I've been browsing/lurking the forums for a few days now, and I've noticed some other people have the same wants that I do for future improvements on U.S.
Another good idea would be to add different star types (not only our familiar yellow star and the blue star Rigel) like the white, red and brown dwarves (don't know the name in english, it could be another...); giants, pulsar... ecc
Be cool to have the ability to change textures. Be cool to have like Lava,Desert, and Terran types of Planets.
Pretty much I want the other planets in the New Body list.
I think it would be really cool to have a HUGE variety of planetary/solar skins/textures for use. Reason being that it would give new creations a more personal attachment. Example: A planetary skin/preset-texture that looks as if the whole planet is made of dense city and lights, somewhat like what Alderan(?) looks like in one of the more recent star wars movies, a city planet. It would add a very human feel to the creations, instead of just seeming like you are looking at some lifeless, though still nice, masses.
I guess the easiest way to implement this would be to add more presets, but, although it would take more time to devellop, perhaps adding a "skin" system into the object properties box would make for a more system in which you could change the skin of your object after having created it, and would allow for a very user-friendly interface for changing the textures this way.
Something like this:*note the area following the arrow*Sorry for the huge image, resizing it seems to make certain aspects distorted beyond recognition.
The following is my proposition:
We work together in a collaborative effort to make a series of surface textures. Then perhaps these will later be added into the presets or maybe, even farther down the road, into a "skin selection" list, as I have shown in the above (photoshopped) picture.The following link is a tutorial for how to make a texture that will wrap properly around a globe without looking stretched and skewed:http://www.vgd.co.uk/pages/notebook/mapsphere.htmlThen just save as a Jpeg and post it here, and perhaps Dan Dixon will take care of the coding/implementing if he decides to include these in an update. Perhaps we could even do the scripting ourselves, although I've had some difficulty in trying to do this, but there is a guide to doing it in the following link:
http://universesandbox.com/forum/index.php/topic,302.0.htmlA few cool ones that I would personally like to see would be:-A planet made entirely of liquid, on which the texture is slightly exaggerated in size as to see the waves.
-A few cool solar skins, maybe where you can see some contrasting elemental seas.
-A planet covered in molten rock/metal, for making planets closer to the sun.
-An industrialized planet, covered in lights and smoggy cities.
I will get to work on making a new solar skin right away, and I hope to see some cool contributions.
PLEASE MAKE SURE TO UPLOAD THE ORIGINAL PICTURE OF THE TEXTURE, SO THAT IF DAN DECIDES TO INCLUDE THEM IN AN UPDATE, HE CAN.Happy photoshopping!
*It would be great if Dan could please confirm that this is the correct format/shape for the textures*