NBOS AstroSynthesis?

[MGCJerry]

Has anyone had a chance to try out this program yet?
AstroSynthesis Product page:
AstroSynthesis

What is AstroSynthesis?

With AstroSynthesis, you can can map out large portions of space - plotting stars, interstellar routes, and subsectors. And best of all, you do it completely in 3D space! Zoom in and out on your sector, pan and rotate around stars, follow routes, and watch fantastic animation effects - all in 3D.

I saw it in an ad earlier but I cant remember which site because I got into playing with the trial version. The trial sucks because you cant save anything and I made pretty good progress with one system in my game and couldnt save.

I figured I'd post this here since I didnt see any mention of this application in a forum search and figure maybe this will help some other cartographers who want to map out their bit of the universe. A few of you know I was working on getting my large universe map into CC2 but I think I'm going to go with this application instead.

Craaaaap.. I sound like an ad. Oh well I can see this application being VERY useful to me and possibly others.

[ravells]

A number of the people on the Traveller boards use it and speak very highly of it. Interesting, those pictures of the planet look the perfect dimension to use as UV maps on a sphere for 3d modelling.

Can you define the symbols in the symbol legend?

Ravs

[RobA]

Welll....

I did notice it in the banner add at the top of the page the other day, but didn't click, then promptly forgot the name

It looks like the maps are in 360:180 ratio, and designed to be mapped to spheres for rendering. Should allow a nice fly-through a solar system to be built.

-Rob A>

(Gee thanks Ravs. A guy takes a couple minutes to type and you beat him to the punch!)

[MGCJerry]

Not only do the images look like they'll work, they do work on spheres. Since I've been looking to create textures for use in 3d work this program will double as a fractal terrain creator. Plus with the included "Fractal Terrain Explorer" you can resize, edit, erode, etc the image and apply it to the currently edited planet. Yes, I also plan on setting up a 3d flythrough animation of the main system as I'm also working on doing an animated short.

Now that I have the full version, I'm making VERY good progress on mapping the main system with this application. However, I have noticed that knowing a little bit about atmospheres and some related data determines the outcome of how the planet looks such as desert, green, gray, etc.

AFAIK, you cannot define the legend within the application. However, you can edit the images to your specifications from the resulting output.

[Robbie]

I just wanted to be a funny guy and simplify RobA's ratio to 2:1

The spherical textures do look pretty good, assuming the program actually can output them larger than that?

NBOS software is the only company currently that is advertising directly on this site, and they've told me they get the best click-through here I'm proud of that.

[MGCJerry]

The program itself only saves them at 512x256, however, you can load them into Fractal World Explorer (FWE) and resize them x2 each time. You can also regenerate or generate new terrain in FWE up to 2880x1440.

Nbos has a lot of apps that target the userbase here so, the NBOS ads are VERY targeted here.

[ravells]

With the pound as strong as it is, $31 is not a lot of money, so I think I'll be getting it. It's just.....argh..another piece of software to learn!!! When will it end???

There are some quite good image upscalers around now, but I've forgotten the names/links, I'm sure a google search will work.

[RobA]

Not only do the images look like they'll work, they do work on spheres.

Here's a teaser (courtesy of GIMP animation script-fu magic)

-Rob (Images are Not to Scale) A>

[RPMiller]

I like separating the cloud layer from the surface and having the clouds spin one way and the surface the other. Makes for a nifty effect.

I wish there was a project I needed AS for so that I could justify buying and playing with it.

[NeonKnight]

If it was the program I saw at Gencon this year, it looked really cool, but I only play Fantasy games, so could not justify beyound the 'COOOOOOOL' factor.