Anyone out there who is good with terrain graphics, could you please make these graphics?

Each terrain tyle should look like a separate planet.

Grassland = Gaia
Plains = Teran
Desert = Desert
Flood Plains = Jungle Planet
Tundra = Frozen
Hills = Asteroids
Mountains = Gas Giant
Jungle = Toxic
Forest = Jungle
Coast = Near Space
Sea = Space
Ocean = Deep Space



This terrain type can be used for galactic conquest scenarios.
WarHammer 40K,
Star Wars,
Star Trek,
Masters of Orion,
BattleTech,
etc.

Thats a really good idea, unfortanly i dont make graphis.
hope someone dos it.:goodjob:

id like to see a moon terrain

It would be nice if someone could make this, as it would work well for a Star Trek Mod or perhaps Babalyon 5. Either way, would someone who knows graphics plz make these worlds?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34138

Maybe not exactly what your looking for, but they are space graphics.

Lukree's "ocean" would work well for the general space but we still need to distinguish between deep space, sea and coast. And I want planets for the terrain. I will post some screens from MOO2 tomorrow that can be converted to the various terrains.

These planets might come in handy for anybody who is thinking about putting this project together.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/star_systems.gif

I will try putting some planets together today.
One of the difficulties with a mod like this (I tried several solutions with CivII a year or two ago) is how do you represent the fact that planets move? Do you have a single solar system squeezed in to one terrain square? or have a planet on each square? the first has the benefit of realism but loses out in fun and detail. The second solution confuses the situation slightly in terms of movement, sometimes it will take longer to move from one planet to another because of its rotation in relation to the other.

Here is an example; a fleet leaves pluto heading for earth, but with a planned rendevous with mars- depending on thier rotation and alignment mars and earth (as well as pluto) could be on different sides of the sun, how can you mesure how far planets are from each other if they are always moving.

The best (and most realistic solution because of relative distances) is to have a solar system take up tree or four squares, at taht distance most manuvers will take just one turn (based on traditional civIII sea movement) so the relative positions of the planets makes little difference. Apart from nebula and astroid fields the space between solar systems will be relatively empty.

I think a good idea would be;
land (of all sorts) ---->varrious planets and other large solid bodies
coast ----> solar systems
Sea ----> open space
ocean -----> nebula

You would need special ships (FTL) to travel outside solar systems with out becoming lost ("sinking"), and further improvements to move through nebula (imagine all that reactive gas and funky energy clouds messing with your navicomp, if you had the right equipment you could move through the nebula and sneak attack your rivals.
You would need special ships or troops to "amphibious assault" the planets (some of which could be of a different size, graphics would alow for mountain or hills to make 1,4,9 or even 25+ sized planets which would encourage vast land battles).
Cities could be built on planets, in solar space and in a nebula.

With all this in mind I will atempt to make something work.

SM,

First let me say I am glad to hear that you are taking on this task.

A few thoughts:

1. I agree it is impossible to represent the movement of the planets and the stars, let alone the fact that the Universe is three dimensional, using the Civ3 mapping system. Heck most Galactic Conquest games can’t even get the 3D aspect down, and I don’t know of any that have moving stars and planets. So don’t even try? Nah, that can’t be the answer. Kal-el had another proposal that went along with this one over at the Warhammer 40K thread.

originally posted by Kal-el
The terrain types can be represented by Star types. The surrounding Coast and Sea tiles represent the planets orbiting the star.
Grassland = Yellow Star
Plains = Orange Star
Desert = Binary System
Flood Plains =
Tundra = White Dwarf
Hills = Brown Star
Mountains = Red Giant
Jungle = Nebulas Cloud (unable to cut down)
Forest =
Coast = Rocky Planets (Mercury – Mars)
Sea = Gaseous Planets (Jupiter – Neptune)
Ocean = Deep Space

In this model you actually build settlements on the stars. This represents your control of that system, not actually settling on the star itself.

He then went on to suggest the model in the first post of this thread which SA, another member of the 40K team, smartly posted in its own separate thread to try and get someone to actually create it.

I thought it was pretty interesting, but he seems to think this one will work better.

2. I don’t understand what you mean by “coast ----> solar systems”. What would that look like? I can’t get my brain around it.

