[MOD]No Fog/View Distance (24/10/08)

[Aloid]

fud,
If I have issues with the view distance, what part of the file do I change to reduce it to make my frame rate happy... so far it's been okay, but I'm a simple trader and have been gliding around safe trade lanes...

When I can afford a good ship, I'll be getting into furballs...

Thank you again,

Aloid

[fud]

There are about 80 background files (about twice X3R), at the end of each line for each entry, are the two values for draw/view distance.

Eg, background for Heretics End:

0;0;0.000000;0.000000;0.000000;0;0;deepred;1;1;1;25;50;10;5;5;0;5;0;0;0;0;0;0;50000000;55000000;100;120;120;120;0;0;0;0;0;0;0;SS_BG_9;

I *think* I changed them all to those values (in red), you can check in the file, some may have "60000000" for the second number. Either way, the process is the same.

Change that to a lower number, in theory, if you divide it in half, it'd be half the distance.

An easy way to do it, is to open notepad, and do the "replace" command, put the existing value in and replace it with the new.

This weekend (or whenever the beer wears off), I'll make a couple different versions for those that might be suffering.

[Tiedyeguy]

Is there any way to easily put a slider in for the Nebulae? I sort of like them being there but I don't like the blind-as-a-bat effect. Something like a 5-Step slider would work in my book: 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%. Nebulae in space may look thick from our view on Earth, but our view is going through billions of KM of nebula. I sorta doubt true nebula would really obscure things in the 500km range, but one would still be able to see it.

[fud]

As far as I know, there are no script commands that can affect anything in Tbackgrounds.

[McCade]

I'm pretty sure this text file was causing me to crash in Akeela's Beacon, as well as a few other sectors. I removed the text file after trying a few other things and I could enter those systems. Added it back...crash on jump or gate to the systems.

Any ideas?

[Krewzur]

will this effect performance??

[fud]

In my opinion, removing the fog increases performance more than view distance decreases it.

In mine, I've got no fog and a draw distance of 180km, and don't notice any adverse effects.

Obviously, it's going to vary due to hardware and settings...

[McCade]

Fud, any ideas on my issue above? Was I using a bad txt?

[fud]

McCade, I don't know.

I'm not sure how it could, really. Have you tried re-downloading it and re-installing it? Maybe you didn't get a complete download and/or it was corrupted somehow.

The txt file itself is pretty basic. There aren't many ways to mess it up, unless you accidentally delete a ";".

When I was testing and mucked something up, I just got no background. Just black behind the stations.

[McCade]

Thanks, I replaced the file and it works fine now. Funny, I noticed the sectors that crashed all had the same BG. Must have been a bad or corrupted version.

[fud]

Glad you got it to work.

[Crustacean Soup]

If I've got this right, the two attributes that you've mostly got set to 50000000 and 60000000 are the ones that control the distance that things become solid and start fading in respectively (km multiplied by 500 000), correct? For some reason you've got a few with both set to the same value, which I would assume would eliminate the fade-in effect (and a few set to other arbitrary values). I don't know if this was intended, but it seems a little odd.

[fud]

Well, if you knew me, nothing is ever intended.

Seriously though, I believe you're right about the fade in, etc.

I just changed them all to *a* number. It just happened to be that the number I chose worked out to be about 100km in game.

I haven't really tested the effects of altering the numbers seperately.


I'm bored, maybe I'll screw around with it.

"Odd" is my middle name.

[Dungeoncrawler]

Hey fud; nice script btw. I have a question: After adding the .txt file it seems the few sectors I've been in so far have green backgrounds now. Is this normal? I thought maybe this was how you removed the fog? Hopefully in sectors with no fog I will get the natural color back? Thanks.

[Nanook]

Hey fud, nice little mod. I've been using it since you made it. Tell me, though, have you upgraded it yet to include all the new sectors in 2.0? Or does it not need it?

[arcana75]

Based on TR, the sectors call TBackgrounds.txt to determine the sector characteristics like fog, range, size, etc. TC's TBackgrounds.txt only defines about 80 sector types.

v2.0 didn't seem to add any new TBackgrounds: the most recent TBackgrounds is found in 03 or 04.cat.

[arcana75]

FWIW, I just did one that retains the nebulae but increases the visibility of in-sector objects to a minimum 100km (higher visibility is not touched).

PM me if u want it. FYI in vanilla the Terran sectors are set to 1000KM visibility

[fud]

The background file is actually quite fun to play with. Changes are instant in-game.

You can make things crystal clear, or clear as mud.

Dungeoncrawler, sorry, I missed your post (couple months ago? sheesh). All I did was got rid of the fog. The green backgrounds are there as default. You just couldn't see them before.


Personally, I hate the green ones too.

[Khas]

What of the fog? I guess that the view distance (which has been highlighted) has a different offset to the fog. Which is the fog?

[someone else]

that's useful fud!
why don't you post this into the "submissions to community library" thread?
I saw this 10 minutes ago and it is a very useful mod!
added to my game now.