Best way to create planet atmosphers?
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Programming/Best way to create planet atmosphers?
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| I've tried a few methods, but none of them seem to look good or work correctly. Planets in freelancer had pretty good looking atmospheres, and I'd like to recreate a similar effect for my planets (which, even with cloud layers, still look very...not vivid). Anyone know how they did the effect, or a way to create a similar look? |
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Here's something I did 5 years ago: My advise for real-time planets with athmospheres and oceans would be: 1. create a ball (planet) and texture it with specular mask for oceans if there's any. 2. create a cloud layer with alpha mask (slighty bigger ball than planet) 3. Use the (inverse) cloud map mask and apply it as a multiplicative second layer to the planet to get the shadow effect clouds are causing on the surface. 4. make another ball for athmosphere haze, bigger than clouds ball, and invert the face normals. Texture it as a additive spherical map that has the athmosphere glow ring map gradient. ...And you're done. You could use a disc for the 4. but spherical map works better imo and doesn't need to adjusted towards the camera every frame. |
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| That's a gorgeous image, Mustang. Could you show us what that spherical map image for step 4 looks like? |
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| Mustang that is _the_ best atmosphere effect I've seen. Can you be more specific/detailed about how you did it? |
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| Utterly gorgeous. I'm going to play around with that and see how it works. |
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| I can cook up some kind of demo during next week using Blitz3D... the above was made years ago, long before Blitz3D was even published, but the DX7-tech was the same (ie Blitz3D is not really that new...? ;P ) so I can do that and even better looking planet easily. "It's all in the wrist" as one famous people once said . :) |
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| Yes please, Mustang, make a demo. (I guess this is the sort of thing where if anyone used your method in their game at least they could credit you with 'Atmosphere technology by Mustang'.) |
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| Wow, great tip! This is useful for so much more than just atmosphere effects. For example, doing a glowing aura around magic objects. |
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| Yes please, Mustang, make a demo. download 3dmark SE.Yep mustang did that... |
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| The shot I posted is from XL-R8R demo we did after 3DMark2000... I have done at least something for every 3DMark, but 2001 was extra cool because I had the playable car game which I did completely design & gfx & particle wise... but 3DMark03 was cool too because I got a chance to do wwII stuff (wwII flight simulator game test). But the Blitz06 planet athmosphere demo will be also very cool, I've been making maps for it last day or two and coding starts today evening. If all goes well it will be very nice looking indeed... I have few new ideas I want to try out, sort of expand the basic explanation I gave you. Stay tuned. |
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| Wow - I'm really looking forward to this Mustang - go for it! IPete2. |
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| Me too, don`t make us wait to long ;) Jason. |
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| In a way it's kinda cool having a fixed platform like Blitz3D dx7 cos you're using creativity to push beyond the limitations. |
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| I surely want to see that demo, Mustang. Very nice effect, indeed. |
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| In a way it's kinda cool having a fixed platform like Blitz3D dx7 cos you're using creativity to push beyond the limitations. Exactly! I use more advanced PS&VS stuff than ANY game developer in the world probably everyday at work so it's a challenge to do something good looking with Blitz3D and all it's limitations and short-comings... guess I'm perverted that way but it gives me more satisfaction to do something cool with something like Blitz3D than do it using the latest stuff... anyone can do that. Status report: Got the code pretty far, and it's not even complex. So far I have shiny sea and non-shiny land + moving clouds that throw shadows on top of the planet below. Also city lights can be seen in the dark (night) side, which look nice. Athmosphere halo is easy to do in it's basic form but I want to try few new tricks... also sun (actually more like sunrise/sunset) fx needs some experimenting efforts. There will be also background starfield and nebula or two... planet texture maps needs also experimenting (re-painting), and they will be big (you can downscale them if they are too big). When this is ready you'll get the demo, source code and all the gfx-maps... those maps I have made will be free to use whatever purpose you can think of. |
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| kick ass mate! Thank you for contributing so much to the community, i'm really looking forward to this! :-) |
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| Wow, I'm glad I got this started. Looks like everyone is gonna benefit from this...Mustang is quite a piece of work. Can't wait to take a look at this tech demo... |
