# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Software Discussion >  NBOS AstroSynthesis?

## MGCJerry

Has anyone had a chance to try out this program yet?
AstroSynthesis Product page:
AstroSynthesis

What is AstroSynthesis?



> With AstroSynthesis, you can can map out large portions of space - plotting stars, interstellar routes, and subsectors. And best of all, you do it completely in 3D space! Zoom in and out on your sector, pan and rotate around stars, follow routes, and watch fantastic animation effects - all in 3D.


I saw it in an ad earlier but I cant remember which site because I got into playing with the trial version.  :Wink:  The trial sucks because you cant save anything and I made pretty good progress with one system in my game and couldnt save.

I figured I'd post this here since I didnt see any mention of this application in a forum search and figure maybe this will help some other cartographers who want to map out their bit of the universe. A few of you know I was working on getting my large universe map into CC2 but I think I'm going to go with this application instead.  :Smile: 

Craaaaap.. I sound like an ad.  :Frown:  Oh well I can see this application being VERY useful to me and possibly others.

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## ravells

A number of the people on the Traveller boards use it and speak very highly of it. Interesting, those pictures of the planet look the perfect dimension to use as UV maps on a sphere for 3d modelling.

Can you define the symbols in the symbol legend?

Ravs

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## RobA

Welll....

I did notice it in the banner add at the top of the page the other day, but didn't click, then  promptly forgot the name  :Smile: 

It looks like the maps are in 360:180 ratio, and designed to be mapped to spheres for rendering.  Should allow a nice fly-through a solar system to be built.

-Rob A>

(Gee thanks Ravs.  A guy takes a couple minutes to type and you beat him to the punch!)

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## MGCJerry

Not only do the images look like they'll work, they do work on spheres.  :Smile:  Since I've been looking to create textures for use in 3d work this program will double as a fractal terrain creator. Plus with the included "Fractal Terrain Explorer" you can resize, edit, erode, etc the image and apply it to the currently edited planet. Yes, I also plan on setting up a 3d flythrough animation of the main system as I'm also working on doing an animated short.  :Wink: 

Now that I have the full version, I'm making VERY good progress on mapping the main system with this application. However, I have noticed that knowing a little bit about atmospheres and some related data determines the outcome of how the planet looks such as desert, green, gray, etc.

AFAIK, you cannot define the legend within the application. However, you can edit the images to your specifications from the resulting output.

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## Robbie

I just wanted to be a funny guy and simplify RobA's ratio to 2:1  :Very Happy: 

The spherical textures do look pretty good, assuming the program actually can output them larger than that?

NBOS software is the only company currently that is advertising directly on this site, and they've told me they get the best click-through here  :Very Happy:   I'm proud of that.

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## MGCJerry

The program itself only saves them at 512x256, however, you can load them into Fractal World Explorer (FWE) and resize them x2 each time. You can also regenerate or generate new terrain in FWE up to 2880x1440.

Nbos has a lot of apps that target the userbase here so, the NBOS ads are VERY targeted here.  :Smile:

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## ravells

With the pound as strong as it is, $31 is not a lot of money, so I think I'll be getting it. It's just.....argh..another piece of software to learn!!! When will it end???

There are some quite good image upscalers around now, but I've forgotten the names/links, I'm sure a google search will work.

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## RobA

> Not only do the images look like they'll work, they do work on spheres.


Here's a teaser (courtesy of GIMP animation script-fu magic)

-Rob (Images are Not to Scale) A>

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## RPMiller

I like separating the cloud layer from the surface and having the clouds spin one way and the surface the other. Makes for a nifty effect.

I wish there was a project I needed AS for so that I could justify buying and playing with it.

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## NeonKnight

If it was the program I saw at Gencon this year, it looked really cool, but I only play Fantasy games, so could not justify beyound the 'COOOOOOOL' factor.

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## Torq

I have it. When I saw the demo I got so excited I bought it straight away. Then I realised that I only play fantasy-based rpgs, so it has been of little use to me. Its a great piece of software though. You can also fly through the universe and export the fly-by animation as a movie file. For galaxy builders its just perfect.

Torq

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## MGCJerry

I was thinking more along the lines of:

*Quizorthia - Work In Progress*


Ya' my cloud map sucks.  :Frown: 

In my case, this app will allow me to shoot 3 birds (projects) with one stone as well as help with other projects.

1. Map the galaxy.
2. Work out misc details. (gravity, year length, etc)
3. Generate surface maps for all my planets.

Bonuses:
4. Export as csv to be imported into a future planet browser.
5. Distance calculatons.
6. HTML page generation.

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## RobA

Hey - that looks nice!

You might want to add an atmosphere halo though.  The planet edge against the bg is a bit to crisp.

-Rob A>

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## MGCJerry

Thanks rob...

Thanks for pointing that out... I had a minor scale issue with the atmosphere layer and it was just 0.02% larger than the cloud layer and wasnt visable from this distance. I have corrected the atmosphere issue and re-rendered the image and replaced the old one.

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## RobA

Here is another quick one (since you are new)... back here (see the last post in the thread) shows how I loaded up such a map into Google Earth.  With decent resolution (or tiles at higher resolution in areas) you can use the GE interface to navigate around your world!

(of course you have to uncheck all the other google stuff, or you will end up with odd things that don't line up with any terrain at all...)

