Aurora 4x

VB6 Aurora => Installation => Graphics Packs => Topic started by: MarcAFK on December 06, 2015, 11:06:08 AM

Title: New Planet Images
Post by: MarcAFK on December 06, 2015, 11:06:08 AM: Here's something I threw together because I was sick of seeing multiple copies of Jupiter, but missed having the correct images in my last game where I used Tarran's image pack which did away with them entirely.
Note that Aurora doesn't really handle planet images in Sol very well, by default mars and Titan share an image, and several large planets use images which should be asteroids or chunks, so no matter what you do with default images you'll find various planets in sol will become incorrect.
The solution I've decided upon is to remove all of the solar systems planets from the default planetjpeg folder, this way only new planets will be randomly generated for the galaxy which prevents suspension of disbelief due to seeing jupiter or something in a random alien system.
Of course you probably want to have the correct images available for bodies in our solar system, so they are in a separate package.
A few points about the way aurora handles the planetjpeg folder.
For random selection aurora only uses the following images.
Ast.jpg, a1-a10.jpg, b1-b19.jpg, h1-h3.jpg, ha1-ha6.jpg, gg1-gg10.jpg, m1-m23.jpg and o1-o7.jpg. Images after these won't be selected randomly, however they can be used manually.
Aurora only recognizes the final 3 characters of a planet image filename, so for instance if you select gg11.jpg aurora will search for g11.jpg and throw an error if it doesn't exist. The package contains an extra copy of this and gg10 in order to get around this.
The second package contains every major body in the solar system, they have been given their correct name in order to make it easy to find the desired image, however an extra copy of each planet is needed to get around the 3 character limitation.
The third package contains extra 'bonus' bodies which can be manually choosen if desired.
And finally the Jumbo package contains every image.
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: Garfunkel on December 06, 2015, 08:12:41 PM: Thanks, will try these out for my first 7.00 game!
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: MarcAFK on December 06, 2015, 11:19:18 PM: Heres what the basic planetjpeg looks like:
Off-Topic: show
(http://i.imgur.com/0CTeUDt.png)

And the solar system images:
Off-Topic: show
(http://i.imgur.com/LzVrJo3.jpg)
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: Britich on December 08, 2015, 02:58:52 AM: Unfortunately for me my security flags the download as a potential threat as tinyupload have had some "this is a bad site" flags against it. Probably just the MPAA being silly, but is there anywhere else you can upload it?
I know your files safe but I wont be able to download it even if I wanted to :(
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: MarcAFK on December 08, 2015, 06:22:15 AM: ~~I'll find somewhere else to upload it.~~
Edit: Uh, I think I can just upload them to the forum. lol
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: Britich on December 08, 2015, 11:50:25 AM: Youre a Trooper MarcAFK :)
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: MarcAFK on December 09, 2015, 12:29:57 AM: I just discovered something that should be obvious, Aurora will only load images from the correct folder, if you use a subfolder or put them somewhere else you'll get an error and the game will close.
I had the extra images in another folder to make it easier to change the incorrect images for Mercury, the moon, Io, Europa, Titan and Pluto, as well as the other moons and asteroids.
However after reentering the system infomation window and clicking on Mercury I got an error "unable to find ury.jpg",
Upon reloading it also threw a error about "una,jpg", I had only changed Mercury and Luna so it was easy enough to fix, just renaming them to ury.jpg and una.jpg. So just a word of warning.
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: MarcAFK on December 12, 2015, 08:02:23 AM: It seems Aurora can't handle images with more than 3 characters in the name if you manually choose the picture, so if you generate a system using my planets v1 there will be an error for gg10, gg11, gg12, gg13, gg14, gg15 ,and gg16 if you manually select the pictures.
The solar system pack is basically unusable, and the jumbo pack will have errors with gg10, gg11, gg12, gg13, gg14, gg15 , gg16 AND ha10 and ha11 if manually choosen.
The fix is pretty simple, Aurora looks for an image named the last 3 letters of what you selected, so you need copies of the gas giants named g10, g11, g12, g13, g14,g15 and g16, the extra ha planets will just end up using the already existing a10 and a11.
For the solar system images I'll need to put in redundant copys of the images which are named the final 3 letters. This is a problem for certain images with similar names however, so I'll need to upload a new version of the pack with slightly renamed pictures, untill then I'll upload a fix.
I've attached a new version of the Solar system pack to the origonal post. It renames each image to end in a 3 letter code, then has extra copies of the planets with the code name.
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: Rich.h on December 14, 2015, 10:34:17 AM: Hope you don't mind me hijacking things a little but I went through and did the work for you. I combined all the packs into a usable game folder, and renamed things that needed doing. So no more gg10's or ha11's etc. In addition I stuffed a small "Sol-" prefix to all the full named sol objects to keep them all in one spot when your looking through and redoing the game images. One problem I did notice though, when I started a new game with this folder Aurora seemed to decide it was picking random files for the gas giants. The problem though came with the fact it actually wanted files named "gg". This meant that I had errors and crashes as I only had "g" versions. Are you 100% sure that Aurora has a fit with more than 3 figures in a name and not more than 4?

