Vega Strike Forums

I am thinking about contributing with better planet textures but could find no information on tools or how to create planet textures.

What are the recommendations?

pyramid the Gimp and imaginmation are the best bets in linux also check the current textures under /textures/planets the wiki has some texturing articles aswell have fun.

Enjoy the Choice

Thanks for that. I'll prefer staying with Gimp since I still know it from my (not so distant) windows times.
The most recent "current" planet textures on SVN are 15 months young and mostly low-res. I was thinking about providing some high-res planet textures.

For this purpose I'd like to add a section on Wiki page Development:2D_Images/Planet Surfaces.
My idea was to: List available planet types, current textures & resolutions, required upgrades, progress, ....
Something similar to the 3D Models dev page.
Later, I might also put up some guidelines under Development/Art-related/Graphics subsection.

Comments are appreciated.

Currently I am developing some gimp python scripts for creating gas planet textures.

Well, some people in this forums have thought about this before in this thread: Some New Planets
Unfortunately, the image links are broken.

Our royal artist Strangelet did some planet textures that haven't even been committed yet, AFAIK. Here: stand clear. planets coming through
@Halleck: If you read this, could you add this to your list please?

However the drawback with pregenerated textures is, that you just can store a rather limited number and every other planet will look the same. A solution (out of many) would be dynamical procedurally generated planet textures. We've had a pretty comprehensive thread on this as well: Orbital planet surfaces

Personally, I'd love to see this last approach implemented.

Nevertheless, summarizing these attempts and linking these threads to the wiki would be a great first step in organizing the development in this area.

Zeog wrote:@Halleck: If you read this, could you add this to your list please?

These are on dandandaman's list already.

dandandaman wrote:Adding them is still on my list (and yes, I have a copy), it's just that they didn't match quite with the planets we've got, so there was going to be a shuffle of planet types, which involves a bit more work than just putting in the textures. But hey, I'll put them on ftp tonight so if anyone wants to jump in and do them they can

Dan

Thanks a lot for the info and good tips & tricks, since I am pretty new to VS.
I have created a wiki page for orbital planetary surfaces development to summarize what needs to be done and how: Development:Orbital_Planet_Surfaces

Please let me know what you think about the structure.
As the page progresses I will open a new thread in the forum section, not sure if " Contributor Help & Internal How-Tos" is the right section?

dandandaman wrote:...putting in the textures. But hey, I'll put them on ftp tonight...

Is this the same as SVN?

The wiki entry was great. Are those all the planetary/stellar bodies ingame? Why not for example, make a blue star? An aging mottled red giant? A brilliantly white dwarf?

They're all spheres.

How about solid guidelines too? Strict rules means coherence in contributions.

1.Like what resolutions should the images be?
2.Formats? shoudl be JPG
3.How many images should there be, including LOD's and ultra-high-res for storage purposes for possible use in future, more powerful versions.
4.The layout of the texture itself. Which parts do the polar textures come from, or do they just warp around the sphere?

And more textures for a planet type would be nice if there could be a way to show em all ingame.

e.g.Three or more textures for the agricultural planet type. you get the point.

And finally how to test them ingame.

EDIT: Oops! I thought the wiki you meant was the same as the list of 2d planet textures. hehe. guess it's all there already. great. Will see if I can make a few for the planets.

Thanks for suggestions. 1. and 2. are already there but 3. and 4. are good suggestions and I'll incorporate them when I have some time.

Regards