' Wrote:Well, in Vanilla, every system had a different background (a.k.a. starmap or starsphere) - though similarities are seen throughout the Houses or Edge Worlds, no Vanilla system looks like another - I'm speaking about the background only here, sun(s), stations and planets of course do make each system unique.

In Discovery, we enjoy a multitude of new systems, but every single new system has the starsphere of an already existing one - Omega 49 with the background of Tau 37 is an example.

My question is, shouldn't we change the starspheres of at least some of the new systems? I'm not talking about every single one - I know most are fitting well and we've grown accustomed to them.

Systems that are far away from the core of Sirius though, such as new Edgeworlds, Guard Systems and Gallia Systems should differ from the rest, in my opinion - especially Gallia as a major House deserves some kind of 'own' theme.

This thread is not about if it is possible - it is. (see below)

I'd rather like to ask the community if we should do it. I for one would welcome some visual alternatives to the already existing variety.

After I got a short tutorial by Seth on the how-to, I tried it out myself this afternoon - importing custom textures for system backgrounds works fine. Here are some screenshots of Manchester - with different starsphere each time:

Violet
Blue
Bright/Cloudy

These are only images with custom/modified textures by me (and these are pretty crappy - I suppose I could create something better with a bit more time) replacing vanilla textures - it's also possible to create an entire starsphere from scratch in order to get other results. I'm no modeller though, so I'd need a dev's hand there:P

' Wrote:Once again, this REALLY HAS TO BE DONE on disco.

' Wrote:I'd ask one thing: If you make an own starsphere, where do you save? I mean you have your own mod i guess but does the FLE recognize your starsphere if you save it into your mod folder?

' Wrote:Note that I didn't create a new starsphere. What you see in the first posts are just new textures for existing starspheres. As Treewyrm (pages 1-3, I think) pointed out, it is possible to create entirely new starspheres, however that process is a bit more complicated.

What I did was taking an existing starsphere and import new textures to it's file via the UTF Editor.
The starspheres are saved under C:\Programs\Microsoft Games\Freelancer\DATA\SOLAR\STARSPHERE (default path) in the .cmp format.
After saving the file there, you can go to the UNIVERSE\SYSTEMS folder, choose a system and edit it's .ini here:

Code:

[Background]
basic_stars = solar\starsphere\starsphere_stars_noband.cmp
complex_stars = solar\starsphere\starsphere_br01_stars.cmp
nebulae = solar\starsphere\starsphere_br01.cmp

When starting the game, the system you edited should now display the new starsphere as a background.

I hope I could answer your questions; if not, don't hesitate to ask, as more experienced modders as Treewyrm, Turkish or Seth might see your question and answer it as well.

' Wrote:Well, my question was a bit imprecise: i dont want to make a new sphere from the begining, i meant to choose one from the originals and just "save as" to my folder. After all i want to do to change its textures to another that could be found in the original freelancer folder.

' Wrote:My question: if i do it, is it qualified as making absolutely new starsphere? Because i havent modified anything else but textures.

' Wrote:In that case, you want to do something similar to what I've done here as well.
As you mentioned, just copy/paste the original cmp file to a folder. Open it with UTF Editor and import the textures you want in .tga format.
No, not exactly. It's just replacing the textures that were there while letting the original starsphere (consisting of a model for the textures) untouched.
You could say we're retexturing the starsphere. Still, that does count as modding I'd say, as you get a different result ingame. Gameplay-wise it doesn't change anything of course - it's just for looks and atmosphere.

' Wrote:EDIT: everything works fine even importing unique textures, except freelancer doesnt recognize my mod's starsphere folder after i activated the mod (now of course i saved my starsphere.cmp in the orig folder). There are .ini files in the "solars" folders of the orig freelancer one of them referring to the starspheres i guess, so may i have to write in something?