[Omniscaper]

I've been searching alternative ways to handle planetary backdrops that are not so static. Animated textures seems like the way to go as well as large textured planes (B5-Project Earth backdrop). I'm currently modeling a ringed planet for an animated render for texture use, but I was tempted to plop the model right in the game!

What are the size limitations and draw distance does Freespace work with? If I could find out those specs, I could at least make planetoids or localized nebulae.

[Lightspeed]

Draw distance used to be 150 km, with HT&L it's 30 km.

[phreak]

its extended out to 10,000,000km now.

[kasperl]

there might be a problem with poly usage though, to get a convincing sphere and all.....

[Omniscaper]

Whoa. So much for progress, in that arena. That is strange that it shrunk. Weren't there levels in Retail FS2 that were larger than 30km. Wouldn't HT&L builds muckk up it up? Anyways...

Thanks for the tip. I guess I'll make Mini Me's homeworld.

[Omniscaper]

Whoa, insta-posts, I was responding to lightpeedwhen I finished typing that. Time to brush up on those typing skills.

[Omniscaper]

10,000,000 km!!? I hope thats not an exageration. I suspected a sphere issue would arise. You suppose a 15k sphere would be enough for a convincing textured planet?

The point of this endeavor is to avoid a looped animated texture of clouds and to replace it with a rotating sphere utilizing the transparent alpha channels.



My bad Mr Kasperl

[kasperl]

uhm, Omni, no offence, but look to the bottom right of your post, a little button next to the "quote" one

[Nico]

Originally posted by Omniscaper
10,000,000 km!!? I hope thats not an exageration. I suspected a sphere issue would arise. You suppose a 15k sphere would be enough for a convincing textured planet?

The point of this endeavor is to avoid a looped animated texture of clouds and to replace it with a rotating sphere utilizing the transparent alpha channels.



My bad Mr Kasperl

15K? that's way enough. With 2K, you'll need to be quite close ( so close it doesn't fit completly in the screen ) to begin to distinguish the polys. That's 2K triangulated btw ( just tried in Max, I don't like giving numbers out of my ass ).

[Omniscaper]

Ok then, kool. 15k it stays. Is 60,000 meters or kilometer sphere within drawspace?

I tried a Truespace measurement of 6 meters and hit the multiply function in PCS by a factor of 10000 and I see nothing but the targeting reticle for the object. Fred shows that I'm outside its radius.

[redsniper]

just so you know, each mission takes place in a 1200 kilometer cube, so don't make any 60,000 km planets (60k m is okay tho)

[Liberator]

Inferno already has a planet model.  And it looks damn good!

[Nico]

heh? The planet doesn't HAVE to be in the playable zone
Well phreak says it's 10,000,000 so you should be able to put a real sized planet in there ( I have a couple like that actually, oe of them is a ringed planet, and I'm pretty usre that's the largest pof ever )
Btw, about the polys, if 2K is enough, don't go and put 15K! If you want a margin so you can be very close, put 3K et voila

[Omniscaper]

How do i place a planet outside playing zone, without being ignored by the drawing engine. Ugh, could you folks give me a link to existing planets, besides earth (joke). Need a reference.

On a side note, are alpha maps in DDS or TGA's strictly opaque and invisible? I was hoping that the greyscale would give different levels of transparency. But i am having trouble getting semi transparent surfaces. I made an earth textured sphere within a larger cloud textures one with alphas.

[Nico]

How do you place it? well, you put it in fred, far away from the player

[KARMA]

IIRC it's transparency level, but it is not supposed to be used on models, it's just for backgrounds. From what said the coders, if you put transparency levels on models you just can't be sure of what will be the result, and the result may vary on different systems

[Carl]

for a game a resonable resolution for a planet model should stay at 25 latitude by 50 longitude, or 1250 polys. no need to go higher than that.

[Nico]

Well, seeing his ships are already unresonable, I don't think a  planet will change much to the total

[aldo_14]

At long distance you could maybe use a mix of transparent and normal pixels for that sort effect.........  if the planet is far away enough it should be impossible to distinguish between the transparent & opaque regions.

[Nico]

In theory. But in fact, due to the screen lining stuff, camera rotation, etc, it just makes a big ugly thing, and the mipmaping makes it even worse.