Disclaimer: All who contribute will be properly notified in my game credits under specific topics.

This is a question on my continuing project. Some previous threads are Simulating Water and Generating a Wind Model.

The project is coming along nicely. The following screenshot is from the current version. It features a planet consisting of only red rock and water that was added at different locations by the user (== me) during gameplay. Assume you are looking at this planet from far away. The sun (or the star this planet is revolving around) is on the left side while the moon is on the right side (setting up day and night).

And now for the question, is the water on the night side suppose to be so dark you can't really see it or should it be an even brighter blue than the hilly/mountainous terrain? Right now, I have it as the darker version (with faint sparkles).

http://comp.uark.edu/~spsilve/terrain7.JPG

Comments appreciated.

In my oppinion, when it's dark it is dark. Unless there are some lights sources like big cities, fires of phosphorous animals you shouldn't see anything because there is no light there.

Of course if you don't want to achieve too good realism but just make it usable for players it is a whole different story. I personally would like it to be almost black but still lit enough to see the important stuff. What you have right now is a bit too dark I think.

You could take a look at xcom or ufo:aftermath/shock series to see how they have done it.

The moon provides a dim bluish light on the right side. You can barely see it.

You're actually seeing the high mountains. On the left, the higher the ground is, the brighter the red. When the moon is full and in the midst of the darkness, it makes the higher ground bluish with a faint hint of red (kind of purply).

There will be an option to turn off light sources and be able to view the entire playfield. SimCity 4 goes from Night to Day and back, but you can opt to keep it at daytime always. There will be a bar at the bottom to indicate what time it is and where on the planet, as well as where the moon is and what phase it is on.

Here's a link to a pic that might paint the picture better. It looks light the water is slightly lighter than the ground, but I think I might still keep it the way I have it currently.

[EDIT - UPDATE]
Here's now what it looks like. Modifications: increased lighting, water is brighter, optimization of code.

http://comp.uark.edu/~spsilve/terrain8.JPG

Better? I've increased the contrast by 15%, which turned out to be just a one line addition.

Thanks for the input, I really appreciate it. I'm trying to keep regular updates on my blog (see sig) if you want to know more about where the game is going. I don't imagine your that interested, though.

I'm not sure what you are asking, but yes, the sun light source is the single spot of light centered in the circle you drew. It is suppose to get darker (slowly) until the moon light source takes over on the right side. The moon light is not nearly as strong and centered (if it were offset, there'd be an even darker area where the moonlight and sunlight didn't reach)in the darkest spot of where the sun doesn't reach.

Yeah, I went back and forth on whether I wanted a spherical or flat planet. I decided flat would still convey my, I guess, vision of what I'm intending. If this project turns out well, my future plans for a sequel would involve a spherical planet and using OpenLayer.

Credits will be given soon unless someone else interjects.

The sparkles are actually generated from highly unstable water and/or from lack of adjacent nodes to move to. This creates sparkles at the shoreline and where the water is deep and (supposedly) wavy. Still pictures look like some kind of nebula in space, but when it's in motion I think it is better, IMHO. When I have this functioning a little better, I will probably have an executable for testing instead of just screenshots.

I agree and was thinking the same thing. It's still blue, but it is so dark it appears to be black. I'll just raise the cap rate for how dark the water can be.

The attached file a few posts up or the last one within the post?

Couldn't ask for more.

Just a small update plus giving credits.

http://comp.uark.edu/~spsilve/terrain8b.JPG

Now I have my revolving Sun & Moon. Plus, the Moon goes through phases. Here the moon is on it's Waxing Gibbous phase and is slightly off centered from the darkness, thus, the dark area is not as blue as it could be.

The little line indicator will be able to be turned off.

The original concept was to only work with red, green and blue. Red for rock, green for grass, blue for water. However, since then, it's evolved a little more. The concept is still starting from a new planet of red rock (hopefully something like Mars) and adding water (which the player does) which eventually leads to clouds, flora and lifeforms. That's where I'm going with it at least.

I was wondering when somebody was going to call me on that. Fortunately, out of the 10 people or so I showed it to, none of them actually commented when I said "imagine you are on Mars." If the number were higher, yeah, I'd probably change it. Again, the original idea was kind of just manipulating rgb values without getting complex.

There's no shading going on here. The intensity of the red is simply based on the height of that node. Now, I do take the returned value and add or subtract about 5 from it to give it more of a texture. Those screenshots are low quality JPEGs, so they blend all that into a single mesh. I should have said something about that...

BTW, what color(s) is the rock like on Mars? I knew it wasn't just red, but I wasn't sure on the exact color. However, I guess the more important question should be, what color of rock would it be for a brand new planet (from the cooling of a star)?

It should be more brown, something like Red: 175, Green: 65, Blue: 10 (from 0 - 255)

I think the red version looks better (although doesn't look at all like Mars), but anyways even if the color is like Mars (I think that in this image it's a bit too saturated, maybe decreasing both red and green a bit (more red than green) would be better) I don't think it's ever going to look like Mars if there's water Anyways if you want to make the color like Mars just compare it with a foto of Mars and keep tweaking until you think it's right

The grittyness is nice but there isn't any on the lighter spots, and I think the light spots are too light, and they are the same color in a big area, it should be more gradual.

Are you trying to imitate existing planets or create imagined ones?

Are you using OpenGL, by the way? What about using proper lighting and shadowing? That would look great.