Lightwave scene file for geography explained

Oh, agreed! I couldn't agree more. I just meant that the stock game stars don't appear to line-up as nicely as yours do. It would be very cool if they did. It's details like that, that make me like the sound of how you're doing your stars. It's much better to have them line-up properly.

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Well, if you’d like to see my lws files, I sent them already to cambragol. I still have the (very small) zip file that I could e-mail to you if you want. They also include proper star colors and brightnesses. The corresponding map file colors for those stars I already posted in the cloud texture thread.

Sure, sounds great.

*edit*
btw - Thanks Hot4, your feedback about the writing is very helpful. It sounds like I hit my target level.

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Great work, Second Chance! I find this info very useful. But one question: Is it possible to create a pulsating glow with a pulsating flare? Has anyone tried this? Except me, I mean. I managed to create a constant glow with pulsating flare but I can´t get the glow to pulsate. I think that a star system with a cefeid in its center and strobing light on ships that really give off light would be awesome.

Hi Vladimir. Yes, it should be possible to create a pulsating glow for the distant star flares. The flare intensity needs to be animated in Lightwave using an envelope, with the post behaviour set to repeat. There isn't any reson it shouldn't work as well as the nav lights. It is also possible to have ship lights really give off light simply by naming them <glow>. However, all the real lights I've put on ships so far have given less than satisfactory results. But you should give it a try and see if it works for you. You can do it as simply as adjusting the light intensity in notepad, or as complexly as animating the light with an envelope in Lightwave.

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One more thing, in the <star> entry: the color of the light is also the color of the flare around the star at a distance. Once you fly in close, the color transitions to what is indicated in the map file.

Actually, I just realized that you should never see this. The <star> light source doesn't use a lens flare, it is purely a light source. So it shouldn't have any visual representation. If anything like this is visible, it must be a product of the .map file.

This should be easy to confirm by simply removing the <star> and <fill> light sources from the files and viewing the map in-game. Don't crash into any planets though, it'll be mighty dark in there .

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