Nebula and Background WIP

[Nihilus]

I've been playing around with adding new nebula to the game, (possibly for a future pack to be released), and I was wondering if there was a specific way to install nebula to BC.  Usually I just save the photo as a targa file and then drag into the background folder, but I've noticed that sometimes the nebula appear digital or pixelated.  I heard someone say once that you have to add them in Edit Mode in order to make them look right, but I have no idea what that is lol.  The name is self explanatory but I don't know what kind of edit mode there is.  Is it a program to download or an option already in BC?

Any help is appreciated of course  

[StarkillerTFU2]

all i can say is... just load the image and erase some parts of it, to make it look like a nebula, and then don?t save as a targa file, but select the whole image, click copy, then crete a new file, paint it black and paste the image you?ve selected previously, then use free transformation to decrease the selected image size and put it in the middle of the black background, then join the layers and save as a 32bit/pixel targa file.

NOTE: if you have a 2048x background, leave the image atleast with 1/3 of the background.
NOTE2: remember to open the file again after you?ve saved and erase the alpha channel(if this happens).
 

[Nebula]

edit mode is accessed through the console in BC

IIRC you just type "edit" in the console.

[deadthunder2_0]

nebula, edit mode is accessed by typing Edit() into the console...

[Nebula]

yeah I knew I was missing something.

[Bones]

also it's VERY important to type it starting from capital E, exactly like Deadthunder showed you

[Nihilus]

What console do you type Edit() into?

Also, recently I've been creating the nebula by finding a good NASA quality photo of a nebula, cutting out a piece I want at 1024x2024 and then I paste that piece into photoshop.  From there I go to render, lighting effects and then select the style as Flashlight and light type as Omni.  Then I save as 32 bits/pixels  Here is what it looks like in photoshop and then in game, (by dropping it into the background folder).

[Bones]

you need to hit '~' key while in quickbattle

nice nebulaes ;) they look really good in game

[Nihilus]

you need to hit '~' key while in quickbattle

nice nebulaes ;) they look really good in game

It still doesn't appear to be working for me.  Perhaps it's my computer?  Either way, the system I'm using now seems pretty solid.  At least so far anyways.  I found a great panoramic shot of the Milky Way which I used to create this little number.  What do you guys think? 

[FarShot]

That's excellent.  I hate not seeing the arc of the galaxy in sci-fi, because if you can see it through Earth's atmosphere, shouldn't it be extremely visible in space?

[Nihilus]

That's excellent.  I hate not seeing the arc of the galaxy in sci-fi, because if you can see it through Earth's atmosphere, shouldn't it be extremely visible in space?

Makes perfect sense to me.  I like the opening shot of the TOS remastered "Where No Man Has Gone Before".  As the Enterprise approaches the edge of the Galactic Barrier, the Milky Way can be seen behind her.

[deadthunder2_0]

You need to make a test mode shortcut with BCUT then while in quickbattle press ~ then type "Edit()"

[Bren]

All the same, I hate seeing huge spiral galaxies used as nebulae in game. The stock nebulae were terrible for that. It literally painted the factual ignorance of the system scripter and the artists across the sky.

But the Milky Way, edge-on, panoramic all the way across the sky? Yeah! That's great! And:

I hate not seeing the arc of the galaxy in sci-fi, because if you can see it through Earth's atmosphere, shouldn't it be extremely visible in space?

is a two-and-two equation that I never put together! That's going to start bugging me like crazy now, THANKS!

As for suggestions or tips, I can say that your work so far is GORGEOUS! Beautiful and realistic. I'm not sure if you're already doing this, but in most images, I feel it works better if the dark areas of the nebulae are opaque to the background stars.

Generally the low alpha values in a copy-paste job to the alpha channels mean these darker parts of the image end up being the MOST transparent to the background stars. I find that unrealistic, and it takes me out of the realism almost as much and the apparently-very-nearby-but-only-visible-from-this-system spiral galaxies that Totally Games liked to pepper the game with.

You can tweak and paint the alpha channels of the nebulae in photoshop to make the bok globules and darker dust bands in nebulae block out the background stars the same as(or better, more than) the lit gasses.

[Nihilus]

Interesting, I'll have to take a closer lookt at BCUT and see how it looks then.  As for photoshop, I'm still learning how to use it so I'll eventually learn how to do the Alpha Channels and everything.  I've experimented with different things now.  You can still see the stars behind the Nebula though, but they're pretty faint.

I've worked some more on the Milky Way, trying to making it bigger but still realistic looking.  Here is another take on it.  The Star System I'm using for that is almost perfect to recreate "Where No Man Has Gone Before".  There is a single Planet, which could easily be Delta Vega another Nebula behind it which is much closer.  The big Nebula could be turned into the Galactic Barrier.  At least, I think it would be cool lol.

[Bren]

Well, the Milky way is a special case, of course. Most visible stars are constituents of the Milky way, and as such, they are between us and the most prominent dust clouds, so it's perfectly logical to let them shine through, as in reality, the distribution of stars in the galaxy means there are plenty visible in "front" of the dust clouds anyway...

I was referring more to the nebulae.

Those screenshots continue to be breathtaking.

[086gf]

Oh yeah those are nice.