Tatooine planetary .opt

[jmarso]

DTM has done some amazing work with planetary opts, namely his Lothal / Bespin / Alderaan / Yavin .opts. He did some earlier work as well that seems to be outdated now, and could only be used at very low screen resolutions.

I was wondering if anybody knows of any more useable planetary .opt files out there, especially Tatooine. Really need a Tatooine one. Thought about trying to make one in Blender but it seems a little daunting. Being a lazy S.O.B I never want to try to recreate something that someone else has already done, particularly if I don't think I can do it any better.

Anyone?

[jmarso]

Been a couple years so I wanted to bump this with a renewed question about planetary opts. (Surfaces and skyboxes)

Anyone doing any work on these at the moment? Or perhaps new releases I may not have heard about? I'm still in the market for a desert planet, an ice planet, and a temperate world with maybe a coastline. Other than the Lothal / Alderaan ones already available. (Or at least they were.) With hooks these opts are fantastically easy to use and I have a slew of old missions that need updating if and when new plantary opt's become available.

[Ace Antilles]

There's been no new releases/ @DTM has been working on some things but life and new stuff gets in the way.

@Forceflow has been doing stuff with Planet backdrops that you may like.
A nice Tatooine or Hoth seen some space would be cool.

[Forceflow]

Unfortunately the planets I am working on are purely backdrops, it might be possible to squeeze out one of the low orbit backdrops, but that's already stretching it. Doing a planetary surface is nothing I am good enough for.

[Trevor]

to be honest, a hook needs to get involved for proper planitary missions/skirmish

An ideal hook would allow an opt to be set at 0,0,0 and face north and also make sure that the starting points of any other opt did not fall below Y0.

to extend it further, the effects hook could then add fog and eventually things like wind buffeting and what not.

Also, a standard would need to be decided upon for "tilable" surface.

Trev

[Bman]

Also the opts have a limit too like up to 30 km in any direction or they tend to disappear at certain angles. Might have more flexibility with a skybox HD images imported in .dat files and scaling/resizing them appropriately. I think the ddraw effects on back end even allow for limited animation... I'm thinking for example an ocean surface with base in middle of it (like Obiwan TV episode). Not sure about ChatGPT but other sites like Midjourney etc (search on YouTube) could probably render stunning realistic atmospheric or ground level background 360 degree images / skyboxes. Blender's new AI module may have something like that. Nvidia has new AI db tool that is good too. Atmospheric backdrops is something hopefully we can include in TFTC in future. Perhaps even in training missions/proving grounds and MP mission expansion campaigns in future if that comes to fruition.

[Trevor]

the reason you would want a physical mesh is for collisions and shadow projection. backdrops are infinitly far away.
you need a combination.

Trev

[Master Qui-Gon]

Also the opts have a limit too like up to 30 km in any direction or they tend to disappear at certain angles. Might have more flexibility with a skybox HD images imported in .dat files and scaling/resizing them appropriately. I think the ddraw effects on back end even allow for limited animation... I'm thinking for example an ocean surface with base in middle of it (like Obiwan TV episode). Not sure about ChatGPT but other sites like Midjourney etc (search on YouTube) could probably render stunning realistic atmospheric or ground level background 360 degree images / skyboxes. Blender's new AI module may have something like that. Nvidia has new AI db tool that is good too. Atmospheric backdrops is something hopefully we can include in TFTC in future. Perhaps even in training missions/proving grounds and MP mission expansion campaigns in future if that comes to fruition.

This is no longer true...I have tested 100km3 with no problem, set to 0.0.0 center also.

[Bman]

You're talking about size of .opt file ? That's awesome. Maybe Jeremy's hook fixed that >30Km bug. If that's the case then a new death star model could theoretically be built, moons/planets, and planet surfaces etc.

[DTM]

Last year, I conducted experiments to create a new generation of planetary surfaces. Unfortunately, I had to interrupt my work due to time constraints. The results were promising.
Here the video:
https://youtu.be/NiMPceYjKhA

[Michal]

Last year, I conducted experiments to create a new generation of planetary surfaces. Unfortunately, I had to interrupt my work due to time constraints. The results were promising.
Here the video:
https://youtu.be/NiMPceYjKhA

Wow!

[Bman]

Perfect example. Add some animation via ddraw effects to ocean ... rolling waves, dynamic cloud movement. I think in future online AI databases like Midjourney, ChatGPT etc, could make stunning 360 panoramic HD textures for skyboxes and meshes. Then hand tweak the details.

Watched the new Avatar movie recently and those floating mountains/asteroids/Forrested rocks are very cool. That would make a great obstacle course in the pilot proving grounds room.

[Master Qui-Gon]

Last year, I conducted experiments to create a new generation of planetary surfaces. Unfortunately, I had to interrupt my work due to time constraints. The results were promising.
Here the video:
https://youtu.be/NiMPceYjKhA

Hmmm...I'll PM you later on this subject.

Looks really good.

[jmarso]

Last year, I conducted experiments to create a new generation of planetary surfaces. Unfortunately, I had to interrupt my work due to time constraints. The results were promising.
Here the video:
https://youtu.be/NiMPceYjKhA

Holy crap, that looked amazing! If you can do that, you could import part of Tunisia and have the RL Tatooine! Plus any other Earthly environment you wanted out of Google Earth. Do you mind explaining the process you went through for this?

[jmarso]

I have some old mission sets I created back in the day based on the X-Wing Rogue Squadron comic series that need various planetary OPT's. (Brentaal IV, Tatooine, etc). If we ever get a decent set of planetary opt files available I plan to redo all of those and release them to the community. The Alderaan and Lothal planetary OPTs are awesome, but they are very obviously Alderaan and Lothal. It would be even better if planetary opt's were set up so that artificial structures (cities, etc) were separate from the geography, so their use would be optional / place able.

[Bman]

How about Nar Shadda .... massive metropolis city in orbit/space ?