Universe Replacer, a texture replacement plugin

[Tingle]

Hello everyone from the Modelling and Texturing section,

I am creating a thread here to bring some attention to a plugin I have been working on over the last days. If a mod decides to consider this thread spam, just go ahead and remove it - but the reason I am creating a thread here, is because not everybody looks in all sub forums and Modelling and Texturing is relevant to my plugin.

So first of all, this is the plugin's official thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/44135-0-21-x-Universe-Replacer

In short, it allows you to create texture packs that replace the original stock textures of the game. The plugin is in active development, meaning more and more things will be added over time - see the 'Future Plans' section.

Currently Rareden is the only one creating an actual texture pack - I know there are many people with different tastes in art and quality, so I hope to attract a couple more texture pack creators to bring some variety and more content to my plugin. If you decide to start one, PM me with a link to a public shared drop box folder or some other means of distribution and I can add it to the first post if you want.

Thanks for reading

[Apatheticjester]

I figure this wouldn't be a bad place to post some resources and tips.

So you want to make a skybox. You need 3 things: The mod, a spheremap texture, and cubethesphere.

1. The mod, it's up there, above my post.

2. A spheremap. http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003800/a003895/index.html The 6th image down is an example of a sphere map you want to use. It's plenty large enough. You will know that it is a sphere map because details on the top and bottom will be stretched out horizontally. All sorts of spheremaps from dozens of games and science sources are available online, google image search is your friend. Make sure you limit your results to large images.

3. Cubethesphere. http://home.comcast.net/~darendash/CubeTheSphere.html This program will convert spheremaps to cube maps. It will give you 6 pictures labeled top, bottom, front, left, etc. You need to rename these.

Top = Skybox_PositiveY

Bottom = Skybox_NegativeY (Then Rotate 180!) Rotate the bottom map 180 degrees or it won't match.

Front = Skybox_PositiveZ

Back = Skybox_NegativeZ

Right = Skybox_PositiveX

Left = Skybox_NegativeX

You should also put them in jpeg format, jpeg quality 10 should be good. (Edit: Bac9 says tga files.)

If you used a picture like the one I posted (galactic core at center, oriented on galactic plane) you can also compare your pics to those in rareden's pack. The stars should line up the same. Good way to double check.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Apatheticjester