Planet Animations

Creating Planet Animations; support/discussion/questions

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MrDob
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Post by MrDob »

Dafedz wrote:They all look fantastic so far! However there is one thing missing I think. Atmospheres.

If you could add a soft halo of atmosphere to each planet then that would be the cherry on the cake so to speak.

Something akin to this, which is a sample line up of the planet types I had in preparation for Supremacy:



Yes Tethys I know what you mean regarding my 'earth' animation. It is a bit ropey, and quite a while back now I planned on redoing a few of them, but never got round to it as Mike (mstrobel) chose to use a different set of planets for the Supremacy project.
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Post by Mentat »

Tethys how áre your planets evolving lately? Will they be part of your Mod release? Will you offer a planet package to be used for other Mods?
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Post by Tethys »

Actually for now these have taken more of a back seat lately due to my recent move and my intent to get GM more balanced..

Answers will be as to

1. Will they be in GM: Yes
2. Will they be in a mod package: If everything goes smoothly and they dont lag, then I dont see why not :P
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eber3
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Post by eber3 »

MrDob wrote: image isnt showing, please reupload via imageshack or something?
Right click the warning pic and select "copy image location", then paste that into your address bar. Then you will be able to see the image.
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Post by Tethys »

Epic Bump...

Guys I need some recommendations:

Dilemma I am facing is that all the planet animations are pretty much all different sizes, so the traditional terraforming icon either overlaps the planet animation, or does not cover the animation entirely.

As of now, I have in place for the terraforming icons S,M,L for Small Medium and Large planet animations.
mjshoy.png
mjshoy.png (15 KiB) Viewed 5933 times
The icon works by covering the same area as the animation does. So, say the planet animation covers a total square area of 20 x 20 pixels, and the TF icon covers only 16 x 16 pixels, 4 pixels to the right and 4 pixels to the bottom of the animation are uncovered.
vgooz7.png
vgooz7.png (35.91 KiB) Viewed 5933 times
Now, when the TF icon covers 24 x 24 pixels, the reverse occurs; the extra 4 x 4 pixels are 'cut' from the animation, leaving the lower and right areas inconsistent with the rest of the icon's border.
vcyljl.png
vcyljl.png (38.27 KiB) Viewed 5933 times
So I am wondering if anyone has any other ideas other than a simple S, M, and L in the top left corner. At least this way you know it is terraforming without that horrendous eyesore of a TF icon.

Feedback appreciated.
Last edited by Tethys on Thu Jan 21, 2010 1:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by thunderchero »

I have not tested this but have you tried creating what ever size for each aniamation needed and use new names with same type of prefix?

The only special one I know of are for sol system.

edit; Nevermind just looked and not sure how they are called in trek.exe

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Last edited by thunderchero on Thu Jan 21, 2010 1:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Tethys »

Yes actually I did.

I made all TF icons to 64 x 64 to try to prevent the 'underlap' issue as I now dub it.

The result can be found in the post above:

[quote]Now, when the TF icon covers 24 x 24 pixels, the reverse occurs; the extra 4 x 4 pixels are 'cut' from the animation, leaving the lower and right areas inconsistent with the rest of the icon's border.



Any ideas TC? Should I leave it as is? It does seem the easiest/most viable option at this point.

EDIT: Just got an idea - I could use a Ship image (albeit not a very large one) to simulate a ship above the specified planet being terraformed. The only drawback to this would be the same ship icon for each race, which is highly inconsistent.
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Post by Mentat »

Hmm, tricky thing Tethys, but what about reducing the terraforming icon to a line under the planet?
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Post by Tethys »

Fairly certain that will not work either. Reread the original post:

When the planet animation is bigger than the TF icon, you will have the problem of the Line crossing a lower portion of the planet/animation, blocking a 1 x 20 (or width of animation) pixel area of the planet, which is inconsistent with each sized planet.

When the planet animation is smaller than the icon, you will also have a problem... your line will not show up.

The line will only work if its to the left of the icon, possibly above the icon, but more than likely only to the left of it.

More ideas are welcome, please voice your opinions!
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Post by Trelane_of_gothos »

I would also say, that you should take an ship image, it sounds terrific
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Post by Tethys »

Any ideas on what kind of ship should be used? I would of course love a generic image... so recommendations are welcome.

If I cant find a suitable image then I will resort back to the S-M-L option, or perhaps a simple T as not to give away the actual size of the planet (to spice things up ;) )
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Post by Trelane_of_gothos »

there is an other way:

in star trek bridge commander intro the captain flys with a shuttle to a terraform base, when the star collapses and he dies (so get command of the ship^^)

look at 0:39min

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea_TlW-O2uo
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Post by Tethys »

Very nice find... I only wish there was a more straight-on view or a model of it.

Nonetheless I will see what I can do to get it working...
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Post by Tethys »

I have a question: Does anyone know how to get the Gas Giant planets to appear BEFORE other planets, such as the M, O, and J class planets?

As reality would suggest, this is most common among real life extrasolar planets... Just wondering if there is a Hex code I can punch in somewhere to allow ANY planet to be placed ANYwhere... i know there is, just a matter of finding it ;)
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Post by Mentat »

The only way I found to do this, is moving them by "hand" with UE. That works well though.
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