the right kind (ideally) :)