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Making really good progress thanks to all the help I've received so far but am a little stumped on the following. THe game I'm making is a 3D side view space sim in DBC (effectively its 2D because the Z position is always zero).

1) To create a planet I have used the make object sphere 1,30 command but the sphere doesnt look very spherical (it looks like a hexagon with 20 sides - whatever thats called). Any ideas how to make a smooth curved planet?

2. Also any ideas how to create an "atmposphere" or "glow round the planet" effect.

3. I've set up a distance condition where pressing "D" when within range of the planet docks with the planet and is supposed to take the player to a menu (buy goods, etc). To achieve this I've simply used a gosub routine and placed a black cube to obscure the space backdrop and any objects in space. Surely there is an easier way to do this, bearing in mind that when you undock the backdrop and ships need to be seen again?

4. Creating textures seems really hard! I want to design planets, space backdrops etc and have tried using paint shop pro but not being much of an artist I think I need something that "works" more for you rather than trying to paint. Does anyone have any advice on this? I guess one option is to copy and save images I find on the internet but I suspect these will be imported as low quality images.

5. Cant quite get the rolling effect happening for my spaceship. THe view is side on (Z coord is always zero) amd camera is looking down from the sky sort of thing on the ship. If the ship is heading directly up or down (North/South) then Yrotating the object works. If its heading left or right then Xrotating works. The problem happens if its say heading in a NW direction (or any angle that isnt 0,90,180,270 degrees), then I cant get the rotation to work. I've tried combinations of XRotate and Yrotate object but no luck. Can anyone assist with this?

6. I've been trying to create cool explosion effects and just before exploding I want the ship to gradually go as bright as possible before going into an explosion routine. Is rgb(255,255,255) as bright as it can go or is there a command that creates a high emission effect?

Thanks in advance for any help on the above.

1) I don’t think Set object smoothing works very well on spheres, I believe this is because they are already smoothed as much as DBP can make them(at least that is what I have been lead to believe from reading a few posts on this forum). I have never really used the function before anyways so I’m not 100% sure on its potential. Basically the only thing I can think of is just increasing your sphere poly count. Instead of using 30,30 try 40 or 50.

2) One of a few ways of creating an atmosphere effect that I have found to be quite effective.
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=101467&b=1

3) I’m not really 100% sure on what you are doing here. Are you just placing a black cube in front of the camera so that it blocks out all of what the camera can see? If so that sounds like a pretty simple way of doing it and I’m not really sure how much simpler you can get (Not the way I would go about it though because DBP will still be trying to attempting to render all the other objects in the scene). If you are looking for alternative ways of doing this then simply hiding all your objects would do.



Then calling a similar function with Show object when you are undocking from a planet.

4) In relation to textures there are a few people on these forums that have been selling/giving away some planet texture packs and things of that nature. Just try searching the forums you will be bound to find them, but really other then getting them from someone else there is no other short cut around it. If you want original high quality textures then you’re going to have to make them yourself.

Edit : http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=75227&b=4

5) If you post me your code I should be able to whip up something for you.

6) There are a lot of different ways of creating an emissive effect that have been discussed on these forums so doing a quick search for explosion, particles or emissive (just to name a few) and searching through the results should get you what you need. Just of the top of my head try messing around with multiple overlapped ghosted plains, not the best way in terms of performance but it might produce some results.

1. Since you are making the "Z" value zero, why not use textured plains for your planets or go to the free stuff in the 2d section, where "Scraggle" posted a load of planets already made.

2. You could do this with texture plains also.

3. To block out the space background "large plain" would work.

4. See 1

5. as clackersmith said you may need to post code for this.

6. Lots of explosions and particles in the forum.

As you can see by my comments above if you are not doing a true 3d enviroment textured plains are your answer or even billboards.

Thanks Guys!! As for 5 here is my code below....

Set Display Mode 800,600,16
Sync On: Sync Rate 0: CLS 0
AutoCam Off
Backdrop On
Color Backdrop 0
Randomize Timer()
load object "ShipsTAIPAN.x",1
scale object 1,140,140,140
Turn1# = 0 : Roll1#=0 : X1#=0 : Y1#=0 : z1#=0
FIX OBJECT PIVOT 1
Inertia#=0.99

Do

rem Modify character position based on up/down keys

IF LEFTKEY()=1 THEN Turn1#=Turn1# - 4.0
IF RIGHTKEY()=1 THEN Turn1#=Turn1# + 4.0
if inkey$()="," then roll1# = roll1# +4
if inkey$()="." then roll1# = roll1# -4

rem update player ship

IF turn1# = 90 or turn1#=270
YROT# = 0
XROT# = 1
endif

IF turn1# <> 90 or turn1# <> 270
YROT# = abs(tan(turn1#)/(1+tan(turn1#)))
XROT# = 1-YRot#
endif

Rem its this part that isnt working

YROTATE OBJECT 1,wrapvalue(roll1#*YROT#)
XROTATE OBJECT 1,wrapvalue(roll1#*XROT#)
ZROTATE OBJECT 1,360-Turn1#
Position object 1,X1#,Y1#,0

loop

Ill take a look at it tonight when I have some time, just at work atm.

Just a thought, have you toyed around with the pitch, roll object functions?

Yes tried roll but no good.

Question 2:

Not the best example because it's using self-generated media, but this is one way:



TDK_Man

Thanks!