Preview: A remake of the Lera Solar System

[Michael Kilderry]

Hello,

Here I am again with another new Celestia addon in-progress. This one is based on my first addon, the Lera System, and I'm in the process of redoing it to improve the quality.

So far I've started work on the central star, known as Lera. Below is the most impressive shot of the Lera sun so far, taken from close to the surface of the star:


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[Michael Kilderry]

Here are some more screenshots of the new Lera Star, as well as other things:

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Above: A view of the Lera star's disk, closeup but not as close as the last screenshot, allowing more features to be seen such as sunspots.

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Above: The Lera star, as viewed with a galaxy in the background as well as a green nebula I've been working on to serve as nice background to the solar system. It's got a lot of work to go though.

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Above: I've also used a trick involving putting a planet inside the Lera star with a huge atmosphere so it shows up outside the star to create a big sunshine effect, I got the idea from John Whatmough when he was writing about how he created a dust disk or something similar in one of his extrasolar planet artworks. The trouble with this is when you get close to the star the sun and the flare texture dissapear to reveal the planet within...

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Above: In summary, here's what I've done to the solar system so far. I've added a nebula, a sun, a flare texture and used the atmosphere trick to make the sun stand out more. I'm planning on fixing up the nebula and adding a Vulcanoid belt, then I can begin work on the planets...

[d.m.falk]

Neet, a green star!

d.m.f.

[Michael Kilderry]

Thanks, d.m.f., here are some more images of the progressing addon, showing an update of the Lera Nebula:

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Above: Another view of the Lera Star, with the complex Lera Nebula in the background.

(The link to the second image was broken for some reason so I removed it, luckily it wasn't a very interesting image.)

[Michael Kilderry]

More screenshots, the first two illustrating the beginning of the Lera Vulcanoid Belt:


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Below is an interesting one. As I said earlier, I placed a planet (or two) inside of the Lera star and gave it a really big atmosphere to improve the appearance of the star. It looks very strange when you go deep down inside the star and find the planet, though:


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[Brendan]

The Lera system looks like a good place for dreams. I should try making an imaginative system sometimes.

[Michael Kilderry]

Thanks, I'm starting to make textures for the Vulcanoids now, here are two more screenshots from Celestia showing the progress, keep in mind that I have touched up a few things, like a texture seam in the nebula which I need to fix and I've made a glitchy looking line that appeared in the second image (most likely appearing because I put planets inside the sun to get the atmosphere effect around the star) look blurry to make it look a little less noticeable:

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Above: We see a vulcanoid in the foreground with the Lera Nebula behind, exhibiting a pinched pole feature which actually looks good for once.

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Above: We see a vulcanoid very close to the Lera Star itself, surrounded by the glare of it's sun.

These vulcanoids shown appear golden in colour, with splashes of green caused by Lerium, a strange substance that erupts from the star during solar flares. This Lerium substance is what gives the surrounding nebula a green tint.

[Michael Kilderry]

I'm in the middle of creating a rather large Vulcanoid for the Lera System, called Broil, here's the progress so far, among other things, I haven't touched up any of the images this time:

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Above: Another Lera vulcanoid lies close to it's sun.

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Above: The vulcanoid of Broil is different to the others, it is larger and rounder, but at this point in time still shares the same texture as the rest.

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Above: A view from behind Broil, displaying it's nightside.

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Above: Broil, now with it's own unique appearance and texture.

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I may alter Broil's texture a bit because I think it looks a little too Kuiperish at the moment, but I've already edited it a bit and it looks better than it did.