Oolite Bulletins

Hi all,

Not sure if this is a realistic suggestion or more of a 'wish' but I think it would be cool if the background skybox could perhaps be generated depending on where you were in the galaxy- if you were starting at Lave you'd be able to see the galaxy spread out a bit like the background in Frontier, but the closer you got to the centre the brighter and more nebular-y the background would get.

I'm no programmer but maybe these could be proceedurally generated from a 3D model of the galaxy rather that by having hundreds of sky boxes?

Just a suggestion really, but I think it would give a really cool impression of 'travelling' the galaxy, you could even have things like the T. Pulsar or similar visable from neigbouring systems!

Cheers,

The skies you see when you visit a system are procedurally generated. The system's seed is used for positioning stars and nebulae. Also the number of stars and nebulae depends on that seed. So your wish is already partially fulfilled.

Unfortunately, the rest of what you are requesting is a bit on the improbable side. The reason is that the universe is regenerated from the ground up whenever you hyperspace. All information is recreated and no static data survives between systems (with maybe the exception of scanned wormholes from 1.73 onwards). Also, the galaxy is just a set of systems on a 2D plane, so there are really no outer and inner planets to determine what a galaxy background would look like.

Finally, as you may have guessed from reading the first paragraph, the backgrounds you see are not skyboxes, i.e. they are not just random bitmaps, they are created by the game and each element's position is controlled realtime. That's why you see a small drop in performance if you add way too many stars and nebulae in your nightsky. It could be maybe possible to add backgrounds the way you propose, but I don't think it will happen any time soon.

Thanks another_commander

Thought it might be a bit outside what's possible with the oolite engine... would be a nice idea thouhg! I love the thought that you could get a real sene of moving throuhgout the galaxy, just by looking at the background in any one system!

Cheers,

maybe fewer stars as you approach the edge of a galactic map?

There's a game called Infinity (google it) that has a HUGE procedurally generated galaxy, with seamless transitions between planets. Cool, no? Course it is a MMORPG which I hear most people here don't like...

Its not that people dislike MMOGs exactly, but rather that isnt the direction oolite is ever likely to go.

No people here dislike mmorpgs here... I brought infinity up in the outland forum once... "the main problem i have with mmorpgs is other people"

True some people dislike MMOG, and from what I remember a lot of people dislike EVE. But not everyone hates MMOGs, in fact one of the most common requests is for a multiplayer oolite.

I was an 8-year player of a MMORPG, and only quit 2 years ago when my guild decided to shut down after 7 years as the top guild on the server. Most of us were burned out.

Who was it who said that in any sentence about quitting wow, you can substitute "heroin" for "wow" and it still makes sense?

I think he is offering evidence that his is pro MMOG. I dont think he is trying to change subject to addiction.

Wow we derailed this thread. But procedural skybxes in oolite that meant you could see nearby systems would be wicked cool. Even better, if you could just point your ahip at a nearby system, turn on your torus, and come back in a few thousand years and be at the system. But I know that'd be impossible with how Oolie currently is scripted.

Goose wrote:

Not sure if this is a realistic suggestion or more of a 'wish' but I think it would be cool if the background skybox could perhaps be generated depending on where you were in the galaxy- if you were starting at Lave you'd be able to see the galaxy spread out a bit like the background in Frontier, but the closer you got to the centre the brighter and more nebular-y the background would get.

Another issue would be that the "Galaxies" in Elite/Oolite aren't in fact galaxies, but merely distant parts of the same galaxy.

So I would't expect any significant changes in the galactical background picture while travelling from Lave to the eastern rim. Notably the "centre" would not look different from the edges, because in fact it isn't a centre of anything.

In other words: wherever you are in the Ooniverse, you would still only be somewhere inside the god-forsaken eastern spiral arm of the Milky Way.