Yeah, I just noticed that , it looks cool.

I did a revamping of all the pips that should show up soon. Bashirpip

All of the new rank pips are now up.

...

As for terraforming, have a look at This Image.

When a planet is terraformed, it will physically change class based on the preferences of the race that terraforms it. The Federation and Romulans will terraform towards Terran planets, the Klingons and Dominion will terraform toward Jungles, and the Cardassians will terraform towards Deserts. Planets will not instantly go from a type to the preferred type, but will need to be terraformed in stages. Planets will be capable of being terraformed a limited number of times as well, perhaps two or three times, and this will be dependant on your tech. So yes, when the planet is terraformed, it will be replaced by a random planet texture of the new planet class.

The Mars progression is stunning. I mean really. This is going to be one of the visually coolest parts of the game. This brings something to mind. In the old game the way we could tell that a planet has been selected to be terraformed was by a yellow wireframe cage. Do we need those (I could draw them up for different planet sizes) or is it going to be indicated some other way? 450 post Bashir

Oh, I hadn't thought of that. I guess we're going to need a wireframe for each of the planet sizes. Has Mike thought of this? We could apply them as a replacement atmosphere texture.

You mean NOT a wireframe but a discolored atmosphere texture. Ooooo, maybe all "sparky" looking like the shimmer of the first transporter effect (have you watched ANY of the original series?). Then again I might miss the old method. Or a combination with more delicate mesh lines. Eyes all lit up Bashir

Yeah that's what I mean. It would probably be the easiest way to implement a terraforming wireframe. I had a go at making one.

I started with the white.png image, and added Yellow wireframey lines over it in Paint.



I'm not sure why the image looks so black after I added the lines. Or why it no longer shows the planet texture anymore. I also tried doing the same thing to the Thin.png atmosphere image (Ie. no atmosphere) to try and make the lines appear on top of the planet texture, but that was even more of a disaster - the entire planet image was simply whited out.

I guess it's some sort of problem in Paint or Irfanview. Maybe you guys will have more luck?

When I get back, I could do something about that.

EDIT: You should use the latest files that I've sent you, I see that your solar system is still using the old configuration.

That will look nice. You can start out with some wire frame image from a modeling program. Not this pink one but what Matress said. I would make the wire thin and the background completely transparent to show off the great transformation sequence.

I am going to be brave and propose something new and different from Botf, what about animation? Something like radial pulse going from one side of planet to other?

We could make a movie in blender of some other 3D program that would play when the transformation is complete. Something like the genesis sequence in ST II. I can make HQ planet textures and someone could animate them.

We might be talking about 3 different things here.

One is the need to visually confirm for the player than when they clicked on a planet to terraform it - something happened and is happening. When you come back to the same system on the next turn, you need the comfort of being reassured that there isn't a bug in the program and the planet is still being terraformed.

Two is the cool images of the texture of the planet actually appearing to change into the kind of ecosystem the race prefers.

Three could be the blender movie as an announcement that the thing is complete.

Captain Bashir

We need to check with Mike on all this. That is when things clear up
for him.

The ingame textures with transition and wire frame sounds cool

I would like to animate a number of things for the game but we should
ask Mike about that as well. I would like to animate the building of
outposts, yards, stations and starbases, terraforming, colonization and invasion.

I used blender to make this animation. It is expanded on top of
a boiler plate animation file you can find here. (CustomUniversal)
Here is the tutor video.

I started imagining what Zeleni said and maybe it could be like a slow repeating wavelike change coming from the bottom left of a planet (in the same axis of rotation) up and to the right, fade out, repeat (say over 4 to 5 seconds). CB

Exactly that!

Maybe the same can be done, the other way round? I mean changing a planet to barren or vulcanic after it has been destroyed (in battle) or by the crystaline entity or species whatitsnumber (an event?).

Excellent point. It would just be awesome looking. Captain Bashir

We will have things like that, the destruction of planets to asteroids, negative planet changes due to some accident or an hostile entity.

Here it is:

With a progress bar below? Maybe a gradient-like bar, from red to green, with an indicator marking the "position" of current progress.

Perfect but I's still prefer to have it tilted in the same way as the planet. Captain B

No worries, just a prototype. If you like the style, I ca tilt it

Yep and maybe more purity to the yellow. BTW I sure hope Mike has the moon count thing corrected in the new version. All those moons are pretty hokey around earth. CB

Wow, I'm really fast, if you don't mind me saying.

You Croatians. Speedy speedy. Looks right. Ingame? Tilted Bashir