Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Kazan on August 04, 2006, 11:40:59 am
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OK look at this image of the Pleiades
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Pleiades_large.jpg
I want to alter the background starfield system was well - I want some variation in spectral-type (color) and more variation in magnitude - the system would generate stars up to magnitude of the ones in the far lower left and upper right hand corners.
The major stars (in this image the pleiades) themselves would be part of the nebulae background - I want some nebulae images with those.
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Lt. Cannonfodder has created a nice skybox called starfield.pof. There isn't as much variance in there as you suggested, but it wouldn't be a problem to add it.
So I don't think we need a code solutuin for this, unless it works with this fake motion blur effect, which is the only thing I miss in CF's skybox...
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Lt. Cannonfodder has created a nice skybox called starfield.pof. There isn't as much variance in there as you suggested, but it wouldn't be a problem to add it.
The texture used in mediaVPs is actually ancient and looks rather bad, the new one I made for BtRL is much better. I'll have to chat with WMC to get the old texture replaced.
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A month ago I made this with Photoshop. But if you want the background without those planets, I can delete them, so there is no problem. However, I didn't try to put this starfield into Freespace 2. I was just training myself with nebula and starfield.
(http://pix.nofrag.com/4e/61/c6b4aa68752e249a3b9b607c9b6f.jpg)
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O_O
I...... see....... PRETTY .... COLORS!!!!!!!!
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not bad.. but not like i had in mind
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too colorfull to be space :D
but i like it anyway
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Well, it was my second try. The first one is too colorfull and have a lot of big Halo ^^.
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its hard to avoid using too much color in a skybox. look at the one with nukemod, im sure many a hippie go on an lsd trip while playing that mission :D
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I can see all of the places you used the clone tool. >..>;;
Other than that, stunning.
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I can see all of the places you used the clone tool. >..>;;
seconded. also, your planets suck, they're too sharp.
and too colourfull, but other than that, really awesome :)
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Thanks. I wasn't very satisfied with those planet as well. The atmosphere is not render correctly. ;7
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Background art, ahhh... me likes.
Here's also one kind of a starfield I made last winter, featuring some bright nearby (< 1 ly) stars luminating a blue nebula. Click pic for a bigger picture.
(http://users.tkk.fi/~lmiettun/Kuvat/Starfield_3_small.jpg) (http://users.tkk.fi/~lmiettun/Kuvat/Starfield_2.jpg)
I suppose I could try what happens when I put some differently coloured stars...
Oh, and this was the result of my first planet attempt (or rather, the last in the first series of attempts...) Again, click to enlarge.
(http://users.tkk.fi/~lmiettun/Kuvat/Planet_in_space_2_small.jpg) (http://users.tkk.fi/~lmiettun/Kuvat/Planet_in_space_2.jpg)
One obvious fault, looking back at it: There are no rivers, and the atmosphere is perhaps a bit too thick. And the clouds are much too greenish. And the shadow side shines out bit too bright... Oh well. ::) Mainly that's because my own PC has a little different gamma setup, it usually shows mid-tones darker than most other PC's.
These were made with GIMP.
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Very nice.
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Well, I tried to make a bit more variable picture, having differently coloured stars, but it just doesn't feel as good as the blue pic I posted earlier. Mostly that is because there's too little actual black sky in this pic, but... oh well, just make your own mind about it. Here goes:
(http://users.tkk.fi/~lmiettun/Kuvat/Space/starfield_version_2-1_small.jpg) (http://users.tkk.fi/~lmiettun/Kuvat/Space/starfield_version_2-1.jpg)
Click to enlarge.
Anyway, the trouble is the same that every space-related game meets: in reality, space is mostly empty. The glorious nebulae visible in sci-fi movies and computer games are highly unprobable. But if one makes the graphics look like real space, it's very dull in most cases. :(
And regarding the picture posted by Kazan in the starting message of this thread... you all do realize, of course, that the optical phenomena visible in that pic (the four spikes from the bright stars, the bright circles around stars, and light arcs) are caused by optical device(s) that took that picture? Also bear in mind that it's not really blue when seen by naked eye. The gas reflecting the blue light of nearby stars is actually quite gray... with binoculars, you can just see the bunch of blue stars.
And should the mission be located near a similar open cluster, the gas itself would still be just a great diffuse blob of dim grey light, with no great detail on it. Should you get inside the cluster, the only way to notice the gas would be the fact that the background sky would be a bit lighter - which you could tell by the fact that background stars would look dimmer. There would just be a lot of bright stars in the sky. Much brighter than Sirius, I dare say. Evan brighter than the brightest planets in Sol system seem to be (Jupiter/Venus)... but that's about it.
Orbital missions would be much more suitable for creating *realistic* and *cool* backgrounds. Deep space backgrounds can, in most cases, only be either *cool* or *realistic*.
Of course, I tend to think that realistic is cool in it's own way, but I know that that coolness does not reek of graphical goodyness the way, say, DaBrain's nebulae do. :D
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it's grey because that's how the human eye sees extremely low-light objects - only your black/white rods can pick it up, but your cones which give you the color vision cannot. A reflection nebulae (which is what that is) actually IS blue
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That I do know. :D
That's why I said that realistically made backgrounds don't give as much graphical oomph as the ones made with... artistic freedom.
The point is that for naked eye, the gorgeous gas formations are dull blobs looking like grey (because of the anathomical structure of human eye that you mentioned).
And actually, there are no such things as reflective nebulae... there are diffuse nebulae, and emissive nebulae.
Diffuse nebulae basically just scatter the light that comes from nearby stars and then reflects the light in every direction - not unlike ash from volcanoes does to cause magnificent sunsets, except that it's *much* less dense matter that causes the scattering in celestial nebulae. The gas in Pleiades does just this, and the term "scattering" is in optical sense much different from actual reflection... These nebulae can only scatter the light from nearby stars, so they are always the same colour as the stars that illuminate them.
Emissive nebulae are heated by nearby röntgen(x-ray) or gamma ray radiation sources to the point when they themselves start emitting electromagnetic radiation at differing frequencies, depending on the composition and temperature of the nebula. They can radiate anything from low infra-red to even energetic X-rays.
Regardless of the nebula's type, they typically are not bright enough to have any distinguishable colour to human eye. Of course if you got closer to say, Pleiades, the intensity of the light would grow and it would become more blue, the same colour as the stars are. But simultaneously, the brightness of the actual stars would practically drown the nebula under them. And once you're in the nebula, it looks practically the same everywhere - a bit lighter black than normal deep sky would be. The matter there is not dense enough to form any gorgeous views. Except for long exposure cameras, which would detect faint detail and magnify them.
But this is getting onto wrong direction. May we agree that what looks good... uhm... looks good? :lol:
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i didn't say I wanted realism, I wanted pretty but sorta-realistic. non-constant spectra and luminosity fits both