<HTML>

  <title>loonygames' Painting on Polygons</title>
<body bgcolor="#FEFFEC" link="#0000CC" vlink="#000000">
<div align="CENTER">
  <div align="CENTER">
    <center>
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "ca-pub-2373963192914918";
/* 468x60 */
google_ad_slot = "3417104156";
google_ad_width = 468;
google_ad_height = 60;
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>
</center>
  </div>
  <div align="CENTER">
    <table border="0" width="100%">
      <tr> 
        <td width="261" height="105"><img src="../../images/next_logo_sml.jpg" width="251" height="94" usemap="#map" border="0"> 
        </td>
        <td width="92" height="105" align="LEFT" valign="MIDDLE"> 
          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">- <a href="../index.html">Contents</a><br>
- <a href="../../../about.1">About</a><br>
            - <a href="../../../submissions/index.html">Submissions</a><br>
            - <a href="../../../feedback.1">Feedback</a><br>
            - <a href="../../archives/index.html">Archives</a></font></p>
        </td>
      </tr>
    </table>
  </div>
  <table border="0" width="100%" align="CENTER">
    <tr> 
      <td width="32%" align="LEFT" valign="TOP"> 
        <table border="0" width="190">
          <tr> 
            <td height="1194" align="LEFT" valign="TOP"> 
              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC">volume 
                1, issue 39</font></b></font></p>
              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC"> 
                </font></b></font></p>
              <p>  <p><font face="Courier New, Courier, mono"><b><font color="#339900" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Today 
                in loonygames:</font></b></font></p>

<P><font color="#000000" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">New!!</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> The Archives have been cleaned up, fead links fixed, and printable versions restored! Also, don't miss the new comments <a href="../../../index.html">on the front page</a>!</font></p>
              
<P><font color="#000000" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><a href="../../2.15/feat/index.html" target="">Livin' 
  With The Sims</a></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">: 
  theAntiELVIS explores the wild and wacky world that is Will Wright's <b>The Sims</b>, 
  asking the inevitable quesiton, &quot;is <b>The Sims</b> the first step toward a virtual 
  life where everyone is Swedish?&quot;</font></p>
<P><font color="#000000" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><a href="../../2.15/pixel/index.html" target="">Pixel 
  Obscura</a></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">: Josh 
  Vasquez on <b>Omikron: The Nomad Soul</b>.</font></p>
<P><font color="#000000" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><a href="../../rl/index.html" target="">Real 
  Life</a></font>: <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <font size="-1">Check 
  out our newest comic strip, Real Life! Updated daily!</font></font></p>
<P><font color="#000000" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><a href="../../uf.1" target="">User 
  Friendly</a></font>: <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <font size="-1">Updated 
  daily!</font></font></p>


</p>
              
              <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><b><font color="#339900">Related 
                Links:</font></b></font></p>
              <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><a href="http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.32/pop/">Creating 
                a Space Scene (part one)</a>: Part one of Rick's ongoing tutorial.</font></p>
              <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><a href="../../1.35/pop/index.html">Creating 
                a Space Scene (part two)</a>: Part two of Rick's ongoing tutorial.</font></p>
              <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><a href="../../1.6/index.html">DRAW 
                Partner!</a>: Chris Buecheler's article on games and 2D art.</font></p>
              <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><a href="../../1.26/feat/index.html">Two 
                Programs, Two Dimensions</a>: Rick Grossenbacher's tutorial on 
                using <b>Photoshop</b> and <b>Illustrator</b> to create original 
                2D images.</font></p>
              
              
              <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><b><font color="#339900">Feedback:</font></b></font></p>
              <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">You've got 
                an opinion...voice it! Drop a line to our <a href="../../../feedback.1">Feedback</a> 
                column...you could end up with a free T-Shirt!</font></p>
              <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><b><font color="#339900">Random 
                Feature :</font></b></font></p>
               

<p align="CENTER"><img src="../../images/thumbs/uf.gif" width="90" height="90" align="MIDDLE"></p><p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><a href="../../uf.1">User Friendly</a>: the comic strip for geeks. Updated every day, right here at loonygames.</font></p>
              <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" name="">
                <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><b><font color="#339900">Search 
                the Archives!</font></b></font> 
               
                 <INPUT TYPE=text name=q size=12 maxlength=255 value="">
 <INPUT type=submit name=sa VALUE="Google Search">
 <INPUT type=hidden name=cof 
VALUE="LW:216;L:http:/home/loonygames/loony.timedoctor.org/content/images/logo1.jpg;LH:55;AH:center;S:http://www.loonygames.com;AWFID:13a298c7abe84fd0;">
<input type=hidden name=domains value="loonygames.com"> 
<input type=hidden name=sitesearch value="loonygames.com">               
</div>
              </form>

            </td>
          </tr>
        </table>
      </td>
      <td width="62%" align="LEFT" valign="TOP"> 
        <p align="LEFT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0022A8"><b><a target="" href="../../corner/index.html"><font size="-1">Painting 
          on Polygons</font></a><font size="-1">:</font></b></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+3" color="#0022A8"><br>
          Creating A Space Scene <font size="+1">(part 3)</font></font></p>
        <p align="right"><font color="#804000"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By 
          Rick "<a href="mailto:flat@iserv.net">Flatness</a>" Grossenbacher<br>
          </font></b></font><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"></font></b></p>
        <p align="right"> 
          <script language="JavaScript">

