Near Star List/Colonial Atlas online

[nyrath]

Originally posted by Yatima:
Silo: A cheap 3D modeller, I have no experience of this but want to get into it to output models of equipment, weapons, aliens etc.

If you want a 3D modeler, try Blender. This is a professional level product, and it is free, free, free.

http://www.blender.org/
http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/

The learning curve is steep for about five days, then suddenly it is easy. If anybody needs help with it, send me a private message.

Here are samples of what you can do with Blender:
http://www.projectrho.com/SSC/leifGallery/index.html
http://www.projectrho.com/botanybay/index.html
http://www.projectrho.com/stardate3k/index.html
http://www.projectrho.com/warpwar/index.html

Note especially how a clever group of settings will allow one to make blueprints of your 3D image:
http://www.projectrho.com/stardate3k/stardate3kCGI02.html
http://www.projectrho.com/botanybay/botanybayCGI02.html

 

[Colin]

Dundjinni is a cool mapping prgram, with a large amount of user-made art available from the forums. very useful for making maps of buildings, bases and ships, less so for worlds. I use it to output maps at 1"=5' or sometimes 1"=10'. I then print them out on my wonderful color laser, and I'm set, after a great deal of cutting, taping, and gluing.

 

[yatima]

Many thanks Nyrath, what a list of sources to check out! I can feel my productivity for the week drain away...

Highlights, the 3D projection, boy that's sweet. Apart from the expense, the main downside is that my wife would throw me out

As for Blender, that's on my list. I figured that I'd rather start into 3D modeliing in a small way, and Silo was recommended for that very purpose. Plus, I got it bought to me as a present. But I plan to introduce Blender when I find my feet. I did download it, but got overwhelmed with the options available.

I'm familiar with a lot of the stuff on projectrho.com - fantastic site, BTW - although I haven't visited it in a long time. Thanks for the links.

 

[yatima]

Nyrath - I also meant to say thanks for that link to CafePress. I didn't know they did posters, that's great. My local print shop is outrageously expensive for this sort of thing.

 

[nyrath]

Originally posted by Yatima:
Nyrath - I also meant to say thanks for that link to CafePress. I didn't know they did posters, that's great. My local print shop is outrageously expensive for this sort of thing.

Well, not that Cafe Press is exactly cheap. If you do a 23"x35" poster for yourself at cost with no markup, it's about $18

 

[yatima]

Hi all, I thought you might be interested in the following software. These are three photoshop plugins, so they'll work in any drawing application (Mac or PC) that uses the Photoshop plugin architecture (Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, Paintshop Pro, Fireworks etc.)

They are:

LunarCell (http://www.flamingpear.com/lunarcell.html) which is a fractal generator for images of planets, includes a means of downloading live cloud images from weather satellites!

Glitterato (http://www.flamingpear.com/glitterato.html) Tools for generating realistic starscapes and nebulae.

SolarCell (http://www.flamingpear.com/solarcell.html) Tools for generating realistic images of stars.

I got the lot in a bundle for 40 US Dollars. I'll let you know how I get on with them, but you can download trial versions of these and try them for yourselves. The examples on the Flamingpear website are certainly impressive looking.

 

[yatima]

I'm also having great fun getting to grips with Google Sketchup, which is free and on Mac or windows (www.sketchup.com). Most 3D programs leave me scratching my head and wondering where to start. The ethos behind sketchup is to enable you to create models or architectural visualisations quickly with few and very simple tools.

I had a play around with it last night and it truly is easy to use. I can see great uses for it for deckplans, floorplans, and lots more. Best of all, there's a warehouse feature in which people have uploaded models for free, and you can download them for use in sketchup. These include table, chairs, people vehicles, weapons and lots more. The quality of a lot of this stuff isn't that good, but there are a few useful gems. There's also a lot of online tutorial videos available on Google's site, also for free.

 

[nyrath]

If you are having trouble with 3D programs, maybe you'd like to get your feet wet with DoGA

http://www.doga.us/
http://www.doga.co.jp/english/
http://www.virmin.com/doga/

You build your ships and things by snapping together pre-made parts. Very easy.

Unfortunately it is limited to the available parts.

 

[yatima]

Hi Nyrath, that does look interesting, but my project for the year is to conquer subdivision modelling. As a birthday present, my wife bought me Silo and some training DVDs. On your advice, I also downloaded Blender again and ordered the latest Essential Guide (due May). We'll see how I do.

