Aug. 29: Living Sky Project

For a long, long time now, the default outdoor sky has bothered me. It's always the same. During the day, it just stays the same whatever time it is, whatever the weather is like. Same at night...sure, I added a few starts, a couple of constellations (which are hard to see in most places), and the green moon Naka, but it's still just there.

Out of the blue two days ago, I get a hit over the head by the Muse of Model Making and Scripting. I came up with a way to make the sky change...and had to start work on it before I forgot the idea.

In the near future, I will be adding a bunch of stuff to the updates hak to make a few changes, including:

- new outdoor sky backdrop (altered ground and sky colors, removed clouds, sun, and moons, revamped star backdrops and added multiple constellations)
- the sun will change position every game hour, rising in the east and setting in the west
- the moons will change position every game hour, rising in the east and setting in the west
- the two moons (silver Sharlo and green Naka) will change phases as time passes
- during rainy/snowy weather, the sky will change to be filled with dark clouds
- during rainy weather, there will be chances of random distant lightning

* The Amethyst Dragon heads off to get some more caffeine... *

Oh that sounds way sweet! Love the whole idea of it all, just more of the "flavor" that makes Aenea such a great place to be in! Thanks for making it all you do !

Absolutley Ace !!


HAIL THE TWINS !!!

Dude... you are a maniac .... only you get inspired for stuff like this.... or rather, only you get inspired with ways to actuallu implement this stuff... amazing....

Who else thinks should have a syndicated TV show titled "This Old Game Engine" lol

daveyeisley wrote:

Who else thinks should have a syndicated TV show titled "This Old Game Engine" lol

I'll second that!

daveyeisley wrote:"This Old Game Engine"

Funny.

I third that suggestion!

This sounds awesome. I hope my poor little laptop can handle it!

Amethyst347 wrote:This sounds awesome. I hope my poor little laptop can handle it!

I'm designing it on my own laptop. The different .dds compression tools I've tried all lead to some minor issues with the files so they don't render right on my laptop, so I'm opting for just .tga versions, which render just fine even on my lower-end built-in video card.

On a side note, I think it's kind of funny that my older desktop PC has a more powerful video card than my 5-years-newer laptop.

Impressive view of the night sky. I especially like the different constellations you can see of teh various deities. Nice work as always

Is the living sky live now? I don't usually look up, but will have to remember to next time i'm in-game!

Yes. check your combat log and it'll say something about living sky

Eric of Atrophy wrote:Is the living sky live now? I don't usually look up, but will have to remember to next time i'm in-game!

It is now being implemented. Unfortunately, I have to modify each area using it (add a variable, add a waypoint, make sure it has the right skybox, make sure to try to eliminate any area fog), so I'm trying to work outward from the Vale.

We'll see how it works out, since my testing was in a couple areas in a test module.

The message in the combat log is a mistake, a hold-over from my testing. I'm removing it for the next planned reset.

Just some feedback.

Overall I enjoy the implentation, and like to actually stop on the various hills and moutains to see the view. But perhaps the deity symbols in the sky at night are a bit too 'busy'; possible star overload.

Rather than fill in all the space, make them more like constellations that appear like Dot-To-Dot games. Or if possible, have them show the connections when holding down the Tab key?

Thanks for all the perks!