[diamondgeezer]

I was inspired by the black hole thread in the modding forum - I don't suppose we might see an effect which miics the bending of light around a huge mass like a black hole? Black holes are not directly observable, you can only detect them by their effects on other objects. So what I imagine is basically a black disc with the stars around it warped like a sort of fish-eye effect. Style of thing.

[Galemp]

You can do that just as a background bitmap...

[diamondgeezer]

Well if you're so damned clever why don't you make me one

[IceFire]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
Well if you're so damned clever why don't you make me one

I've been trying to make a blackhole like thingy...hasn't been done yet.

But I did see that episode of S:AAB

[Carl]

but can we make it have gravity? and have it so beam weapons and lasers kind of bend toward it?

[diamondgeezer]

Originally posted by IceFire
But I did see that episode of S:AAB

Who mentioned S:AAB? *giggles, runs*

[Sesquipedalian]

Originally posted by Carl
but can we make it have gravity? and have it so beam weapons and lasers kind of bend toward it?

I really, really, really doubt it.  

Furthermore, if one were close enough to a black hole that one could see light bending over such a short distance as a couple of kilometers, one would already be on the verge of the event horizon and about to die.

[Terorist]

Another case of undermining the strength and effects of black holes.

If you were near enough to witness the bending like this, you'd already be dead. In fact, so would be the entire solar system you were in. The hole would have long ago destroyed it, even before arriving "in" it - the planets' orbits would have gone nuts, soon been either slingshot away or gotten torn apart by the gravity. The system's star would be in the process of being sucked in the hole like a long spiraling spaghetti, and you would definitely see more than just a fish-eye effect... The accretion disc would glow intensely, and all the matter falling in the event horizon would create abominable amounts of radiation that alone could, I believe, sterilize the whole system, if the gravity hadn't already finished everyone off. Oh, and I don't think the jump nodes could have survived the arrival of a singularity in their vicinity either.

So, you can't have a black hole in the game. If the engine knew how to handle a gravity source (it's not newtonian, I don't know if it could be easily modifed to, e.g., calculate a constant pull?), and you know how to implement it, be my guest. It won't be a black hole, and would be a physically impossible arcade-ish thing, but then again so is the whole airplanes-in-space approach of FS2.

[deep_eyes]

Originally posted by Carl
but can we make it have gravity? and have it so beam weapons and lasers kind of bend toward it?

it would be a cool effect, none the less if ur that close to an event horizon, but then if we had bending beams, them we could have bending ship trails lol

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Terorist
So, you can't have a black hole in the game. If the engine knew how to handle a gravity source (it's not newtonian, I don't know if it could be easily modifed to, e.g., calculate a constant pull?), and you know how to implement it, be my guest. It won't be a black hole, and would be a physically impossible arcade-ish thing, but then again so is the whole airplanes-in-space approach of FS2.

I seem to remember reading that the conditions of the big bang could produce black holes of various sizes. Larry Niven picked up the idea for some of his books. Now one of those could be used in a game and could have some very interesting prospects.
 Of course it may be that the theory that said they were possible was later debunked.

[Terorist]

Originally posted by karajorma
I seem to remember reading that the conditions of the big bang could produce black holes of various sizes. Of course it may be that the theory that said they were possible was later debunked.

Yeah, I know that one. I don't recall it being debunked per se, I guess it's just one of those ideas that haven't yet been neither proved nor disproved. IIRC, the idea was that those microscopic (~atom-sized) black holes might have been created by the "packing" of matter that came from behind to other atoms that went before them, stuffing them forcibly together all the way into a singularity. I don't remember any detailed studies about it, haven't delved into it, but proving that theory on paper alone would take quite a lot of work and knowledge about the conditions of the early universe - and I don't think anyone even knows for sure if matter can behave like that. Conditions after the Big Bang are still pretty much unknown territory. Though there are theories about how the matter spread in the early universe, those theories have taken and/or need decades of work.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Sesquipedalian
I really, really, really doubt it.  

Furthermore, if one were close enough to a black hole that one could see light bending over such a short distance as a couple of kilometers, one would already be on the verge of the event horizon and about to die.

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
who cares? it's cool, and that's it. if you start with such considerations, you can throw away FS2 altogether, coz there's NOTHING realistic in FS2, lasers are not lasers, ships don't fly like ships should fly, they can resist antimatter direct shots with a smile, they use stupid strategies taht even an idiotic military guy wouldn't use (when you want to crush someone you don't send one wing, then one other, then one other, you send the 5 together, geez ), shields are not realistic ( they stop lasers? cool, how come they don't stop the light for lighting up ships? ), etc etc etc.
That cool thing about FS2, is that coolness factor comes first. beams being bent by attraction would rule.
Not that it will happen, of course.

[Nico]

btw, about the bigbang, isn't the whole theory being severly questioned right now? they say that after all, there probably was no bigbang ( which is, heh, funny,,when you think about it ).

[Terorist]

All scientific theories are constantly being questioned and reworked. That's how science works, it's not some rigid dogma like religions have. The Big Bang theory has been around for a while, and currently has most support, but everything is always open for radical changes when new observations and theories come. For instance, it was believed, logically, with no data to disprove it yet, that universe's expansions was slowing because of it's gravity. Then, years ago, it was observed that the expansion is in fact accelerating! There's anti-gravity out there, working. The universe is far from being demystified, it has loads of surprises for us.

[IceFire]

I think Big Bang is still intact...they are working out the details on how it actually happened.  I think some scientists were suggesting it was more of a big burp but there's no need to point out that the galaxy had a bit of a softdrink problem

diamongeezer: You didn't mention S:AAB anywhere at all

[mnftg64]

Would .gif images work?

[diamondgeezer]

You mean for animated textures? No. You need to make actual ANI files my pedigree chum

[Flipside]

Hmmmmm.... Well, I'm all for the nice looking aspect of a black hole, but bendy beams would really look a bit odd I would have thought
You'd need a really big ANI file for it, but at least you wouldn't be pushing the pallete very hard

Flipside

[Nico]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
You mean for animated textures? No. You need to make actual ANI files my pedigree chum

and it's sad. I'd prefer gif over ani, personally...