Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The FRED Workshop => Topic started by: Woolie Wool on December 18, 2006, 02:31:39 pm
-
I'm not sure whether this goes in FRED or FS Modding, but since this is mainly a mission-editing thing, I stuck it here. If the mods disagree with my choice, they can feel free to move it.
Does anyone have a background TGA/DDS or skybox featuring the Milky Way? I'm not talking about a galaxy bitmap, but the way the Milky Way is seen from Earth: a huge band of stars and gas trailing across the sky. After playing Inferno: Alliance, I've been thinking of cutting back on the use of extravagant nebula backgrounds as they're very unrealistic (nebulas are quite faint), but I still want something visually interesting besides a field of stars (although the mediavps starfield skybox is definitely nicer looking than the stock stars).
-
Well nebula backgrounds are nice. They make the difference between so-so missions and very good ones. When you play a mission and see a beautiful background you enjoy it. Of course,there are very ugly nebula backgrounds but their presence is connected to the low importance FREDders usually give them,not because the nebulae are ugly.
A new skybox model with the Via Lattea would be beautiful.
-
Via Lattea
I have to say that I cracked at this. Nothing personal, it's lingual.
You see... "Lattea" means "bland" or "dull" in Finnish language. Obviously, latte is related to milk in Italic, but the first association to me was the Finnish equivalent, understandably.
Anyway, I'll see what I can manage with GIMP. It might come out good or bad or nothing. Beware.
Oh, and by the way, how could I get rid of retail stars? I mean those that have the crappy motion blur effect. They render differently from nebulae because of my field of view setting, and it looks crap when the stars move behind the nebulae when I turn. Do I have to modify stars.tbl or is there a star location file on which I could overwrite a void vile?
EDIT: I dunno if this should go to Art forum instead, but whatever.
Image link (http://users.tkk.fi/~lmiettun/Kuvat/milkyway.jpg), 4000x2000@2,1 MB JPG file.
The galaxy needs some research to get spot on, but this is a beginning. Toss a star cluster somewhere, some magellan clouds and stuff like that and you're set.
The basic starfield came out nice. I found a nice method to get some colour onto the stars. If you look at them closely, you'll see that some are bluish, some are reddish, some yellow and some plain white.
I'll post further developements into Art section.
-
You see... "Lattea" means "bland" or "dull" in Finnish language. Obviously, latte is related to milk in Italic, but the first association to me was the Finnish equivalent, understandably.
Sorry for that.
I like the image,though you have to modify it a bit if you want a bitmap for background usage.
-
(http://a248.e.akamai.net/f/248/5462/2h/images.gamezone.com/screens/12/8/71/s12871_PC_3.jpg)
like that sort of view? in the background, minus the ships in the middle, the sun and the planets
-
But you can't leave this image as it is. You need to make it fill perfectly in the background,which means that it should have transparent spaces. Also,the nebula should be defined. I won't like a square nebula...
-
http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/blue_stars.zip
how's that (your lucky I just so happened to be playing with this for testing some stuff) I have sevral variations on it. keep in mind these are in development phase so, they should be dds compressed before you release them to be played in missions.
-
Thank you for that. I wasn't able to spend much time here recently due to the holidays. I'll check that new background tonight.
EDIT: the link is broken. Could you upload it again?
-
seems to be working now
-
This background is awesome, thank you.
-
welcome, and no problem :)
-
WOW
It's beautiful!