Ah, the mysterious inner workings of FFE!
Indeed!
I've backed out the wider sorting for the moment, it was more an experiment, but not before finding out that was models 315 & 316 being drawn. They're also only visible when using the original models too - there's replacements in the models subfolder that would otherwise override them.
#315 is the original galaxy skybox model which includes both the textures and also a number of instances of sub-model #316 to draw star clusters... or are they?
Tried a further experiment to ensure a minimum size for the points in these clusters - and while there are points that look like they're being used for star clusters/constellations... there are also a number of tiny clusters which are always either in the centre of the current view or clustered around the player's ship - could these be the absent dust particles at higher speeds? The only thing is, they don't seem to be animated at all :S
I guess #316 will be something to look at in future - but have already decided will most probably just supress those textures again from model #315 - they're basically in line with the 'cloud' of the background texture anyway and so don't really add anything... not sure about the constellations, and certainly the other clusters need investigating to see if they are meant to be moving stars/dust or not!
Hey AndyJ!
I may be a little bit late to party on this, but how difficult would it be to add support for .M3U playlist files in the custom music directories, in addition to the current MP3 file support?
It would be far easier to maintain that folder if it just contained a playlist instead of actual files, and it would help reduced the game's footprint on the disk. Also, the game crashes if I try to add more than 100 songs to each folder.
What do you think?
Hi nanite2000
tbh, next build won't have m3u playlists - I'd have to look into how to read those. But I'm assuming from the comment of reduced footspace, that you're thinking the m3u would point to music outside of the game folder?
I've been more focussed on encouraging people to provide soundtrack mods really, and have added a .cfg file to specify the sub folders, so that they can be shared between events or made separate from the default folders.
Other than the files being located elsewhere, would an m3u be played in order or still random?
Thanks for the 100 files report. Yes, the original FFED3D code just worked through the entire directory adding the filenames to an array of 100 but didn't check if it'd reached the limit, carry on and then implode into a gooey mess. (Do you want more than 100?)
I just noticed something - that's an interesting looking planet in your screenshot!
It looks like a planet with no atmosphere, yet it appears to use procedural terrain generation (like living planets), instead of the usual texture map.
Am I just getting confused?
Ittiz enabled procedural terrains for non-living planets in his release, and it looked fantastic. Are you trying to enable the same option on your release?
If not, is this something you are considering for a future release?
(please, please, please!)
Confused I think. (sorry!)
All planets, even those with entire skins have their terrains procedurally generated to give them their lumps n bumps and underlying colours.
This isn't a direct answer to this thread, but I've kinda ducked a few comparisons/comments about mine vs Ittiz' build before and perhaps I shouldn't keep doing so. Mine may not have been the first public re-release of FFED3D but it would be wrong to think that it was 2nd out of the starting blocks or catching up. My
very first post here on these forums was after finding the sources and sharing a few weeks of research, hoping for some interest. Ittiz proceeded with r16 for his builds and I ended up going it alone, fixing versions r36-65+ and throwing out a few private builds until I was happy. Following my own 1st release I decided to continue on that way and aim for my own goals. And I'll admit they may have been more oriented towards bug-fixing than bling, but I've always held the view as a developer that it doesn't matter how many bows you tie on a pig, at the end of the day - it's still gonna be a pig! So, bugs first, bling second - and I think there has been some added bling along the way?
I always had the impression that Ittiz's build was trying to hard-set the colours of planets by using pre-coloured textures? I didn't really like that idea, and if you've read the early posts in this thread will see I've been fixing the colours throughout, with
some encouragement from Zak to fix certain dayglo greens!
That said, I am trying to add support for pre-coloured textures in the latest build if people do want to try them out - perhaps they'd work well for asteroids, or even to get rid of the bright colours on specific terrain areas of certain planets... but I'm wondering now if they're really wanted?
@nanite2000 - The previous screen shot is just using a greyscale planet texture and the underlying FFE generated colours per terrain triangle. The texture is tex711 which actually I notice is present in FFED3D but not at all in Ittiz's pack?
The planet object is the same as the Moon in Sol. The version of the texture that I have is also nicer than the standard heavily cratered FFED3D one ... Oh, LOL it's come from installing
your mod "TEXTURE - nanite2000s Textures (512)"!
It's looking like I'm going to have to issue my own preferred set of textures though before long just to get everyone on the same page and then take suggestions for improvements! Probably I now need to make sure that the next core textures zip includes a complete set of planet skins/terrains. I suspect that the skins I'm happily playing with nanite2000 are from your mod - would you be ok if I included & credited them in the next core textures pack?
The next build has a further improvement as I've fixed the code that colours gas giants, they were always incorrect in their lower half and all rendered the same red/black stripes due to exceeding their colours table. I've also exposed the values in the calculations so that they can be tweaked to some extent to suit any future texture changes...
Here's a night view from Merlin showing both Aster and Willow behind the clouds ... And yes, Aster was meant to be purple not half red as in earlier versions!
