[Setekh]

Originally posted by Lightspeed
I hate the way vB inserts vB code into your messages. It's impossible to enter formatting after your text is written since it simply refuses to put anything elsewhere than at the end of your post. Especially crappy if you're inserting URLS or the like (gotta type everything yourself.)

I add in 100% of my vB code manually, and I did that for UBB too. What special tags do you need that you can't memorise?

[Lightspeed]

[ URL=http://is highly annoying to insert manually]this something like this or something like this[/URL ]

[ COLOR=skyblue]or if you
want to make[/COLOR]
[ COLOR=orange]coloured
lists like i want to
[ /COLOR] [ COLOR=green]then its a pain to write all[ /COLOR]
[ COLOR=darkred]the names of the colours, etc[ /COLOR]

then theres the [ quote] quoting [ /quote] since you normally get all mixed up with several quotes in your post. and, of course the quick smilie box.

[StratComm]

Then enter it and cut/paste it from the end.  It's not that hard.  Honestly, how do you think we use the quick reply box?

In reality, planet models in a mission simply take effort out of correctly making and placing good background images.  I can't say that they are ever needed, unless you intend to destroy them in-mission.  And even then, the way the planet would explode would not be, well, pretty.

[Nico]

I don't cut/paste, I highlight, drag and drop
what, you don't care?

[StratComm]

Originally posted by Nico
I don't cut/paste, I highlight, drag and drop
what, you don't care?

Since that's a Microsoft-invented shortcut for cut/paste, I can't see any difference.  But it depends mainly on how close my hand is to the mouse.

[FreeTerran]

waaah don't use my thread for vb workshops

back to topic...

[Omniscaper]

Has anyone tried making the planetary atmosphere glow using a glow point with an uber radious? Since glow points use greyscale transparency, you could just make a ring texture with fade in and fade out to black. Just a thought. I still need help with making a POF model planet to be visible but not approachable. (background model)

[Black Wolf]

Given the scale a planetary model would have to be at, I can pretty muich guarantee it's not going to be approachable - FS2 blows you up at 80 kms after all.

[Lightspeed]

firstly it blows you up at about 200 km, and planet models CAN be pretty useful. Imagine launching from a station in the planet's orbit... or even the planet itself (although you'd start some kilometres off the surface, certainly)

Real planets are really useful, as long as you're still able to use the 2D backdrop ones.

That glow point idea... well, i dunno if it will work, but i think you'd have to have a 4096x4096 texture to have it look good, and that would slow down most people again

Maybe you could add a Planetary fog that creates an atmosphere effect when you near the planet too close.

I'm thinking of something pretty simple, like blending a screen sized ANI over the display and adding the atmosphere hue to it. But it'd be sooo cool

[FreeTerran]

well a first showable version are done atm its not included in the freespace 2 source code... the quality is atm not that great


plz tell me what you think

>> Download <<

[Lightspeed]

Very good. Next steps:

• Get the clouds sphere DIRECTLY over the ground, it looks... weird this way and clouds should really be close to the surface
• get an atmosphere glow around it
• slow down the cloud rotation about 100 times
• give the planet a slow rotation (really really slow, maybe one pixel per minute)
• animated cloud map support

[TrashMan]

Actually, the distance of the clouds is more-or less o.k.


and it does give the planet the atmosphere look...
Great work FT!:yes:

[StratComm]

Yeah lets not fall into the pit of planets rotating fast enough to notice it.  If it's a jupiter that rotates every ~10 hours, then yeah, you might be able to notice it on a moment-by-moment basis.  But for a 5 or even a 15 minute mission, you won't see a significant change in a planet's appearance due to its rotation, especially when it takes as long as it does for Earth.

[Omniscaper]

I wouldn't call it a pit StratComm. From a certain distance, like today's footage from the International space station, the earth seems like its rotating but its the orbit of the station. Ships and stations don't just sit at an absolute position (actually nothing really does within this universe). I think its safe to have a rotation if the planet is taking up half the background. Thats my rationaliztion for putting a rotation on my earth.

[redmenace]

Maybe very high atmosphere missions.

[Bobboau]

if you are rotateing around the planet, then exerything else sould be rotating with it too, especaly the sun(s)

[Omniscaper]

I hate the sun. Oh well. In my opinion, rotating planet models look better than a stationary one as long as the rotation is very subtle. I recall a nifty episode of Voyager when they encountered a planet that was temporally out of sync with the universe. Time was rediculously accelerated around the planet, so it looked like a planet with silly rotaional blur.

[FreeTerran]

well the rotating thingy is fixed but i can't implent it in the fs_open source cause i ever got the freaking compile error "error spawning rc.exe"

[Setekh]

That's looking fantastic right now. How are you planning on getting her in-game?

[FreeTerran]

thats the point i donno how to implend it in the source but i work on it so keep cool