TAS Form 6 - Subsector Map Grid

[mearrin69]

It has been a while since I've written any code but I decided to try writing a little 3D viewer that will read in a Traveller sub-sector and display the details interactively. It's just dummy data right now but the idea is that you'd see the main planet, gas giant, bases, jump routes, etc. and be able to click or mouse over to get additional details on the world/system in question. It'll read in a text file with information like sub-sector name, adjoining sectors (to be printed along the border of the grid), hex contents, etc. and then display that data. You can move the camera around, zoom, etc. Anyway, it's mostly just a mock-up now but might be fun if I ever finish it.
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[mearrin69]

Now it reads in a sector from a file, scales the world according to size, and adds gas giants if present. Will get to bases, texture based on world type, etc. eventually. This is the Sol subsector, of course.
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[wormspeaker]

That's pretty cool. I'm not sure what the application would be, but you don't need to be practical to be cool.

[mearrin69]

Thanks. It's not terribly practical but I will likely find it useful while running a game. It'll essentially be a pretty map with more info behind it than you could stick onto a 2D page and keep track of what's going on.
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[mearrin69]

Now the program selects a texture at random for each planet and gas giant. There are 40+ planet textures and about 30 gas giant textures. The bases and such are just colored objects at the moment but I'll fix that at some point.

If there's a planet named "Earth" or "Terra" it gets its own custom texture. I should probably do the same for the gas giant, using a texture map of Jupiter...right now it's still just a random texture.

I'll probably make it so it saves its random choices back out to the file so the textures are all the same next time you load it up. Be a little confusing for a GM if it looks different every time. Also, the selection is completely random, but I plan to pick from maps that match hydro/atmo ratings of the world.

I haven't abandoned the subsector map PSD thing. Still working on it. I'd actually, however, like this app to eventually create a sector randomly (or read one in) and then output a nice 2D map. We'll see if it comes to that.
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Edit: Oh, it also does travel zones now too. The two at lower left are supposed to be amber zones...though I've made them too transparent and they just look sort of brown.

[mearrin69]

A bit more. Jupiter now gets a custom texture. Also, planetary textures are assigned based on atmosphere and hydrographic coverage. I need some more watery worlds, however.

There are now better stand-ins for naval and scout bases and depots. Terra has a navy and scout depot. The deserty orange/black planet has a naval base. The green and brown one has a scout base. I'm sure I can make better models for these at some point but these are my first take.

I'm wondering whether to try to do something similar for starports. Only, I think the lower-rated ones don't have high-ports so shouldn't show up in this view I guess. Maybe I'll just save it for the info pop-up you get when you right-click a world.
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[wormspeaker]

This is starting to look really slick!

[mearrin69]

Thanks! In the meantime I've broken the whole thing while I try to figure out how to apply planet textures based on all of a world's particulars. The maps in there now (which look awesome!) were all from guys on the Internet and are static textures. I'm trying to make multilayered maps with land, water, atmosphere, and clouds and it's not coming out quite the way I want it to. The existing rendered maps are so nice and it's hard to beat them for pretty.

BTW, there's not a size 0 (asteroids/planetoids) world in the Sol subsector but that's in the program too. Next screenshot I'll dummy up an extra system with a size 0 world and throw it in.

I haven't a clue how I'm going to do jump routes...
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[mearrin69]

A little more work, not so much on visuals (which have actually degraded since last post), more on functionality. Now each entity has a name and that, along with its hex number, pops up when you mouse over the entity. If you right-click on a world the app opens a pop-up with system details.

Now back to work on texture maps. I've downloaded a trial of LunarCell and am hoping to figure out how to make that work for me here. I've done some tests and its output is really designed to be used with real rendering apps, not my crummy programming language that won't even do bump maps.
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[altasilvapuer]

That's brilliant, Mearrin! I can't wait to see where you take this next. Have you shared this with the traveller boards at Citizens of the Imperium? (http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/index.php) I have a feeling they would love it.

-asp