New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time)

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Distant Worlds 1 Series >> Design and Modding >> New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time)

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New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 3/26/2010 11:10:22 AM

Baleur

Posts: 372
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Updated download link!

Extract into "Distant Worlds\images\environment\galaxybackdrops".
Backup the original file and then rename whichever background you want to use to "galaxy_backdrop.jpg"

It is basically just a nasa photo of the RCW 49 nebula, copied and flipped to make it somewhat symmetrical, enjoy!

Update 1, added another one based on Eta Carinae below the first one, hope u like it.
Update 2, be saved them as highest quality jpg's, much smoother at all zoom levels now. (longer download, but worth it ingame)
Update 3, added more, including one at 5000x5000 of the Orion nebula <3
My game crashed upon loading anything higher than 5000x5000, and it still kinda looks blurry as you zoom in. I guess this is as sharp as it gets.

Update 4, changed / added new version of Eta Carinae, darker, better contrast and color balance for that ingame "space and i can see where my stuff is" feeling. (at the very bottom of this post)

https://rapidshare.com/files/1409281103/Baleur_Galaxy_Backdrops.zip

------------
Update 4, new Eta Carinae version, save the below image as galaxy_backdrop.jpg into your Distant Worlds\images\environment\galaxybackdrops folder.
------------

< Message edited by Baleur -- 11/26/2011 2:41:01 PM >

Post #: 1

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/1/2010 11:57:49 AM

Baleur

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I have 5 others too, including a super-res orion backdrop, but it seems noones interested so ill hold :)

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Post #: 2

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/1/2010 12:05:56 PM

Deto

Posts: 105
Joined: 2/15/2010
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Oh post them up! I dig it :)

If possible though, and if you can get from somewhere, I'd put 3,5k x 3,5k size backdrops. The original size of 2k is a bit too blurry in my opinion :)

(in reply to Baleur)

Post #: 3

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/1/2010 12:12:05 PM

pndrev

Posts: 42
Joined: 3/10/2008
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Beautiful!
Now if we could ADD them instead of replacing... and then have the game randomly choose one on galaxy creation.

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Post #: 4

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/1/2010 7:49:40 PM

Coupon

Posts: 35
Joined: 6/25/2006
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Very nice. Downloading now.

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Post #: 5

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/1/2010 11:05:45 PM

Baleur

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The top right image, the Witch Head nebula, has alot of tiny stars that i kinda had to blur a bit to make gameplay even possible.
If anyone has any idea of a good way to only remove the stars rather than doing it by hand one by one, let me know =) (like a filter or something)

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Post #: 6

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/2/2010 6:39:31 PM

BigWolfChris

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Don't mean to be cheeky, but any chance of getting some ingame screenshots of these backgrounds?

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Post #: 7

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/3/2010 1:15:30 PM

Midas

Posts: 21
Joined: 3/26/2010
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Hi

Thanks for the backgrounds tried most of them. Currently using bottom left 2500x2500 it's much better in use than you might think, fewer background stars, some black areas and nebula clouds show really well against it.

Thankyou.

(in reply to BigWolfChris)

Post #: 8

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/4/2010 6:19:56 AM

FerretStyle

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This might be blasphemy but I took the original backdrop and made it all pure black. It actually looks pretty nice in-game... nevermind that it shrunk the size of the file to almost nothing.

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Post #: 9

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/5/2010 9:49:30 PM

mightili

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Baleur, please make more. In-Game original backdrops-nebulae ar so ugly...

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Post #: 10

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/9/2010 7:18:29 PM

Haplo_Patryn

Posts: 203
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They're beautiful but very difficult to play with. The stars are difficult to spot with these backgrounds.

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Post #: 11

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/15/2010 1:18:42 PM

Sliverine

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There are a couple of functions in photoshop that allow u to do RGB tweaking....theres that 'levels' thing that you can do for the image layer and theres also the exposure that you can modify, just to state a few...those are some powerful tools with the downside being that they tend to be rather finicky to use sometimes....

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Post #: 12

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/15/2010 11:46:53 PM

Igard

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From: Scotland
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Awesome images, however, hate to be a stickler, but these are images of nebulae found here in our own Milky Way galaxy. The galactic background should probably be that of a galaxy.

If you prefer to see a nebula, then that's fine (they are awe inspiring), but for realisms sake it needs to be an image of a galaxy.

(in reply to Sliverine)

Post #: 13

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/16/2010 12:06:13 AM

Igard

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Here's a 2000x2000 image of ngc 1309. I de-saturated a little bit and adjusted brightness/contrast.

Playing with it, still has some stars that look click-able but aren't.

EDIT: oops.. image is a bit large so shouldn't really embed this.

Attachment (1)

< Message edited by Igard -- 4/16/2010 12:09:01 AM >

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Post #: 14

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/16/2010 2:49:49 AM

Baleur

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Igard

Awesome images, however, hate to be a stickler, but these are images of nebulae found here in our own Milky Way galaxy. The galactic background should probably be that of a galaxy.

If you prefer to see a nebula, then that's fine (they are awe inspiring), but for realisms sake it needs to be an image of a galaxy.

Indeed, as Teal'C would say. But with space cats and green egypt-space-women species roaming the game, one can imagine that a nebula the size of a galaxy is not as big of a realism or immersion breaker as those other things

Especially if we wanna be really realism-anal, the average of 1000 stars ingame is less than what many of these pictures contain "in real life". So in that sense its still kinda realistic.

I'd make more but at the moment im not playing it very much, kind of tired of the choppy preformance when zooming (yes still complaining about that lol).
Its just more satisfying to mod for other games where you can see your results in smooth glorious splendor rather than in a perpetually choppy wait-while-it-zooms-or-pans environment.

