Oolite Bulletins

another_commander wrote:

Many of the screenies there by Cody and myself show Povray + new atmospheres.

A Povray gas giant (which somehow found its way into interstellar space) without an atmosphere:



Which leads me to a question I asked a while back: should gas giants have an atmosphere effect?

technically speaking i think they should.
even a gas giant wont have a defining line of where the "gas" ends and space begins. just like any planet they will thin out as you get further from the centre of the planet.
earths atmosphere doesnt just end, it thins out to vacuum . only on planets without an atmosphere would you see a definite edge between planet surface and space.

but this is a game so do whatever you think looks right to you...lol

spud42 wrote:

but this is a game so do whatever you think looks right to you

I do - all my gas giants have atmospheres disabled. Thing is, rockies have a clear line where atmosphere meets surface, but gas giants don't.

There are some problems with the gas giants, the atmosphere shader, and the core game:
- there are no gas giants in the core game
- there are no gas giants in the PovRay Planets either
- the only way to "tell" a planet is a gas giant, is to browse through the textures and "mark" them as such (in this case just saying it doesn't have atmosphere, I guess) in the planetinfo.plist
- how about "landing" on a gas giant through the nice blue landing sky

The way I see this solved would be to provide a dedicated "gas giant" shader that can be plugged in by the OX[PZ]s (and being unused by the core game, unless some gas giant look would be drafted later). I guess such a shader should look like in the following screenshots from Blender (it should resemble a bit the way the stars/suns are presented in Oolite, without their rays, of course).
This is the look and the color ramp (a bit more complicated than the one in-game) for the atmosphere shader:


These should be the corresponding counterparts for a "gas giant" shader (maybe a bit exaggerated for a better picture):


The gas giant still won't have the atmosphere (of course, a big percentage of its radius *is* the atmosphere) but it would still have shader fading at "the end of its circle".
I'm not sure to what extent this can be done without touching the Obj-C code.

Interesting.

Commander_X wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2017 10:13 pm

...the only way to "tell" a planet is a gas giant, is to browse through the textures and "mark" them as such in the planetinfo.plist...

<nods> I went through the Povray textures and disabled Oolite's clouds on all gas giants (191) in the planetinfo.plist - atmospheres came next.

Cody wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2017 10:25 pm

Interesting.

Commander_X wrote: ↑Fri Feb 24, 2017 10:13 pm

...the only way to "tell" a planet is a gas giant, is to browse through the textures and "mark" them as such in the planetinfo.plist...

<nods> I went through the Povray textures and disabled Oolite's clouds on all gas giants (191) in the planetinfo.plist - atmospheres came next.

I certainly knew that (I think you mentioned it some pages back)

<grins> Quite likely!

... and here's a quick in-game hack of a "gas giant" called Isinor



Couple of comments:
- the landing/close flying issue I've mentioned (with the nice blues skies) doesn't come up due to has_atmosphere = false, thus no sky
- this is nothing more than a quick hack (all the planets would have this shader) -- it's actually the original shader I used when I'd shown this capability sometimes back, changing the "atmosphere" color to black
- it's not really doing transparency, as the planet/material shader doesn't have this (I guess transparency will need Obj-C intervention), just fading to black (this can be seen on the left side of the picture, where there is a nebula with the slight same tint like the planet, but has a sharp black edge between its lower margin and the planet)

Wooo - 322 pages of screenshots. Perhaps this topic need a bit of sub-topicing - e.g. "planets", "spacecraft" ....
Anyway, Anyone seen one of these before?


Attacked by a Basilisk, I start shooting chunks off it, as you do. Boom goes a drive pod. Boom - a second. Boom, an inert lump comes off. Boom another drive pod. Gibbering and pleas for mercy from the pilot before the military laser in the back of the head moment. Go back for the metal plate, but it's not a plate, it's a "Basilisk Laser Mount" - and I'm wondering what the experience and profit margin for swallowing it is going to be. As the actress said to the bishop, "I've never seen one that size before! Or that shape at the end." (Referring to his hat. Filthy boy!)
Will I get, ummm, spiked? Shafted through the fuel scoop? A BFG-9000? Chocolate? Or just lots and lots of €?

It's been a long time since I posted here, but this name made me chuckle so I thought I'd share it.

Smivs wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2017 9:38 pm

It's been a long time since I posted here, but this name made me chuckle so I thought I'd share it.

That's CAPTAIN Sensible to you, groundling!
(Complete with tiny sun glasses and a red beret. 1970s survivors only need apply.)

Two images from the rescaling experiment.

Boa with Cobra Mk I escort (cobra to left of planet).




Sidewinder passes in front of the station (top right pentagon).

More rescaling stuff.

Same python, same asteroid...







Note the python still on the scanner above




Note the huge area that the asteroid occupies on the scanner (at 1:1 rather than with any zoom enabled).


And there are asteroids bigger than that one (a 'huge' class) much, much bigger even that a main station and yet they can disappear in the vastness of system space.

1440x900 Res D/L


1440x900 Res D/L

Trim the "Development version..." text and that second one is box-cover art.

Excellent