RELEASE: Texture Pack I - Stars and Planets

from Stardock Forums
Texture Pack I - Stars and Planets

This is some of the stuff I created to enhance my personal gaming experience. For simplification purposes, I'm excluding all custom planet types and other .entity changes and making this a plain texture pack. If I get some time, I'll try to sort out and polish the rest of the modded content and release it as a separate package sometime later this month.

Screenshots:
Screen01 Screen02 Screen03 Screen04

Primary download location:
http://files.filefront.com/Sins+Texture+Pack+I/;9639406;/fileinfo.html
Secondary download location:
http://rapidshare.com/files/92205748/Sins_Texture_Pack_I_-_Stars_and_Planets.zip.html
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Description
Slight visual upgrades of all planet and star textures: brightened stars, reworked and darkened volcanic types, retexturized gas giants, etc. With the exception of starfield.dds and starcorona2.dds, there are no resolution changes. Any possible performance impact should be completely negligible.

Disclaimer
Since I had no intention of redistributing this outside my LAN, I didn't bother to spend more than a couple of minutes on each texture. Don't expect anything groundbreaking. Please don't forget to back up the original textures (see the installation instructions below) and/or preview the new ones before you install the pack - you may end up reverting some of the changes, particularly the new gas giant textures that look entirely different from the originals. If that didn't scare you off, I do suggest you download and try out the package. The brightened stars alone should make it worthwhile.

Installation Instructions
Method 1: As of v1.02, extract the contents of the archive into your Sins of a Solar Empire folder (default C:\Program Files\Stardock Games\Sins of a Solar empire\) and run "MT Install.bat" that will automatically backup the original files to "MT Textures (backup)" and replace them with the new ones. If you as paranoid as I am, check the contents of the .bat file using a text editor. It's perfectly harmless.
Method 2: Allegedly, v1.03 will allow us to use custom textures without copying the whole 1Gb+ Textures directory into the mod folder. In this case, you may want to perform a "softer" installation of the pack by registering it as a game mod.
To do that (and to install any other mods), first you have to find the
modding
82,594 views 79 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
ok, i want to download this but had a couple questions. on your screenshot on the far left, it looks like there is a fuzzy "bar" that runs down the screen over the star. I'm guessing this isnt noticeable when playing the game?

do the star textures still boil and move?

looks great otherwise!
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Hey, this is pretty good. Nice job there Max!

I was wondering if it'd be alright if I added the download link, as well as the release information to my Sins of a Solar Empire Wiki. It's kind of my goal to give modders a more permanent home for their work.
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
nice job man,

i myself am working on a texture pack for the backgrounds, you can check it out in the modding forum thread here"Sins Enhanced - Sky Box Edition", which i was planning to do another another edition for the planets along the same lines as you but also try to provide more variety in the planets types. To save some work, do you mind if i use your textures as base for what will be "Sins Enhanced - Planet Edition"? Of course credit will be given where credit is due. :)

Edit: i just read where you gave permission but it's still the right thing to do is to ask first.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
well, there goes that.


i'm getting winRaR diagnostic error messages. it wont even extract. oh well. stock textures it is. mods are such a pain in the *ss.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
i'm 50 percent downloaded. i'll advise what happens with mine. speed is slow though.

these look fine. :-)
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Does this kinda stuff work in ICO?
End of quote


nope. pretty sure it doesnt.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

On your screenshot on the far left, it looks like there is a fuzzy "bar" that runs down the screen over the star. I'm guessing this isnt noticeable when playing the game?
End of quote

It looks like it's either an already existing skybox problem (I definitely saw some of them having visible seams) or an unintentional result of my Photoshop editing (i.e. transforms and resizing - the screenshots themselves are completely unedited)


do the star textures still boil and move?
End of quote

Yes.


