NBOS AstroSynthesis?

[Torq]

I have it. When I saw the demo I got so excited I bought it straight away. Then I realised that I only play fantasy-based rpgs, so it has been of little use to me. Its a great piece of software though. You can also fly through the universe and export the fly-by animation as a movie file. For galaxy builders its just perfect.

Torq

[MGCJerry]

I was thinking more along the lines of:

Quizorthia - Work In Progress


Ya' my cloud map sucks.

In my case, this app will allow me to shoot 3 birds (projects) with one stone as well as help with other projects.

1. Map the galaxy.
2. Work out misc details. (gravity, year length, etc)
3. Generate surface maps for all my planets.

Bonuses:
4. Export as csv to be imported into a future planet browser.
5. Distance calculatons.
6. HTML page generation.

[RobA]

Hey - that looks nice!

You might want to add an atmosphere halo though. The planet edge against the bg is a bit to crisp.

-Rob A>

[MGCJerry]

Thanks rob...

Thanks for pointing that out... I had a minor scale issue with the atmosphere layer and it was just 0.02% larger than the cloud layer and wasnt visable from this distance. I have corrected the atmosphere issue and re-rendered the image and replaced the old one.

[RobA]

Here is another quick one (since you are new)... back here (see the last post in the thread) shows how I loaded up such a map into Google Earth. With decent resolution (or tiles at higher resolution in areas) you can use the GE interface to navigate around your world!

(of course you have to uncheck all the other google stuff, or you will end up with odd things that don't line up with any terrain at all...)

-Rob A>

[Beowulf]

Looks very cool! One sucky thing- I just bought FM v8.0 from RPG now. About 1/2 hour after I bought it for $35 I noticed that AstroSynthesis was available with it as a bundle for $52. Essentially I coulda got it for another $17 but I didn't notice it in time!

Probably will get it eventually, though. I don't do a lot of SciFi gaming but some.

[Xenmas]

I got the bundle package when I got my copy of FM8. I've only messed around with Astro for a little bit, but I've liked what I've seen. Eventually I will put together my galaxy in there, it is just a little overwhelming to have that much power at your fingertips. MUWAHAHAHAHAHA.

On a side note, any good links for learning a bit about the variables in the program. I am, by far, not a astronomer. I would like to make my worlds as accurate (well, as accurate as fantasy worlds can be) as possible.

[MGCJerry]

Xenmas, as far as a few links of what the terms are, you can simply punch them into wikipedia and get some info on them.

Heres the ones I know offhand and their simpler definitons:

Albedo
Reflectivity. a value of 1 means the planet reflects ALL light back out into space, thus, any water on the planet would be frozen since the surface reflects all light.

Retrograde Orbit
An orbit of an object that travels in the opposite direction of the other bodies.

Eccentricity
Stablity of the objects orbit. An object that has no eccentricity, revovles around the body in a perfect circle. An object whose eccentricity is a VERY flattened oval, and has an orbit more like a comet, whose orbit varies from really, really close to the sun, to waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out there.

Inclination
The tilt or slope in degrees of the orbital path relative to a specific plane. An orbit whose inclination is 90 degrees, orbits perpendicular to the reference plane.

Rotation
The length of the solar/lunar day. The time it takes the body to complete one spin. Earth's rotation is almost 24 hours.

Axial Tilt
The degrees of tilt the body has. Earth's tilt is 23 degrees I believe. A planet with no axial tilt will lack seasons since the same locations always see the same amount of sunlight year round. Between rotation, eccentricity & rotation, determines the varied nature of the seasons and how much they differ from each other.

This wikipedia link illustrates a few of the orbital properties pretty good, but gets really nerdy in explaining it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periapsis

If you're interested in the equations used to figure out specific things with known variables, this link will be of interest. Quite the complex stuff though... Now you see why I had no hesitation to get Astrosynthesis.
http://atmos.nmsu.edu/jsdap/encyclopediawork.html

I'm also still holding out for the Celestia exporter.


What are you waiting for Beowulf, go get it? :p

[Antony]

Just in case people didn't realise, it is possible to get the terrains generated by Fractal World Explorer which is included with AS into Campaign Cartographer via Fractal Terrains.

[RPMiller]

Thanks for the tip Antony, and welcome to the forums! How are things in your part of the world?