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| Go for it Mustang :) i'd like to see that too. |
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| Sounds brilliant! Yes please. |
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| ....well? ...I'm wwwwwaiting...! ;) |
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| I can hardly wait myself...my planets are so bland compared with this fine art... |
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| It's coming - just had to use the last weekend for other things and my evenings are quite booked too... long hours at work, wife, daughter... (life?) :) Coding was easy, but fine-tuning the gfx takes time. I want it to look really good when I release it rather than it being a code example demo with mediocore gfx. You'll get it soon-ish, hopefully before weekend. |
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| Allrighty - few WIP screenies so that I can prove the demo really is progressing... :) The last image is there just to give you an idea how the planet map looks (real one is 2048*1024). I forgot to clean-up the "low water" effect I made with PhotoShop filters to the coastlines and that's why the left and right side have a "seam" that's not supposed to be there... Screenies below demonstrate at least these points, more or less: 1. Night side has "citylights"... cool. 2. Clouds cast shadows although it's bit hard to see in these small screenshots. 3. Clouds (+ shadows of course) rotate also independently, and that too is bit hard to see from a still image... 4. Planet athmosphere can be colored together with the clouds/land etc. with a simple change of light (sun) color. Sunrise/sunset effect might be bit overdone but who cares if it isn't 100% physically correct... artistic freedom and all that. You can also shift the weight/thickness of the athmosphere towards the sun... looks nice IMO when the dark side has "thinner" glow/halo/whatever than the sunny side. 5. Water is specular and you might even see it from to close-up shot... plus the fact that land isn't specular. That's because real-life land is mostly matte material (sand, rock, vegetation) but water is of course highly reflective thus it has to be specular/glossy on my demo too. 6. Starfield and nebulas are still missing from these shots.     |
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| Wow, looks great! Can`t wait to see it in action. Jason. |
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| Wooooooo, niiiiice ;o) |
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| Fan bloomin tastic Mustang! As above - I also can not wait to see this in action, Great work dude! IPete2. |
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| Best planet atmo ever :) |
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| That's in Blitz? Looks prerendered, I love it! |
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| That looks astounding! You really get a lot of detail, not just out of those high-detail textures, but also out of how you're combining them. A good starfield will do a lot as well. In case you want to add a moon in the distance, here's a graphic you might find useful... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991108.html |
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| That's in Blitz? Yup, 100%. You really get a lot of detail, not just out of those high-detail textures, but also out of how you're combining them. A good starfield will do a lot as well. Exactly... although hi-res textures are needed, you also have to combine lot of stuff together using many blend modes to get the final effect and functionality. And yes, starfield and nebula(s) will make it look lot better. Now it's just floating there... background gfx is always important. [edit] And to clarifyi: modern game 3D-gfx uses for example all kinds of mask textures, like for specular/glossiness and many other maps that define the look of the 3D-model like bump/normal maps, even parallax maps. Not to mention alpha, additive, multiplicative, m2x etc blend modes... as you can see the days of "hey let's just slap one small diffuse texture on it and that's it" are over - at least if you want to make eye-candy gfx. |
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| Very nice! How do you get the night texture only in the dark side? that should be needing per pixel shading. Or, you use a multipass render and blend the images in Blitz? I wouldn't have thought complex image blending could be achieved without rudimentary pixel shaders which Blitz lacks. At least not at a realtime speed. Unless, looking more closely, you're just adding the night texture on top, which seems to be the case as I can see white dots on the day side pic. It's surprising how much can be achieved with clever textures and use of blend modes. HDR-like overbright reflections is one, which I haven't seen done (outside of my own code!). Likewise non-repeating grass textures is another that can be attained with a couple of textures, but even top-end games are being released to this day with neat little carpet-tiles of grass! |
