Planet Scale and Textures

from Sins Forums

Hey everyone,

I wanted to do a planet pack for sins, however I wanted to try something new and I am not a coder. So I wanted to ask some coders if my idea is even possible to do within the Sins enviroment using the engine it's on.

 

Inside Sins, all of the planets are basically the same size. What I want to know is, is it possible to scale up the planets and stars.

 

By example increasing the size of a Gas Giant planet by 5x it's current in game size.

 

When we all phase jump to a new planet we come out of phase, and we already know what the planet will basically look like.

 

So is it possible to remodel and scale planets as small or as large as we want? It would be epic to phase jump to a new planet only to arrive and you entire fleet is like a tiny ant size dot on the screen next to this HUGE planet.

 

Just an idea... Any help would be appreciated.

modding
4,354 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I don't know how to do it, I have no skills in modding this game at all.. but I've seen it done a few time.

I think manshooter has or is rescaling planets in his mod https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/177648/page/36

 

and I remember seeing a thread a loooong time ago, with resized planets given textures of planets from our solar system that where HUGE. THey were much, much bigger than the planets we have now.

 

So yes, it can be done.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

If I remember right it's not possible, but that's just off the top of my head. I've read so much on these forums it's hard to keep on top of it all!

 

As per below, I stand corrected. NICE!

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

I believe this is what you're looking for:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/309307/

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Yes, it is possible to scale the planets, in fact I have already incorporated this change into the Last Stand mod. However, bear in mind that there is no way to change the rotation speed of planets, which means that larger planets will have their surface move faster, which shows when bombarding (explosions sort of "glide" across the surface). Also make sure your planets are still small enough to accomodate their increased gravity wells (if you leave them at vanilla sizes, you end up with a thin strip around a planet which looks bad) and the increased travel times for ships crossing those wells.

To resize the planets error free, try out this application made by newboerg.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Mansh00ter,

I do not think the program has been updated to 1.12

 

When I try to use it I get a comdlg32.ocx error.

 

Any ideas on how to resolve this. I tried to contact newboerg through ICQ but he is currently offline.

 

I really want to figure out how to resize the planets. I wish they would add this feature to the Galaxy forge. It would be a nice addition to be able to customize planet size, rotation speeds and gravity wells from the GUI.

 

Is there a place we can request they add this feature to the Galaxy Tool set?

 

 

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

I don't think it has anything to do with 1.12, since it takes ingame meshes and computes the new vertex positions. As far as I know this hasn't changed with the 1.12 update. Try browsing Google for the "comdlg32.ocx error", there seem to be a fair number of solutions you may try.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

The comdlg32.ocx nonsense is because he is using an outdated programming language, VB6. Why he is using it... I don't have the slightest idea. All it introduces is compatibility issues for the .NET based Vista and even SP2 and beyond XP.

Whatever, point is, you need to find that comdlg32.ocx and put it in the right directory.  I think there are directdownloads for it somewhere.

 

As for me, the moment I saw that message and the default vb6 icon, I shut the program down and never bothered with it again ;).

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

VB6 programs DO RUN in Vista without problems unless the programmer used an optional control,the same problems can occour with vb2007 and 2005 and 2003, so make sure of your "facts" before spouting off. by the way vista has a significant visual studio 6 codebase in it

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

I never said that it will always introduce issues. I simply stated that it only does that. It can introduce zero or more compatibility issues.

VB6 is outdated, and all it does is introduce compatibility issues. This statement is sound and any attempt to debunk will be a failure. Vista supports the VB6 runtime, for VB6 applications (referred to as "legacy" applications); however, the runtime libraries are not updated. The last update to the runtimes was in early 2004, iirc. Because of this, compatibility issues with newer parts of windows might be present. Custom controls certainly add to the incompatibilities; however, there is already a great chance that  incompatibilities exist with vb6 and the newer kernels, without any custom controls used.

I will be glad to take the program source and convert it to .net for him.

 

-Ian

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

I went ahead and looked up the support statement on VB6 in Windows XP, Vista, and server 2008.

In general, you will see that VB6 should work properly on Vista in most cases; however, microsoft acknowledges that compability issues can exist with the following statement: "The Visual Basic 6.0 runtime has been tested for compatibility between Windows XP and Windows Vista / Windows Server 2008 with a goal that applications work similarly on these operating systems. As with any release of the operating system, there may be differences in functionality that will require modifications to your applications."

This acknowledges that there can be compatibility issues with the VB6 runtime, which is not including the unsupported files listed on the source site (posted below).

This supports my statement that all VB6 introduces is compatibility issues. Either zero, or more. It introduces nothing else over the newer VB.NET, and there is no reason to use it.

Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vbrun/ms788708.aspx

 

-Ian

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

Nonetheless, this remains the only working utility which can rescale ingame objects quickly and error-free, once you get past eventual compatibility issues. I had major problems rescaling planet meshes manually until I ran into this little program.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Can anyone give an explanation how to use it and work around the compatibility issues?

 

Does anyone know how to get in contact with Cybdevil? It would make things a lot easier just using his work if he's willing.

 

There could be some neat strategic changes we could implement with planets like this!