Opinion on Planets

[David E. Gervais]

Raging Deadstar said:
I'm Using Lunarcell, a filter that lets you create planets extremely easily.

FYI, I purchased the 'Space Bundle' from Flamingpear.com at xmas. It has been what I use for the backgrounds of my artwork and renderings. Did you know that when you make your planets there is an option to save all psp layers. This function basically combines all the layers and makes a texture map perfect for use in Starfury or Se5. (the texture mapped onto the planet spheres in the game.)

So if you export your settings when you make a good planet, you can come back and export a texture map to use in se5 when you're making your mods. Neat eh?

See the sample below for where the export psp layers button is in lunarcell..


Cheers!

[Slynky]

Interesting, David (and Raging).

I should really look into getting something better than what I have. Something more dedicated to planet creation than the tools I've been "getting by" with (Universe, Mojoworld, and Vue).

Are you saying, David, that Lunarcell is part of the "Space Bundle"?

[Baron Munchausen]

Beautiful images! Now, can you make a series of them showing slightly different views of the whole planet in a 'strip' like the shields animation so we can have rotation?

There's more ways than 3D models to get rotating planets!

[Raging Deadstar]

Thanks everyone, i'm glad people like them.

Imperator Fyron said:
Maybe instead of even amounts, you could create amounts to fill the voids in the Image Mod? Currently, there is a wild imbalance in the number of custom planet images of each type... it would be great to bring it back to the stock SE4 balance between planet types and atmospheres...

If you can send me a list of planets and types i need to create i'll be willing to do this You have my Contact Details or just send me A PM.

David E. Gervais said:
FYI, I purchased the 'Space Bundle' from Flamingpear.com at xmas. It has been what I use for the backgrounds of my artwork and renderings. Did you know that when you make your planets there is an option to save all psp layers. This function basically combines all the layers and makes a texture map perfect for use in Starfury or Se5. (the texture mapped onto the planet spheres in the game.)

I Didn't know this David, thats extremely helpful I've been saving the exact settings for each planet i made for backup so i'll try this later. To quote you "Cheers"

Baron Munchausen said:
Beautiful images! Now, can you make a series of them showing slightly different views of the whole planet in a 'strip' like the shields animation so we can have rotation?

Thats a tough one, I doubt it as it renders basically a 2d image (although I'll try and use davids tactic above, maybe use starfury to render it and try and capture it as an animation ) But as David said, if the export thing works i'll be here when SE5 is released and i'll be adding to the Imagemod for that

Suicide Junkie said:
Well, personally, Number 3 looks like a CO2 planet, rather than oxy, since its so green.

The planets themselves, are beautiful.

Well i'm not the final judgement in which they represent Once i've got enough done and all the mini portraits you can use them for whatever you want

[Ed Kolis]

Hmmm... a while back I wrote a program to generate planets as Povray scene files, would anyone like me to dig that out again and modify it to generate animations, since Povray can do animations as well? The planets look rather cartoony but I'm sure they could be improved

[David E. Gervais]

Slynky said:
Interesting, David (and Raging).

Are you saying, David, that Lunarcell is part of the "Space Bundle"?

if you go to flamingpear.com you'll see that their 'Space Bundle' is a group of three plugins. Glitterato (for creating starfields and nebulas), SolarCell (for creating solar flares), and LunarCell for creating planets. The plugins can be purchased separately, but by buying the bundle you save money and these three plugins work extremely well together.

The other program I use for 'rendering' is Bryce 5 from Daz3d. very good raytracing/landscaping/rendering package. It allows you to import many 3d file formats to include in your scenes. There are a few good examples of Bryce over at spaceempires.net (in the gallery section.) an underwater colony I did and the Crash Site scene were both done in Bryce.

Have fun, and have a great day, Cheers!

Edit:


Here is an image of a planet made with lunarcell and exported as a texture map (PSD Layred image converted to a .bmp) imported into Bryce and mapped onto a sphere. Right off you can see the difference, the lunarcell Version has more debth and detail, while the bryce rendering does have the texture but looses the detail. You might say Bryce sucks, or why not just use lunarcell. well lunarcell while making great 2d planets has no option to rotate the image. once converted to a texture map and placed on a 3d sphere it can be rotated, resized, and otherwise manipulated. There might be a way to add a 'bump-map' to the Bryce rendering but I didn't learn how yet.

Anyway I digress, I just wanted to give you a 'visual' aide on how lunarcell could be used to make texture maps for se5 planets or Starfury. I won't turn this into a discussion on the pros and cons of 2d vs 3d. they each have their good and bad points.

Nuf said, Cheers again,

[Emperor Fritsch the Dense]

nice looking, where can i get a link to DL some planets like that? before you say make them yourself i have 0 skills in that area
Emperor Fritsch the Dense

[Raging Deadstar]

Emperor Fritsch the Dense said:
nice looking, where can i get a link to DL some planets like that? before you say make them yourself i have 0 skills in that area
Emperor Fritsch the Dense

Well as soon as I find out which ones I need to make for the imagemod i'll have them done hopefully within the next week, probably less if i have as much free time as i do at the moment.

David. I Have to admit there i prefer bryce. Lunar cell, although it does add texture i think they look terrible (not all the time, some textures it adds are very nice, but the one below is not that good) and also the clouds are quite nasty if they have an edge. It can be limited, as you can see in the ones i did i tried to keep the texture to a medium where it wouldn't look too bad.

I do have a program called Terragen which renders planets but have yet to use it. I'll be trying it out soon so I'll give everyone an update there.

If anyone has a list of Planet types i need to render please contact me so i can get started.

[David E. Gervais]

Hello, again

The main point that I was making is that you can use LunarCell to make Planet textures for use in 3d Apps or games. You'll notice that the sample below is in the right size and form as the planet textures in Starfury. (which is the same engine used in SE5) So, if you want to creat all new planets, making textures for them is a cinch with Lunarcell.


FYI 2.0.. this type of texture can also be mapped onto a sphere created in any 3d app. (ie Anim8or which is free) then rendered in that program. bryce is not the end-all be-all of programs, it's just my app of choice for rendering.

Cheers!

[Fyron]

Raging Deadstar said:

If you can send me a list of planets and types i need to create i'll be willing to do this You have my Contact Details or just send me A PM.

Well, according to the handy new feature of SJ's Map Analyzer program, the balance of entries in the SectType.txt file of FQM Deluxe is thus:



So, images need to be made to make these balanced. At the very least, enough to get the same number for each size of planet for each type and atmosphere...