Here is the total pack so you can see what I mean, if you try to start a new game with this you get errors as it will not find files names "gg".

https://www.mediafire.com/?5ap6vbubqgzzgvq (https://www.mediafire.com/?5ap6vbubqgzzgvq)
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: MarcAFK on December 14, 2015, 04:51:11 PM: In my game at least aurora will happily use the correctly prefixed files of more than 3 character length, but only when randomly selected.
When manually selected it only remembers the final 3 characters and throws the error.
In addition to this there's a minimum requirement to have the images that aurora expects to find, you need at least 10 a files etc, but if you put more they'll be used .
Take a look at the default folder, you need at least the same image names as already exist there.
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: Tarran on January 02, 2016, 08:46:26 PM: Nice to see some people still bother with planet images. I had thought the lack of comments on my thread meant that not many people cared. Or maybe everyone just used the portable installer and ignored my thread. Hard to say.

I've linked this thread from mine since I haven't bothered with it for a while, and mentioned it in the portable installation comments thread. With luck, you may see your pack spread far and wide from now on. Possibly even wider than my own.

No pressure. :P
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: MarcAFK on January 02, 2016, 09:07:33 PM: Steve's open to replacing the default planet images, I'm just waiting untill I have them all properly attributed so theres no potential legal issues. Nasa are good but my current pack does steal from other questionable sources.
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: Erik L on January 02, 2016, 10:55:30 PM: Look at http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/87720/Planetary-Stockart-BUNDLE?filters=0_2893_0_0_0

License is "Do whatever you want"
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: MarcAFK on January 02, 2016, 11:27:21 PM: Quote from: Erik Luken on January 02, 2016, 10:55:30 PM
Look at http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/87720/Planetary-Stockart-BUNDLE?filters=0_2893_0_0_0

License is "Do whatever you want"
Interestingly the barren pack there are just modified solar system images which don't seem to attribute the original source, the other packs are nice too, but I think I need to find images that aesthetically match the real planets.
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: Erik L on January 02, 2016, 11:31:00 PM: Quote from: MarcAFK on January 02, 2016, 11:27:21 PM
Interestingly the barren pack there are just modified solar system images which don't seem to attribute the original source, the other packs are nice too, but I think I need to find images that aesthetically match the real planets.

I didn't mean for the solar system :)
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: Thundercraft on January 05, 2016, 03:05:57 PM: Quote from: MarcAFK on January 02, 2016, 09:07:33 PM
Steve's open to replacing the default planet images, I'm just waiting until I have them all properly attributed so theres no potential legal issues. Nasa are good but my current pack does steal from other questionable sources.

I believe I understand your concerns and your reasoning.

However, I would point out that some of the graphics in Steve's official downloads come from 'questionable sources.' Of course, the biggest culprit is the Race folder. It is possible that permissions were obtained, I suppose. But I doubt it. I'd guess that 99% of that folder is suspect. Also, most of the .GIFs in the Ships folder are too obvious or at least strangely familiar. In both, I see some stuff from franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek.

The rest of the official graphics might be more or less kosher. Though, I do wonder where all those national flags came from.

Anyway, there are two factors which I would point out: 1) Aurora is a free game project. No money is involved. 2) With the exception of certain large planet images, the images are very small versions of the originals. (Or tiny, rather vague representations, in the case of the ship .GIFs.) As such, they would fit the definition of "thumbnails."

The fair use of thumbnails was mostly just common sense for a number of years. But, in landmark cases in 2007, the courts have upheld this view:
Using Thumbnails of Copyrighted Images is Fair Use (http://www.labnol.org/internet/pictures/using-thumbnails-of-copyrighted-images-is-fair-use/1882/)
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: IhaQuer on January 07, 2016, 01:29:39 AM: I have a question about this packs . . .
Im a new in this game, but simple question :
Where put this files? I need create a folder name like "Solar" or something like that or what? :)
Planets going to "platnetjpeg" folder but Solars, where I need to put?
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: MarcAFK on August 11, 2016, 03:56:59 AM: Having just received my new laptop I'm looking to revise this project. Already I've noticed something, after generating a few dozen systems no image after gg10 was selected for gas giants with the exception of Saturn which starts with gg11 by default. Curious.
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: MarcAFK on April 18, 2017, 11:06:27 AM: And almost a year later I've finally finished my revised planet pack.
The original post will be updated with the new files.
I've generated several systems and come to the conclusion that Aurora will only use a limited number of planets for random image selection, the planets used match those available in the old version 5.5 installer. Any planets after these won't be used. As such I have pruned the basic image pack down to the minimum amount needed for aurora to run, but images have been selected which should give a good assortment of images, I have also added completely new images for gas giants and asteroids or moons.
The new basic planetjpeg folder does not contain any of the bodies from our solar system, this prevents the suspension of disbelief from seeing jupiter or whatever in alien systems.
For the sol system the additional solar system folder can be dropped in, just like before it contains 2 copies of each body, one named so you can easily find a planet alphabetically, and the other copy named so aurora can actually find the image, since aurora only recognizes the last 3 characters of a file name.
Then a bonus folder is included with every other image I have available, these have been named so they follow the image numbers from the basic planetjepeg folder.
And finally theres a Jumbo folder with every image.
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: Garfunkel on April 18, 2017, 10:30:04 PM: Wait so which folder am I supposed to us?
Title: Re: New Planet Images
Post by: MarcAFK on April 19, 2017, 01:21:25 AM: Quote from: Garfunkel on April 18, 2017, 10:30:04 PM
Wait so which folder am I supposed to us?
yeah I thought this might come up.
If you just want the minimum new planets then replace the default planetjpeg folder with the planetjpeg zip file.
Solar system 1.2 contains earth, mars, Jupiter etc. For when you want the solar system to look good. You can use that as well but need to manually choose what each planet looks like ingame.
Or just go for the jumbo pack and get everything.