3. I love the idea of the multiple tile planets, but wonder how the random generator would handle that. Not well is what I am thinking.

4. I also really like the idea of the Nebula, but again I am thinking of the RG map and am seeing a lot of Nebula floating around.

Your plan and the plan I quoted would both work well for User Created maps, but not well with Random maps. I guess that’s why Kal-el thought the second proposal would work better.

Yes, that is why I thought the second proposal would work better. If you set the map generator to create archipelagos and small land masses it would look like clumps of habitable planets surrounded by the vast reaches of space.

I like the idea of the larger planets, and would love to do something like that for another scenario I have in mind involving the nine planets of the solar system and mega corporations. Smoker, I’ll talk to you some more about that one later.

But for the 40K mod I was hoping to be able to use the random map generator.

The way I see it, the random map generator is just not going to cut it. There is no way to accurately depict a solar system using the generator, because it doesn't take into account what space is really like. A solar system should be relatively small, I would say make one(or more) tiles represent a star, and then have planets a couple of tiles away. You could have a rock world be two tiles away, an Earth like world 3 tiles away one the Opp side of the star, and have a gas giant or two a bit further, with asteroid fields sprinkled around. However, to do this right you will need to make the maps manually, something very time consuming, unless you have people work together on different parts of the map. Make it effectively a flat map, and have one person take Quadrant 1, one person Quadrant 2, and so on.

The problem with making stars represent systems is that a star type won't always have planets, and it won't always have the same planets. Make planets individual tiles to demonstrate the vastness of space. Cuz its big. However, this is one argument in favor of making Solar System tiles. If I made the sun one tile in the game, and had the earth be 2 tiles away, then It would take me thousands of tiles to get to Proxima Centauri, the next star. I don't want to do the math to figure it out for sure, because it involves some big numbers... Needless to say, we can't do that a mod involving planets, but we can have "deep space" represent the vastness of space, requiring a FTL device to get outside your starting solar system.

I like the idea of land being the star type and coastal "systems surrounding it, sounds like a good idea, stops ships from flying "Through stars" but it also cuts down the usefullness of land units, they cant "land" on a star for example.

Anyway I'll have to give it some though (gives me something to keep my mind busy while im at work). I don't think the random map generator is ever going to produce a satisfying result, but I think that functions in the editor might.
I'm thinking of making the "Land" represent where planets will be, and then making the planets them selves resources. This would be the easiest to do from a graphical point of view, no messing around with the coast like, just blank out the tiles and make them look like space. Then place the planet "resource" on top. I'm not sure what this will look like, or how big resources can be made, but it would realy make the planets more interesting, if you requre an eath planet to make infantry units for example and a gas giant to produce FTL drive ships (for fuel).
Any way, as most of the map is going to be open space (The game will have the character of a giant sea battle, with amphibious asaults to capture the enemy bases) making custom maps should be fast and easy, generate a map with a base terrain of sea (not coast or ocean) first just mark out the areas of nebular for tactical reasons (you may want to suround a system with a nebular ring to isolate it from the others (Imagine it exiting in a "bubble" of clear space inside a nebula). Then add some coastal areas where the systems will be, place land squares where individual planets and stars will be, and add the planet resorces. Easy!

Anyway, heres what Ive got so far, if any one has satelite photos of the planets in our solar system (I just got mars from the mars thread) please post them here and I can make that planet);

SM,

Those look great! Here are some pics of Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune.

Jupiter
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/jupiter.jpg
Saturn
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/saturn.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/saturn2.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/saturn3.jpg
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/saturn4.jpg
Neptune
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads2/neptune.jpg

I agree that we can never get the perfect map from the random map generator, but I think the first proposal offers the best chance of getting a servicable map from the RMG. ANyway, keep up the good work on the planet images. They are mui nice.

Here are a few more planet textures.
The zip file contains one texture for the moon, phobos, pluto(fiction) and two for venus.
All textures are reduced in size and not made by me.

Long ago, I made a spacemod for Civ2. Given the shape of the city radius, I made the star a land space that was the where the city would go. The planets where land spaces that went around it within the city radius. The random generator will never give you a decent map, you have to make any maps by hand.

