zombies, just put the required bonuses, and add the random bonuses that you want to be available for the planet then enjoy

harpo

bloody double posts. did not seem to have posted, and showed the reply in the reply box , so hit the post reply again, and found a double post!

harpo

Thanks, I'm going to give it a shot. I appreciate the feedback and will hopefully learn for myself soon enough.

Here's a shot with differing planet icons. This is following the DS classifications of Moon, Dwarf, Normal and Huge. Though the icons for Huge and Normal are the same, Dwarf and moon have their own set.

I liked working on the planet bonuses for my mod. I had Celestial Bodies and Sins Plus with the different sized planets as well. I made some planets very undesirable. Swamp was very bad that it had 2 negative required bonuses (unstable ground and I forget the other) with more negative and positive random bonuses. Volcanic and Ice also carried some required negatives with positive and negatives randoms thrown in. This made it so you didnt want to colonize every planet you came across and made desert and terran very desirable. This can change the game dynamic a lot as now the terran worlds become the focus of most battles.

I also removed all the tics added by Celestial Bodies and made the icons different sizes.

Feel free to use my binary meshes if you want.

Here's a different test system based off of celestial bodies fictional Tenorias' system.

Thanks, I look through some of your bonuses too then. I'm using a mesh that supports 2:1 textures like whats on celestial bodies so I'd need a new binary mesh to support those style textures I believe.

The varying planet sizes in both look really perfect. 

Hard to discriminate between the images.  Distant stars seems to have a little more warmth in the above and Celestial Bodies a little more contrast and sharpness--though that varies in places within each.  That's as an estimate of overall composition.

Both look great.

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I am working on a 3DS model of an exploded planet and am almost finalized with it.  I've kept the poly count down but have included details like impact craters with texture rings for showing crater depth and rock composition layers. There are large, semi spherical chucks in a roughly spherical pattern and varying rock chunks and debris.  Gravity still holding close to it's original shape but cataclysmically split.

The texturing would be completely beyond me at the moment.  If you are up to it I'm happy to share the model. Anyone is welcome to use it.

Here's a pic, it isn't textured or even colored here to show some of the groups (like the crater interior layers)  but you get the idea.  I'm working to make the small debris form a rough ring around the main body at the moment.  I've kept the poly count down and its about 9925 tri's and 7050 verts.  I have a version with more detail but the counts more than double. I think with good textures this will work.  it might even be possible to add some particle forge smoke and glow effects to the model center.  Maybe a dark, smoky cloud with a glowing interior.  Would be a neat and unique model then.

Thanks, and what? I'm only adding planets and icons. What do you mean by warmth, contrast and sharpness? Do you mean the backdrop the icons are in?

Looks cool. I could maybe throw it in 3d-coat and see how hard it would be to paint a texture on it and look good.

I meant the pics themselves there.  Just the overall imagery (in your pictures).  Warm is a little softer light and merged in tone, the other is brighter and more sharp.  I just noticed the two mods produced a different atmosphere in those pictures as you stand back and look at them. The planets all look great either way.

A 3D coat? Hmmmm.  I want a program that creates textures but is free!  I have no problem creating them artistically--its actually getting them easily onto models that annoys me.

I have the surfaces saved as separate groups--basically, every surface that needs a texture can be easily done apart from the other surfaces.  I am still tweaking a little but will post it up when I am done and you can tinker with it.

Interesting comments. I do think some of the images are a little dark and lose themselves in the starfield. They are all built using projections from the actual models themselves. Though what you are seeing is the see through undetected icons that can be made visible with the dev.exe.

I've uploaded three test systems to my download site at code.google.com. They are mainly just eye candy right now, but feel free to check them out.

Yessssss....I'll go steal them...I mean, check them....out now.

Haha, sure... One thing you should know. I made the entire Rigel mod today using images from Celestial Bodies. Give me time and I can add my custom bonuses too. Though I'm not sure when I'll get around to that. Getting kind of tired of modding at the moment.

It gets to be brain numbing.

I have to pull two faces off a shape and I'll have the shattered world ready.  Takes awhile with the basic 3D skills I have.

Planet bonuses are fun.  If you set them right you can actually create the planets almost entirely with the bonuses.

LOL I know the feeling.

Maybe for the internal breakaways you could slap some particle effects in there for "fresh" and "not so fresh" combusted planets

True. I need to learn to make particle effects... *sigh* one area I haven't touched really.

it's not THAT hard Zombie, i could show you how if i can get the damned particle forge to work on my laptop...

i've gone through every bit of info i've heard about it. copy DLLs, copy the Texture, Mesh, and Textureanimations folders, update .net framework, etc etc.

i have .net 4.0, will that work?

I have moons now... Your shattered moon would be awesome after it's destroyed

So what do you think of a tactical moon structure (Sorry no orbit, but they do rotate)?

It took a while to make the tangents work right, but it's pretty cool in game.

I'm thinking each home planet gets them and maybe have them randomly show up on other planets as capturable entities. I've two thoughts on ownership, one being they are destroyable like any other tactical structure (see sinperiums model above). The other being they are capturable after it's planet goes neutral... Or a combination of both maybe...

Well that's a pretty cool way to implement them. What exactly do the moons do though? As of now I would think being captureable is the way to go (it would take a lot of firepower to blow up the moon completely), but that would depend somewhat on what their function is.

How the... Does that thing give/take up tactical slots/structures or something? Maybe make it "destroyable" like planets?

As a tactical structure, they can have anything currently associated with a tactical or logistic type structure. It does add some flavor to the scenery as well as add an obstacle to move around.

I originally hoped they could be spawned as starbases but the galaxy scenario def doesn't allow that entity type which I wasn't too surprised after perusing the Distant Stars GSD, but wanted to try to make sure. I'm thinking it would be a natural place to house strikecraft or other interesting abilities. Could be a new set of research on the Defense tree. Still working through some ideas but thought it might make a cool addition.

It would also be possible to have race specific moons on home planets that only get abilities/improvements for that race and specialized/generic moons on neutral planets. The neutral moons could be randomized in the galaxy scenario def by using the WithChance types.

I also appreciate tangents a lot more now....

It's currently setup like a structure so you can attack it but not bomb it. Only planets can be bombed. They could definitely be destroyed though which might be kind of interesting. I'm still on the fence with this one. I'd think they would have to have some insane health though if they were destroyable.

Awesome as always 

The moons look great. I think colonizing them separately from the planet would be a natural step, kinda like if we actually set up a colony on our moon. But I'm not sure how you would go about the logistics and tactical slots for the moon. *Unless you simply didn't give the moon any logistic or tactical slots, just population and exploration.