Idea: Elevation Wand

[gabriel.dac]

This is a tool that will allow you to draw mountains or depressions on the surface of your planets. It is going to be in the "Actions" tab in the properties menu. There will be a category (bold orange text) called "Draw Topography". When you click it, a list will appear with the options, like brush size, draw mountain, draw crater, and the intensity of the click (how deep or how high the mountain/crater will be). When you click the last button called "start drawing", your cursor will turn into a wand and you'll be able to 'do the magic'.

I'll use this thread to tell you some other idea I had (I don't like to start many threads, this one is totally unrelated). I've posted this as a reply to another thread but here it goes again: There should be a small, blue, slightly transparent arrow pointing down next to the temperature in the left-click menu that indicates that the temperature of the object is decreasing. New players might not understand that it takes time for the object to lose heat, and they will think US is inaccurate. However, that arrow will only appear when the temperature is about to change drastically, like when you remove the star of the planet. If the planet it losing heat just because of the eccentricity of the orbit, then there is no need for it.

This is what the arrow could look like: http://www.clipartbest.com/cliparts/aTe/BA7/aTeBA7qT4.png

Tell me what you think

[Lord DC]

I could finally build my HQ planet if this were implemented

[Universip]

Perfect Idea !
Perfect for drawing my own planet I created with specific topography !
It should definitely be implemented !

[Pinkythefoxxywasp]

I really support this idea, due to terrain deformation already being in the Game/Sim it would be a tad easier to implement.

I'd spend hours apon hours making planets if this was implemented, there's just so much fun you can do with tools like these.

and i'd finally be able to make 3D representations of my own planets, which would be amazing on its own 

[WitheHole18]

This is a tool that will allow you to draw mountains or depressions on the surface of your planets. It is going to be in the "Actions" tab in the properties menu. There will be a category (bold orange text) called "Draw Topography". When you click it, a list will appear with the options, like brush size, draw mountain, draw crater, and the intensity of the click (how deep or how high the mountain/crater will be). When you click the last button called "start drawing", your cursor will turn into a wand and you'll be able to 'do the magic'.

I'll use this thread to tell you some other idea I had (I don't like to start many threads). I've posted this as a reply to another thread but here it goes again: There should be a small, blue, slightly transparent arrow pointing down next to the temperature in the left-click menu that indicates that the temperature of the object is decreasing. New players might not understand that it takes time for the object to lose heat, and they will think US is inaccurate. However, that arrow will only appear when the temperature is about to change drastically, like when you remove the star of the planet. If the planet it losing heat just because of the eccentricity of the orbit, then there is no need for it.

This is what the arrow could look like: http://www.clipartbest.com/cliparts/aTe/BA7/aTeBA7qT4.png

Tell me what you think

cool idea, build mountains or depressions or lakes and oceans.

[pac0master]

I like it

[Chris]

I really support this idea, due to terrain deformation already being in the Game/Sim it would be a tad easier to implement.

Please be aware that deformation is based on a decal system.
The idea described here would require a full blown heightmap manipulation,
which quickly spirals into memory allocation issues when you realize we render
more than 1 highres planet at a time.
I don't want to block your ideas, but it is quite unlikely that we'll include heightmap editing like that anytime soon.

[gabriel.dac]

Bummer.

Look at all those people who strongly agreed with my idea. I wasn't expecting all that positive feedback at all.

[Pinkythefoxxywasp]

You aren't blocking my ideas Chris, i can understand why it would be hard to implement as you said, it would most likely start to drop in performance when you have more than 1 planet like that, they'd have to be very detailed aswell to do this type of customization which would drop the performance even more   

[gabriel.dac]

I really support this idea, due to terrain deformation already being in the Game/Sim it would be a tad easier to implement.

Please be aware that deformation is based on a decal system.
The idea described here would require a full blown heightmap manipulation,
which quickly spirals into memory allocation issues when you realize we render
more than 1 highres planet at a time.
I don't want to block your ideas, but it is quite unlikely that we'll include heightmap editing like that anytime soon.

