Saturn model

[ChemicalBR0]

A replacement saturn with rings as part of the model  (it is also squashed down slightly at the poles)
you need a lot of particles in the normal rings to get it looking good and it bugs me to see saturn going round sans rings .





it took a lot of trial and error to get this looking half way decent
the big problem in this was getting a single image to wrap onto a sphere and the rings

so the texture on the planet body is in no way accurate
there's really 2 maps using the same texture both planar in the Z axis, the map on the sphere is just scaled a lot bigger so it only uses the middle of the texture image.

the gaps in the rings aren't accurate either it was more a proof of concept thing.

Can US use alpha maps? it would be nice to have some transparency but i couldn't figure out how (if it can be done) so thats why i cut out some gaps on the disc.

in case you don't know.
put both files into my documents/universe sandbox/media.
then add saturn as normal within US and select it  (or load one of the saturn simulations)
from the tabs on the right select physical properties (the 2nd tab)
type in rings.png for texture
and saturn.x for the model

Edit:I just noticed that because the ring is on the orbital plane
any of saturns moons that orbit inside the rings are effectively cut in half

this eventually leads to them getting thrown out of the system.
I will edit the ring part and move it down slightly (not enough to be noticed but enough to hopefully stop that from happening)

[Ramierez]

That looks pretty good and gave me an idea.

It might be nice if there was an option to drop static rings on a body (rather than built up from thousands of dust particles)  Dust rings works well for certain circumstances, but can become impractical pretty quickly.  This is especially true if you prefer a longer time step for testing long-term stability since dusty rings are the first things to get thrown out to the void.

Essentially they could be similar to what you have here, but are a separate model that can be 'attached' to an existing planetoid and then sized/colored/etc.  At the same time they should be a phantom object, in that, any normal models just pass right through them and add no mass to the parent body.

I think you could get some gorgeous effects if you used this method combined with some overlaid standard dust rings.

[Aephion]

I think it would theoretically be possible to add dust to the attached child-body whenever an object enters it's hill sphere, or rather, when a foreign object's hill sphere collides with the ring; that way you only create dust when it's required. You could probably go a long way giving those dust particles an infinite lifespan too, considering their numbers would be so little (though that should probably be optional still).

Just a thought.

[ChemicalBR0]

well my original idea was to have a smaller body like a baseball and place it in exactly the same spot as saturn
(with no mass or density) parent the ball to saturn and attach the rings to the ball.


but saturn just ate the baseball and the rings went awol

after further testing of it.
I've discovered that in the saturn and moons simulation the moons don't get thrown out into space any quicker with this model .... so the ring polygons don't seem to be having any effect.
(i guess because the mass of the planet is the same) it's only the visual model that's changed.

[Stevodoran]

Pretty sweet texture bro  keep em cumin 

[Dan Dixon]

The model is not used to calculate collisions between objects. The collision shape is always a sphere in Combine mode even if the model is not (and it's also usually a sphere in Bounce mode, although it has some support for cube collision shapes).

[ChemicalBR0]

Dan does US support alpha maps?
if not any plans for it?

[Dan Dixon]

Dan does US support alpha maps?

Not yet.

if not any plans for it?

Eventually... but it's not a high priority right now.

[Carnage2K4]

need a new forum thread for mods... :-D