Oolite Bulletins

downloaded it and found out that it adds random moons and textures to planets and those moons.

is this oxp still fully functional in 1.70? As the alternative planetary texturing has been switched off? Can I turn it on again somehow? And can I make the oxp`s textures appear on the standard planets too, not only the random added ones?

Would be nice if someone in the know enlightened me about these questions

Greetings

Lestradae

I'm assuming that it's not, since the link seems to be disabled on the Wiki.

Which is a darn shame, as it looks purty in the screenshots I've seen...

http://www.box.net/public/b2tic3tjsk#1:3775170

I have tried the oxp with 1.70 under Vista in the meantime, and most of it seems to be working.

The additional planets and moons are there, and are textured. The main planet isn`t textured, it seems that function was disabled for 1.70.

My question would have been if the main planet`s alternate texturing could be switched back on somehow under 1.70, but no one deemed this worthy an answer *sigh* *lamppost-wavings*

And the broken link in the wiki might be restored?! The oxp is in Charlie`s Benulobiweed oxps assortment.

I have no major objections bringing the feature back in. This is easy. But then, if crashes happen (and this was the reason for disabling it), would you be OK with it? It could probably make debugging other issues harder too.

Having said that, I have never personally experienced a crash related to the procedural planet textures, and I had tested the feature quite a bit before the release of 1.70, just to be sure that it could be compiled in without issues, in case anyone wanted to use the source code and play with it. If Ahurman decides at some point that it is OK to include, I would be more than happy to bring it back.

I created this a long time ago just after JavaScript was added to the PC version, hope it's of some use.

This OXP doesn't alter the main planet but adds additional moons and planets to each system.

System Redux

CaptKev wrote:

I created this a long time ago just after JavaScript was added to the PC version, hope it's of some use.

This OXP doesn't alter the main planet but adds additional moons and planets to each system.

System Redux

I have that and it looks cool.
However the main planet (like you said) is untextured.

I am running version 1.68 because newer versions seem to crash too often on my laptop. 1.68 is crash free.

However procedural planet textures don't work for me and I still have 'original Elite' looking planets.
I would much rather have the main planets textured too.

Is there any way at all that can allow the main planets to be textured using png files.

Hi elite, unfortunately there isn't a way to texture the main planets using png's.

As another_commander said the only way is to add the textured planets branch to the main trunk.

another_commander wrote:

I have no major objections bringing the feature back in. This is easy. But then, if crashes happen (and this was the reason for disabling it), would you be OK with it?

I'm for this feature being included again.

CaptKev wrote:

As another_commander said the only way is to add the textured planets branch to the main trunk.

Actually, it is even simpler than that. The texture enabling code is already in the trunk, it is just switched off. All it takes to bring it back is a one line code change. But this needs the agreement of all the developers in order to become official. Or figure out exactly why the procedural textures seem to cause crashes and fix it, then switch them on again.

another_commander wrote:

Actually, it is even simpler than that. The texture enabling code is already in the trunk, it is just switched off. All it takes to bring it back is a one line code change. But this needs the agreement of all the developers in order to become official.

Forgive my ignorance, but are you saying that the main planets CAN be textured using png images just by changing a line of code?

If so, I say change it.

elite wrote:

Forgive my ignorance, but are you saying that the main planets CAN be textured using png images just by changing a line of code?

If so, I say change it.

To be more precise, the main planets CAN be textured using procedurally generated (i.e. game engine created) textures by just changing one line of code. But yes, that is all what it really takes.

Right I see.

Well the procedurally generated textures don't work on my laptop so I'll have to make do with what they are like now.

Although I have a suggestion about this.

I have looked through the code for the System_Redux.oxp

I see it adds randon planets/moons to certain posistion:
position = "pwm -24410 80540 50970";
radius = 900:

Could an oxp be written that places a planet at position = "pwm 0 0 0". I assume all main planets are at the center of the system?

If you then make this new planet slightly bigger than the original, then give it a png texture, wouldn't that work?

Or would having one planet over another cause crashes?

The only big job would be to give each planet it's own texture.
It wouldn't look good if Lave was an Earth like planet on one visit, then next time it looked different.
You would need to allocate a texture to each planet. There are loads of planet textures you can use but you would need a list of all planets and thier allocated png images, so each planet looked the same on each visit, instead of having a random image applied to it on each load.

It might work, but the trouble is you don't get the variety you get with procedural generation. If you check out Daljits alternative 1.65tp build, you'll see Earth-type and mars type planets with very nicely detailed costlines, deserts etc and each one is different. To do this with PNGs would mean you'd need 2400 PNGs, so it's not really viable. I'd vote for turning them on again. 1.67 had some really nice planets generated proceduraly. I didn't get any crashs on the PC, but it may be the Mac handles somthing differently which causes the crash?

LittleBear wrote:

To do this with PNGs would mean you'd need 2400 PNGs, so it's not really viable.

Yes exactly, but then it wouldn't matter if some planets used the same textures. I don't know about you, but there must be about 50% of the total planets that I havn't been to yet, and I am still in galaxy 1, so you wouldn't actually need 2400 png's.

elite wrote:

Right I see.

Well the procedurally generated textures don't work on my laptop so I'll have to make do with what they are like now.

Although I have a suggestion about this.

I have looked through the code for the System_Redux.oxp

I see it adds randon planets/moons to certain posistion:
position = "pwm -24410 80540 50970";
radius = 900:

Could an oxp be written that places a planet at position = "pwm 0 0 0". I assume all main planets are at the center of the system?

If you then make this new planet slightly bigger than the original, then give it a png texture, wouldn't that work?

Or would having one planet over another cause crashes?

The only big job would be to give each planet it's own texture.
It wouldn't look good if Lave was an Earth like planet on one visit, then next time it looked different.
You would need to allocate a texture to each planet. There are loads of planet textures you can use but you would need a list of all planets and thier allocated png images, so each planet looked the same on each visit, instead of having a random image applied to it on each load.

I like your thinking but the biggest problem with this approach would be having just the right radius, too small and you wouldn't see it, too big and the space station would be inside the planet, plus collision detection would probably make it explode.

Similar JavaScript code to System_Redux could be used to hold a small number of different looking planets that would always remain the same in each system.