Galaxy map. . . coloured stars

[Darkman]

Basically from my post on here:[url]http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1716&page=4[/url] discovered this thread and Pioneer now, downloaded and had a quick play around. Wow - watching this project like a hawk from now on. I love the galaxy screen which shows the Milky Way as it actually is. Would it be possible to colour this map with the colour of every star that's in the galaxy so it wouldn't appear white ? Then it would show up with different colours in different regions, more yellow in the centre and more blue in the arms. Would look great as you zoom in too. If each star is a pixel I can't see that being a major problem to implement.It's good to see someone finally getting this far with a Frontier-like game, I only hope that it continues to evolve adding extra features that give people what they would like to see in such a game."

[s2odan]

Hello and welcome dude.If you want to change the galaxy picture, go right ahead. You wont even need the source-code as it is kept in the pioneer root directory.But:
Quote:
If each star is a pixel I can't see that being a major problem to implement.
That is pretty much impossible with a standard image. To contain every star ALONE, not including other features and space in between the stars, a picture would need over 100billion pixels. Now if you also include space around the stars, your looking at more like 1 trillion pixels ;)Thats not to say that we cant improve the galaxy map, just not to the extent that you suggested.Dan.

[Geraldine]

Hi Darkman Nice to see another Frontier forum regular here.Ok, the galaxy map.Here is the very one from Pioneer and here is a colour one for comparison.Is it something like this you mean Darkman?More images to be found here, http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=milky+way+galaxy+pictures&go=&form=QBIR&qs=n&sk=#focal=3474fef1e7168f7978d490ffe33fcef8&furl=http%3A%2F%2Fplanetquest.jpl.nasa.gov%2Fimages%2Fhurt_Milky_Way_2005-590.jpgAnd before you ask, no this colour image will not work in Pioneer, I tested it to be sure

[s2odan]

That looks nice. I thought you could just swap them over so I just tried that, btu unfortunately the game didn't like the image:Edit/ sorry I must have missed that you said that.Darkman, disregard what I said about simply swapping the pictures over then, it doesn't seem to work.

[Geraldine]

I did say that in my last post S20dan. I converted that image and resized it in the hope it would work, but as you already found out it doesn't

[s2odan]

Just out of curiousity, what id you use to save that image? The only differences between PNGs is Interlacing I think, so perhaps we need the image with interlacing... :?:Edit, just tried and it seems to make no difference

[Geraldine]

I used Irfan View 4.23. Perhaps Tomm might be able to shine some light on this, or perhaps only grey scale images work. I will grey scale the image and see if it works then.Edit: Aha! Converting to grey scale did the trick the image below works! Although it is out of alignment with the overlaid text. So it's Pioneer itself, it cannot display colours on the galaxy map view. Back to square one then[attachment=256:galaxy.png]Edit 2: However I found an exact colour copy of the original image used in Pioneer. I have re-sized, converted it and flipped the image around until it matches the orientation of the original, but it still wont work while it is in colour. I post it here in the hope someone else might be able to do something with it. Here it is below[attachment=256:galaxy.png]

[s2odan]

Nice one. Have you tried using a larger size version? I know that wont fix the colour issue but it might look cool especially when you zoom in.

[Geraldine]

In grayscale it still works even if its a larger image. Here try this larger sized version. The only thing I have done to it is grayscale and aligned it to the over laid text

[LancerSolurus]

Since grey scale uses 256 colors, simply try converting it to 256 color mode, not grey scale, as in an 8 bit image.

[Geraldine]

What a great idea LancerSolurus , I will try that and see what happens.Edit: No, it still does not work also tried reducing the colours to 16, still didn't help either and the image itself was too horrid to post

[Darkman]

Thanks for the welcome folks.RE: GeraldineYes, that's exactly what I was talking about - would look great :)Looking forward to the next update.

[Geraldine]

Sorry I couldn't get the colour version to work Darkman , but at least we found out you can use larger images. Remember though in doing so you will throw the measurement bars out of sync, but at least you get something a bit better to zoom into

[Darkman]

That's ok Geraldine, the default galaxy is a better one than that found in Frontier and First Encounters anyway.Now, are there going to be black holes in pioneer ? Particularly the one at the centre of the galaxy ?

[Geraldine]

That is beyond me Darkman Best person to ask would be Tomm. He has been thinking about Black Holes though, have a look at his post here http://www.spacesimcentral.com/pioneer-f35/the-case-against-earth-t1346.html. It does seem logical to put them in the game.Here is a useful little site about Black Holes, perhaps it could give Tomm some ideas about putting them in the game by showing their effects? http://hubblesite.org/explore_astronomy/black_holes/

[s2odan]

Geraldine thats a great little app :)Did you notice that no matter how much energy you use to reach the edge of the galaxy, you never go over the speed of light, I like that little demo :)I think it shows relativity rather well.

[Geraldine]

I thought so too S20dan, also if Tomm was seriously thinking of putting Black Holes in Pioneer, he could take a look at this to get an idea of how they may look and behave.