Archive for August, 2010
Sneak Preview of New Features
Aug 26th
Here are a couple screenshots of some of the new lighting features I’ve been working on.
There’s still quite a bit to do: stomping out various bugs, solving edge cases, and integrating the new features into the user interface. I plan to release these new features in the next update of both the free and premium versions of Universe Sandbox 2.
One the left is Wolf 359 one of the closer stars to Earth at only 7.8 light years away next to Saturn and its rings. Wolf 359 really is that small, just a bit larger than Saturn and I’ve brightened it up (as it is really dim in reality). On the right I’ve added a second Wolf 359 and changed its temperature to a much hotter color.
Let me know what you think of the new lighting features in the comments…
New Website
Aug 25th
The new website for Universe Sandbox is now live.
Compare screenshots of the old site (left) and new site (right):
Click on the image to zoom.
Details of the website transformation:
- Simplified the overall look. Moved to a white page (vs black).
- Consolidated the FAQs into a single page.
- Added new screenshots of the version 2 interface.
- Site now folder based (no file extensions like htm, html, or php)
- New header and background for both the forum and blog.
- Revised Install button and added it to the blog and forum headers.
- Set width of blog to 960px (like both the forum and the main site)
- Fixed forum main page title (was ‘Universe Sandbox – index’, now ‘Universe Sandbox | forum’)
- Fixed problem with icons never appearing for forum actions, like ‘New Post’.
- Updated favicon for the site.
Let me know what you think in the comments. I value feedback.