Freelanacer's Sirius Sector

[Rocket Man]

I trying to recreate the Sirius Sector from the game Freelancer(tm). There are many questions that I have.

1.) Is it possible to have a small outcroping of a nebula, or basiclly a cloud of gas, orbit a star on celestia. I was thinking like Black Hole 108 add-on nebula like. What about a asteriod cloud?

2.) Is there a possible way to make green-colored stars? On the game a system called "Omicron Alpha" it has a F4V green star. I know this question was asked in the past but I can't find it.

3.) Is it possibe to add like saturn's rings around a star, like so http://www.microsoft.com/games/freelancer/downloads_01.asp the third wallpaper picture.

4.) I found the models of the game but there .3DB files. Anyone know anything about them and able to turn them into .3DS files?

5.) I also found the planet and nebule textures but in .TXM* I belive. Anyway to translate this into like .PNG, .JPG or .DDS?



Thanks.
For screenshots, http://www.microsoft.com/games/freelancer/screens_01.asp
*I was doing from my local libary, so I have to check later.

[Slalomsk8er]

There is a addon for the sun that uses a planet to testure the sun. With this you can make a green star but the light will not be green.

In general all thing are possible with meshes an textures exept lighting.

Mod can we have this in the right subforum?


Dominik

[selden]

I'll move this to the User's Forum, since it isn't a discussion about modifying Celestia.

[Rocket Man]

Well I think this is easier question to answer.

1.) There a space station that is always on the night side of a planet to protect it from it red giants radiation storms. Is it possible to do this?
It call geosynchous orbit, I belive.









Thanks.

[selden]

A geosynchronous orbit places a satellite at a distance so that its orbital speed keeps it over the same location (the same longitude, actually) on the planet's surface as the planet rotates. So half the time it'd be illuminated by the sun -- during the daylight hours of the location that it's above.

There's an orbit that'll keep a satellite in the sunlight at all times, but not one that'll keep it completely in the dark.

To keep a satellite behind the planet, it'd have to be at what's known as the L2 point. (Second Lagrangian point) That's an orbit around the sun, further out than the planet but close enough to the planet so that the planet's gravity pulls the satellite slightly faster, just enough to keep the satellite behind the planet.

Unfortunately, this is far enough away that the planet will only cover a tiny fraction of the surface of the sun as seen by the satellite, so it's still going to get lots of radiation.

Sorry.

[Rocket Man]

1.) So what about rings around a star? Is that possible?

2.) Also is it possible to translate .TXM to .JPG or .PNG?

With further study of the model files I found in the game's folder, Most of them are in .CMP and .SUR and .MAT that make up the models. This one is going to be difficult.







Thanks.

[selden]

1. Celestia can't draw a ring around a star in exactly the same way that it draws rings around a planet. However you can either create your own 3DS (or CMOD) model which can carry an image that looks like an asteroid belt, or you can place a dummy planet within the star and have Celestia draw rings around the dummy planet.

2. "Recreating" is not the same as "copying". Copying things directly out of Freelancer, even if you transform them into a different format, is a copyright violation. You could use the results for yourself, but you can't give them to your friends; unless, perhaps, they've purchased their own copies of Freelancer. Creating your own textures that just happen to look similar to theirs may or may not be OK, depending on what about the game Microsoft has Trade Marked. Remember: you did point out that (TM). Also, you need to read their "EULA" (End User License Agreement). That'll surely put a lot of restrictions on what you're allowed to do with the information that's on the game's discs.

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but I really don't want you to get into trouble over this.

[Rocket Man]

So how do you exactly make this "dummy" planet?


With the textures, I will have to make them more realstic than these anyway.

Another Question:

1.) Is it possible to have the atmosphere a color to change a oranage gas planet to a green color?




Thanks.

[selden]

Define a planet with an Orbital Period of 1e32, a semi-major axis of 0 and "Emissive true".

Celestia's Atmosphere directive affects what you see around the "edge" of the planet's image, not the surface directly in front of you. You'll need to define a Haze color for that. At the moment, Haze can only be drawn by Nvidia cards.

[Rocket Man]

Thanks.