[REL] Low contrast galaxy backgrounds

Matrix Games Forums

Forums Register Login Photo Gallery Member List Search Calendars FAQ

My Profile Inbox Address Book My Subscription My Forums Log Out

[REL] Low contrast galaxy backgrounds

View related threads: (in this forum | in all forums)

Logged in as: Guest

Users viewing this topic: none

Printable Version

All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Distant Worlds 1 Series >> Design and Modding >> [REL] Low contrast galaxy backgrounds

Page: [1]

Message

<< Older Topic Newer Topic >>

[REL] Low contrast galaxy backgrounds - 6/2/2012 11:05:45 PM

MisterBenn

Posts: 31
Joined: 11/30/2011
Status: offline

Hi there, I grew tired of the default galaxy backdrop file so started looking for something new. Some of the ones on this site are beautiful to look at but I found them hard to play with as the detail and contrast would make seeing the finest game details tricky for me. I put together a few of my own, adjusted to my personal taste (lowered brightness and saturation and gently blurred) and it seemed polite to share them. I made an effort with several of these to make the playing area "zoned" in that you might start in a mainly blue area but once you progress across the map you might reach orange or yellow zones or the like... just trying to give the galaxy a bit of texture and personality.

I created them at 5000x5000 pixels as that seems to make a big difference in avoiding jaggies when you zoom in and out in game. The individual files are a bit bigger than the default at ~2MB apiece, but on my PC with a 2 year old processor I haven't noticed any difference in performance at all. If someone is running on slower hardware and sees a difference and cares enough, I could make a reduced version.

As usual, rename your selected image to galaxy_backdrop.jpg and put it in the images\environment\galaxybackdrops directory, and backup the original file first. There are 7 backgrounds, hopefully someone will get some use out of these.

Download (14MB)

Preview is attached:

Attachment (1)

< Message edited by MisterBenn -- 6/4/2012 2:05:08 AM >

Post #: 1

RE: [REL] Low contrast galaxy backgrounds - 6/3/2012 7:17:52 PM

tjhkkr

Posts: 2428
Joined: 6/3/2010
Status: offline

Thank you.
I have most of these images, but it is a help to have them like this is a plus.
Thank you!

_____________________________

Remember that the evil which is now in the world will become yet more powerful, and that it is not evil which conquers evil, but only love -- Olga Romanov.

(in reply to MisterBenn)

Post #: 2

RE: [REL] Low contrast galaxy backgrounds - 6/7/2012 2:35:11 PM

myros

Posts: 289
Joined: 7/1/2004
Status: offline

Not sure why but these will not work for me. When i try to start a new game it just gives an error pop-up "Cannot start game".
Going back to standard and the game works fine again - any ideas?

(in reply to tjhkkr)

Post #: 3

RE: [REL] Low contrast galaxy backgrounds - 6/8/2012 7:05:57 PM

MisterBenn

Posts: 31
Joined: 11/30/2011
Status: offline

Hmmm that's interesting myros... I don't know for sure what would cause that. I've been using these with Legends 1.7.0.14 and .15 with no trouble. Have you tried other people's replacement galaxies from here with success? If so the most likely candidate would seem to be that the larger image size ups the memory requirements in game... do you play on a system with a modest amount of RAM? These images are ~ 2MB compared to ~ 800k originally, in game I would expect the difference to scale up since I've seen the 5000x5000 images retain more smoothness in game when you zoom in. If none of that helps I will post one of the files resized down a bit to see if that helps. I've got a distant worlds game running at the moment so I am coming here most days at the moment... :)

(in reply to myros)

Post #: 4

RE: [REL] Low contrast galaxy backgrounds - 6/10/2012 2:45:59 AM

unclean

Posts: 163
Joined: 12/31/2010
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: myros

Not sure why but these will not work for me. When i try to start a new game it just gives an error pop-up "Cannot start game".
Going back to standard and the game works fine again - any ideas?

Yeah same, game just popped up an error even though I have 4GB ram.

I lowered the jpg quality from ~97 to 90 on all of them though and they work fine, here's the download if anyone else is having trouble:
http://www.4shared.com/zip/evwr_u15/galaxybackdrops_lq.html

(in reply to myros)

Post #: 5

RE: [REL] Low contrast galaxy backgrounds - 6/11/2012 1:01:32 AM

MisterBenn

Posts: 31
Joined: 11/30/2011
Status: offline

Nice one unclean. I did save most of the images at > 95 jpeg quality, I had no idea it would make that much difference. My system's 4 years old so I figured if I could use these then everyone could... although I do have 8GB of RAM.

(in reply to unclean)

Post #: 6

RE: [REL] Low contrast galaxy backgrounds - 6/19/2012 3:01:15 PM

unclean

Posts: 163
Joined: 12/31/2010
Status: offline

Think I might try to cut them down some more, not sure of it happens for you but they make the game stutter a little every 20 seconds and make zooming a less smooth. Not a big deal but kind of annoying.

But good work on these, the default background isn't bad but it's nice to have something different.

(in reply to MisterBenn)

Post #: 7