How to make planetary rings work.

[Dooz]

I have been thinking about ways to make rings work in the game and heres my idea

They could put a Ring mesh around a planet and then texture it

Or for more realistic they could put a series of small thin ring meshes around a planet.

And for up close of the rings they could use terrain scatter and animate it so its tumbling around.

I hope that this works!

Edited September 3, 2014 by Dooz

[vexx32]

Rings, in reality, are in fact made up of uncountable millions of small objects -- often rocky and icy pieces of debris.

Modelling them as a mesh composed of solid circles (actual 'rings') would be a paltry simulation at best, I feel.

[TJPrime]

Rings, in reality, are in fact made up of uncountable millions of small objects -- often rocky and icy pieces of debris.

Modelling them as a mesh composed of solid circles (actual 'rings') would be a paltry simulation at best, I feel.

I would probably go with an option the toggle the detail of rings around planets. Low-end PC's with poor RAM could just have one ring mesh, while more top-of-the-range PC's could have individual rings, maybe even independent rocks, if they had a really good one!

[Tex_NL]

Easiest way would probably be similar to the clouds in [thread=55905]EVE[/thread]. From a distance it is just a texture, up close it is volumetric. Add to this some terrain scatter and you get a realistic ring system.

[Dooz]

Rings, in reality, are in fact made up of uncountable millions of small objects -- often rocky and icy pieces of debris.

Modelling them as a mesh composed of solid circles (actual 'rings') would be a paltry simulation at best, I feel.

A particle system when up close to the rings could work.

Edited September 3, 2014 by Dooz

[Skyler4856]

So a scatter system with a few smaller asteroids in between?

[dryer_lint]

Terrain scatter could work well for this, but maybe terrain scatter you can collide with, to make flying through the rings dangerous?

[Dooz]

Terrain scatter could work well for this, but maybe terrain scatter you can collide with, to make flying through the rings dangerous?

If terrain scatter was used it has to be animated Aka like spinning slowly tumbling around. It shouldn't be to hard to do.

[JayKaySss]

Is it possible that a ring can be made up of gas or very fine dust particles?

[RogueMason]

Is it possible that a ring can be made up of gas or very fine dust particles?

Saturn's E-ring is comprised of microscopic ice particles emanating from Enceladus, so it's perfectly possible. However, it can only be seen when backlit:

Such a ring in KSP would be a little underwhelming unless we can actually have it backlit by the Sun, in which case it would be pretty cool. I'd rather see macroscopic particles, but if backlit microscopic particles are possible, then let's have 'em all!

[Vallius]

Saturns rings are extremely thin, but they are so packed with particles that anything trying to pass through them would likely get pulverized*. I think a solid collision Mesh for rings would work well, physics wise.

*According to History Channel's "The Universe", and NASA.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Vallius

[Sky_walker]

Hm... I would say it's more complex than that and assuming that you'd be "pulverized" is misleading.

With correctly matching speed and using RCS thrusters you should be able to fly through the Saturn rings just fine. It's only ~10 meters and vast majority of matters in a rings stays relatively still (read: moves on mostly stable orbit with matching speeds) - you'd only have to watch out on moons passing by:

And other than that - just find a gap and fly through it. With some luck and gentle approach you should be even able to push through the ring assuming very slow approach speed and finding a region with a very fragmented matter.

On the other hand - if you'd have any significant inclination, and you wouldn't break to the walk-speed in relation to the matter in a ring before getting close- you would most likely just be shredded into tiny particles by billions of stones moving at an enormous relative velocity to yours.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Sky_walker

[Kasuha]

The Cassini probe flew through Saturn's ring. Yes, it was through the "gap" in it but that gap is not a place where there is no ring, it's just place where there's less of the ring material than in other parts.

Saturn's rings contain less mass than there is in Earth, the material is extremely sparse and consists of extremely small particles. Reasonably shielded spaceship would likely have no problems passing it even through more dense areas, there's just little reason to do so.

[JayKaySss]

I was thinking if a ring can exist being made up of gas or very fine dust particles, we can simulate something like atmospheric drag and reentry burn instead if the game can't process the physics of many rocks and pebbles when your spacecraft flies within it.