<!--
       function gotoSite(obj)
          {
          var s;
          s=obj.options[obj.selectedIndex].value
                         location.href=s;
          }
// -->

</script>
          <form>
  <div align="RIGHT">
    <select name="SiteSelector" size="1" language="JavaScript" onchange="gotoSite(this)">
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/2.12/pop">Jump to an Archived Column!</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/2.12/pop/">Issue 2.12</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/2.10/pop/">Issue 2.10</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/2.8/pop/">Issue 2.8</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/2.6/pop/">Issue 2.6</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/2.4/pop/">Issue 2.4</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/2.2/pop/">Issue 2.2</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/2.2/pop/">-----Volume 1 -----</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.39/pop/">Issue 1.39</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.35/pop/">Issue 1.35</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.33/pop/">Issue 1.33</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.31/pop/">Issue 1.31</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.29/pop/">Issue 1.29</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.27/pop/">Issue 1.27</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.25/pop/">Issue 1.25</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.23/gc/">Issue 1.23</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.19/gc/">Issue 1.19</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.17/gc/">Issue 1.17</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.15/gc/">Issue 1.15</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.13/gc/">Issue 1.13</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.11/gc/">Issue 1.11</option>
<option value="http://www.loonygames.com/content/1.9/gc/">Issue 1.9</option>

    </select>
  </div>
</form></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">About now, you might be saying, 
          &quot;well, great. Now how do I make an entire screen of them?&quot; 
          </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">As with everything else, 
          there are several ways you can go about this. You could just hand draw 

          a few and start placing them where you want them. Then copying sections 
          and flipping them vertically and horizontally (so they look different 
          than the section you just copied), and pasting them here and there. 
          This works fine, but takes a while. Also be very careful so that you 
          don’t start to pattern the stars. Besides the stars patterning, also 
          try not to make the distance between stars too consistent. When plotting 
          individual stars the tendency to try to plot randomly, but your hand 
          tends to move the mouse same amount of distance. I think it’s just a 
          human thing -- it’s quite hard for humans to think purely randomly. 
          Make some stars so close that they are almost touching, and some that 
          have a good inch or so of distance apart. Ok, before I start waxing 
          philosophical on you, let me explain another method of creating stars.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">It’s called Video Post, and 
          it’s in 3-D Studio MAX. The way that Video Post works is somewhat complicate 
          to the new user because it works by rendering in a series passes. When 
          you normally render a 3-D image in MAX (of say a mesh or NURBS object), 
          it just puts a window on the screen and draws it out in sort of a linear 
          fashion. But Video Post works with several renders -- sort of like stacking 
          different parts of the render on top of each other like you would if 
          you were stacking plates. I’m not going to go into it much because there 
          are plenty of tutorials and books out there that deal with Video Post. 
          Or, better yet, just go into MAX’s help file and follow the examples 
          they provide. It’s fairly straightforward. But, if learning Video Post 
          is in high demand, I’ll do a tutorial on it in a future Painting on 
          Polygons.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Inside Video Post there is 
          a filter called <b>Starfield</b>. It’s a neat little submenu that algorithmically 
          generates a starfield based on the coordinates you give it. Here is 
          what the star generator looks like in Video Post.</font></p>
        <p align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> <a href="maxstars.php"><img src="maxstars1.jpg" width="96" height="95" border="1"></a></font></p>
        <i>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Click the thumbnail to see 
          a larger image.</font></p>
        </i> 
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I highlighted a few key parts 
          in red.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>1.</b> <b>Dimmest Star</b></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">This value tells what the 
          dimmest star will be. 0 is black. I almost always keep this at 0 because 
          I like my stars to fade darker and darker into infinity.</font></p>
        <b>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">2. Brightest Star</font></p>
        </b> 
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">This value tells how bright 
          you want the brightest star to be. 255 being white. Okay, 255 looks 
          like crap. I usually set it somewhere around 180 or so.</font></p>
        <b>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">3. Star Size (Pixels)</font></p>
        </b> 
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Pretty self explanatory. 
          You might want to mess with this and see the difference it makes. You 
          may also want to set it to a few pixel sizes so you can save the render, 
          then cut them out and paste them into your scene so you will have multiple 
          sizes to work with.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">4. <b>Count</b></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">It defaults at 15,000, and 
          you would think: &quot;Good lord, 15,000 stars! That will look nuts 
          on the screen!&quot; But because it is generating the number of stars 
          from a random seed specified from the count spinner, the value 15,000 
          is very misleading. I set mine somewhere around 75,000.</font></p>
        <p>&nbsp;</p>
        <p align="RIGHT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><i><font size="-1" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">(<a href="index3.php">Continued 
          on next page</a>)</font></i></font></p>
        <p align="RIGHT">&nbsp;</p>
        </td>
    </tr>
  </table>
  </div>
<map name="map">
  <area shape="rect" coords="32,38,226,76" href="../../../index.html" target="_self">
  <area shape="rect" coords="12,79,125,94" href="http://www.bluesnews.com" target="_self">
 
</map>
<table border="0" width="100%" align="CENTER">
  <tr> 
    <td> 
      <p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2"> <b>Credits:</b> 
        Painting on Polygons is &copy; 1999 Rick Grossenbacher. All other content 
        is &copy; 1999 <a target="_self" href="http://www.loonyboi.com">loonyboi 
        productions</a>. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited, so 
        don't do it, or we'll paint you white against a white background.</font></i></p>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
</HTML>