Looking at Civ3. I was thinking this would work. Set the star terrain as the only one that can have cities built on. You would have 8 inner system spaces, 12 outer system spaces. Average about 10 actual planets. The grassland, tundra, and plains would be the optimal planet types, using forrest and jungle as an overlay for unterraformed. Workers could terraform by clearing the forrest and jungle. The other terrains could be the jovian and lunar type planets. This would allow strategic and luxury resources on the planets. Make roads be Shuttle Ports, railroads be Space Ports. You'd have to be carefull to position the planets so roads could connect all planets to the star, and also to leave a path for ships to be able to reach the star.

I did a quick test and ships can be airlifted, so the airport could become a Jump Gate. Civ3 also allows the water terrains to have different movements. So system space (coast) could have a low movement, deep space (ocean) could have a much higher movement. This would simulate a lensing effect, the systems are zoomed in with spaces 1-3 AU accross, deep space is on another scale 10's or 100's of AU accross.

For data and pictures of all the planets, check out this site.

http://www.nineplanets.org/

Smoking Mirror, I think you hit the nail on the head. Have the tile that planets be placed on determine the size of the planet, thus you can have levels of size: tiny, small, medium, large, Huge. Simply call the terrain the size name, and have the planet type act as a resource. So you can have a Large... Desert PlanetOf course, make all of them available from the start, and by using resources you can have as many types as you want. The only thing I would like to find out would be how to make a land tile be off limits to units. Maybe use the mountain tile, and set all units to wheeled...

Anyway, that is an excellent idea, and what you have so far looks great. Here are some ideas for planet types:

Gaia: imagine the garden of Eden
Class M: think Earth
Toxic: Venus
Desert: Arrakis, or Tatooine
Jungle: Dagobah
Forest: Endor
Volcanoe: duh
Ice: Hoth
Rock: Mercury
?: something like Mars
Gas Giant: Jupiter, Saturn
Irradiated World: a world that was left in Nuclear Winter by its former inhabitants(not every species is smart enough to survive a nuclear showdown)
Any others I think of I will add here

You can also have Asteroids, (and thus create a field), Comets wouldn't really work...

Oh yeah, moons. I suggest making three types:
Rock: like Earth's Moon
Ice: Europa, a moon of Jupiter
Volcanoe: Io, another moon of Jupiter

You can have plenty of star types of course.

Yellow stars(G), Red Stars, White Stars, Blue Stars, you can have different sizes, from red and white dwarfs, to mediums sized stars like our Sun, to Red or Blue Supergiants. Also, double stars and triple stars could work as well. You could also throw in Pulsars, neutron stars, and of course, black holes. I don't know how to make the last work though...

Lot to process, sorry about that. But I have wanted a Space Terrain mod for Civ3 for a long time.

Hmm, it seems that there are many different views on how the graphics mod should be put together. One thing I would say is that its going to be highly difficult to have the full nine planets in our solar system, the "world map" would have to be way beyond huge to be even belivable, let alone realistic. In the Master of orion JNR scenario for civ II systems consisted of just two or three planets (In civ II resource placement folows a strict patern, so that it is possible to have all four possible resources in a city radius). I think perhaps a sun with the home planet (earth), a rocky planet for shields (Mars) and a gas giant for gas resources (jupiter or saturn) would be a good idea.

Its funny how dull the real planets are, I think its to do with thier huge scale- even the most impressive detail looks soft and bland, the famous red spot on saturn is very uninspiring when reduced to small size. I think like with any graphics project, it needs a little artistic licence to give the planets more character.

Here is my idea of a gas giant, not based on our own solar system, but a fictional planet designed purely for its asthetic value;

Really? you think the real planets are boring? I think Saturn is amazingly beautiful with its rings and stripes. Jupiter, with its swirling colors and never blinking eye. Neptune blue and cold like the ocean. I think they are fantastic!!!

My earth planet is fully 3d, so I can rotate it to any angle. At the moment I have a shot of earth showing europe, asia and africa but I could show it from a different angle...

Well, not boring- just not as inspiring as I remember them being, I guess Ive got a picture of them in my head from when I was a kid, its like when you see pitures of the earth and think "wow, isn't it cloudy. Where's all the detail?"; Ive been watching star trek for like 15 years, and I supose my mental picture of the universe is based on special effects from the show.

