SpaceSimCentral

The actual reason is that nobody has yet obtained free heightmaps for Mars and the Moon, and integrated them into the game. Until then, these bodies will remain "wrong".

Would these be of any use Brianetta?http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/spaceart/planetcylmaps.html

Actually I have several free heightmaps for Mars, as does Ae from IRC. And they have been implemented in the past but as Durandal mentioned, there are more important things to be getting on with and likely one day Mars will use a proper heightmap.There are issues with using a heightmap with quality, but I suppose we have faked a lot with Earth so it can be done. There are also space considerations, and in the past Tomm had told me he did not want to use more heightmaps precisely because of that, but this was before we had music and silly amounts of large textures, so now the size of a heightmap would have less of an impact...Edit// What I mean is they have been tested to work, its just really no-one can decide what we should do

Geraldine wrote:
Would these be of any use Brianetta?
No idea. "And integrated" were the operative words. Despite the business of the devs, I doubt that they're too busy to test somebody else's work.

any lurkers have any thoghts on mars hightmaps - i would think at some point it might be a idea to include-incorparate in some fashion

ollobrain wrote:
any lurkers have any thoghts on mars hightmaps - i would think at some point it might be a idea to include-incorparate in some fashion
i apologise for my comment but im not actualy a lurker ....i have been pitching ideas to this thread since it was created i just dont come on often as i have been busy being a developer on a wrestling game (long story but i wont bore you with my scars for more info just go to mpire mall look for tony spike)i have also offered to help by trying to create some ship blueprints ..but thats got sidetracked because im actualy learning how to modle them whilst simoultaniously trying to model arenas,long story short im on a learning curve here with every intention of using my skills to try and help .....now i understand thast accurate hightmaps on mars is not an important issue ...i was just asking why they hadnt been implimented ......now i have my anser i understand and im now going to try and think of a solution if i may be allowed ....their must be some way of doing it if earth got done was my logical assuption .....sorry bout thati am going to offer my services as a skin artist though (no i dont mean as a tatooist lol)..........here is my cardapolagies for it being wrestling but its the only CV i have lolim not looking for a position on dev team or trying to step on anyones toes ....im just saying i specialise in 2d stuff ...be it planet maps for the stelllar cartography part of the game or just menus ..menu backgrounds ..or ship skins ....im happy to whip somthing up since i will be round more often now ......back to the planet map problen cos i have just thought of somthing ......what about using maps from celestia or somthing like that ...their are plenty of mods out their for that that are free ...im sure i found terraformed mars.......just a suggestion i woild like to throw out their

That looks really good Spike! If you want my advice fwiw, find something that needs doing that interests you and start working on it. Ask questions if you need to. That's what I do anyway. We're all friends here, so please, put - down - the - gun.

Marcel wrote:
That looks really good Spike! If you want my advice fwiw, find something that needs doing that interests you and start working on it. Ask questions if you need to. That's what I do anyway. We're all friends here, so please, put - down - the - gun.
lol .....technicaly thats what im doing ......both space and wrestling intrests me (especialy frontier) .....im just saying im already busy on one of my hobbies but if anyone needs me for the other one im going to be round here a lot more often nowadays .....TWC5 is well underway ....and i can tell you i know games development can be a pain in the arse from experiance (im lead TWC5 coordinator of all things) so i appreciate the effort that is going into this thing and i would love to help this thing in any way i can so ....if that means making things pretty (not saying they arnt im just saying its what i do) .....than give me a shout ..im here all year lolfantistic effort though so far chaps i have to say .......somtimes its easy to get in way over your head with adding new features to a game but you guys are doing a fine job

Say, I just now realised that you guys were looking for heightmaps for mars and moon. Here are some for Orbiters terrain generator (it's pretty much a .raw format, if I'm not mistaken). I'm sure Artlav will let you use them:http://orbides.1gb.ru/orulex.php

