Planet Textures
 

I've uploaded a smattering of in-game shots of the planet textures MasterChiToes has been working on:

http://fqm5.spaceempires.net/gpt.php

What do you think? Note that the glow effects on each planet correspond with the actual atmosphere, and I tried to match texture colors to the atms. in an appropriate manner.

You can try them out for yourself with the Dev version of FQM, available here:

http://fqm5.spaceempires.net/dev.php

For reference, see this thread:

http://www.spaceempires5.com/en-US/node/4644

Re: Planet Textures
 

Maybe the rotation speeds and even the initial conditions could be randomized a bit... so they aren't all turning in sync?

Continual Rotation Speed := Random(-0.0002, 0.0002)

Re: Planet Textures
 

Hmm... that would probably get some planets rotating at 0. Probably need to just increase/decrease a base amount.

Re: Planet Textures
 

I find them a bit fluorescent in comparison to the existing planet textures. I do support more realistic depictions though. I was going through my copy of GURPS Space last night considering how interesting it would be to implement the realism rules for creating systems, utilising Titus-Bode law. However I am pretty much off modding now as I spent a year making a mod for another game and the effort involved was more than I expected, or am prepared to do again.

Re: Planet Textures
 

There are some more subdued earth-like planets for Oxygen floating about:

http://fqm5.spaceempires.net/gpt.php?i=sys_24

Re: Planet Textures
 

I have uploaded a cropped set of icons for the new planet textures (warning: 1.4 MBs in size!). I have placed the color labels down the side. These labels are currently used as the following:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>Carbon Dioxide: Amber, Yellow, Green
Hydrogen: Red, Vermilion, Orange
Methane: Indigo, Violet, Magenta
Oxygen: Terran, Forest, Cyan, Blue
None: None</pre><hr />

Note: In the screenshots, "Forest" is set to be a Carbon Dioxide atm, but I think it makes a better Oxygen.

What do you think?

Planet Icons Link - 1.4 MB

Re: Planet Textures
 

I turned the Gas Planets in the None row into Hydrogen... but the conditions should maybe set to 0 for those. Otherwise, that chart is what I am using. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

The fluorescence concern is valid, but it was up against being able to recognize the planet types by the icon... and muted colors quickly make them indistinguishable. Still, the "Brightness Offset Percent RGB" can be easily reduced in the XFileClasses_Stellar.txt to make them darker in the system map.

My main critique is that the portraits are a bit convex, mostly apparent in the Gas Planets which have the horizontal clouds. They could have been realistically mapped to spheres, but the effort involved was too great for the return, (the batch conversion for the current portraits "as is" took over 6 hours to run).

If it is feasible to host the textures, then maybe you should just make them available as one or more downloads at the mm page. That way with a couple beta data files and the "required" genesis map editor, people can give better thumbs up/down to all or some of the textures.

Re: Planet Textures
 

They are available on the dev page of FQM site (see first post). People can also see the increased rotation speeds in action.

Note that ringed planets still use old-style textures, due to having to manually edit the model files and such. Another interesting project might be a new set of ring textures.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Planet Textures
 

I found it difficult at best working with the ringed planets.

Re: Planet Textures
 

The ringed planet model is in plain-text format, so it's just a matter of opening all of them up and editing the textures they use. Certainly could have been better if we could specify texture overrides for both textures in the XFileClasses data file, but alas...

Re: Planet Textures
 

One thing to consider is keeping only three colors of the 12, plus Terran for Oxygen and, of course, None.
Red for Hydrogen, Indigo for Methane, and maybe Green for Carbon Dioxide. Messing with the brightness for the CO2 choice might improve it.

In fact, if there are only three color sets, I would consider remaking some of them with community selected colors. Carbon Dioxide is definitely the weakest of the group.

Re: Planet Textures
 

Doing that would remove the ability to expand into new atmosphere types, though. Nothing requires using every color, but having them available is definitely a plus.

I kind of like the yellow/green/orange sets for the carbon dioxide planets, actually. Really reminds me of LA sunsets (plus green)...

Re: Planet Textures
 

I recall LA sunsets as being brown like the smog. Although with your colors it is probably predominantly CO2. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Planet Textures
 

There are all sorts of unnaturally vivid oranges and pinks and violets, with a little brown. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif The green in the image is just a bonus.

Re: Planet Textures
 

Is Atmospheric Conversion completely hardcoded? It would be nice to have the resulting planet be based on certain factors, like the original planet's terrain, or other data. So that ringed planets could stay ringed planets, etc.

Re: Planet Textures
 

Probably... It may well be possible to code your own system though, using a dummy ability, in the Events script. Sadly, Aaron didn't go so far as to make this sort of stuff done via the scripts by default. Maybe SE6 can be more like Civ4 in this regard?

Re: Planet Textures
 

One idea has just occured to me after looking at the screenshots. Some of the textures include cloud cover so might it be feasible to use different coloured clouds to indicate atmosphere type along with (or instead of) the current glow?

Also, could a (partially transparent) cloud cover texture be placed over a planet texture? This could allow for more variety by mixing textures, randomising cloud cover or even rotating the cloud texture at a different speed from the planet to simulate weather.

Re: Planet Textures
 

The cloud colors don't match the glow, but they are different for the different atmosphere types... currently, there are like there cloud colors per type.

Separate Cloud Textures would be great, but currently, SE5 allows only one override texture bitmap per planet.

Re: Planet Textures
 

What I managed to do was create a new planet size, and link that exclusively to my orbiting bitmap moons, to replace tiny planets.
However, SE5 map generation seems to undo my changes, while the Genesis editor actually implements them.
There are no Tiny planets in my SystemTypes.txt... and yet SE5 turns my "moon" sized planets (which have no models, and just bitmap effects) back into tiny models without my bitmap effects.

Re: Planet Textures
 

eyecandy moons

Re: Planet Textures
 

The attachment in the previous post is actually a 7z zip, in case you have trouble decompressing it.

I didn't come up with a method of making moons that occurred when there was another stellar object in the sector, and tiny planets that occurred when the sector was empty... so that is the just the eyecandy moon with a new planet.