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| Unless, looking more closely, you're just adding the night texture on top, which seems to be the case as I can see white dots on the day side pic. You got me there :) But the final demo should have citylights ONLY on non-lit areas, I have few ideas how to achieve that, but don't know yet if they work like I think they would. It's surprising how much can be achieved with clever textures and use of blend modes. Yup. You just have to think slightly outside the box and see the trouble and perspiration to achieve it. Ppl are way too lazy, most cry "gimme shaders" the minute they need something like CreateCoolWater() command... yet the recent competition showed that you can have nice water even with Blitz3D tech-level. And if those ppl crying after the shaders would actually get them, they would be just looking at another BIG problem because writing shaders is one of the most complicated things you can do in 3D-world... and because of my work background and experience I do know just how difficult they really can be. |
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| This is gonna be great...can't wait to implement some of this stuff in my games' engine. Blitz3D may be a bit out of date but it can certainly shine if you let it. |
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| There's a lot to be said for really making the most of the tools you have to work with... something that rarely happens. I think this will open up creative doors for a lot of people. It hadn't really struck me until now how badly I need to understand all the details of multitexturing and blend modes. I'd ignored most of the blend modes that are available--something I'd never do in my Photoshop work. Just seeing these screenshots and understand roughly how they were achieved is already something of a break-through. Thanks, Mustang. :) |
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| Amazing stuff from the maestro. |
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| That's hot... |
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| We are still waiting to see your BlitzPlanet in real time ;-) How are you doing specular masks in blitz3d anyhow? Last week was surprisingly busy, so I had little time for making this. Good news is that Shifty got me thinking about ways to get the citylights off from the lit side and I think I got it now. General discussion "elite" thread also had a link to awesome (pixel shader) planet stuff in gamedev and I got few additional ideas... and want to re-make my surface texture, plus try to get DOT3 stuff there too. And I have starfiled texture + first version of nebula now. So... it's not finished, but it just keeps getting better! Like I said, I don't want to release crap looking version of the demo... also code needs some re-factoring and commenting to be really useful for others too. [edit] Oh, and the specular mask... Blitz3D doesn't have that of course so it was time to get creative, you'll see it then. Blitz3D has a simple "shininess" value, but it's enough for my planet when it's masked. My technique even would allow simple gloss mapping, but I really need only on/off for my planet. Specular & glossiness explained: Specular Lighting A dull, rough object will have a dull, rough colour - ambient or diffuse lighting is sufficient to accurately model how the object will appear. Shiny or smooth objects though will produce specular highlights and therefore require a different lighting model. Specular lighting is more realistic than diffuse lighting but it is much slower as it requires details of the direction of the light source (or sources), plus the viewpoint of the camera. Gloss Mapping A gloss texture map contains information about the reflectivity of an objects surface - some parts might be shiny, others may be dull. The process of gloss mapping involves several texture stages: firstly, a specular texture map is generated and then multiplied with the gloss map (correctly adjusting the overall highlights). This result is then added to the base texture map that has been adjusted for the diffuse lighting in the scene. Gloss Mapping produces more realistic highlights than specular mapping or environment mapping as additional information about the object is used to modulate the final effect. [above taken from futuremark's website: http://www.futuremark.com/community/hardwarevocabulary/ ] |
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| I'd really like to see this as well. Very nice work. |
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| Dang! That's AWE-SOME!!! |
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| Any progress? :o) |
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| Uh-hoh... this week I had the 3DMark06 launch, plus had to design a real house we're going to built (plan & elevation drawings) and today I'm at home taking care of our sick kid... "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" has never been more true than last couple of days! :) It is coming, it will be cool, but no deadlines because I probably miss it again for some reason. What is left is mostly making the maps bit better looking - they do look alright even now, but I can make them better. And I really want to finish this and release it beacuse I have additional plans that need this planet stuff too. I've probably used only total of ~2 working days worth of my time for the code and maps so far during these 2+ weeks, ie not much... problem is to find the time to do it, no matter how little time is needed. It was much easier without the wife and kid... :) |
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| Well, if your not coming through with the demo (yet), and you said you would wait to explain the technique of specular maps till you released it, how about a quick "theory" discussion about it now? |