trying to add 1 ceres and 2 vesta to the solar system to try and get to grips with the lua code and be a bit usefulim gonna doing this for all the systems in frontier ........its mainly for my own satisfaction .....and i know their are guys working on this already so this is just plainly for my own satisfaction .........but i will post them if people want themso heres the code im using for ceres ......its mercurys code .....what im wandering is ..how would i convert ceres actual data (on wikipedia) to the numbers on herelocal mercury = CustomSBody:new('1 Ceres', 'PLANET_TERRESTRIAL'):seed(1900) : dontknow what this value is for but its for the moon:radius(f(38,100)):mass(f(55,1000)):temp(340):semi_major_axis(f(387,1000)):eccentricity(f(205,1000)):inclination(math.deg2rad(7.0)):rotation_period(f(59,1)):axial_tilt(math.fixed.deg2rad(f(1,100))):metallicity(f(9,10)):volcanicity(f(1,2)):atmos_density(f(0,1)):atmos_oxidizing(f(0,1)):ocean_cover(f(0,1)):ice_cover(f(2,100)):life(f(0,1))once i get the hang of deciding how far out a body should be .....(most of the data is already in frontier for me to copy) i will be adding the systems of interest from the gazetteer and obviously all the well known systems (beetlegeuse, sirius, proxima,rigel kentaurus ect)

hey, sorry I forgot about this question Heres what the values mean::seed(1900) - A number used in the creation of all random numbers this planet uses(It changes everything):radius(f(38,100)) : 0.38 Earth Radii:mass(f(55,1000)) 0.055 Earth Masses:temp(340) 340 Kelvin:semi_major_axis(f(387,1000)) Average orbitral distance.. hmm shit I forget what the units here are.. Ah scratch that Im pretty sure its in AUs:eccentricity(f(205,1000)) Higher values give a more eliptical orbit:inclination(math.deg2rad(7.0)) the bodies inclination, how much it is on its side. Or infact that may be Axial tit, one is how much on its side the object is, the other is how far off the eliptical plane the objects orbit is.:rotation_period(f(59,1)) How long it takes to rotate/spin in days I thinkThe rest are self-explanatory.To find the number in Fixed() terms, just divide the first by the second::ice_cover(f(2,100)) = 0.02:metallicity(f(9,10)) = 0.9 ect ect
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beetlegeuse, sirius, proxima,rigel kentaurus ect
We have them all. Please note that its likely any randomly created systems will not be included, we use a real starmap so there is no need to make stars up. FYI FFE and Frontier had wildly inaccurate starmaps, we aren't following that route ;)EDIT/// just to clarify, there's absolutely nothing wrong with giving already existing systems interesting features, But I got the impression you were looking to create starsystems that aren't there. Which is the wrong way to go about it as the majority of stars are all included, its just that they are now in their correct places. (3d vs 2d)

The custom system format is documented here: https://github.com/pioneerspacesim/pioneer/wiki/Custom-SystemsThere is work underway to allow "partial" custom systems. You'll be able to take a real star and its auto-generated planets, and just add a couple of starports, or a planet, or whatever. Right now its an all-or-nothing prospect, which is difficult.

Here's something I've been working on alongside Ae_ :

"s2odan" wrote:
Here's something I've been working on alongside Ae_ :
Very very cool, or should I say hot! <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_cool.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt='8-)' /> With your usual attention to detail s2odan the future of Pioneer is written in the stars <img src="'[url]http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gif[/url] class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' /> Could you do something similar for cloud layers on planets?

Geraldine wrote:
Could you do something similar for cloud layers on planets?
That's one of its use cases!

Very pretty!Does this mean we'll soon have GPU generated terrains with only the collision done on CPU?Also, what's Ae_?

fluffyfreak wrote:
Also, what's Ae_?
You mean who!

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With your usual attention to detail s2odan the future of Pioneer is written in the stars

hehe
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Does this mean we'll soon have GPU generated terrains with only the collision done on CPU?
More likely we'll reduce a lot of CPU noise, keep the barebones shapes and put the high detail stuff on the GPU, since it'll be next to impossible to generate the same terrains seperately on GPU and then on CPU for those without the capability. I suppose everything could be moved to GPU but then we have to leave lots of people behind, those without powerful GPUs...

Brianetta wrote:


fluffyfreak wrote:
Also, what's Ae_?
You mean who!
I do?

s2odan wrote:
More likely we'll reduce a lot of CPU noise, keep the barebones shapes and put the high detail stuff on the GPU, since it'll be next to impossible to generate the same terrains seperately on GPU and then on CPU for those without the capability. I suppose everything could be moved to GPU but then we have to leave lots of people behind, those without powerful GPUs...
I was thinking that it would just be another option after the "very very high" setting, or alongside it. I say this because you can upgrade your GPU for a lot of machines, even AGP ones, but the CPU might be your limitation for the terrain.The collision and city placement just seems to depend on the CPU sampling a small set of points on the terrain. That would still be done on CPU, but the actual rendered terrain doesn't need to be, it just needs to be passed a flat mesh, then updated on the GPU in the vertex shader.