Wow great job! That is very professional looking.
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Small update:
Added a logarithmic depth buffer which solves the z-fighting issues in previous versions.
I also started experimenting with collision detection. You can right click to fire a marker at the terrain. Pretty slow right now. Will work on optimizing.
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Update above.
New video posted.
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Wow, really really nice atmosphere and lod now!
Also great underwater environment!
Fantastic work!
Really sweet work!
The transition from when traveling from inside to outside of the atmosphere is not that smooth. (At least not in the video). Is this a problem or am I missing something?
Really great work, cool to see all this stuff being done with jme 
Omg, awesome!
Keep up this awesomeness! 
Wow… very good work!!
Looking better with each update
Man, this is looking sooooo cool. Congratulations! You have done a great job with this. And the atmosphere shader really gives it a nice finish. I loved the moon and the under water stuff too. I think you’ve pretty much gotten all the environments sussed out.
This is a really exciting add on for space sim programmers. Thanks for your effort.
Any comment on modeling planets such as Mars or Venus?
Would it be possible to model the Earth itself with rough details? (i.e. the continents and islands etc).
Asteroids with craters modeled in the mesh? Do you see this kind of thing being possible?
@alfinete said:
1. Any comment on modeling planets such as Mars or Venus?
2. Would it be possible to model the Earth itself with rough details? (i.e. the continents and islands etc).
3. Asteroids with craters modeled in the mesh? Do you see this kind of thing being possible?
1. The textures and colors for the planets are all controlled through material parameters. Modeling Mars would not be an issue. Venus or gas giants might not come out right because there is no easy way to make the atmosphere opaque yet. It's something I will add later.
2. The height map is generated completely randomly from a fractal height data source. It's a pluggable system though. You could write you own height data source that pulls data from a file instead. This is not something I plan on doing any time soon since my needs are for purely random planets.
3. You can easily make asteroids with this system. Just make the height scale value on the height data source very large in ratio to the planet radius. This will make a very irregular looking planet/asteroid looking body. As far as actual craters in the mesh. Not easy. Procedural generation often means giving up the small details like that.
Thanks for the answers. Seems like making the necessary stuff for my implementation should not be too troublesome. Interestingly enough, when opening the APOD page tonight, there was this nice video. I thought it might be kinda inspirational for asteroid implementation. Certainly worth a peep!
Asteroid Vesta
As for modeling the earth, I think most terrain is fractal in nature anyway. That is why I asked about the “gross” details. Like getting the continents and islands in a semi consistent position. Since it seems that the planet is made up of six quads formed into a sphere, maybe “gross” height map details could be taken from gray scale images, or something similar. Since I’m familiar with the diamond-square fractal, it would be fairly easy to take the gross details and refine them using a fractal algorithm.
Is this kind of thing within your definition of “pluggable”?
You can extend the HeightDataSource class and make your own height source that uses whatever system you want.
There are also several variable in the existing FractalHeightDataSource that can be tweaked. Might want to mess with those.
No word in 3 months… how is this project going?
@aaronperkins , this is the greatest project and i defenetely want to use it in my game.
I also added a link and a banner of your project to the shaderBlow: http://code.google.com/p/jme-glsl-shaders/
http://i.imgur.com/Gnjo4.png
I’ve been busy with the usual lame stuff (work, life, etc).
I feel this project is in a decent shape to be used. There are a few things that could be done if I find time or someone out there wants to contribute.
- I really haven’t figured out the physics thing yet. I don’t know if integrating bullet physics with jmeplanet is even possible. Might have to implement physics manually.
- Also, wanted to look into integrating the forester, again this might not be straightforward because of the spherical terrain.
- Clouds and other atomosphere effects are on my list too. Ideally this system would be flexibly enough to create earth like white fluffy clouds or Juipter like clouds.
@aaronperkins said:
I've been busy with the usual lame stuff (work, life, etc).
I feel this project is in a decent shape to be used. There are a few things that could be done if I find time or someone out there wants to contribute.
1. I really haven't figured out the physics thing yet. I don't know if integrating bullet physics with jmeplanet is even possible. Might have to implement physics manually.
2. Also, wanted to look into integrating the forester, again this might not be straightforward because of the spherical terrain.
3. Clouds and other atomosphere effects are on my list too. Ideally this system would be flexibly enough to create earth like white fluffy clouds or Juipter like clouds.
Clouds are more vital for me...
Physics can be faked for a while...
Thank you man again!
I think this space ship can be used with your planets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yBn543_AEyA#!