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| Doh. "Life imitating art"... first Blitz-site was down and I couldn't post my new pics, then my own site went down almost the minute after Blitz-site came back: Hello. The server was down because a file system was corrupted. Our tech tried to repair the errors, but without any luck. We have to restore all accounts using the latest backup. It was created 3 days ago. Sorry, for inconvenience. Thank you. Alrighty... my site seems to be up now, but those images I uploaded vanished because they were uploaded after the server backup was made... I have the files here at work, but don't have my logins... ANYWAYS, got new nebula and starfield looking like I want them to look. That starfield & nebula .B3D object will be quite useful to anyone who want "instant space background" for their games or demos because it's really easy to load and use:
; Load background starfield and nebula
BG_starfield_and_nebula = LoadMesh("starfield_and_nebula.B3D")
EntityOrder BG_starfield_and_nebula,1
EntityFX BG_starfield_and_nebula,1
Only thing you have to do during gameloop is to move the starfield & nebula object whenever you move the camera (position, NOT rotation!). I like to model my sky/spaceboxes so that they are tiny, but rendered first - that way I don't get so much CameraRange problems and can disable screen clearing because the box is "airtight". Actually the box is a combination of barrel and sphere... barrel being the fullbright bg-nebula and sphere being additive starfield inside it. Starfield and Nebula maps tile of course. As for the specular map - I cheated! :) I created shiny specular ball and have on top of that another slightly bigger ball that has a map w/ alpha channel... transparent areas showing the shiny sea through. Alphamap would make it possible to have "slighty shiny" areas too but I really only need on/off type of mask, so even maskcolor would work... infact it might be even better because to my knowledge it isn't as problematic as alpha when it comes to z-sorting. |
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| Do you have problems with textures on large surfaces? I find in Blitz the moment a texture, whether on quad or skydome or whatever, is stretched to maybe 75%+ of the screen area, there's a terrible performance hit. The idea of a full-screen background, either as a copied image or textured quad, just hasn't been practical. For my current project's UI I've sliced the full-screen interface into several sections. My next project is space-bound and a full-screen nebula backdrop would be nice, but performance wise I don't think it's viable. |
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| Mmmmm... few quick tests as I was just coding the beast... with "flip false" and FPS counter from here: http://www.blitzbasic.co.nz/codearcs/codearcs.php?code=237 ...I get ~740 frames per second with my nebula/starfield bg object - which has 116 triangles in total and one 2048*2048 map (nebula) and one 256*256 map (starfield). This using GF7800GTX and "Graphics3D 1024,768,0,2". If I take the bg object away I get ~1460 frames per second... so it did drop to half but it also draws maybe 3-4 times more pixels on screen. But if the speed is enough good in the end it does not matter... and you can't do a space game using black background - it looks so dull! :) Luckily there's not that much other stuff in the space so I think that you can safely use skybox there. [edit] Fullscreen FPS: with nebula/starfield 986, without 2115. So it seems to be consistent at least, and fullscreen is always faster than windowed, I think. [edit] And these both were "debug on" - Duh! :) |
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| and you can't do a space game using black background - it looks so dull! But, space is mostly empty blackness. Celestial objects are so far apart, it's amazing we see anything at all. I guess what you are saying is that eye-candy demands you bend the rules of the real universe, and invent one that has eye-popping displays in view at all times? |
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| That's exactly it. Starfields are a classic example. They're needed to give a sense of movement despite the fact all you'd really see is black. And Frontier is the definitive example of why the real-world rules shouldn't be stuck too. Space combat in that game was realistic and dull as ditch water. Games are make-believe, in fantastical universes roughly modelled on the real unvierse we inhabit, but with many real-world limitations ignored and abstractions added to make for a better game. Mustang : I see you do suffer the super slowdown. If you try your BG object filling 70% or so of the screen you should notice negligable slowdown. The strange thing is it's a threshold thing. It's not an increase in slowdown as the image gets bigger, but either rendering in slow or fast mode, almost as though there's a fixed buffer size and overrunning that thrashes main-RAM. I found this problem running my current project in early form on an OLD PC (target spec) and it ran amazingly slowly despite doing nothing (we're talking a few dozen triangles and couple of textures, and 15 fps). With some poking around I found it was just a full-screen backdrop image. Lose that and the speed jumped to 60 fps with lots of objects etc. I experimented in dividing the background into four quads but it still wasn't right, using smaller and larger textures and all methods I could think of. I guess if you're targetting a higher spec machine than something >6 years old it won't be a problem. ;) |
