[RELEASE] Povray Planets 1.0

[pagroove]

My new project is Famous Planets for Povray

What does that mean?

It does mean that Famous Planets is merged in the Povray sets but that I also started to make descriptions based on the Povray planets. I am not an English writer so I certainly make mistakes. So I need proofreading.

Short term aim for the project is to provide descriptions for all planets in Galaxy 1.

As inspiration I use the Planet list, New Galaxy Guide, OXP's like the Feudals, Powers and Organisations and off course the Vector maps. (all on the Wiki).

Here is an example. This description was made using the original and extending the description with the Coomunin (as featured on the wiki) I then thought that the poet maybe inspired the Coomunin. So I searched a planet with volcanoes in G4 and found it and voila a new description was born.



Any volunteers for proofreading?
All contributions in the form of descriptions are welcome but please do use the original planet description as a starting point.

[cim]

My new project is Famous Planets for Povray

Sounds great! The FP descriptions were a big inspiration for many of the trade goods and routes in New Cargoes: it got much harder to do once I got beyond Galaxy 2...

Any volunteers for proofreading?

Happy to do that ("widly known" should be "widely known" ) - would you like me to go through the existing FP descriptions too?

[Fatleaf]

I can write one or two. Do you want them posted here or PM them to you?

[pagroove]

I can write one or two. Do you want them posted here or PM them to you?

Hi Fatleaf!

Great

Post them in the FP2.5. topic. I need descriptions for planet numbers 5 to 15. So the first one would be Tiraor.

[submersible]

Another issue I have come across with Povray Planets is that because no heuristics are presently used to determine planet type or features , that the resulting texture is totally inappropriate for the description.

Case by case the alternatives for addressing this would be

• Total re-write of the planet description to reflect the texture. Easy, however it many collide with prior art / emersion and offend some.
• Flag the planet texture as a 'problem povray planet' and suggest how it should look, allowing me to hand adjust or source a more appropriate texture
• ???

Propose a new topic 'Problem Povray Planets' where these can be recorded.

[Cody]

that the resulting texture is totally inappropriate for the description.

As with Ribilebi, you mean?

[Commander McLane]

Another issue I have come across with Povray Planets is that because no heuristics are presently used to determine planet type or features , that the resulting texture is totally inappropriate for the description.

Case by case the alternatives for addressing this would be

• Total re-write of the planet description to reflect the texture. Easy, however it many collide with prior art / emersion and offend some.
• Flag the planet texture as a 'problem povray planet' and suggest how it should look, allowing me to hand adjust or source a more appropriate texture
• ???

I think the texture should follow the description, not the other way round. I had kind of assumed that you were working like this when creating individual textures for each planet, anyway. It seemed like the logical thing to do.

[submersible]

Another issue I have come across with Povray Planets is that because no heuristics are presently used to determine planet type or features , that the resulting texture is totally inappropriate for the description.

Case by case the alternatives for addressing this would be

• Total re-write of the planet description to reflect the texture. Easy, however it many collide with prior art / emersion and offend some.
• Flag the planet texture as a 'problem povray planet' and suggest how it should look, allowing me to hand adjust or source a more appropriate texture
• ???

I think the texture should follow the description, not the other way round. I had kind of assumed that you were working like this when creating individual textures for each planet, anyway. It seemed like the logical thing to do.

In general I agree with you , however there is far too much prevalence of 'is a boring planet' and 'unremarkable dump' for my taste. Those I would consider the foremost candidates for description clobbering.

I am often pleasantly surprised by how my imagination tries to make the texture and original description 'fit'. Of course the occasional vast oceans happy accident is nice to see.

[JazHaz]

Just downloaded the main AI OXP and the Galaxy 1 and 2 textures. I noticed there was no readme in any of the zips.

I assume that the texture OXPs should sit separately from the AI OXP in Addons, similar to how the YAH OXP works?

[Cody]

I assume that the texture OXPs should sit separately from the AI OXP in Addons, similar to how the YAH OXP works?

Yep... that's how it works on my machine.

[Cmd. Cheyd]

Another issue I have come across with Povray Planets is that because no heuristics are presently used to determine planet type or features , that the resulting texture is totally inappropriate for the description.

Case by case the alternatives for addressing this would be

• Total re-write of the planet description to reflect the texture. Easy, however it many collide with prior art / emersion and offend some.
• Flag the planet texture as a 'problem povray planet' and suggest how it should look, allowing me to hand adjust or source a more appropriate texture
• ???

I think the texture should follow the description, not the other way round. I had kind of assumed that you were working like this when creating individual textures for each planet, anyway. It seemed like the logical thing to do.

