[Omniscaper]

Yes!!!! I got !!!!!









SON OF A #$&^%#@!*&#^!(@^$@^#$^&@##!@!@


So glowmaps won't work unless FOV's are changed. Considering a sphere model warps around the dges of the screen and glowmaps don't. I like the FOV's as they are and changing it will only muck up the game's appearance.

I've experimented with a sphere with inverted faces but there is no gradiation. And since there is no such mapping method like an "always face front" mapping in Truespace, I am at a loss. 3dsmax has a mapping method like this, I don't understand why its so impossible to use it in game. If not that, there has to be a way to keep a planar object always facing you, this should change perspective with the planet model as the player looks away.

Please, lets form a think tank to solve this dilema. See how pretty it could look?

[StratComm]

I'll be honest Omni, I liked it better without the atmospheric glow.

And I still firmly believe that if you use a planet model you could make it look 100 times better by using a true background.  But that's not the issue here.

[Omniscaper]

I know that this example of a halo is a bit much, but the very premise that such simple piece of eye candy is impossible.... that does not sit well in my stomach.

[deep_eyes]

yea its too much. i suggest u should take the transparent atmosphere one you have above earth.pof already (that thin layer of clouds that u can pass thru almost atleast 1 fighter length.

expand on that...

BTW, i love how the "subsystems" are planet stuffs...

first the clouds

then the other clouds (then the color changed)

the planet began looking bombarded... but then the crust went pop, and apparently, when ur crust subsystem is gone, so does the WHOLE pof... and earth still remains, but its invisible or something lol.

[Setekh]

Originally posted by Omniscaper
Yes!!!! I got !!!!!

...

SON OF A #$&^%#@!*&#^!(@^$@^#$^&@##!@!@

Dude, I have no idea how to solve your problem. But I have to salute you. Your reaction here is that which only a true modder could express. :yes:

[Nico]

I suggested it monthes ago, the solution: sprites. that's one of my requests I got flamed for the most .
Just like a giant engine glow placed right at the 0.0.0 coordinate of that planet, in that case. X'cept it wouldn't flicker, of course.

[Omniscaper]

Isn't a glow point technically a sprite?

When you say sprite I get old school Descent 1 flashbacks. Them silly hands waving hostages you have to rescue. Wouldn't sprites be unaffected by FOV like the glowmap?

[KARMA]

I'm nots sure about what distances you are going to use for this planet (at what distance the missions will be played), but  -with the sizes we are talking of- I suppose that you'll not see much differences in the the angle that a flat disc behind the earth model will make with the point of view of the player.
I mean that if you put the model in the mission with the "right" angle, the players shouldn't be able to fly so far to see the atmosphere warping.
What I'm suggesting you is to make a simple flat disc little larger than the planet model, texture it so that it look like atmosphere and put it behind the model or maybe intersecting the model little above the middle (so that the borders of the earth model are covered by the atmosphere).

You may try to use, instead of a flat disc, an intersecting torus, to give depth to the atmosphere. You should be able to graduate the alpha and the glow on a torus. You'll see only the polys facing you and you'll see the atmosphere effect on the earth borders.

It'll be mission designer's duty to put the model in the mission so that the atmosphere will always face the players.
Only problem: you'll limit the possible rotating position of the earth (or you'll see the atmosphere in diagonal)
You may fix that creating 2 or more different pofs with different atmosphere's positions

[Nico]

or he can just make the "glow" a separate pof that'll share the same coordinates as the planet in fred.

[Flaser]

BTW you only see the atmosphere halo on the side facing the sun or another strong lightsource.

Good progress never the less.

[Omniscaper]

Glow is already a proven disaster since the glowmap does not stay in its perspective location.  Just by turning away from the planet's center, the glow map rotates itself to face you. At some point as your turning away, the huge glow map (radious 24000)rotates to the point where it collides with you. The second picture is me turning away from the center and the glow map looks like its enlarging. The end result was a collision with the earth's runaway atmosphere!

Karma, I've experimented with your disc idea weeks ago, but I'm not ready to give up the the planet model's farside potential. Imagine a mission where you chase a bogey whos running away from you, just to find out its luring you to an armada waiting on the farside. I believe a model like this would do wonders for an Endor mission. Granted the player has an uber videocard to handle a 12k planet and 100+ fighters and  capships.

The best way to use the disc method is to use the planet as the fabled background POF. I haven't been able to use it as a background object. Skyboxes are still new to me and I've experimented with Inferno's Fred with odd results. I still dislike the inferno build's excessive ambient light.