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| I guess what you are saying is that eye-candy demands you bend the rules of the real universe, and invent one that has eye-popping displays in view at all times? Yes, exactly this! Eve was a boring game, but sure was beautiful - and was it realistic? No.... I guess if you're targetting a higher spec machine than something >6 years old it won't be a problem. ;) Yup, higher definately... but my demo isn't really that demanding apart from VRAM requirements (Yup, DXTC would be nicee...) but peeps can downscale the textures if they are too much to handle. I make them look pretty enough for my purposes, and couldn't care less if it runs well in GeForce 2... But GF3-4 should be quite enough for this and today you'd buy maybe GF6 from the shop if you're "budget limited", so... Anyways, at last some new shots... planet with starfield and nebula, plus the tiling nebula map and starfield map. Original nebula map is 2K*2K, starfield is like it is below except that I use TGAs and not compressed crap like .jpg :)    |
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| arg, post the demo already :-) I cant wait to see this in action and ask questions based on it.... |
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| That is just gorgeous... It's agony to have to wait! Don't you understand what you're putting us through!!! >sigh< no, no... make it perfect. >sigh< |
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| Well, I used the term "eye-candy", and these are definitely "eye-candy". Nice! If I were flying around in outer space, these are what I'd rather see than the tedium of nothingness. Hey, even here on Earth, I'd rather see a brilliant blue sky than a nondescript gray overcast sky. |
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| Mustang: Wow! That looks absolutely amazing! Celestial objects are so far apart, it's amazing we see anything at all. I guess what you are saying is that eye-candy demands you bend the rules of the real universe If you look up at the sky at night, you see the sky full of stars. I don't see how making a pure black space background can be more realistic than a starfield; I would think that adding no stars would be very unrealistic. and invent one that has eye-popping displays in view at all times? The universe is amazing as it is, with plenty of "eye-popping" displays. No need to make anything up. Haven't you ever seen photos from the hubble space telescope?   |
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| Those are eye candy too and don't look much like what you would see with the naked eye. They are built from real data, of course, but are not simple photographs. |
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| What are you talking about? Every time I look up into the night sky, that's totally what I see! *takes another drag* |
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| jhocking: Yeah, those nebulas can look really weird sometimes :) But really, in a space game, depending on your location, you could use that sort of thing for backgrounds, although a simple starfield (like in the first screenshots posted by Mustang) is really all you need. |
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| Actually even Hubble images are to some degree just "this would look good artistically" images: http://hubblesite.org/sci.d.tech/behind_the_pictures/meaning_of_color/ http://hubblesite.org/sci.d.tech/behind_the_pictures/meaning_of_color/tool.shtml |
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| As anyone who's tried taking taking these types of photo will tell you, you can't just take a snap and be done with it. Photoshop is a necessity to bring the natural colours out, and some of these NATURAL colours are amazing. That said, putting colour aside, pics taken with a good telescope are still not quite right. Objects more distant than what you're photographing will appear unnaturally large due to the depth of field. It's just like when you look through binoculars: say you're spying on a chick and there's a cat 20 metres beyond her. The cat will look unnaturally large. If you were actually standing closer, the cat would look smaller assuming you could see at all after the said girl has punched your lights out. |
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| [Graythe salivates at the piccies] |
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| *BUMP* |
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| :) Coming! I got sidetracked... tomorrow evening is planet coding day again... I also started to make new planet map but might just release that later because apart few code issues that's the only thing holding back the release of the stuff. So... I'll finish the code asap so that you can play with it too. |
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| Good to hear you're closing in on it, we're all counting the seconds now :-) |
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| 2Mustang - the Friend tell how you have made an aura of an atmosphere around of a planet. If that is possible a code show. |
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| 2Mustang - the Friend tell how you have made an aura of an atmosphere around of a planet. If that is possible a code show. Well it's graphical "trick", not "coded" effect really... basically it's an additive (flat mesh) ring pointed to camera, check the screenshots in this thread. Explanation of the coloring and other fx features have to wait until I release the thing (with source). But it's quite simple stuff, no übergenius coder needed for this demo :) |
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| Clearly, and to position this mesh on the center of a planet or between her and the camera. |
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Here and at us something has turned out.
