About this mod
A Masser and Secunda Texture Mod
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
I would like to share with you my version of the moons of Nirns. Whereby moons is something wrong, because in my interpretation Nirn itself is a moon of the Masser planetary system. I find the latest ideas in astronomy fascinating, that there might be more habitable exo moons than exo planets. Ideas like they are reflected in Sciense Fiction, for example in the movie 'Avatar'. Apart from the fact that a sky where a gas giant like Jupiter or Saturn rises must look spectacular. So I started to make something like this as a texture and I want to share it with you now.
The whole thing started quite harmless... like 'Just make a texture and it's good...'. But I soon realized that just finding the 'right' texture for the project was a real effort. And not enough with that... if I let a huge object wander across the night sky, I can't just make it 'black' in its shadow phases, because then at new moon I'll only have a huge black spot in the night sky.
So I had the idea to give the two celestial bodies a night side as well, which meant experimenting with layers and video filters.
And if the madness already jumps on my back, why not go one step further and add a rotation?
Well... my result I would like to present you with this texture mod.
The two celestial bodies have a texture size of 4096 x 4096, 8 lunar/planetary phases (including new moon), one day and one night side and a rotation shifted by 45° with each phase.
I hope you like the result as much as I do.
For explanation:
Masser
Masser is now a gas giant. On its day side you can see typical cloud bands of different chemical compounds like hydrogen and ammonia, like Jupiter. Huge storms whip through the atmosphere and create magnificent cloud formations. Its night side shows a different face. While chemical processes excite large parts of its atmosphere to a red-violet fluorescent glow, other areas are illuminated by millions of enormous thunderstorms in deeper atmospheric layers.
Secunda
Secunda is still a lifeless rock moon that orbits around Masser near Nirn, just like Nirn itself. But with one special feature... it has a weak magnetic field. Actually too small to have one, but Masser's gravitational tidal forces keep the core of Secundas liquid. This weak magnetic field reacts with particles from the upper Masser atmosphere, which are carried away by the solar wind and hit Secunda. The effect is that on its shaded side you can see cobweb-like nebulae.
For size comparison I recommend 'Megalophobia - huge moons' 3.5x Masser, 1.0x Secunda
I am aware that the representations, orbital times, etc. are not really scientifically and astronomically correct, but I am not playing 'Elite Dangerous' or any solar system simulator, but a fantasy game whose engine and mechanics are neither designed to reflect celestial body movements in a scientifically correct way nor to cover complete changes of its solar/planetary system. It is only about the representation of an interesting and/or spectacular night sky.
Known issues
This is due to the engine/mechanics itself. When both celestial bodies overlap Secunda seems to be transparent and is illuminated by Masser behind it. This effect would probably not occur if the planetary shadows were simply black, as seen on succubin/ Megalophobia screenshots. Therefore it can hardly be changed. But with a size distribution of 3.5x Masser, 1.0x Secunda there is rarely overlapping, so this error is also negligible.
To avoid CTD's at Mid Game installation I recommend the following:
Go into a building and save. Install 'Sky Above'. Load the previously saved game and wait 24 InGame hours. You can also do this with the 'Wait' function. Then save again. Now load this save and avoid 'Fast Travel' for another 24 InGame hours. You should not skip these 24 hours by using the 'Wait' function. The texture package is quite big and in my tests a direct Fast Travel after installation always resulted in a CTD.
Tools:
Gimp, Paint.net, lots of coffee
Sources:
Pixabay
The planetary Society
The used Jupiter Planet Map
https://www.planetary.org/space-images/merged-cassini-and-juno
https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/5-jupiter/2018/jupiter_map_css_plus_juno_bj.png
is subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Thanks a lot to:
The planetary Society/ Bruce Murray Space Image Library, Pexels, Jorge Guillen, Maxwell Fury, NASA, JPL-Caltech, SSI, Southwest Research Institute, Malin Space Science Systems, Italian Space Agency (ASI), Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), JIRAM, Björn Jónsson
Updates:
1.0.2
While I was playing around with paint.net, I tried one of the plugin modules with which you can easily generate a starlit sky. I like a first result very much, so I will publish it as an optional test.
1x Chaotic alignment without Gauss Blur
1x Straight alignment with Gauss Blur