I was wondering if it'd be alright if I added the download link, as well as the release information to my Sins of a Solar Empire Wiki. It's kind of my goal to give modders a more permanent home for their work.
End of quote


...i was planning to do another another edition for the planets along the same lines as you but also try to provide more variety in the planets types. To save some work, do you mind if i use your textures as base for what will be "Sins Enhanced - Planet Edition"?
End of quote

As I said earlier, I have no objections to any use of the pack that doesn't violate the original terms of Sins of a Solar Empire licensing. That's nice of you to ask but you really don't need to.


i'm getting winRaR diagnostic error messages. it wont even extract. oh well. stock textures it is. mods are such a pain in the *ss.
End of quote

Corrupted archive. I'm downloading from rapidshare to check whether it's only your download or my entire upload. I also mirrored the file at filefront. Try to redownload from there. If you have any secondary downloads running (especially torrents), I strongly suggest you to stop them for the time.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Does this kinda stuff work in ICO?
End of quote


It should..just others who don't have it wont see the newer textures. But you should still be able to see yours.
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
i'm getting winRaR diagnostic error messages. it wont even extract. oh well. stock textures it is. mods are such a pain in the *ss.
End of quote

Corrupted archive. I'm downloading from rapidshare to check whether it's only your download or my entire upload. I also mirrored the file at filefront. Try to re-download from there. If you have any secondary downloads running (especially torrents), I strongly suggest you to stop them for the time.

EDIT: The rapidshare link tested fine. It's definitely a problem on your end. Just suspend secondary connections, re-download the file, and I guarantee it'll be fine this time.

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
The following file won't back up due to the double extension:
copy "Textures\Icons_planets.tga.tga" "\MT Textures (backup)\"

They look great though, good job.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
ohh pretty sweet...well done
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
The following file won't back up due to the double extension:
copy "Textures\Icons_planets.tga.tga" "\MT Textures (backup)\"
End of quote

You can open "MT Install.bat" with Notepad and replace
copy "Textures\Icons_planets.tga.tga" "\MT Textures (backup)\"
with
copy "Textures\Icons_planets.tga" "\MT Textures (backup)\"
Or you can manually backup Icons_planets.tga (it's in the Textures folder).

EDIT: The archive has been updated. Thanks for the heads up, Yan338
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
Your work looks really good. Is it possible to make a binary star graphic? since most star systems are binary, this would be a great addition!
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
Just installed them and loaded a game i've been playing. Beautiful!

My favorite is the gas giant. The star is 2nd fav.

Well done and thanks. :-)
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
i'm getting winRaR diagnostic error messages. it wont even extract. oh well. stock textures it is. mods are such a pain in the *ss.

Corrupted archive. I'm downloading from rapidshare to check whether it's only your download or my entire upload. I also mirrored the file at filefront. Try to re-download from there. If you have any secondary downloads running (especially torrents), I strongly suggest you to stop them for the time.

EDIT: The rapidshare link tested fine. It's definitely a problem on your end. Just suspend secondary connections, re-download the file, and I guarantee it'll be fine this time.

End of quote


what do you mean by secondary connections? other torrents n stuff? i dont have anything running right now.

Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
k, now with windows vista, had to copy appdata to desktop because cant find it via the path. i've got the bat file and the textures file in the SOASE folder, but i have to access the bat file to "run it" before it shows up in the game mods menu.
Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top
MEGADETH9mm, go to your Sins folder (default path C:\Program Files\Stardock Games\Sins of a Solar empire\) and see if you have folders named MT Textures and MT Textures (backup). If you do, just delete the first one and rename the other one to something else. Do not delete the (backup) folder as it may be your only backup. Re-download the file. I'm almost sure it was a glitch on your end and the archive will be intact this time around. Open the downloaded archive and drag the contents (specifically, "MT Textures", "MT readme.txt", and "MT Install.bat") into that Sins folder. Run "MT Install.bat".

If, by any chance, there are any problems, you may manually backup all the planet and star files from "Textures" and replace them with the files from "MT Textures". The .bat file makes that job for you - it's unneeded for the manual installation.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
Just from the screenshots, It looks alot better then the vanilla textures, I hope to see more textures from you in the future cuz I really like them. Maybe higher poly textures for high and a lite high poly texture pack for both high and low end machines. Either way your stuff looks great.
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
lol, i replaced every relevant file with yours by hand, one by one. now i will start up game and see what happens.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
well, it worked, and all i gotta say is thanks a LOT man, this changes the game BIGTIME.

nice work! and thanks for all the help guys.

now if we can get thicker whiter clouds!