Ok, no video – let’s get that out of the way 🙂 Sorry!
Reason : refactoring. I wanted to use the same code for rendering stars and planets for both the game scene and the map system – as they can then leverage the same data and setup code. That bit is still WIP and not ready to demo. But, it is going well and is tres awesome – from my perspective at least 😉
For those who don’t code – refactoring is a process by which you take something which “works” and then break it in numerous interesting and challenging ways by taking bits out and putting them somewhere else with the aim of being able to use them in multiple places, then rewriting other bits to use the bits now they are somewhere else. This is largely done by a) considered design and planning and b) compiling the code and fixing the errors. It’s a bit like taking a car engine apart, and then putting it back together and hoping it starts first time… you have all the same bits, but…
Anyway, the UI map system is now ‘complete’ (logically). And, I’m fairly chuffed with the result if I do say so myself. Pictures follow – warning, they look a bit “dull”, and there’s a depth issue I need to resolve, and yes – that’s one mighty negative planetary mass…
System Map with Planetary Orbits (scaled to 1 Sol Standard Year)
The observant may notice the planetary orbits seem perfectly circular – yep. For now. I’ll be using Kepler’s Laws to produce ‘proper’ time based eccentric elliptical orbits as per the planets orbital distance & speed. I’m scared of the math just now though 😉
It’s still not near final look/feel/content – but it’s now all functional and I can now navigate the galaxy and set the autopilot to fly to any star/planet/satellite I choose. I’ve yet to integrate the other systems (Auto Pilot, Trade Info) so waypoints, visualising routes and so on are still “todo”.
As mentioned before – even though it will get reworked later, I want to spiff up the visuals a little, and then I’ll do a video of it in action – hopefully the next week will see this all come together.
System Map close up of a Planet
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