The picture I posted first with the full selection of planets has three possible sun images, most of the sun effects have to be done in photoshop (photopaint) so I'm not sure which to choose yet- As other people are bound to want to modify the graphics to use with thier scenarios I'll just do a bunch of different planets (including all those from our own solar system) and suns so people can pick and choose.

Thanks to Balou for those planet textures- Ive done a couple of previews- The problem is to combine a surface texture with an atmospher (I use two spheres; the surface one inside an atmosphere sphere). So far Ive only done the texture image, combined with a Bump map. I'm going to try to make a true Bump map for mars based on topographical data, combined with a composite image of mars to create a "True mars" and also a "teraformed mars" with water and perhaps small areas of vegetation.

Here are some of the planets from our solar system, they are all the same size here just so you can compare them;

those look great!

Smoking Mirror, you are right about the fact that solar systems can be only so big for the game. The rreason I wanted lots of planets types was because variety is the spice of life. That means that while one system may contain a desert world, another may contain an ocean world(earth is mostly ocean, about 70%, but i mean like 99%). Each would have different resource, food or commerce(energy) levels. I would have ocean worlds produce lots of food(think kelp farms), have rock worlds produce lots of shields, and have gas giants or stars produce lots of energy.

You are right that everyone has their own view of what the mod should be like. So perhaps just make the planet, star, moon, etc. images, and then people can create their own mods. With thanks to you of course. If I knew anything about graphics I would help, but I don't know jack. Like even which programs to use.

The way I would view a typical in-game solar system would be to have a star in the center, and several planets, from 2 to 6, orbiting it, 2 to 6 tiles away. You could also create asteroid fields or moons as well, to orbit the planets. That would mean a planet with a moon would generate more resources, and thus be more valueable.

BTW, I am going to make a space based mod, tentatively called Osmosis or The Planting, in the future. I have already started thinking up some basic stuff, and will post about it tomorrow or the day after.

Ive been thinking today that the easiest and quickest way to do a space mod would be to make it land based (not sea based as all my other sugestions have been). This admitedly cuts down a lot of the fun (for instance using "ships" to transport "land units" to an enemy planet is imposible; Althought you could make land units wheeled and restrict thier movement to planets, moons and asteroids the AI is not programed to use land transports) but it does make the whole enterprise a lot easier and makes using the Random map generator some what posible, although still not advisable (who wants a game where suns moons and planets are scattered about all over the place with no logical distribution, the fomartion of the universe is not totaly random afterall).

Well any way, whatever people want to do with the graphics I'll carry on making them and try to be as flexible as possible. Another idea Ive had is to make asteroid fields forests (That, of course cant be planted) with a graphic (plains) representing a depleted asteriod field. Players could "harvest" the asteriods near their planets for extra resources.

Ive just found a High res image map of mars, I'm going to combine it with the topological data to create a highly realistic simulation of the planet.

Excellent. You are right about the fact that the AI doesn't understand the concept of a land based troop carrier. I know that making a mixed land/sea mod will be tough and time consuming, I think it can be done. As long as I get the graphics, I should be able to get some of the basics of the mod accomplished. Creating a tech tree will be hard, and if planets are resources then it will be difficult to integrate resources into the game. I will post some of my early ideas today or tommorow, in case anyone is interested.

All day today I've been working on mars simulations, For both this mod and also a Civ III Mars mod. Amazingly its easier to get images and topological data for mars than it is for earth, at least it is when you have a budget of $0.00.

If any one has any high res images of earth I would be pleased to use them. Its a shame that I can't think of a good way to have the planet image apear at a larger scale, they realy are very difficult to tell apart from the real thing.

Here are the results, a pale image of mars (As it apears in real life aparently), a more traditional red mars, and also a terraformed mars, with seas, vegetation and weather (as well as the erath for comparison);

I have a earth texture (no clouds) in 2048x1024 pixels, if that is what you mean. The filesize is 808 kb (in jpg format) so I can´t post it here. I could send you an e-mail with the picture attached (don´t want to upload a picture to the server that will only be downloaded once).

Thanks Balou, and I hope you find some sounds for that trooper soon, I need him for the mars mod :) (although theres no hurry, without help I'm not going to have it finished any time soon, I'm going to work on some units for the red mars era- the first would be like the miners/security guards from "red faction")