Planets: How big is too big?

Opinions for cosmetic plug-in

I recently started on a plug which replaces the planet graphics in the standard EV:N scenario.

My question for you all is how large do you think it is reasonable to have a planet be?

450x450 pixel planets with two sprites on-screen runs fine on my intel core duo, but would older machines have problems?

Can you forsee any other random problems with having very large planet sprites?

-- BP

@blueplanet, on Aug 23 2007, 09:08 PM, said in Planets: How big is too big?:

I recently started on a plug which replaces the planet graphics in the standard EV:N scenario.

My question for you all is how large do you think it is reasonable to have a planet be?

450x450 pixel planets with two sprites on-screen runs fine on my intel core duo, but would older machines have problems?

Can you forsee any other random problems with having very large planet sprites?

-- BP

I have a 500x500 ish planet in my plugin Nebula: D.O.A. It works fine except when you hail the planet and the graphic is too big for the box.

@cosmic_nusiance, on Aug 24 2007, 01:10 AM, said in Planets: How big is too big?:

I have a 500x500 ish planet in my plugin Nebula: D.O.A. It works fine except when you hail the planet and the graphic is too big for the box.

Indeed, it looks like anything over 500x500 might actually block the buttons in the hail dialog box!

Otherwise it just looks slightly awkward.

--BP

You can always make the dialog bigger. If it's running fine on your Intel then there should be no problems - PPC should run it even better.

I think he means older PPC machines - such as the G3s and G4s. Any G5 model should run with those size planets pretty well, I'd think.

Even G3s run Nova better than Intel :rolleyes:

Heh, I think that's only the case with the MacBook Pros. All the other Intel-based Macs seem fine.

Though another game reports my quad-core Xeons as G4 processors...

I actually tried 700 by 700 sprites on my PPC. Whenever one came on-screen it slowed the game down horribly.

Nope, not my iMac. Well I guess in-game is mostly fine but dialogs are always slow to open - a lot better in windowed mode but still noticeable. I wonder if it makes a difference whether you have Core (32-bit) or Core 2 (64-bit)? I'm just a Core Duo.

This post has been edited by Guy : 24 August 2007 - 01:22 AM

Could be, I don't know. I'm running one Core Duo machine and one Xeon machine. But I don't think it would make too much of a difference.

For Apophis, I am making all the planets 500 by 500 on average. several of them are 900 by 900, and it seems to work fine. it didn't forsee the problem about the hail boxes though. is there a way around it, say, make the hail box a picture of the operator on the planet rather than the planet itself?

Aye, tis a problem with the hail boxes. Anybody know how to resize the window or change the image?

(Aside from that, the plug currently stands at a dozen planet types replaced! Go me!)

Got any screenshots?

@cosmic_nusiance, on Aug 24 2007, 06:13 PM, said in Planets: How big is too big?:

Got any screenshots?

Here's one, hang on for another.

chocolate_mintjpg.jpg (84.42K)
Number of downloads: 58

Sweetness.

This one has been scaled down to 50 percent, it wouldn'tve gotten below 100k otherwise:

tauceti.jpg (87.5K)
Number of downloads: 56

Note the (original) gas giant for scale.

This post has been edited by BluePlanet : 24 August 2007 - 01:47 PM

Cool planets. Reminds me of SFA.

To rezize the hail boxes, edit the DITL and DLOG resources for them. I think the unmodified ones are in EV Nova itself (not the data files), but a plug-in can still edit them. You might have to be on a mac to see and change the resources, though. I'm not sure if EVNEW supports them.

EVN runs perfectly on my Core 2 Duo iMac, and the framerate stays at about 50 fps all the time - even in heavy combat. It looks really good on the glossy screen too, almost like you're looking out a window into space.

May I point you to the fact that planets so big and so close couldn't exist? it also tends to get a bit crowded when you only use big planets (just my opinion)... You might want to separate them a bit and even make one bigger than the other to 'simulate' a more 'real' environment

I have in fact made the moon-class planets smaller since the screenshots.

@nil-kimas, on Aug 25 2007, 09:47 AM, said in Planets: How big is too big?:

EVN runs perfectly on my Core 2 Duo iMac, and the framerate stays at about 50 fps all the time - even in heavy combat. It looks really good on the glossy screen too, almost like you're looking out a window into space.

Hm, that's interesting.
Mackilroy, are you saying your Core Duo runs Nova perfectly too? I should note that when I first got my machine it did run Nova perfectly. It was only after some OS update or something that it went funny.

@reinierk, on Aug 25 2007, 09:53 AM, said in Planets: How big is too big?:

You might want to separate them a bit

Yeah, I was going to suggest that. Separate them a lot. Would be interesting to have to actually fly quite a way to get between planets in the same system.