[Sesquipedalian]

Screenshot from the Scroll of Atankharzim:


Composed of four images: the planet itself, and three sections for the rings (the entire expanse doesn't fit into a single screen).

The planet itself was easy.  I just generated a nice fractal fill in Corel PhotoPaint, and applied it to a sphere in Max.

The rings are made of many, many thousands of particles.  I would have liked to have used instanced geometry for the particles, but the sheer numbers prohibited it.  I zoomed in close and took renders at three different angles in order to get the whole PCloud in.

[mikhael]

Nice.

[Deepblue]

r those going to be in game?

[Knight Templar]

Sa-weet

We love you Ses.

[Sesquipedalian]

They are in game. That's a screenshot from fs2_open, not a render.

[Anaz]

Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
They are in game. That's a screenshot from fs2_open, not a render.

you're joking......right.....?

[Sesquipedalian]

No.  Fs2_open has a cool little Toggle Hud option.  Press a button to clear it, then take a screenshot.  Easy as pie.

Click my avatar and go to the Screenshots section.  You can see another of the cool backgrounds for SA there too (but only one of them ), and some other fun screenies, too.

[Sandwich]

Ok, hold on here - I don't get it. Are all those asteroid particles/rings actualy in-game objects, or are they part of a background planet you made elsewhere and stuck in there?

[Nico]

that's a background pic the meshes aren't in game, be sensible

edit: unless he found a way to convert particles to a single mesh, I never tried. anyway, would need some seriously powerful computer for that to run fine ingame, so nope, I stick with what I said.

[Sesquipedalian]

Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
Composed of four images: the planet itself, and three sections for the rings.

[Sandwich]

Bah! You know perfectly well that no-one pays any attention to the first post in a thread - especially if that post has an image in it!

[Anaz]

Originally posted by Sandwich
Bah! You know perfectly well that no-one pays any attention to the first post in a thread - especially if that post has an image in it!

[mikhael]

Sesq, this pic is out on the outskirts of a planetary ring system, correct?

I've been thinking about it, and I think you need to add a fourth layer of debris close into the planet, much denser than the previous layers. This would make the rings  appear more solid as they get closer into the planet The farther you are from any given point in a ring system, the more solid that point will seem due to perspective the inability to distinguish the individual particles of the system.

Just a suggestion.

[Sesquipedalian]

Mmm.  Sounds reasonable.  Perhaps I shall, mik.

[Black Wolf]

Very nice!

[Setekh]

Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
They are in game. That's a screenshot from fs2_open, not a render.

Flip! Gee, talk about appreciable gains...