< Message edited by Baleur -- 4/16/2010 2:51:47 AM >

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Post #: 15

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/16/2010 11:49:06 AM

Igard

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Excellent point. Perhaps the game takes place in a nebula.

I also have slightly choppy zooming. I'd say It takes about 2 secs to zoom all the way in. Which is a pretty long time when you're in a bit of a rush.

If I make anymore, I'll come back and post them.

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Post #: 16

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/16/2010 1:46:22 PM

Erik Rutins

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Have you guys tried adjusting your zoom speed in the options and tried the other performance options? Check the Tech Support sub-forum FAQ for performance tips.

< Message edited by Erik Rutins -- 4/16/2010 1:47:10 PM >

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Post #: 17

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/16/2010 6:59:06 PM

Igard

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Erik, I've tried everything. High frame rates or low frame rates don't make too much difference. Always keep my hardware drivers up to date. Only thing that had an effect was setting zoom to mininum. Any higher and I'm looking at about 3 sec delay. (that's 3 seconds to zoom from all the way out)

TBH it doesn't affect my enjoyablity of the game that much. I'm getting a new PC in the coming months, so I'm not worried.

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Post #: 18

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 4/16/2010 7:43:03 PM

Baleur

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Erik yes, but thats not the problem. Im sure you understand what we mean, if youve been playing games yourself for most of your life.
The issue most of us are talking about is the fact that it stutters as you zoom in and out, probably due to how the game / graphics engine is built.
What we want is a completely pixel-smooth zoom, such as in AI War, any RTS game of choice, CIV4, Sins of a Solar Empire, Gratitous Space Battles, Defcon, Harvest, i dont know what other examples to bring up :P
Something that follows your mouse-wheel to the pixel, not stuttering as it loads or passes through a grid/plane whatever :)

To be honest, Distant Worlds is the first game ive ever played that is stuttering while zooming like that, regardless of your framerate. Well, since old junk like Space Empires V. No wait that had smooth soom too, just horrible preformance overall lol.

I always see posts about adjusting the zoom speed, but thats not the issue at all.

< Message edited by Baleur -- 4/16/2010 7:44:48 PM >

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Post #: 19

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 5/21/2010 4:53:55 PM

taltamir

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I combined the 5000x5000 picture with a few other GFX mods and I started having out of memory crashes on a 100 star galaxy... removed mods and those crashes stopped.
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2473342

so, combining such mods is not a good idea right now... maybe when a 64bit exe is made (allowing you to use more than 2GB of ram per exe)

< Message edited by taltamir -- 5/21/2010 4:59:30 PM >

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Post #: 20

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 5/22/2010 12:34:10 AM

Astax

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Question bout these. Does the game pick a random backdrop or do I have to rename the one I want?

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RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 5/22/2010 1:42:57 AM

Igard

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Astax, the game will use only the backdrop named, "galaxy_backdrop.jpg". I have a whole bunch of backdrops in my ...environment/galaxybackdrops folder. To select one, you have to backup the one being used and rename the one you want to, "galaxy_backdrop.jpg".

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Post #: 22

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 6/16/2010 5:06:19 AM

tornnight

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Here is my edited version of my favorite backdrop.

I remove the bright stars and cleaned up the jaggies. Looks super smooth in game now.

I like it for all galaxy types.

Attachment (1)

< Message edited by tornnight -- 6/16/2010 5:07:41 AM >

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Post #: 23

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 6/16/2010 5:57:29 AM

Igard

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Thank you, tornnight.

I think it would look best in a ring galaxy.

< Message edited by Igard -- 6/16/2010 6:10:15 AM >

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Post #: 24

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 7/19/2010 5:07:25 PM

Baleur

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Added a different version of Eta Carinae now :)

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Post #: 25

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 7/21/2010 3:08:17 AM

torrenal

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Looking very nice. I may need to snag it, but before I use it I'd be strongly inclined to do one or two things to it first...

I'd cut the brightness by 50% so I can spot stars on top of the bright (white) spots.
And if that's not enough to keep me from confusing backdrop from stars, I may blur the image some (a nebula generally being one big blur, adding blur to it should affect mainly the stars, but it would be a shame to lose the detail...).
//Torrenal

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Post #: 26

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 7/21/2010 8:46:51 PM

Baleur

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Yeah i know, though i already blurred them as much as i could (since i hate losing detail, personal preference). Its amazing how much details are in real nebulae, as can be seen in the original nasa eta carinae picture.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0805/carina07_hst_big.jpg

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Post #: 27

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 7/28/2010 3:37:38 AM

Slyke57

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These are amazing, but I keep getting my stars confused, I don't have a clue where the fake ones are lol

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Post #: 28

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 8/9/2010 3:16:00 PM

Baleur

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After playing some more, i pretty much consider the "which star is real" issue to be irrelevant :)
I mean, when I choose a planet to colonize, I always use the expansion planner, and when you did colonize a system it turns your color anyway, and the same for other empires.
So for me personally, I have no problem with it anymore (and might add more elaborate backdrops, even if they have lots of stars), since the only stars that end up being confusing are the ones nobody wants to colonize anyway, and if you have a mining station or some such built there, again an icon with your empire color gets plopped there :)

So in my mind I just think, any stars that dont have any empire color around it is either worthless or part of the backdrop

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Post #: 29

RE: New galaxy backdrops! (plural this time) - 8/9/2010 11:04:58 PM

Slyke57

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I overlapped the vanilla backdrops over these ones and then set the opacity low enough for the stars to not be super bright. So I see everything and can very easily tell the difference between the stars.

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Post #: 30