[Kazan]

like this!

It's the stars that make it better than what lightspeed has

and the bright emission nebulae (red) being obscured by dust in front of it (dark)

[reflection nebulae are blue]

[Ghost]

WHOA! Holy :censored: :censored: :censored: :censored: ! That might not be an actual background, but I'm saving that one on general principles!

[Ulala]

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html

[Kazan]

Ulala direct pulls from apod don't work well in game

[TopAce]

That could be done, but somehow you need to disable sun fading, then insert a lot of blue suns. Our nebulae are good enough, you can Photoshop around and make some nebula darker (for more realism).

By sun fading, I mean the effect when your screen gets completely white when you are facing at a sun, even a very small one.

[Black Wolf]

Oriuginally posted by Kazan
I want backgrounds like this!

Well, go ahead and make 'em

[Flaser]

Originally posted by TopAce
That could be done, but somehow you need to disable sun fading, then insert a lot of blue suns. Our nebulae are good enough, you can Photoshop around and make some nebula darker (for more realism).

By sun fading, I mean the effect when your screen gets completely white when you are facing at a sun, even a very small one.

This is already possible edit the stars.tbl AFAIK.
BTW Check how Lightspeed made his nebula - there are actual invisible stars behind them, that give its color.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

ummmmm...why not just take photos and make a nice skybox?

[TopAce]

That's what I was thinking, but feared to ask it, because I think if it were so simply, it would not be a question.

[BlackDove]

Am I the only one who finds the image above too shiny? Also, how do you decide which one of them Suns will have a glare effect on the player?

[TopAce]

It's not a problem... FreeSpace is supposed to be shiny.

[Kazan]

Originally posted by ShadowWolf_IH
ummmmm...why not just take photos and make a nice skybox?

because it would look ugly as sin - real images _don't_ work in game because they don't fade off cleanly at the edges

Originally posted by BlackDove
Am I the only one who finds the image above too shiny? Also, how do you decide which one of them Suns will have a glare effect on the player?

that's a real image

Originally posted by Black Wolf


Well, go ahead and make 'em

you must be wholly unfamiliar with the limits of my artistic ability

[Turnsky]

www.artofgregmartin.com  tuts are here.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

Kazan i have often thought about taking real images and using them as a skybox.  because i agree that his looks MUCH better.  I love the real stuff.....

soooooooo
as someone who knows more than me about this stuff, how do you propose that we overcome the problem with it?

[Kazan]

um... i know _why_ it looks bad to use real stuff (the hard edge without fade) but i don't have the artistic ability to touch up the image to solve that

[Singh]

The person who replied two posts above yours does, though - and he's a pro at it, judging from his comics.

[deep_eyes]

what u want HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE renders or something
??

[Kazan]

deep_eye: the stars.. the variable size [brightness] and color stars so that it looks real

[BlackDove]

Originally posted by Kazan
that's a real image

Yes...?

It's still too bright and shiny for anything usable in FreeSpace.

Do you really want your HUD and all of the Targeting Reticles to be displayed on THAT?

You wouldn't be able to play properly. The skyboxes/backgrounds need to be as dark as possible, with as faded colors as possible. Otherwise it's unplayable.

Each of the "light spots" is just one more blind spot you can't control.

[Kazan]

BlackDove: not if you don't have that bloody annoying and pointless screen-white-out

they'd be stars part of the background, not stars that would cause a white out