The point I was making with Sketchup, though, is how quick it is to get results with. This is the intent as it's really for working up concepts quickly. Have you tried it? What's your opinion of it?

 

[nyrath]

Originally posted by Yatima:
Hi Nyrath, that does look interesting, but my project for the year is to conquer subdivision modelling. As a birthday present, my wife bought me Silo and some training DVDs.

I suppose you've joined this forum?
http://www.subdivisionmodeling.com/forums/index.php

I haven't ever tried Sketchup, it looks usable.

 

[TWILIGHT]

I feel SO backward for using just Illustrator CS2 and Photoshop CS2!

 

[yatima]

My interest in 3D modelling is to compensate for a basic inability to draw in 2D , you don't suffer the same constraint Twilight. I figured that as one of my hobbies is building plastic models, I should be able to build virtual ones and then create 2D art as a result.

BTW - I love the Kafer Rot quarantine poster.

 

[TWILIGHT]

cheers!

 

[tlindsey]

The Near Star List has been quite a project! I wrote an application that takes the raw NSL data and calculates all possible 7.7 lightyear routes between stars, beginning at Earth. This data is then used to generate a full 3D model of the NSL, including each star, star name label, route and route distance label. This 3D model is then exported to the Cinema 4D XML scene description. I also create a nice model hierarchy to make manipulation and identification of various stellar entities easy within Cinema 4D.

Once in Cinema 4D, textures and effects can be applied and then it can be rendered out to any resolution.

Below is a low resolution sample of the "white background" NSL similar to the version found on the back of the original 2300AD rulebook. Stars are color coded by their spectral type and major routes are thicker than minor routes. Stars that are "unreachable" are translucent gray. Route distances are omitted for clarity. It is an orthographic view just like the original 2300 starmaps. The biggest differences between the original and this version is that the stellar positions are all accurate and additional areas such as Kafer Space, Back Door route, 61 Cygni Cluster, and Beta Aquilae Cluster are integrated. In this view, the 61 Cygni Cluster is directly "below" the Chinese Arm causing lots of overlapping stars and obscuring detail, thus, it will be depicted separately.



Portion of the rules which detail the various portions of space (American Arm, French Arm, Pentapod Space, etc) will feature starmaps shown in a 3D perspective view upon a field of distant background stars. A "galactic compass" superimposed on the map will help orient the viewer. Route distances are noted along each route, although it's difficult to make them out in the sample below. The nice thing about the perspective views is that stars above the galactic plane are larger than those further away, so it's easier to get a sense for their true 3D positions. A rough example of the American Arm is below:

In any event, suggestions for how to improve the starmaps would be appreciated.

- Ted

P.S. If anyone can remember this far back, there was an old thread in which I had been working with Malenfant on how a more recent dataset of stellar coordinates would change the game. The issue we ran into when I ran my Starmap Generator application was that everything was WILDLY different and it would invalidate many basic premises of the game. Colin and I ended up sticking with the orginal data, fixing errors when we found them (and there were a few) and integrating in new things such as stations where ships could discharge their stutterwarp drives and brown dwarves such as Backdoor. I had actually generated a Quicktime 3D interactive model of the NSL back then which is pretty cool to manipulate, but it's 14Mb large!

 

[nyrath]

I had written some applications in the past to calculate all possible links between stars.

I did a piece of work for Ad Astra games which used the data to calculate when each star system was open for colonization. In that game (Attack Vector: Tactical), it took about three years for an intrepid survey starship to refine the position of each jump entry point so that it could be safely used. I wrote an app that sent virtual survey ships starting at Sol to all direct neighbor stars, then gradually walked the entire map while keeping track of the years.

This set up the founding date for all the interstellar colonies.

I want to export such data to a 3D app such as Blender (which I use because it is free), and I will as soon as I can figure out how to automatically make the star labels perpendicular to the camera's view, regardless of how the camera moves.

The main thing that bothers me about the original Traveller 2300 map was the lack of either links or cartesian coordinates. They made the map basically worthless. Coordinates allow one to calculate the distance between stars. Links show you the distance between stars. Without either the map is a useless pattern of dots.

