[ShadowGorrath]

Can anything be done about increasing nebula moddability? I'm talking of the full nebulas ( the ones that you fly inside that is ). Like, the ability to increase or decrease visible range, allowing the backgrounds to be seen and ability to specify how the poofs move/behave would really increase the possible environments. Would be usefull for a lot of mods, not just those that do atmosphere missions.

[Dragon]

Also, it would be great if you could increase some of the limits like amount of nebula backdrops, amount of available poofs, etc.

[Nuke]

i wouldn't mind having distance fog so we can simulate atmospherics to some degree.

[Pottuvoi]

Also, it would be great if you could increase some of the limits like amount of nebula backdrops, amount of available poofs, etc.

Something like poof location editor would be nice as well, or just poofs from vertex soup.
Importing a object and transforming it to a nebula might be nice, perhaps even with a vertex colors for color and size. (pre lighted and colored 3d-nebula.)

[headdie]

my would likes for this are
1) to be able to select a greater range of colours available
2) have options to blend the clouds
3) Density ranges

[Nuke]

i kinda want thin nebulas that would simulate atmospheic haze and no poofs. just simple distance fog, maybe with dense spots (clouds).

[ShadowGorrath]

But wouldn't working on poofs instead need less time? And it'd probably be possible to achieve the same effect anyway. Minus the clouds...

Something like this can already be done, but there are various problems with it. Like, for example, the ships still fade out after a while, and you can only see the skybox in the background. Moreso, unless the speed is high enough, the effect moves too slowly. Lastly, you can't do a rain effect, because of how the poofs move. If it was possible to specifiy how poofs move, how far they are, how transparent they are and at what distance ships fade, it'd grant a large variety of possible scenery and all.

[Nuke]

i kinda want to be able to turn off the poofs and just have distance fog. fred control to turn poofs on and off would actually allow for clouds. when you enter a cloud, poofs go back on, exit they go back off, possibly with some fade effect. problem is how would you model the clouds from the outside. rain could probibly be faked with a bunch of zero damage weapons being fired downward. with custom explosion effects you could make them look like they splatter when they hit your ship. you only need to spawn them in the area around the camera, then ramp the fog distances down to make the air denser and bluer while its raining.

distance fog could also be used with backgrounds to have a planets are there but the atmosphere is in between u and it.

[hundeswehr]

do you think the nebulae should be made less dense? i heard the gas particles that make up nebulae aren't really all that compact.

it would be interesting to see slight darkness and stars beyond the veil of nebulous gas.

[Nuke]

i think it should be an option to have a less dense nebula. sometimes you just want to make it look like your in an atmosphere thats not dense at all. you just kinda want things at a distance to be tented to the color of the atmo.

[Solatar]

I wouldn't mind being able to just have a bit of the fog, but no poofs.  With a visible background (stars, nebula, etc.) it would nicely emulate a thin dust cloud; might look good in an asteroid field.

[Nuke]

thats the kind of effect i want. not total pea soup like we have now.

[Solatar]

Right; I think the same effect could be used for a variety of applications from atmospheres to dust clouds.  I'd love to be able to make an area of space feel "dirty".  It would really add to the mission environment.

[Nuke]

of course all the parameters should be settable from fred or scripting. things like close distance (range where fog starts), far distance(range where maximum opacity is reached), color and opacity (rgba), ect. so i could simulate an atmosphere by ramping the fog down to nothing as your altitude increases for example.