I was wondering if anyone knew a way to change the background in EVO. I am trying to make a small plug that would add more depth to the flight grid. I think it would make a much more interesting gaming experience if you could see things like nebulas or other planets in the background. If anyone knows anything about doing this then please tell me. 
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Umm...Yeah...ok.
If you look in the PICT resource, you'll see a gray and white 1 pixel bar. That's a "star"
EV just stretches and shrinks that in various locations on the map.
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I hope I didn't dain my bramage...
---Homer Simpson, after eating some Insanity Peppers with the help of a waxed tongue.
I've thought about doing the same thing before. As far as I can tell, if it ain't in the resources then you probably can't change it. I'm going to ask ambrosia about it, but I doubt you can.
One problem with a backround that is so expresive is that if you get going fast enough, you start seeing the pattern. Then, after a couple of minutes, it gets anoying seeing the same thing over and over again. If you still want to make a backround, you would proabably want to make the grid very large. That way, if you did go fast enough to go over the grid twice under a few seconds, your probability of seeing the same nebula or star cluster would be barely ever. But, if you did have such a complex backround, it might take longer to load. Thus the people who are still running off of thier older computers would be stuck for a couple of seconds while waiting for it to load whenever you jumped into the system. Then having sound files that run over and over for your warp sound would add to the frustration of having to wait for the map to load all the star systems along with having to wait for the computer to register the ships in the vicinity and having to wait for the backround stars to load. No pesimism intended, but my point is it could get anoying.
If you do add to the feel of the game, keep the star system backround a bit undistinctive. Lots of random dots would do the trick (why am I giving you this info anyway? I think I'm already working on what I just said... oh well).
I hope your plug comes out great.
Just remember, keep it simple.
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Sleep?! Oh yah... I did that last week.
Incidentally, you can't see planets in orbit around other stars.
I suppose you mean the player will other planets in the same system. But the resource that has stars is only for stars - it's two dots.
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"I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."
-Gen. Jack Ripper, Dr. Strangelove
I'm afraid not. You see, EV apparently just uses a black underlay for all of its drawing. If Matt had bothered - I don't know what graphics library he used - it might be possible to load a PICT into the underlay. I've done it, I know. That way you can have a distant nebula or stars in the background along with the moving stars. Naturally this is impossible with the current version of EV, since the code isn't exactly public :frown:. The library that he used may have made this impossible anyway. In any case, it would appear to be a moot point.
Chris Burns
Quote
Zeta wrote:
**I've thought about doing the same thing before. As far as I can tell, if it ain't in the resources then you probably can't change it. I'm going to ask ambrosia about it, but I doubt you can.
One problem with a backround that is so expresive is that if you get going fast enough, you start seeing the pattern. Then, after a couple of minutes, it gets anoying seeing the same thing over and over again. If you still want to make a backround, you would proabably want to make the grid very large. That way, if you did go fast enough to go over the grid twice under a few seconds, your probability of seeing the same nebula or star cluster would be barely ever. But, if you did have such a complex backround, it might take longer to load. Thus the people who are still running off of thier older computers would be stuck for a couple of seconds while waiting for it to load whenever you jumped into the system. Then having sound files that run over and over for your warp sound would add to the frustration of having to wait for the map to load all the star systems along with having to wait for the computer to register the ships in the vicinity and having to wait for the backround stars to load. No pesimism intended, but my point is it could get anoying.
If you do add to the feel of the game, keep the star system backround a bit undistinctive. Lots of random dots would do the trick (why am I giving you this info anyway? I think I'm already working on what I just said... oh well).
I hope your plug comes out great.
Just remember, keep it simple.
**
Hmm. You seem to have forgotten about parallax. If the background is a few dozen light years away, any motion of your ship would have effectively nil effect on background. It would appear to remain in the same place at all times. In this sense EV is unrealistic with its stars moving at the same speed as your ship. The other thing is that a large grid would take up massive amounts of memory. Say you made it....8 screens by 8 screens to minimize repetition. That's great in theory, but in 8 bit color it would take up at a minimum 640 x 8 x 480 x 8 x 8 bytes. Which equals - grabs calculator - damn! - runs and grabs better calculator with more memory - 157286400 bytes - 153600 kilobytes - 150 megabytes. Uh oh. See what I mean? Besides, Quickdraw can't even maintain a GWorld (graphics buffer) that big. Max is 4096 x 4096 pixels.
Chris Burns
I agree, the parallax thing has been annoying me for about two years.
You could always define a nebula as being a distant spob. The only problem is that EV would try to allow you to land on it.
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M A R T I N • T U R N E R