If you have fewer stars than the 23K map, you can get away with doing something like this map I made:
http://www.adastragames.com/graphics/Maps/DiagramMap%20J.zip

Another problem is indicating spectral class. More to the point, almost half of the stars are binaries or multiples. I generally just use the spectral class of the star with the brightest luminosity. There was a recent book of Star Trek maps where they had each system indicated by a dot color coded by brightest spectral class, with color coded arcs surrounding the dot for additional stars in the system.

I was also toying with the idea of using different symbols. A dot for an uncolonized star, a square for a homeworld, a triangle for a colony, a five pointed star for an outpost. This becomes a problem with the stars occupied by more than one nation.

I also wanted to color code the various "arms". Blue for American arm, etc.

If you wanted something off-beat, you can try making a map that requires red-blue stereo glasses to see it in real 3D.

As previously pointed out, with the stutterwarp system, the 3D location of the stars is superfluous information as far as the players are concerned. A "subway map" will do, like this one:
http://www.adastragames.com/graphics/Maps/TubeMap.pdf
http://www.projectrho.com/smap12.html

Galactic maps are pretty, but useless from a game standpoint:
http://www.projectrho.com/portfolio/port21.html

 

[yatima]

Ted, those maps look great, congratulations on a great piece of work. I bow to Nyrath's knwledge of 3D star maps, so I won't offer any suggested improvements, just a request. When the PDFs and books get published, can the people who purchase either get access to the NSL data in digital format too?

I know this is one for Hunter, but it'd be a nice little extra to have CSV, XML or Astrosynthesis files made available to customers as well as the gorgeous printed maps. That Interactive Quicktime movie would be quite a bonus too, because the best way to enjoy a complex 3D star map is to interact with it.

Thanks for letting us see these.

 

[nyrath]

Yes, Ted's maps are gorgeous, and galactic compass is a stroke of genius.

The only question I see: is there any way to make such a map more useful for the game master and players? Or is the map perfectly fine as it is?

If a game master was plotting a campaign, or trying to keep one step ahead of the players, what sort of information would make the map most useful?

 

[yatima]

The only question I see: is there any way to make such a map more useful for the game master and players? Or is the map perfectly fine as it is?

I think much of the information must appear outside the map, as on the original NSL map sheet. As a GM, I'm principally interested in seeing the relationships and routes between stars, and perhaps distances for each route. But if you load too much extra information on to the map it just gets noisy.

Alongside the map I'd like to see a quick reference chart for colonies on worlds, national allegiances and page references for the relevant description in the main book. A travel time ready-reckoner would be good too.

 

[nyrath]

Yes, a map designer has to be wary of what Edward Tufte calls "chart-junk".

The only thing I'd consider adding is something indicating the presence of various nations homewords, colonies, outposts, and enclaves. This becomes sticky since there are several star systems where multiple nations have a presence. If this clutters the map too much, out it goes.

The arms can be delineated by color coding the stutterwarp links. They may also be displayed by adding volumetric fuzzy pastel spheres around the systems and links inside each arm, but this might clutter up the map.

 

[tlindsey]

Nyrath: lots of great ideas. Thanks for sharing your experience with creating starmaps. The Star Trek idea of having rings around the primary is very clever. As for "subway maps", I had considered this at one point and discarded the idea since they fail to provide the "sense of place" that a true 3D representation does. We're lucky that the 2320AD star systems are clustered fairly closely together, otherwise a true 3D representation would not have been practical.

I'm glad you like the galactic compass. I would like to make it more functional, if possible. While never mentioned in 2300AD lore, standardization on some type of universal coordinate system would make it easier to refer to regions as "sectors" or "quadrants" or whatever sci-fi label you'd like to apply. On the other hand, this might just be cheesy.

Good points about "chart junk". I pruned the information on the maps down to the system name (not always the same as the star name) and distances between stars since any additional textual information starts to obscure things. Even with this little information, it's challenging since the nature of stellar positions dictates that there will be overlaps and tightly packed clusters that require manual repositioning of labels are such to minimize confusion.

Yatima: I would assume that making the stellar coordinates available wouldn't be a major issue since all the data has been printed in the NSL book before. A verification with Marc Miller would be in order. I'm looking at different methods of presenting the NSL as a true 3D interactive software product. I'd like to craft something in Flash so that it is deliverable via web browser that could present Colonial Atlas information as well as serve as a "navigational planning aid" for players and GMs.

Below is a sample from the printed product of how various regions are delineated. Much as Nyrath had described, the volumes of space are enclosed within colored regions.