Is there any way to change the backgrounds...

of the map and systems (instead of black

Well, I was recently browsing for some new plugs on the add-ons page, wondering if there was anything of any value out. And I saw one called "Clint Eastwood", and it gave me an idea. The creator said he was going to be expanding it, and I thought that it might be interesting to see some kind of TC based in the old west. You could have ship graphics look like horses or carriages, and the planets could look like buildings.

And then i thought that it would be better if you could get rid of the ol' stars background in the systems, and replace it with something else. And it would be REALLY cool if you could change the background for the map from black to something. Because then that could be used in all kinds of TC's, like having a map the southwestern states for a wester like TC, or you could even take a map of Europe, and make a WWII based TC.

So, I'm sure this has been asked millions of times before. And I guess I could have searched, but 1. I'm lazy. 2. It didn't cross my mind until just now, and since I'd allready typed it all out and such, I figured I'd finish up, and 3. Sometimes it's hard to find what you want with the search.

Thanks.

You can do both. Check out the syst resource in the EV Nova bible to find out how. I dont have the bible on this 'puter, so I couldn't quote it.

Well, before you get all excited about this non-space thing, there's going to be a lot to consider. What I'm talking about is physics. To get rid of the no-gravity thing, the inertialess flag would work, but there's much more. For example: horses going over and under other horses, people going over houses, flesh physics, etc. How do I know this? I have experience. With what? Hostile Waters, a water based TC. We've been working on it since late February, and we're still figuring out the physics and mechanics of it. But I don't mean to discourage you; in fact, we're hopefully going to have a teaser out by the end of summer! Drop by our forums if you need any help.

Hmmmmm, I'm not too worrie dabout that. it desn't matter to me taht much. But I had a good idea for it. I'm thinking it wont be a TC, but intsead be an expansion plug. What its gonna be is that you find some kind of anamoloies in space, and it transports you back in time. There will be three different times. One will be a western, one will be WWII, and one will be ancient Greece/Rome/Egypt (or just the ancient civilizations of the Meditteranean). And they'll be in the galactic north. And for the maps, I'll just use nebulae pictures. but this brings up another question....

Can I change the star background to something else in only particular systems?

Septcanmat, on Jul 10 2005, 05:23 PM, said:

Can I change the star background to something else in only particular systems?View Post

All systems use the same star graphics, unless they don't have any stars at all. For waves on water, you could probably replace a couple of asteroid types, but that won't work for land features. And don't even think about using giant spobs for background pictures, as that will make Very Bad Things happen (the frame-rate will drop to near zero, the game will need more memory than most computers have, etc.).

Edwards

A giant spob never crossed my mind. Acutally, what I was thinking, wa sthat for maybe in some systems where the needed background would be sand, I could use a yellow background with brown stars to make it look like sand (if that actually worked). Actually, i was thinking of adding extra asteroid types, whcih weren't actually asteroids (for the Western for example, I might have tumbleweed).

Well Septcanmat, you seem to have some work ahead of you. To help get you started, I found the bible qoute I spoke of earlier. From the syst resource:

Quote

BkgndColor -The system's background color, encoded the same as HTML colors.
(RRGGBB) ...set to zero for pure black.

Murk -The murkiness of the system (0-100). Zero will cause everything
to appear normally - 100 will cause the player to question
their current glasses prescription. A value less than zero
is equivalent to zero murk but also hides the starfield.

I don't think you can color the stars. On or off seem to be the only options. Still, you sound as though you may be up to the challenge. Best of luck to you.

Nuku- looking forward to that teaser!

Heh, thanks. Wanna help?:p Actually, I probably will postpone this project until I can actually get a team together, it'll just be easier that way, plus I don't entirely have all the skills I need first.

And thanks for that quote, that'll really help. But, is it still for sure that it has to be the same per system? And if so, maybe I could just use really high murk (if you can change the colour of the murk, I thought you could, but I'm not entirely sure).

P.S. Yes, Nuku, I as well am looking forward to that teaser. I think I was hanging around this forum again back when the idea for that TC came about. I always wondered what had happened to it, and I'm glad to see its still around. Can't wait.

The bible comes with 1.0.8. Maybe it did not come with the other versions. Cool feature