stars v0.2

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drek · #1 Post by **drek** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 2:13 am

A new yellow, blue, and red star. Plus a sprite for blackholes.

Headed in the right direction? Better or worse than the v.1 stars?

#2 Post by **Tyreth** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 2:39 am

I think that it looks nicer, but I'm finding it hard to tell. I did like the stars in the early mockups that burndaddy did, but his were spaced much further apart than FO currently does.

drek · #3 Post by **drek** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 2:51 am

Yeah, I'm finding it hard to tell as well. Which means they probably suck.

I think the problem is star density. With so many stars of so many different colors, the map screen ends up looking like a mess. There's no apparent order for the eye to catch on to. Not certain how to solve the problem, beyond reducing the number of stars, increasing the distance tween stars, and/or imposing some kind of order (stars of the same color banding together for example...placing the hotter stars in the center and the older, cooler stars at the edge of the galaxy).

#4 Post by **Tyreth** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 3:21 am

One solution might be to draw the star images smaller, so that distances are the same, but you have to zoom in further to view the star image in detail.

Here's some screenshots of the same system before and after I changed the size stars are drawn at.
Before reducing size...

(zoomed in)

After reducing size...

(zoomed in)

So it may not be hard to make it look better.

utilae · #5 Post by **utilae** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 3:52 am

@Tyreth
I think the before 'reduced size' stars look better when they are zoomed in.

@Drek
Those stars are nice. They look a little cartoon like (relaxed, as opposed to serious, freeorions current stars are more serious looking). They also have better contrast then the current freeorion stars (ie the stars in freeorion are less bright and the background in freeorion is less dark).

Drek, I woulkd like to see your stars on a freeorion background along with the current freeorion stars. It would be easier to tell which is better and more appealing to the eye.

drek · #6 Post by **drek** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 3:56 am

*nod* the smaller stars look like the way to go.

I was hoping to create large animated stars to go along with the animated planets on the sidebar:

http://home.earthlink.net/~drekmonger/startest2.avi

But, the star is generated by a particle system. Haven't figured out a good way to make it loop yet. Tried ping-ponging, and it looked really cheesy.

/probably a lost cause.

EDIT: i bet a crossfade would work.

Daveybaby · #7 Post by **Daveybaby** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 10:30 am

Agree here, small stars is much better.

pd · #8 Post by pd » Sat Mar 20, 2004 11:15 am

i like the 'super-sized' stars when zoomed in. and i like the v0.2 stars to. personally i would turn the black holes into some kind of dark blueish tone.

With so many stars of so many different colors, the map screen ends up looking like a mess.

maybe it would help if you simply don't make them so colorfull... use a light blue instead of this fully saturated blue...same with the other colors.

Satyagraha · #9 Post by **Satyagraha** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 4:51 pm

i kinda like the old star better. especially the small version. and yes, black holes are suppoed to look dark & "evil".

Starrh · #10 Post by **Starrh** » Sat Mar 20, 2004 6:34 pm

Tyreth wrote:One solution might be to draw the star images smaller, so that distances are the same, but you have to zoom in further to view the star image in detail.

I like your solution Tyreth, the smaller stars seem to make it look less cluttered.

miu · #11 Post by **miu** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 4:14 am

The way the burndaddy's stars are made, made it possible for showing them bigger. They basically are small bright dot that smoothly then blends to background having hugem, very transparent round glow around them. Drek's new stars are way more violent compared to old ones, and do look bigger.
I think we should aim to peaceful look with stars, like the burndaddy's orginals = huge glow, very small bright are, not too many rays. That allows having them shown bigger, though little scaling down would be good. And remeber once we have starlanes (easy the eye to catch on), and the the feature that the name's of starsystems will not be shown when too zoomed out will clear the picture much. And the idea of placing older stars near center/cooler near borders is great

Though gameplaywise, if the types of plantes are generated by the type of stars, this would mean certain races would always be playing nearer the center and others at outer borders - is this a good or bad thing, can't say.

drek: that staranimation you made looked good, It would be great to have such animation with stars that fit the mood.

Satyagraha · #12 Post by **Satyagraha** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 2:09 am

a star test & comparison.
- 2nd is simply old stars with brighter centers that have different sizes and less blur. the size could also represent the number of planets. scaling difference shouldn´t be a problem if we have only 3 sizes or something. making the glow always have the same size, but differently sized centers, could also work.
- 3rd is copy-paste of real star pics from hubble, those are free copy-right.

drek · #13 Post by **drek** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 4:48 am

Interesting.

2 and 3 look better.

leiavoia · #14 Post by **leiavoia** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 5:57 am

bah

*ptooie*

i spit on #2. #3 looks rather good though. I still like #1, although i'd be happy with either (Except #2 of course)

vorenhutz · #15 Post by **vorenhutz** » Thu Apr 01, 2004 6:20 am

#3 looks good. Only disadvantage to hubble pics is they couldn't easily be animated, but it's cool that they're real stars. Of course there's nothing really wrong with #1, they kinda grew on me. With the starlanes in there, the 'bright point with halo' type stars look better I think.