-Rob A>

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## Beowulf

Looks very cool!  One sucky thing- I just bought FM v8.0 from RPG now.  About 1/2 hour after I bought it for $35 I noticed that AstroSynthesis was available with it as a bundle for $52. :Surprised:   Essentially I coulda got it for another $17 but I didn't notice it in time! :Mad: 

Probably will get it eventually, though.  I don't do a lot of SciFi gaming but some.

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## Xenmas

I got the bundle package when I got my copy of FM8.  I've only messed around with Astro for a little bit, but I've liked what I've seen.  Eventually I will put together my galaxy in there, it is just a little overwhelming to have that much power at your fingertips.  MUWAHAHAHAHAHA.

On a side note, any good links for learning a bit about the variables in the program.  I am, by far, not a astronomer.  I would like to make my worlds as accurate (well, as accurate as fantasy worlds can be) as possible.

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## MGCJerry

Xenmas, as far as a few links of what the terms are, you can simply punch them into wikipedia and get some info on them.

Heres the ones I know offhand and their simpler definitons:

*Albedo*
Reflectivity. a value of 1 means the planet reflects ALL light back out into space, thus, any water on the planet would be frozen since the surface reflects all light.

*Retrograde Orbit*
An orbit of an object that travels in the opposite direction of the other bodies.

*Eccentricity*
Stablity of the objects orbit. An object that has no eccentricity, revovles around the body in a perfect circle. An object whose eccentricity is a VERY flattened oval, and has an orbit more like a comet, whose orbit varies from really, really close to the sun, to waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out there.

*Inclination*
The tilt or slope in degrees of the orbital path relative to a specific plane. An orbit whose inclination is 90 degrees, orbits perpendicular to the reference plane.

*Rotation*
The length of the solar/lunar day. The time it takes the body to complete one spin. Earth's rotation is almost 24 hours.

*Axial Tilt*
The degrees of tilt the body has. Earth's tilt is 23 degrees I believe. A planet with no axial tilt will lack seasons since the same locations always see the same amount of sunlight year round. Between rotation, eccentricity & rotation, determines the varied nature of the seasons and how much they differ from each other.

This wikipedia link illustrates a few of the orbital properties pretty good, but gets really nerdy in explaining it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periapsis

If you're interested in the equations used to figure out specific things with known variables, this link will be of interest. Quite the complex stuff though... Now you see why I had no hesitation to get Astrosynthesis.  :Wink: 
http://atmos.nmsu.edu/jsdap/encyclopediawork.html

I'm also still holding out for the Celestia exporter.  :Smile: 


What are you waiting for Beowulf, go get it? :p

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## Antony

Just in case people didn't realise, it is possible to get the terrains generated by Fractal World Explorer which is included with AS into Campaign Cartographer via Fractal Terrains.

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## RPMiller

Thanks for the tip Antony, and welcome to the forums! How are things in your part of the world?

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## Antony

Here in the great metropolis that is Bakers Hill (population about 280) things are starting to warm up. The paddocks are already turning brown, thus turning my attention to mapping a desert city.

By no means an expert with mapping programs I have been doing a lot of cross planetary mapping between FWE since I run a SciFi game which uses NBOS for much of its data,and CC2 using the Cosmographer export in FT, for some reason this export does not work with the current vertion of FT and CC3 but only with version 2.2 of FT and CC2.

But back on the subject of Astrosynthesis it is quite versatile and you can define your own custom fields as well. It cannot do everything of course but I find it very useful, even essential.

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## RPMiller

280?! Well at least you have Internet access which is something.  :Wink:

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## MGCJerry

Thread necromancy, but here was the "finished" shot of this planet.

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## PlanetDesigner

I made the TERRAFORMER package for FT PRO to produce maps that were multifunctional. Maps that could not only serve as flat maps - but also textures for 3d model worlds that would be rendered in a 3d app. Astrosynthesis can use FT PRO to generate maps. Terraformer shaders within FT PRO - or saved FT PRO worlds functioning as ASTROSYNTHESIS worlds would render in ASTROSYNTHESIS to appear very VERY realistic.
The Terrafmer shaders can also be used to create planet blazons for system markers that are outstanding!



I created several globe models within BRYCE 5.5 also using the Terraformer shaders within FT PRO to create the model textures.



I am currently working on Terraformer 0.50 - and it should be available for download on your Profantasy Software Product Registration / update Page whaen it is completed.

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## MGCJerry

AWSOME PlanetDesigner... I'm VERY looking forward to this. Repped.  :Smile: 

However, I don't use Bryce. I only have Poser6, Vue4 & Carrara5/6 for rendering.

For this to show up in the available downloads, will it show up for those who have purchased/registered FT? I have CC2, CA, FT & Cosmo.

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## PlanetDesigner

Yes MGCJerry,

In answering your question "For this to show up in the available downloads, will it show up for those who have purchased/registered FT? I have CC2, CA, FT & Cosmo. "

The current version of Terraformer For FT PRO (Release 0.001) is available right now on your Profantasy Software Registration Page, you'll need to update to FT PRO 2.3 (free update) to use Terraformer, which is also in the same section of the downloads on the Profantasy Product Registration Page as the Terraformer Package (right hand column).

The exported maps produced by FT PRO (Spherical Maps) can fit around any model sphere created in Poser, Bryce, Carrera, Hexagon, Anim8tor, Blender, Wings, K3d, etc.. They're just standard cylindrical textures exported in spherical map form. 

On the registration page there is also a link to the .pdf Terraformer Users Manual that can explain a lot more than I can in this posting.

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