Development:Orbital Planet Surfaces
General
This page summarizes concepts and approaches to creating planet surfaces as seen from orbit. Topics of atmospheric entry and close-to-surface planetary topology or atmospheric effects or texturing should be covered in a separate document. Two main topics are covered in this document:
- Development of textured surfaces
- Development of procedural surfaces
References
References apply both to textured and procedural approaches if not stated otherwise.
Wiki References
Development Roadmap
- Improved planet textures (Higher quality/Fractal Enhanced?): Development:Roadmap#Aspects_for_consideration
Forum References
Texture Requirements
Development Tools
Examples, Including, Testing
Submission Process
Development Needs and Tasks
Improvement Proposals
- Auto-Enhancing Textures
- Fractal Generation System
- More pretty stuff: atmospheres and planet surfaces
External References
Textured Surfaces
Texture Requirements
Image Resolution and Formats
The planet surface graphics format recommended for the game is currently 2048x1024 in png or jpg format.
Keeping original high resolution image (e.g. 8192x4096 or 4096x2048) versions in stock helps maintaining quality and scalability as game development progresses or typical screen resolutions rise in the future with better hardware available to the players.
Image Properties
Naturally, the images should be seamless (tilable) so that seams are not visible on the rotating planet.
Development Tools
Image Manipulation Programs
GIMP
Gimp is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.
Gimp already comes with a great variety of scripts and the library can be extended with your own C, Perl, Python, or Script-Fu plug-ins.
Renderers
POV-Ray
POV-Ray(Persistence of Vision Raytracer) is a high-quality, totally free tool for creating stunning three-dimensional graphics. It is available in official versions for Windows, Mac OS/Mac OS X and i86 Linux. The source code is available for those wanting to do their own ports.
With its unique scripting approach and through a large base of available texture, pigment, and material functions there are almost unlimited possibilities to creating surface maps.
Blender
Blender is the open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback. Available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.
Scripts for blender can be created using Python. No application of blender for creation of planet surfaces is known to the author. Sumbissions are appreciated.
Including and Testing
Submission Process
Development Needs and Tasks
Procedural Surfaces
At the time of writing (June 2006) no known implementation of procedural orbital planet surfaces exists in Vega Strike.
Author
pyramid 16:19, 22 June 2006 (PDT)