Graphics3D 640,480,32,2
AppTitle "Zemlya v illuminatore" ;)
x=128
tex=CreateTexture(x,x)
SetBuffer TextureBuffer (tex)
Cls
For i=128 To 1 Step -1
Color (128 -i)/64 , (128 -i)/4, 256 -i*2
Oval (x-i)/2,(x-i)/2,i,i,1
Next
SetBuffer BackBuffer()
spr=CreateSprite()
EntityTexture spr,tex
ScaleSprite spr,8,8
pivot = CreatePivot()
light = CreateLight ()
EntityParent light,pivot
MoveEntity light,0,500,0
cam=CreateCamera()
CameraZoom cam,4
MoveEntity cam,0,0,-80
Planet = CreateSphere(32)
ScaleEntity planet, 7.2,7.2,7.2
MoveEntity planet,0,0,0
EntityColor planet, 0,10,20
EntityAlpha planet,.9
RotateEntity planet,0,0,20
EntityFX planet,4
HidePointer
atmpivot = CreatePivot()
EntityParent spr,atmpivot
FPS=30
period=1000/FPS
time=MilliSecs()-period
While Not KeyHit(1)
Repeat
elapsed=MilliSecs()-time
Until elapsed
ticks=elapsed/period
For k=1 To ticks
time=time+period
If k=ticks CaptureWorld
PositionEntity atmpivot,0,0,0
PointEntity atmpivot,light
MoveEntity atmpivot,0,0,1
PointEntity light, planet
TurnEntity pivot,0,0,1
TurnEntity planet,0,.5,0
UpdateWorld
Next
tween# = Float(elapsed Mod period)/Float(period)
RenderWorld tween
FPScounter=FPScounter+1
If MilliSecs()>FPStimer
FPS=FPScounter:FPScounter=0:FPStimer=MilliSecs()+1000
EndIf
Text 10,10,"FPS :"+FPS
Text 10,25,"Distance : " + Int(EntityDistance(cam,planet))
Text 10,400,"Mouse1 - Forward, Mouse2 - Back, Mouse3 - Find Planet, MouseRot - Look around"
Flip False
mx = MouseXSpeed(): my = MouseYSpeed()
If mx TurnEntity cam,0,-Sgn(MX)*.2,0
If my TurnEntity cam,Sgn(MY)*.2,0,0
If MouseDown(1) MoveEntity cam,0,0,.05
If MouseDown(2) MoveEntity cam,0,0,-.05
If MouseHit(3) PointEntity cam,planet
MoveMouse 320,240
Wend
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| You've really whetted my appetite! I've just bought Blitz3D after using the old Blitz2D for years. I want to make a space game and this is just amazing! Thanks. |
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| http://dev.boiledsweets.com/mambo/index.php?option=com_gallery2&Itemid=70&g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=42 |
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| How's the code going Mustang, are you far from giving us a peek? |
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| This week (evenings) has gone largely for house searching, because we are looking for a bigger house to buy... there isn't really that much new to show or do gfx-wise, just tidying up and some code re-factoring. I'll also do somekind of basic planetary movement & setup stuff so that it's a "real" moving (= rotating) planetary system with one planet and sun... that should be easily expandable for multi-planet solar system (handy for space games). I just need to find few hours to do what's left to do... hopefully I can get that during the coming weekend, but no promises. |
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| well, I've given up on holding my breath. I can understand when people are busy, but dont keep saying "this comming week" or "perhaps this weekend" because deep down, thats a hopeful remark (even though you cover it with a "but no promises"). And given the fact that its been over a month of "this week.. maybe"'s, perhaps we should just drop the topic until there is something remotely finished to show. No offense intended Mustang, I have been pumped to see this and respect you as a person. But with each week of "here is my new excuse", it starts to loose its luster.. |
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| Don't give up... Planetary modeling takes time you know. Ask old Slartibartfast. You have to get all the crinkly bits just right. And if it happens that a planet demo turns into a solar system or even a galaxy then so much the better. |
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| Good luck with the house hunting. I hope you find an ideal home. Meantime I shall look forwad to the demo. |
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| But with each week of "here is my new excuse", it starts to loose its luster.. Fine. Consider it official now that I won't post in this thread until the demo is 100% ready with DL link. Which might be next week or never. My last excuse: Yes, it has taken *way* longer than I thought originally and it's not because it's complex or anything, I just have a life like wife and two-year old kid + hectic work at FM doing 3D for living. Blitz3D is my "Stone-age" 3D-toy I like to play with on my freetime but my freetime is very limited, more so now when we're hunting a new house. Take it or leave it... I was just trying to give you something cool for free. Bye. |
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| Dark Half : I dunno what you hoped to achieve with your comment. Even if you didn't intend to offend, complaining about a guy basically having a life outside of doing things for free for other people wasn't ever going to have a positive effect. As long as Mustang was explaining why it wasn't appearing, you knew he hadn't forgotten it. Now without any reminders perhaps Mustang will be that busy of late that he'll forget all about Blitz planets? It happens. Or maybe Mustang'll just be that disgruntled with wanting to produce this thing but having other responsibilitise, and yet being moaned at for making excuses, by the time the house is found and bought he can't be arsed and will move on to some other personal project? What did you want the response to your post to be? 'Sorry I'm making excuses, I'll drop everything and do this planet thing for sure'? Or are you happy with 'I'll not mention it again and no-one will ever know if I've given up on the project or not'? |