Well I think I understand your point. Perhaps I should change my idea a little. When you use your wand to draw a crater, you're not going to see a literal crate there (with depth), but rather, it will be a place where water could accumulate if you increase the water level a little, just like in these images http://imgur.com/a/TQKVh.

The craters would be drawn. If you create a depression or a river, it will destroy the vegetation (if it is on Earth). This would be equally as interesting because players would be able to customize their planet more...

[lmgg]

Your idea is awesome
Just add a complete set of tools, like crater generators, fractal mountain generator, plateau/mare tools, smoothing tools... and shape the planet just the way you like... !
But not just this, also several tools for planet control could be added: Heat and cold rays, atmosphere inject/siphoon... that could be totally .

[Vince77]

It's not that I don't like your idea, but I think that an external height map editing tool would give a similar result and wouldn't do any impact on performance, plus it would be awesome to share custom height map in the workshop !

[Cryo]

i like this idea 100% i wish i could donate munny but my familys tight on munny's now.

[The Ventifact]

Your idea kinda sparked one in my head. While the wand is cool and would allow direct interaction with your solar system, it is similar to the dispenser under the "powers" tab. I do like the idea of terraforming mountains or craters, though.

But this is what I had in mind. Since Universe Sandbox 2 has some simple height maps already in place for planets and moons, they could add more sliders under the "materials" tab on the property window. Right now, we have sliders for hydrogen, water, iron, organics, silicate, etc.

What if they added sliders for mountains, rivers, oceans, lakes, and craters? For mountains, you could adjust the severity or texture of the surface. Or maybe a slider that allows you to change how big the mountain range is. Do you want it to be a sprawling, unbroken mountain range, or a varied range with valleys and breaks in the terrain?

Rivers could be similar. Maybe one slider could adjust how much tributaries taper off, or one could change the width of the river. I won't go into detail about the others, this should give you the gist of what I was thinking.

Plus, I don't think they would need to change much to get something similar to this to work (I could be wrong though). Giant Army could keep the way they have the height maps and figure out a way to simulate generating different textures on the surface. I wonder if they would be able to procedurally generate textures for planets outside of random planet spawns? Like so you could terraform the surface in more detail even after the planet has been spawned.

Just a suggestion...

[newhalo123]

Your idea kinda sparked one in my head. While the wand is cool and would allow direct interaction with your solar system, it is similar to the dispenser under the "powers" tab. I do like the idea of terraforming mountains or craters, though.

But this is what I had in mind. Since Universe Sandbox 2 has some simple height maps already in place for planets and moons, they could add more sliders under the "materials" tab on the property window. Right now, we have sliders for hydrogen, water, iron, organics, silicate, etc.

What if they added sliders for mountains, rivers, oceans, lakes, and craters? For mountains, you could adjust the severity or texture of the surface. Or maybe a slider that allows you to change how big the mountain range is. Do you want it to be a sprawling, unbroken mountain range, or a varied range with valleys and breaks in the terrain?

Rivers could be similar. Maybe one slider could adjust how much tributaries taper off, or one could change the width of the river. I won't go into detail about the others, this should give you the gist of what I was thinking.

Plus, I don't think they would need to change much to get something similar to this to work (I could be wrong though). Giant Army could keep the way they have the height maps and figure out a way to simulate generating different textures on the surface. I wonder if they would be able to procedurally generate textures for planets outside of random planet spawns? Like so you could terraform the surface in more detail even after the planet has been spawned.

Just a suggestion...

THIS. I agree, that would be awesome!

I'm not saying if its possible or not though. (I have no idea whatsoever) I'm just saying I like the idea.

[Xriqxa]

yeah, pretty cool idea. Would be better if we could convert the planet to a map so we can more accurately detail it. Speaking of which, I would really enjoy having a feature to take pictures of a planet's surface, as in create a map.

[PrimeMinisterTom]

yeah, pretty cool idea. Would be better if we could convert the planet to a map so we can more accurately detail it. Speaking of which, I would really enjoy having a feature to take pictures of a planet's surface, as in create a map.

Yes - I believe the custom map in the first version should be added back. It makes it easier for me to edit the surface (AND MAKE THE DEATHSTAR xD) to have an accurate map.