Oolite Bulletins

With a lot of the recent focus on the OXP's and even a fair bit of the core development going into improving the appearance of the overall game (new models/textures ala Simon & Griff, upping the Poly count limit and soon-to-be-removing-it, etc), would it be possible to also upgrade the mechanism for texturing planets?

I'm helping another OXP'er with a rather "Famous" project, and am continually disappointed after spending time developing my texture, that when it's applied in-game, it always has such obvious polar distortion. It always looks like the planet has a butt-pucker. Also, would it be possible to make the planets actually rotate on ONE axis like normal?

Lastly, I've not tried yet, but will planets / moons accept bump maps and the more advance image stuff beyond basic singular textures?

Cmd. Cheyd Vlos'Olplyn wrote:

Also, would it be possible to make the planets actually rotate on ONE axis like normal?

Oh, they do rotate around any axis you tell them. That's what the orientation-key in planetinfo is good for.

The real problem is that the texture is not applied along the rotational axis. There is only ONE very specific value for orientation which leads to the north pole of your texture actually being placed over the non-rotating spot of the planet, and the equator of your texture being parallel to the equator of the rotation.

The closest I ever got to it (by trial and error) was with for scripted planets. I don't suppose, though, that you could apply that to all main planets (which are not scripted in planetinfo). Also this was some Oolite-versions ago, and I don't know whether it's still good. But I don't think the planet orientation was worked with in the code since.

Something is clearly broken with the orientation of the planets. But it seems to be complicated, and is of minor interest for the coders at this point.

I know this is not exactly what is being requested here, but as of version 1.73 onwards, the procedurally textured planets are coming back as a game option menu item. For those who don't know what this is, basically planet textures will be generated realtime on universe creation or F7 screen access, using a specific procedural algorithm. It is all done in such a way that each of the 2048 planets in the game has its own unique texture. This code has been long dormant since 1.69, but we think that it is possible to bring it back to life now and a couple of small optimizations have been already done on it.
Just to have an idea of what we are talking about:

And for even more clarifying some benefits of the in game texture planets via the oxp texture techniques (that until now was the only alternative) we have:
1.No distortion in the poles
2.Every planet is unique
3.No texture wrap problems
4.Independent movement of the clouds (for the simple reason that the clouds are not a part of the texture anymore)
5.You can see the same planet in the F7 screen and in space (bare in mind that the F7 screen uses always white light for the illumination before stat complaining that the miniature planets have a little bit different colors)

On the other hand there is a small delay when you press the F7 screen

A big thanks to Aegidian for creating this feature (yes as you can see is a rather old inactive feature) and especially to Ahruman, A_C and the rest of the dev team for optimazing it and make this feature active again.

Would it be possible to have the System Redux texture in-flight and the generated ones on the F7 screen simultanously?

Yes, it would be possible, but obviously the texture appearing in flight will be completely different to the one you will see on F7.

Note that this will still remain by default off. You will have to activate it through the game options screen if you want it

IMHO What we are going to need is a light version of system redux that will only add the additional planets, moons, nebulas ect without changing the texture of the main planet

Ark wrote:

IMHO What we are going to need is a light version of system redux that will only add the additional planets, moons, nebulas ect without changing the texture of the main planet

Comment out the line calling the homePlanet function.

Can't wait until the procedurally textured planets are back in-game again.

Well look who is here!!!!!!!
long time no see CaptKev

Hi Ark, I've been experiencing Oolite withdrawal symptoms so I thought I'd better get a quick fix.

Oolite has moved forward in leaps and bounds since I was last here, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised considering the talent (old and new) frequenting these boards.

You probably don't need an old bogger like me around anymore?

CaptKev wrote:

You probably don't need an old bogger like me around anymore?

No, by all means, stay!

More Oolite withdrawal to you, there's only one cure for that

Hi Capt Kev! Welcome back man! Of course we need you on the board Still using your System Redux because it has excellent textures.



A question to the procedural devs. Is the Famous Planets OXP still usable?
because otherwise I made all the textures for nothing. The looks of the new planets are very good (out of the box) but I wish for better cloud generation

EDIT

I mean a stronger visible cloud layer. But I looked better at the pictures now and it looks real good for generated planets

New textures for planets would be great. With Simon B and Griff, everything looks great, but the planets just look out of place.
I want something like this:
http://www.desktopextreme.com/photos/Ea ... 0PM202.jpg

Moderator: link to giant picture instead of breaking forum

wackyman465 wrote:

New textures for planets would be great. With Simon B and Griff, everything looks great, but the planets just look out of place.
I want something like this:
http://www.desktopextreme.com/photos/Ea ... 0PM202.jpg

Frankly, that looks awful. We can do far better.

However, the amount of time and energy I can muster to work on Oolite is frustratingly limited, and I need to prioritize. The priorities at the moment are the modelling and material system for ship entities (most importantly, getting lighting fully working), the JS scripting system (pretty much done) and bug fixing (lots). After that we’ll see.

pagroove wrote:

A question to the procedural devs. Is the Famous Planets OXP still usable?
because otherwise I made all the textures for nothing.

Theoretically it will not have any problem at all. Whoever wants to install them in 1.73 would not have any problem.

From my point of view oxps like system redux and famous planets are not dead due to the new oolite feature. They just have to adapt to the new reality. That means that maybe the replacement of the texture on the main planet would not be their main feature anymore.

Just see the recommendation I made about the system redux.

In the case of famous planets oxp if you have a closer look at lave oxp you will see an alternative approach of how you can customize a specific system (it even changes the color of the planet without wrap to it a new texture)

I repeat that as far as I can see there will be no compatibility problems if you want to change the texture of the main planet. It is not a matter of compatibility it is a matter of choice. It would work in the same way as now but also with the same drawbacks that we have today (distortion in the poles ech) and moreover I can not see any possible solution to those drawbacks via a deferent oxp technique.