A star control 1 remake that may actually get finished

[Zeracles]

Absolutely, lots of little Xs like my avatar

To paraphrase a lost friend of ours, when I get the urge to follow up on a silly proposal to a ridiculous extreme, I usually can't resist it . . .



Too much? Want plusses instead of Xs?



So, what do we think? I can vary both size and brightness, after which it might be safe to increase the density a fair bit. There's also a number of parameters I can fiddle with for the prominence and length of the spokes, but I got to this after some experimenting. The number of spokes is a variable too.

EDIT: retro remakes thread moved

[chenjesuwizard]

Like It!

[Dragon]

So, what do we think? I can vary both size and brightness, after which it might be safe to increase the density a fair bit.

Whoops, saw you posted, started posting and then got distracted.

Anyways, it's looking much better .  I definitely prefer the x's to the +'s.  I'd really like to see a screenie where you've used only greys to see how the different intensities affect it - at the moment the sizes are bit uniform.

Ta for that!

[Shiver]

Anyways, it's looking much better .  I definitely prefer the x's to the +'s.

Couldn't Zeracles use random rotations so it's not just one or the other? That and varying star sizes would make it look quite impressive.

[Zeracles]

Couldn't Zeracles use random rotations so it's not just one or the other? That and varying star sizes would make it look quite impressive.

He can, but it's going to look very strange to him since it will make him think he's looking at the same field through about a thousand different telescopes at once I'll have a look when I have time though.

I'd really like to see a screenie where you've used only greys to see how the different intensities affect it - at the moment the sizes are bit uniform.

Variable sizes and intensities will probably be the main thing. So far the sizes and intensities are all the same (except that white is brighter than say, blue, etc), but chance alignments inflate some of the stars (best example of this is centre bottom of the high density X image, if you zoom in on the bright white star you can tell it's three stars superposed).

Thanks fellas, I'll get back to you

[Shiver]

Couldn't Zeracles use random rotations so it's not just one or the other? That and varying star sizes would make it look quite impressive.

He can, but it's going to look very strange to him since it will make him think he's looking at the same field through about a thousand different telescopes at once I'll have a look when I have time though.

Heh, foiled by basic physics. You have to admit that it would be more visually impressive. Well, there goes that idea.

[Dragon]

I've posted a small tech demo over at remakes if anyone's interested.  I'd mostly just like to know if anyone has issues running it.

It can be found at the end of this topic.  I'd link it directly but that would be rude...

So things are coming along slowly...

[Zeracles]

This has the same density as the last X one. The sizes vary from nothing to the same, and the intensity varies from nothing to twice as bright. I thought it looked messy at first, but it's grown on me. Up to Dragon what would look best in game.

Heh, foiled by basic physics. You have to admit that it would be more visually impressive. Well, there goes that idea.

I'll probably still try this at some point, not really fussed about looking too real, but real can be good too. Maybe for the next one I'll dispense with reality completely.

[Dragon]

Ooh, I like! 

The colours are still a bit ... um... garish so I've desaturated them somewhat.  Also it'd look really awesome if you could cluster the stars before the filters been applied - I've added a few dark swathes in but as you can see it looks a bit silly (ie:  it looks like there's a black cloud in front of the stars).



...

[Zeracles]

The colours are still a bit ... um... garish so I've desaturated them somewhat.

Heh, if you're happy to decide how much to tone the colours down, I'll keep doing garish / gaudy.

Also it'd look really awesome if you could cluster the stars before the filters been applied

I think I know how to do this - I'm on the case

[Dragon]

I think I know how to do this - I'm on the case

Cool, I'm looking forward to this one

[Zeracles]

Now, anyone can make a clustered set of points by hand, but I don't muck around with these things so I implemented a proper algorithm for doing it, as described in this paper (correlation analysis is part of what I do). With this I can vary how clustered the points are, with any density we like of course.



Definitely my favourite so far . . . the really bright patch could be a problem though. It might go away after Dragon's desaturation but probably not. If it needs to be fixed, I could just repeat the clustering algorithm until I get something without such a concentration. Apart from that, is it the right amount of clusteriness? Any other tweaks?

[Shiver]

They're all cluttered. Maybe set a small area around stars that prevents other stars from appearing right on top of each other? I'm not really sure. I'm only posting to get the next set of images onto another page.

[Zeracles]

They're all cluttered. Maybe set a small area around stars that prevents other stars from appearing right on top of each other?

Cluttered = hierarchically clustered That's by design, we have clusters within clusters here (a fractal distribution). The easiest fix for the highest density regions would probably be to remove the bottom level of the hierarchy in each of the superposed fractals, or bring the levels closer together. The L=1 separation lengths could be constrained to lie within a higher range, too.[/nerdspeak]

I'm only posting to get the next set of images onto another page.

Not a bad point, I just made all but the last one .jpgs.

[chenjesuwizard]

They all merge together.
Like the toned down colours on Dragons.