Hahaha... I have to laugh. Not to beat an already dead equine, but look at the code in Deep Horizon - Systems. This was already present in version 1, and was refined in the version 2 script that I have repetitively offered. (*sigh*) Oh well... I'm tired of offering and being ignored.

[submersible]

Hahaha... I have to laugh. Not to beat an already dead equine, but look at the code in Deep Horizon - Systems. This was already present in version 1, and was refined in the version 2 script that I have repetitively offered. (*sigh*) Oh well... I'm tired of offering and being ignored.

I'll bite.

It is unfortunate that you feel you are being ignored. I am still grateful for your offer - let me attempt to explain why I have chosen to release these textures without a great deal of consultation, integration , scripting support , or indeed as is becoming more apparent - testing and checking.

When I first suggested the idea of building entire galaxies of textures , offers of code sharing were flying thick and fast. I was overwhelmed by prior maintainers of OXPs that no longer had the time to support or extend their creations - hoping I would pickup their particular torch. I did look at DH and System Redux and Demux and FP all of them had their good points , none had the perfect solution and taking on stewardship or maintenance of unfamiliar code was simply too far out of my initial scope.

Gladly - much discussion has ensued and this is a good thing.

Hopefully when the rendering pipeline is more mature - I will have time to look at federating Povray Planets and Deep Horizons Systems and Famous Planets and any other system tweaking OXP that cares to jump on the bandwagon.

[CaptKev]

Hopefully when the rendering pipeline is more mature - I will have time to look at federating Povray Planets and Deep Horizons Systems and Famous Planets and any other system tweaking OXP that cares to jump on the bandwagon.

You don't need to worry about System Redux (the original )

I believe there should be a couple of choices available, plus I don't really like the idea of the main system planet being a Gas Giant.

There will be a new release of System Redux soon, if I can tear myself away from Skyrim.

[SandJ]

Galaxy 5 is now available.

I have installed this and I am getting errors in Latest.log and no pretty planets. SOLVED.

I have downloaded and installed [size=120]Povray_Planets_Galaxy5_Textures_v1.0_2012-02-28.zip[/size]

In the folder [size=120]~/GNUstep/Applications/Oolite/AddOns/Povray_Planets_Galaxy5_Textures.oxp/Textures[/size]

there are 256 files called "[size=120]gal-5-*.png[/size]" like this:
[size=120]gal-5-Inriisus.png
gal-5-Inquveri.png
[/size]
The Latest.log says this:

21:03:34.810 [escapePodLocator.js]: Range in normal space modifier: default. Range in interstellar space modifier: default.
21:03:34.810 [POV Planets]: Initialising OXP
21:03:36.492 [POV Planets]: populating
21:03:36.493 [files.notFound]: ----- WARNING: Could not find texture file "Inriisus.png".
21:03:36.552 [script.javaScript.warning.ooliteDefinedError]: ----- JavaScript warning (POV Planets 0.14): Cannot find texture "Inriisus.png". Value not set.
21:03:36.552 [script.javaScript.warning.ooliteDefinedError]: AddOns/Povray_Planets_v0.14.oxp/Config/script.js, line 34.
21:03:36.552 [POV Planets]: finished populating
21:03:36.560 [bigShips_populator]: 0 big trader(s) added to the Inriisus system.
21:04:06.887 [testscript.spawn]: Generated 1 nest for testing purposes.
21:04:06.887 [POV Planets]: populating
21:04:06.889 [files.notFound]: ----- WARNING: Could not find texture file "Inquveri.png".
21:04:06.945 [script.javaScript.warning.ooliteDefinedError]: ----- JavaScript warning (POV Planets 0.14): Cannot find texture "Inquveri.png". Value not set.
21:04:06.946 [script.javaScript.warning.ooliteDefinedError]: AddOns/Povray_Planets_v0.14.oxp/Config/script.js, line 34.
21:04:06.946 [POV Planets]: finished populating
21:04:06.951 [bigShips_populator]: 0 big trader(s) added to the Inquveri system.

Edit: hang on ... I have Povray_Planets_v0.14.oxp installed too ... wait while I disable that and re-test ... problem went away when I disabled Povray_Planets_v0.14.oxp. Sorry for the false alarm; but I'll leave this post here in case someone else has the same error.

[Wildeblood]

Well I think these textures are superb, all two gigabytes of them! So, submersible, are you still planning to do the other four galaxies, or do we have to be satisfied with just 1024 different textures? And if you're still going, which galaxy are you doing next? Don' be so mysterious, man.