I've been working on adding some nice space backgrounds to the game:
http://multiverse.kronosaur.com/file.he ... pImage.jpg
Space backgrounds
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This looks really impressive, I'm looking forward to seeing this implemented.
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Cool. I like how light is blocked by the asteroids, will this also occur with stations?
I don't. What are they casting shadows on? For there to be less light coming from those regions, the light coming from the brighter areas would have to be reflected light from the local star. But it's not - it's light from other, far away stars. I approve of objects such as asteroids, planets, and ships being dynamically lit on the side facing the star, and ships passing behind planets and asteroids being shadowed, but not of casting shadows on the background, making it look like a flat surface.JohnBWatson wrote:Cool. I like how light is blocked by the asteroids, will this also occur with stations?
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This is just a very exaggerated version of zodiacal light (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiacal_light)NMS wrote:I don't. What are they casting shadows on? For there to be less light coming from those regions, the light coming from the brighter areas would have to be reflected light from the local star. But it's not - it's light from other, far away stars. I approve of objects such as asteroids, planets, and ships being dynamically lit on the side facing the star, and ships passing behind planets and asteroids being shadowed, but not of casting shadows on the background, making it look like a flat surface.JohnBWatson wrote:Cool. I like how light is blocked by the asteroids, will this also occur with stations?
The shadow is not on the background nebulae--in fact you should be able to see the background more clearly in the shadow of a planet or moon. Instead, the light from the star illuminates the dust on the ecliptic. This washes out the background just like light pollution washes out the sky.
But I've still got to work on the second part of your comment: since the planets are currently pre-rendered, I can't change the lighting based on the sun angle. I've got to do a different change to the engine to support that, but that's in the plan.
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Thanks!JohnBWatson wrote:Cool. I like how light is blocked by the asteroids, will this also occur with stations?
I'm not going to do shadows on stations (or ships) for several reasons:
1. Stations are (obviously) out of scale relative to planets. They are too small to cast much of a shadow on the very tenuous space dust.
2. I like the visual separation between the background and the foreground.
3. The shadow is somewhat expensive (computationally) so I pre-render it for efficiency. I can't do that for moving objects.
If an object is destroyed, does its shadow disappear?
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Currently no, unfortunately, which is another reason for only adding it to immutable planets and asteroids.PM wrote:If an object is destroyed, does its shadow disappear?
But it wouldn't be too hard to add code to handle that case if it becomes a problem. Also, I could add code to add a shadow when an object is created.
Moving shadows (i.e., shadows on moving objects) would be harder.
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No, unfortunately. I can't move the shadows yet because they are pre-computed. I need to add code to exclude shadows from any object with parallax.pixelfck wrote:Wow, looks great!
Would this be compatible with parallax worlds?
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This is great! Will you be addressing the shade stepping issue near stars? Right now it seems like bands of colors are produced that are alternately slightly redder or greener, creating an exaggerated stripe pattern.
I have a mod that destroys ore-bearing asteroids after they have been mined, which was why I asked the question of object destruction. I have also considered a mod that adds a planet-killer like the Death Star, either as an enemy (you need to stop it before it destroys planets) or a godmod (because blowing up planets is fun).
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Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!
Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
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Yes--this is addressed by implementing 24-bit color. There's still a tiny bit of banding, but there are no more color artifacts.Watch TV, Do Nothing wrote:This is great! Will you be addressing the shade stepping issue near stars? Right now it seems like bands of colors are produced that are alternately slightly redder or greener, creating an exaggerated stripe pattern.