Oolite Bulletins

Also the dominant (multicellular) species is insectoid, not human.

The nitrogen is inert, it is the few percent of oxygen that causes the blue refraction. bla,bla science bla.

(Look what you did! you made me use US-spelling!)

Let's recoop...the atmosphere absorbs visual light in different proportions.
Actually shortwavelenght light (blue and green) are more absorbed than red light, hence the red sky at sunrise/evening.
It is the scattered re-emission of absorbed energy by the atmosphere that gives the sky a blue colour in daytime.


Probably Rik has more recent knowledge on this topic than me, he's the resident space exploration buff.
I just like to be right.

There’s nothing special about oxygen to cause blueness. In any gas that’s transparent across the visible spectrum, blue light will scatter more than red light, which results in a blue tint away from light sources.

I think it has to do with emision spectra.
I cant find them for Oxygen, but Nitrogen emits at several blue, purple and UV wavelengths.

It is the random direction of photon emission, that causes the scattering.

From what you state, I assume you have the atomic emission scarts for the gasses at hand and that all gasses have similar emision spectra (in the visual range).

Emission spectra have nothing to do with it. Shorter wavelengths simply have a larger chance of being scattered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuse_sky_radiation

Well...I'm confused.

I cede the point.
....

So what about a chlorine-atmosphere?

Arexack_Heretic wrote:

Probably Rik has more recent knowledge on this topic than me, he's the resident space exploration buff.
I just like to be right.

Heh.. FWIW: This is actually quite a 'hairy' topic...
re: Mars: the most prevalent working colour for the atmosphere is 'butterscotch' but there is no end to the debate wether this is actually really correct.

Anyone old enough to remember the first Viking pictures will recall it showed Mars with an atmosphere close to blue-whitish, very Earthlike. Took everyone by surprize, but soon afterwards, NASA released calibrated pics, showing the 'proper' colour, reddish-brown.
Of course, fine people like Richard Hoagwas^H^H^H^Hland will tell you this is all part of a big conspiracy to err.. um, yeah...

But to be fair, the colour-calibration is not a 100% sure way to show you pictures of how Mars would look like if you set foot there yourself. For starters, the CCD's used are reacting to light slightly different as the human eye does, every human has a slightly different colour-experience, the filters used by, say Spirit and Opportunity rovers are there to add scientific value, not to woo the unwashed masses, so they are not optimised to reproduce TRU-KOLOR(TM) as seen in an IMAX studio near you etc. etc.

And then you have all monitors, printers etc. not created the same, the fact that you adjust colours yourself after awhile (walk around in a room partially w/ filtered lightfrequencies..., and after awhile you don't notice the off-colours)

A good place to see 'real' pics (as close as possible) is Cornell, where they calibrated the MER camera's...
http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/panc ... mages.html

(And note how their atmospheric pics are less than brilliant: most pics oversaturated etc... )
(EDIT:) this is a good one: http://marswatch.astro.cornell.edu/panc ... lls_2.html

Ammonia gas is transparent (like most gases) so Raleigh scattering would occur.

Don't forget that the sunrise/set is reddish because of the greater distance the light has to travel. There are quite a few variables that determine the sky colour of a planet. Either way, I can imagine clouds of all different colours.

Another thing, I've never read anything credible that says that Mars has blue skies. The red is apparently, not because of the colour of the particles in the atmosphere but the large size of the particles compared to the wavelength of the light.

For starters, the CCD's used are reacting to light slightly different as the human eye does, every human has a slightly different colour-experience,

I remember reading somewhere that our sky is actually more of a violet colour but the human eye isn't as sensitive to violet as it is to blue. Something like that anyway......

EDIT: Whoops, sorry bout the double post....

I'm sorry about this, i feel like a kid at the back of the class, not wanting to put his hand up, in case it sounds stupid!! but who cares lol. What sizes in pixels / resolution would the images need to be, so that i can throw something into the pot. I usually create maps for MoH which is a doddle compared to understanding the concepts of Oolite programming. If i know the specs of the images, not really the content at the moment, i will try. I don't know if I'm asking for too much, but how easy / difficult would it be for someone to knock up a "basic" plist so that i can check the images as i go So that if i include the plist, along with the image, (altering the names etc) then i would have an idea of how the images would look within Oolite. I put my hands up where programming is concerned. Its one thing to look at another OXP, and alter it to suit, but then to try and "create" programming for me is something else. I am in awe of you guys that do, amd having tried so much to understand, i REFUSE to use the word "game"!
(I'm trying to find an emoticon for being on my knees begging)

Okay, I'll write an example script to display a picture in the missionscreen GUI, depending on economytype.
(pending a dedicated GUI screen, or additional methods to work with the other GUI-screens)

Take a look at the 'system states methods' and the planetinfo.plist in the wikipedia, that will give you an idea of what is possible.

I cannot find a description for a method to get at the 'inhabitants-string'. Perhaps it is hidden or we need to lobby Giles for it.

bump: Did it work?

Sorry A_H, at the mo I can't get it to work, so i've been reading through the system states on the WIKI and looking at the AIs etc in the package. Jst thought i'd give you an update. I'm trying hard not to show my ignorance and depend on you guys so much. A couple of questions, i appreciate the problems with the changing of resolutions already, but should these images be of any specific size etc to be recognised in the first instance?

Is there a way to "place" the image to an area on the screen, via a command in an OXP etc?

Sorry for the questions, and as was the case at school, I must try harder!

Apologies, i forgot to mention the critical error that i get:

NSInvalidArgumentException: GSCSubString(instance) does not recognise keyEnmerator

If this is any help? Nothing is mentioned in stderr.txt in relation as it doesnt get to the load screen.

Edit: sorry i was being lazy and checked the script A_H, made a minor alteration, and things are moving now, at least I'm getting an image on the MissionScreen.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>planet_picture_test</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>conditions</key>
<array>
<string>dockedAtMainStation_bool equal YES</string>
<string>gui_screen_string equal GUI_SCREEN_SYSTEM_DATA</string>
</array>
<key>do</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>conditions</key>
<array>
<string>systemEconomy_number lessthan 3</string>
</array>
<key>do</key>
<array>
<string>setMissionImage: industial_world.png</string>
<string>setGuiToMissionScreen</string>
</array>
<key>else</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>conditions</key>
<array>
<string>systemEconomy_number greaterthan 5</string>
</array>
<key>do</key>
<array>
<string>setMissionImage: agricultural_world.png</string>
<string>setGuiToMissionScreen</string>
</array>
<key>else</key>
<array>
<string>setMissionImage: mixed_world.png</string>
<string>setGuiToMissionScreen</string>
</array>
</dict>
</array>
</dict>
</array>
</dict>
</array>
</dict>
</plist>

just the </dict>, sorry about that, i should have checked before bothering you

Sorry to harp on about a slightly diverging sub-topic, but liquid oxygen IS blue.

(A small point, but is does seem to matter.)