Could someone give me complete instructions on how to implement a background planet? I just want the planet to be in the background and not be approachable. Its a major consession, but it would be useful for missions that don't utilize the planet's three dimentionality.

[Nico]

...which would be all of them, unless a mean to use FTL travel is implemented in FS2

[Bobboau]

if there in the background why don't you just make a background image

[Omniscaper]

The purpose for this planet endeavor was to give some semblance of activity to a background object. Before this model was made I had tinkered with animated textures on a planet image rendered from 3dsmax. In order to get cloud movement the animation had to be seamless in loop. ANI's still suck with its 256 color limitations and it cannot compare to Lightspeed's 32-bit planetary beauties. Ani's also really sucked up video memory. I've made a dozen renders of Earth already that can be made into background maps, but it just seems too static for me. The best way I found to give life to those static backgrounds is to make them objects with moving parts.

[KARMA]

Originally posted by Omniscaper


Karma, I've experimented with your disc idea weeks ago, but I'm not ready to give up the the planet model's farside potential. Imagine a mission where you chase a bogey whos running away from you, just to find out its luring you to an armada waiting on the farside. I believe a model like this would do wonders for an Endor mission. Granted the player has an uber videocard to handle a 12k planet and 100+ fighters and  capships.
 

I see what you mean, but it'd take ages to move that far to see odd atmosphere positions.
Also, remember that (so far) there's a limit of IIRC 60k as a mission area.
To make what you're talking about it would probably be better to use red alerts.
I also like the idea of an external pof that share the same position, it'll solve many probs.
Here is another idea: what about adding a giant glowpoint (maybe on a second pof)  or a giant thruster glow to simulate the atmosphere? I'm not sure about what could come from this.
Or maybe the overexposure effect when implemented could be used for this.
About the skybox:
create a sphere, or maybe a cube. Flip the faces, paint witha pure green 1x1 pixels map (will be invisible)
add the planet model inside the skybox. (don't know if skyboxes support subobjects or even rotating subobjects).
convert and call it whateveryouwant.pof
enable it in fredopen in your test mission
if it is too big or too small increase or decrease the size ratio between the skybox and the planet

[KARMA]

oh, forgetting it...I thougt fsopen was supporting other movie formats in game,  as textures too...or not:confused:?

[Omniscaper]

Inferono's Fred i take it.... ok. I take it skyboxes only run in the Inferno build of FSO?

[KARMA]

I think in any of the recent builds.
I never used inferno's build but I tested skyboxes many times.
BTW usually the skyboxes are just a sphere or a cube with flipped faces (they face the internal) and the textures you want.
You convert to pof,  give em any name, then open FRED, I don't remember what menu but I think the background editor, there's a bracket where you put the name of the skybox, and a thickbox to select to activate it.
If you want I can give you an example of a skybox pof.
IIRC it doesn't matter what size you give it, since it is assigned by default.
As I already said, don't know if you can have rotating subobjects on skyboxes (Ithink nobody tryed).
As you can see, if you have any shape for the skybox, there's no reason for you can't put a sphere inside (either merged in the same layer or as subobject). The size of that sphere will be relative to the size of the skybox

[Omniscaper]

But before my skybox attempt, here's the first of many consessions I believe I will have to make until glows are put in the game as a shader.







Its a flat square plane 35km across with one 2048x2048 texture of the same earth model rendered in 3dsmax. There are no real in game shadows on it, its all just one glowmapped render. I did notice though that at a certain distance, the plane starts to warp and the earth gets all wobbly ellipitcal. The framerate was excellent compared to the model, what you see above is running at 4x. With just the planet in sight, i get all 120fps.

If only I could get the model version to look this good. BTW, does specular maps work with the normal maps in regards to sheen color? Or does the specular map dictate what color the specular sheen will be? I'm trying to get the model version as close to the colors of the 3dsmax render. I know there are no bumpmaps and limited specular capabilies (faceting side-effect). This side effect is the reason why I extremely reduced the shine effect.

Bobbaou, how did you get around plane issues when you used this type of background for the Babylon Project?

Karma, what Fred version are you using? I don't see that option in the 1/20/04 build of Fred. I checked the background editor, no show.

[aldo_14]

IIRC, glowpoints are basically a plane which is always rotated to face the player.... not sure if you've tried it, or whether they may be clipping issues.