Celestia Forums

http://cybermindtraveller.freewebspace.com/pics/muspelheim.jpg

http://cybermindtraveller.freewebspace.com/pics/muspelheim2.jpg

to be continued...

Nifhelheim...Way far out there man...

http://cybermindtraveller.freewebspace.com/pics/nifleheim.jpg

Wait..where are those planets, and how do you make planets?

In the data folder you will find a file labeled 'extrasolar.ssc'...Open this with Notepad or some other text editor. Notice the code you see?

Heres a sample of mine:

The different variables listed here will affect the look and actions of your planet.

From top to bottom..
the first string "x" is the planets name.
the second string is the star system it is in.
ok, inside the brackets the first line is Mesh...this is used ONLY if you want to replace the 'sphere' default with a MAX or other supported model with the default.
Texture is the JPG or PNG file used for the planet's surface.
Radius is measured in Km
Now in the Eliptical Orbit elements, you see variables used to judge revolution, distance, orbit inclination and the others I cannot remember off hand...
RotationPeriod is measured in hours
Albedo is illumination...This also will affect temprature.

Now inbetween Radius and Elliptical Orbit is a section like so...



Haze is haze...color feature is an RGB floating point value between 0.0 and 1.0 where 0.0 is no color.
the atmosphere element is comprised of the following...
Height is in Km
Lower, Upper and Sky all use RGB like Haze
CloudHeight is in Km
CloudSpeed I believe is in Kph?
CloudMap is the PNG or JPG file used...best to use transparent mask when texing these...I usually modify the existing ones.

And there you go...Its really not that hard to figure out. I just play around with the elements and see what I come up with..hehe its almost like playing god sometimes...

But can you post those textures and models for us, so we can add them?

Sure, theres a few more things I gotta do...and I was planning on that

Making the tour guide different and other things Im changing...

Ok. But how do you create textures? I don't have 3D Studio Max, so how do I create models and textures?

All you need is something like Adobe Photoshop...you dont need to make models for the planets to work...Adobe is $99 at any software store or maybe cheaper off the net at amazon.com or ebay...

MAX will cost $4K

There is an open source alternative to Photoshop which wont cost you anything. It's called "The Gimp", and you can obtain it in http://www.gimp.org/. There are compiled binaries for Linux and Windows (the Windows one is here: http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/, but the Linux versions are always a step forward in development).

Of course you wont get the same quality, ease of use and ease of installation than Photoshop, but for $0, you might want to try a near-professional quality graphic manipulation program. I have used both (but NOT the Gimp's Windows version) and can testify that the technical level of the tools offered by The Gimp is somewhat around Photoshop v5.0-v.5.5, so it's not far behind... Moreover, for Linux users, there is no alternative.

Good luck...

Bruckner

Damn wrong thread...