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| I dunno what you hoped to achieve with your comment. Nothing, I hoped for absolutely nothing. If I had still been in hope, I would have fluffed it and not came right out and said it. Sorry for being up front about it. Been waiting for it for some time now. Really anxious to see it... But that doesn't mean I have to walk on eggshells does it? Like I said above, I understand when people are busy, we all are. I even said that I respect him and didnt mean to offend (true on both accounts). I had thought I made it clear, but perhaps theres a bit of confusion but dont keep saying "this comming week" or "perhaps this weekend" because deep down, thats a hopeful remark (even though you cover it with a "but no promises") Seems pretty straight forward to me... A "Still working on it, running into time issues" is plenty good to me. When we keep putting supposed dates on stuff is when people (like me) come back and check (like the morons we are) just to find out that there is another "probably this next tuesday"... I formally appologize Mustang. From now on I will walk on eggshells and just say what I am supposed to say (in fact, I will take a poll on what everyone thinks my opinion 'should' be and go from there). I was just trying to give you something cool for free. Then why are you going all 'Cower'-ized on me for speaking my mind on the matter? I fully plan to give you the pat on the back for it when its done, I guess I'll have to regardless of how well it turns out. Would hate to express any constructive criticing on it in fear of being yelled at. But I did make an attempt to gather some info a month ago(quoted below) for which I was completely ignored. But your a busy guy, and I'm obviously not (1 wife, 2 kids, and 60 hr a week job), so me comming back here to check on every date you give is my time well spent I guess. Well, if your not coming through with the demo (yet), and you said you would wait to explain the technique of specular maps till you released it, how about a quick "theory" discussion about it now? [Bad day at work, please forgive me for anything that came out wrong] |
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| ...and for those who had been wondering, there's a classic example why BRL might think twice before giving us an update on anything. Nice work. Y'know, it wasn't always this way... (a.k.a. 'The Good Ole Days Lament') |
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| Wow Dark Half, you sure do know how to completely offend with absolutley no respect! I wouldn't blame Mustang if he decides not to share his work thanks to your outburst, in fact I would think the blame would lie directly on you. "No offence"... of course... :-P |
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| Nothing, I hoped for absolutely nothing. If I had still been in hope, I would have fluffed it and not came right out and said it. I totally appreciate that, and there's nothing particularly wrong with what you said in the context of how you meant it, *but* those sorts of comments are at best neutral and usually counterproductive.Sorry for being up front about it. Been waiting for it for some time now. Really anxious to see it... But that doesn't mean I have to walk on eggshells does it? Like I said above, I understand when people are busy, we all are. I even said that I respect him and didnt mean to offend (true on both accounts). I can understand your frustration, but it'd be better just to mark the Planet demo as 'not take deadlines at face value' for yourself and let it just happen when it does, without publicly commenting on someone always making excuses. Publicly airing your opinion that giving deadlines is silly because Mustang doesn't stick to them wasn't going to help solve your frustration and wasn't needed for you to be able to ignore the deadlines. It's not about treading on eggshells, but not making points that don't need to be made if those points aren't positive or won't help solve whatever situation you have those points on. And remember that text is devoid of intonation and thus naturally a lot more 'offensive' or 'antagonistic' than the spoken word. Anything typed is going to be viewed ordinarily in the worst possible light by the reader. Passing remarks can come off as insults to a reader where they'd see them as just remarks if said to them directly. In the same way internet communication has people use extra communication like smilies, so too must what's being written be considered differently to how it would sound being spoken. These remarks are intended as a 'heads-up' more than anything. It's best-practice when writing to forums etc. to consider 'why am I writing this and what am I trying to say' before hitting the send button. If there's no constructive answer to the why question it's probably not worth sending. |
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| Jesus , Dark Half ! Can't believe this. Next time think twice before posting. I dont have looked here nearly every day to read SUCH a comment. @Mustang don't let you down because of this, we all appreciate your contribution to the community. ------------------------ www.moonworx.de |
