Questions on nebula and star textures

[mh82]

Hey everybody!

My first post here.
It's only two weeks since I discovered Oolite and I'm pretty excited about how it manages to give me that vintage gaming experience I know from the NES-Version.
So I'm designing an OXP that adds some awesomeness to nebulae and stars.

It will be part of an OXP package which will be named "Cinematic Ooniverse"...
Engine Sounds are also part of the package as well as a unique soundtrack.
I've put up a little web gallery to show off some things so that you know what I'm up to.

See here:
http://oolite.cx40.de/gallery_0-1/

But now to my question:
Is there a way to set nebula colors via script when the system gets populated?
Another nice thing would be the ability to set min/max size of both nebulae and stars in their .plist (or via script).

Is there any possibility to set those values?

[Norby]

Welcome here mh82!

Your work is nice, my tips:
-Check ZygoCinematicSky&Nebulas and look into the code for ideas.
-Maybe Sky Blur Scale could help.
-Start your url with http:// to be clickable. You can edit your post with the Edit button below your post and check the result with the Preview button before submit.

[Amah]

Nice! Looking forward to this (though I think my humble old machine will choke on it, like it does on Cinematic skies). Will definetely try it out.

Hmmh, don't know if http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Planet ... RGB_Colors is what you are looking for.
Btw. welcome to the friendliest board this side of Riedquat,

[mh82]

Thanks for those fast responses.

@Amah: I'm already fiddling around with the planetinfo.plist. But I thought there might be a way to tweak those values. But I already had the feeling that the only way to change them is to edit the plist.
But thanks for the pointer to this OXP, Norby. I think I even downloaded it... I'll check it out.

So, just to get things straight: If I wantedtoedit the nebula layout in every system I would have to edit ALL 2048 entries in planetlist.plist??? Sounds like a lot of fun...

[another_commander]

So, just to get things straight: If I wantedtoedit the nebula layout in every system I would have to edit ALL 2048 entries in planetlist.plist??? Sounds like a lot of fun...

You can adjust the parameters of the universal dictionary inside planetinfo, and those would be applied globally. The game generates the star and nebula positions procedurally, so there is already plenty of per-system variation because of that. Now, if you would like to position stars and nebulae in a system in a very specific and characteristic for the system way, then I believe you must do the changes separately for each planet of interest.

[Wildeblood]

If the sky is meant to be distant background stars and nebulas, shouldn't the skybox look the same (or ideally, not the same but very similar) for all systems? Wouldn't it be more correct to use the galaxy seed, rather than the system seed, to generate the star and nebula positions?

[mh82]

@Wildeblood: If you used the galaxy seed, each system's nebulae and stars would look the same. Ideally one would determine what nebulae and/or stars are in between the systems - or if the system is within a nebula - and display them (or not) according to the distance to them. So if there's a nebula between 2 Systems you can see it from both. That sounds pretty awesome but - at the same time - pretty complex...

@another_commander: I already use the universal section in the plist. But if I set the values there, they're the same across all systems. So I wodered if there was a way to change those values ingame and check for properties of the system to set them.

As this seems impossible I have to think of another way to get the desired Aaaaaaaahhh- and Oooooohhh-moments...

[Wildeblood]

You're just asking how to read the systemInfo object from javascript? Check the little example script in Distant Suns.

[pagroove]

Nicely done.

On the music side. You do know about BGS I assume? Will this be an OXP that conflicts with BGS or use BGS to inject soundtracks during flight?

I'm a music producer myself and done some work in the past together with Svengali on BGS ( I contributed some sounds: mainly engine sounds, and laser sounds and also station melody). Svengali masterminded the whole BGS system and the underlying framework.

I was interested in what you used to produce your (BTW excellent) track.

I myself use Logic Pro X user but I also have some real synths plugged in through a mixing desk. If you are interested visit my soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/p-a-groove. Maybe we can collaborate in the future on a soundtrack. For example you could send one to me for a remix or the other way round. (only if you want of course)

I also recently did produce more station melody's for BGS recently. The short loops that BGS plays when you are in a station but I have not released them so far. The standard BGS has I believe 2 loops. One from Svengali and one from me. .

Anyway compliments and welcome.

[Cody]

I also recently did produce more station melody's for BGS recently.

<looks up> More loops for stations?

[pagroove]

I also recently did produce more station melody's for BGS recently.

<looks up> More loops for stations?

Hi Cody.

Yes I did produce about 8 or 9 more extra stations melodies. I wanted more variation when docked.

[Cody]

Music to my ears, amigo!

[pagroove]

Music to my ears, amigo!

Yes I feel I should make some more. What do you think about 25/30 new station melodies or more?
The system randomizes the melody on each docking. 8 or 9 songs extra already make a lot of difference in variation.
BTW sorry for the thread going slightly off topic.

[mh82]

@Wildeblood: Not exactly... Reading those values is not a problem. My question was more about setting things according to those readings especially for stars and nebulae. But I had a closer look a the scripting reference and there doesn't seem to be a possibility to do so. I think I'll have to do things by design. At least I'll try...

@pagroove: Sounds nice. I'll have a look at it. I'm using Logic Pro 9. That's because I still use some older plugins which don't offer 64bit support. At the moment I've put all audio related stuff on hold because I got an evil flu and my ears won't work right... I haven't tested my early versions against other OXPs. So I can't say if there will be conflicts. But I'm sure that there will be conflicts/multiple sounds/musics playing if they are used alongside each other. I use Scripts for all sounds that can't be set directly via customsounds.plist. So I think it won't be a good idea to do so. I will see if I can add a menu to switch those sounds on and off. By the way: my "cinematic ooniverse" will be a collection of OXPs and no gigantic bundle. So one can decide what he/she wants to add to the game. I'll have a look at BGS though...

[another_commander]

@Wildeblood:. But I had a closer look a the scripting reference and there doesn't seem to be a possibility to do so.

I am pretty sure you can set values via the system.info object and, according to the wiki, they are stored in the savefile. I did a test on Lave using

Code: Select all

system.info.sky_n_stars = 500;

(default for me is 50000) and it worked. The catch is, you need to jump out and back, as the game will have to regenerate the system in order for the changes to take effect.. In the same way, you can change many other sky properties apart from number of stars.