Nebula backgrounds, add rifts? Please pretty devs?

from Sins Forums
Well, it seems like either space is completely black, or oversaturated with a huge bright nebula in every corner the eye can see :P
Wouldnt it be possible (in a patch or such) to add a simple randomized opacity map or something, so if the user chooses to enable it, the zoomed in nebula has some nice soft rips and such, showing more of the dark deep space beneath it?

Actually more like streaks of the nebula on top of the dark space.
You get my drift.. Like the deep space backdrops, they are perfect in distribution.
I want the zoomed in backgrounds to be like that, a bit less opague, and with quite a bit of darkness showing trough :)

Will it be considered for a future patch? Thanks!
49,400 views 24 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Visually, that is a great idea.  In fact, almost all of the skyboxes used to be like that, but they were replaced because the strong contrast made it difficult to see your units as you moved about.  By the way, you can easy mod in your own skyboxes by replacing the existing dds skybox files. Several people in beta have done this already :)
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
If it were realistic, there would hardly ever be a nebula in the sky. There might be some dust, but even that's unlikely. All (or mostly) black would be boring though, and I think Homeworld 2 has the most perfectly beautiful skyboxes, and what I've seen in SoasE looks great as well. There isn't the wreckage everywhere but that wouldn't fit with the plot.
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Personally I hate dark backgrounds. After 15 years of playing space themed games, I can do without em! I love the colorful skyboxes. The blue, the green, the orange, all lovely! Most appealing thing to me about the game is how they prove space doesn't have to be dark!
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
OP, are you thinking of something more like this?


Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
I want to see some random black hole :P
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
But they will suck you real, real good if you saw them.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
There are wormholes!!  :CONGRAT: 
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
yeah, that's a nasty 3 day mind****...
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
ROFL....
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
a nebula in the distance is very realistic.. its just a very long-way-off galaxy, instead of gas or whatever as originally thought (some great many years ago)
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
GrimMage yeah, something like that!
Now i also feel the need to do some shameless self-art promoting :P

http://img520.imageshack.us/my.php?image=109frontierdb6.jpg

http://img520.imageshack.us/my.php?image=112lurkingaj5.jpg <-- note the black hole to the left, you nasty nasty ppl :O

Some thing like that, just basically whisps and clouds of distant nebulas, not a 100% clouded view :)
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
Nice stuff Baleur. Is that 2d btw? Mine was thrown together in Maya, paint effects FTW. So mine was kinda 2.5D
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
But they will suck you real, real good if you saw them.

:LOL:
physics jokes, nice.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top

Cool. Nice work!  You can easily get these in the game if you go into the textures\backdrops folder and save over SkyboxBackdrop'x'.dds. The size is 4096 X 1024.  If you want to be picky,make sure your seams all line up. There are three parts to paint - the main piece that wraps around and the two caps, top and bottom.  If you open up one of the existing skyboxes these areas are clearly defined. Have fun :) 

Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah thats 2d, handpainted in Photoshop lol.
I doubt if i'll have the patience to mod the game tough =P
Then again, if i were to replace those skyboxes, i'd only have to paint the nebula stuff right? The stars behind are already rendered ingame right?
Makes it a bit less tedious, hand-painting stars are hard work for the index finger XD
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
The stars are blended in via multiplication (blend opacity based on the skybox texture's alpha channel), IIRC.
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks :)
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top

The stars are blended in via multiplication (blend opacity based on the skybox texture's alpha channel), IIRC.



English plz :)
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top

The stars are blended in via multiplication (blend opacity based on the skybox texture's alpha channel), IIRC.



English plz


Photoshop lingo

Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah, it's funny; I've always wanted something less than those beaut HW1 and 2 backgrounds but not totally black, or at least to make the stars themselves, in the distance, really vibrant as if you were looking into the night sky. That way, the stars could come really to resemble diamonds set in velvet, rather than just so many hard metallic points in a bleak sky...
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
Kryo is right.  The stars are handled seperately for several reasons, but primarily to keep their crispness.  The easiest thing to do is fill the alpha channel black or white for all stars on or off.