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| ...and for those who had been wondering, there's a classic example why BRL might think twice before giving us an update on anything. Nice work. Thanks... Perhaps reading my text fully would indicate that giving a date you cant make is bad, and that giving an update isn't Read the entirety of the posts... I totally appreciate that, and there's nothing particularly wrong with what you said in the context of how you meant it, *but* those sorts of comments are at best neutral and usually counterproductive. I understand Shifty, and I probably should have done it a bit more tactfully... Publicly airing your opinion that giving deadlines is silly because Mustang doesn't stick to them wasn't going to help solve your frustration and wasn't needed for you to be able to ignore the deadlines. True! although remember that no ones great at making the right choices all the time. I don't claim to be perfect, and in that, make a uneeded post that I probably shouldn't when having a bad day :-) Wow Dark Half, you sure do know how to completely offend with absolutley no respect! Really? It's the internet, if you took offense to my post then perhaps you should re-think your priorities in life. I wouldn't blame Mustang if he decides not to share his work thanks to your outburst, in fact I would think the blame would lie directly on you. I wouldn't blame him either. But if you think that blaming me for speaking my opinion (regardless of how un-abridged it may come out as) on the matter is just, then screw you! Funny that other members on this forum can speak there mind, regardless of who it offends and to what degree, on a regular basis without this sort of ridicule. The moment 'Dark Half' does it we get out the pitch forks..... Jesus , Dark Half ! Can't believe this. Next time think twice before posting. Sorry, like I said above, I will take a concensus on what my opionion should be before posting it on an internet forum , tell you what, you can make the first vote.... @Mustang don't let you down because of this, we all appreciate your contribution to the community. Well, we all do, but if one comment such as mine can sway him to think otherwise, then perhaps it's for the best. I was really excited to see this, and still respect him either way, but if my comment about 'pre-release commitments' is enough to damage his ego, then I dont know. As game designers/creators, our work is always open to public criticing. |
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| As game designers/creators, our work is always open to public criticing. Artists have the mostly easily bruised ego's of all people! ;)(well, Thespians are top of the list, and artsy artists painting coloured canvases and putting pickled sheeps brains in beds for 'art' are next. But artistic temperament takes criticism harder than most!) |
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| Darkhalf, I don’t know why, but I just wanted to let you know I agree with you, and I think your comment was fair. The question was originally about how to best create atmospheres around planets, there have been some cryptic replies and a nice code snippet, but I don’t think the question was ever answered. And while Mustang’s demo looks really cool, I can’t see how adding city lights and all the complexities will help answer the original question that was asked. My main problem is that it was a simple question which could have been answered by simple code, but it’s now turned into a project of mammoth proportions, with extra complexities which are rather cool I admit, do nothing to answer the original question. I suppose we all have dreams of writing the next 3d Space game, we might have to experiment and work this one out on our own… -- Kieran Farrell |
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| Artists have the mostly easily bruised ego's of all people! ;) That is so true :-) |
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| And while Mustang’s demo looks really cool, I can’t see how adding city lights and all the complexities will help answer the original question that was asked. Agreed. I was excited by the first example as it was better than anything I'd done, and really I would have been satified with a 4-line description or a code-snippet, and I would have taken it from there. I wasn't looking for city lights etc, in fact definitely not. |
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| Dark Idiot: look for my old planet code in code archives instead of bitching then. |
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| Great job... Stop complaining about the ammount of effort that somebody is putting into something on your behalf. Fantastic! This thread has turned into a flamewar on the brink. Mustang, when you are done (no pressure from me!) I suggest that you do not post it here so that these nitwits (who shall not be named) can continue squabbling and moaning as much as they like. |
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| But please do make a screensaver for the kind ones ;) I love this! |
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| And while Mustang’s demo looks really cool, I can’t see how adding city lights and all the complexities will help answer the original question that was asked. Mustang did answer the original question though, in 4 easy steps. He didn't provide a code snippet admittedly, but this should be straightforward stuff for anyone with a modicum of B3D experience. Anyway, I hope Mustang is not put off by the criticism and does eventually release his demo. |
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| Dark Idiot: look for my old planet code in code archives instead of bitching then. One Eyed Moron: Why directly insult someone like that? WTF did I do to you? A. I don't have the time to sift through the code archives looking for something. No search feature = me only going there if I direly need something or if someone links something in there that is remotely interesting. B. Look at how often I have posted in the last few months in the old profile. I also dont have time to sit and troll the forums like you do. Oddly enough the last few posts I have made where in this thread. Meaning I was checking this thread for progress on the demo (until my aparent 'observation' post, which now is just to fend off downtrodden like yourself). whatever.. |
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| Fantastic! This thread has turned into a flamewar on the brink. Well spotted Mr. Picklesworth, prepare for thread lockdown in 5, 4, |
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