Oolite Bulletins

That's very cool!

An artist impression of the Lobster Volcano Group. I made the landscape with Terragen. Added bits of photo of a volcano eruption and then heavily edited with Photoshop.

And yet another facet of Oolite is accidentally introduced to the world - Oolite Art - Landscapes of places that don't really exist!

Really, Really cool!

I thought System Redux was good, but this station, moon, planet combo is excellent.
That moon is very, very close when you exit the station.

Station exit shot.



Notice the altitude bar.

Kind of adds a whole new meaning to the term 'skyscraper'... Any tall buildings on that planet will be gouging scars across the lunar surface!

El Viejo, any chance you can get a side-shot to show how close the planet and moon are to actually touching each other?

@ Ceinerxe: The layout of the cities (if that's what they are) is a little repetitive, isn't it? Only one is obviously mirrored. I think a little variation wouldn't hurt (or some back information why the Ceinerxeians stick to the same city map over and over again).

@ Orrionti: Very nice. Unfortunately it also demonstrates very neatly the limitations of Oolites planet texture handling, specifically the way 2D textures are wrapped around a 3D planet. Notice how the smoke fumes of the volcanos all get a fold by crossing a sharp edge between two texture areas? Perhaps fiddling with the texture would help. Rotating it to the left or right, until the fumes no longer cross an internal border.

There is at least one system in galaxy 2 that has two moons close to the planet and station. I'll see if I can find it again and take a few screenshots, as I remember it being quite impressive.

Diziet Sma wrote:

El Viejo, any chance you can get a side-shot to show how close the planet and moon are to actually touching each other?

<Cruises back across the vastness of space...>

On approach, it just looks like a trick of perspective:



On manual docking approach, it can be quite tricky. Again, note the altitude bar:




How can you not love this game?

mine now looks like that!!!! i have a new laptop and it has way better graphics!!!

but i have forgotten some oolite controlls

Commander McLane wrote:

@ Ceinerxe: The layout of the cities (if that's what they are) is a little repetitive, isn't it? Only one is obviously mirrored. I think a little variation wouldn't hurt (or some back information why the Ceinerxeians stick to the same city map over and over again).

This is indeed the case. It's a dictatorship and only one building style was allowed. The architecture was supervised by the dictator himself. So while it's a pleasant planet the buildings are a bit generic and dull and so is the street plan.

I toned down the contrast settings a bit to make it less pronounced.

=@ Orrionti: Very nice. Unfortunately it also demonstrates very neatly the limitations of Oolites planet texture handling, specifically the way 2D textures are wrapped around a 3D planet. Notice how the smoke fumes of the volcanos all get a fold by crossing a sharp edge between two texture areas? Perhaps fiddling with the texture would help. Rotating it to the left or right, until the fumes no longer cross an internal border.

Well the smoke fumes where in the middle of the texture and not on a border. Probably this is because there are also normal clouds. I fixed it a bit so that it looks better now.

pagroove wrote:

Well the smoke fumes where in the middle of the texture and not on a border. Probably this is because there are also normal clouds. I fixed it a bit so that it looks better now.

It doesn't matter where the fumes were. Or to be precise: middle is as bad as border. Oolite's wrapping-textures-around-planets mechanism really sucks. It is very rough and not at all fine-tuned or subtle.

You can check it by creating a simple grid-like black and white texture and using it. You will see how odd the straight lines are not only bent, but almost broken. I think from the grid you can figure out in which parts of the texture the worst breaks are located, and then avoid these parts for delicate structures.

You'll be pleased to know we're trying to sort the texture/planet suckyness for 1.74.

You won't be too pleased to know that we're not making too much progress with that at the moment. But we're kind of almost there. Well, Ahruman is, at any rate...

(Brings out 11 year old daughter in cheerleader outfit)
*whispers* Go ahead, honey...

(She starts up...)
Go Ahruman, He's our man!
If he can't....

Daddy, what's an 'Ahruman' ?

Cmd. Cheyd wrote:

Or an Argellian Love Slave in a Guerrilla suit.

Really minor quibble.. but shouldn't it be "Gorilla suit"?