Ran III released
Here it is. My monster of a science-fiction Add-On, in its third and final incarnation. I?m afraid it will bring
your computer to its knees with its insane amounts of hi-res detail - it has hundreds of textures, hundreds of
models, hundreds of data files... The SSC documents alone are several megabytes, and that is just text.
The basic download is 422 MB, with an additional 1.3 gigabytes for the Hi-Res folder, should you choose to
install it. Unpacked, it amounts to just below 3 GB. You will need at least a 64 MB video card, though more
is recommended (it runs smoothly on a 256 mb card, but will work with 64). And a gigabyte of RAM.
So, what is new?
For one thing, this is a complete story, not just a series of scenes. Absolutely everything has a discoverable
origin, purpose and fate. No matter what you look at, it will change with time, and it will be connected
to something else, for a reason it is possible to figure out. There is even a mystery in there to solve if you
are into puzzles. There is also a fair share of silly easter-eggs, if you care to look for them. So don?t take
it too seriously - it is designed to be fun and pretty to look at - and big enough to come back to many times.
As for the mystery, i?ll post one clue: there is a traversable wormhole in there. It helps to find it.
What is in it?
Two star systems, totalling 17 planets, a couple of hundred moons and some 1500 asteroids, sharing
about 200 unique texture maps - 41 of these are hi-res Virtual Textures with resolution up to 128k
in spots. These are optimized using Fridger?s "shrinking towards the poles"-trick, and is released
as 512px DDS tiles for MedRes and 1024px PNG tiles for HiRes. There is also a lot of differet asteroid
models, some created by me, some by ElChristou. Additionally, a huge number of spacecraft CMODS,
controlled by 87 different XYZs. Also, animated fauna on several of the worlds, several cities, space
stations, aeroplanes, boats - even a moving railway!
All this is interconnected to form the story of four developing extraterrestrial civilizations as they spread
through their local star system. This story is described through a series of CEL and CELX scripts together
with a detailed encyclopaedia featuring several hundred CelUrls. All in all, the story spans about
four thousand years. The concept is a development of the interactive e-book format i created for JTPS.
Thanks to:
- ElChristou for his model of the Hroenn Valley and several asteroids
- Rassilon for the Mythica / Rootax concept and many textures
- Cham for the Ran chromosphere and contributions to the Rootax Skybox
- fsgregs for the hundreds of CelUrls and all his work on the language of the Encyclopaedia
- Don. Edwards for the Hroenn / Himinglaeva clouds
- Adirondack and Harry for a lot of CELX code
- Chris for putting up with all my nagging about Celestia?s changing behaviour during the development of all this
Some images (click for higher resolution):
... And a 28 second quicktime movie can be viewed here.
Download links and more info can be found here:
http://www.celestialmatters.org/users/r ... index.html
... It will also be up on the Motherlode shortly.
PS:
If you are new to RAN - this is a science-fiction scenario for Celestia 1.5. Nothing in it is real,
but the physics of the worlds and technologies depicted are not too far out - it is "hard" SF.
- rthorvald
but I'm still playing with the VT stuff (mainly a night map) for the Earth.
