Hi all,

Is there a way to replace the sun/moon in vue or add a real Jpeg of the moon so that its atatched to the sun/moon light? i've been looking in the setting but can't find anything.

prob an easy question... newbie!

thanks
jon

I don't know any way to "attach" anything to the default sun or planets.

But it's easy to make a Moon billboard (a transparent, camera-facing plane) with a .jpg image on it and have it glow. And/or use a light with it. Any Vue light source becomes invisible if you turn off its lens flare effect, so you can place it right in front of your billboard. 

You can turn off the sun by deleting it and control indirect sunlight by loading a night-time atmosphere or by using black for the sunlight and skylight colors.

You can also get high res moon textures, free, apply them to a sphere, and move the sphere MILES away up above the clouds, and I do mean MILES, so you get the right look, and scale it up miles in size too :)

If you use either a alpha plane or a sphere, there are some things you should do as well: you should turn off cast shadows, receive shadows and indirect lighting in the moon object. The first two it's fairly obvious, I think, but the indirect lighting tip is often neglected by many people. In outer space, there's no indirect lighting from the atmosphere, so shadows are always deep black. If you don't turn indirect lighting off, you'll have the shadow of your moon gray and not completely black.

Quote - "Is there a way to replace the sun/moon in vue or add a real Jpeg of the moon so that its atatched to the sun/moon light?"

Yes and no. To the moon or any other planet, yes, it's possible. To the sun, it's not possible.
To do it on the moon, just create a planet and then, on the material properties, just left of the 3 sliders phase/brightness/softness, click on a button with a yellow arrow. Choose custom and browse to a jpg of your choice. It will be wrapped around the planet. If you want a planet with rings, you have to create a Saturn planet before and then choose the custom jpg.

Here are some tuts I did which may help you out in one form or the other.
http://www.geekatplay.com/flvplayer/player.php?pathinfo=garyplanet1
http://www.geekatplay.com/flvplayer/player.php?pathinfo=garyplanet2

Attached Link: http://www.oera.net/How2/TextureMaps2.htm

Wow,

Many thanks for all your help. Really nice of you all.

Thanks

jon

I am really glad you took just a moment to express your gratitude for everyone's thoughtful concerns in assisting you.  That is what WE are here for.

Gary,

It's really amazing that i'm finding this forum really friendly. i mean you're all really nice! I'm really new with vue, i've asked very few questions on the forum, because being honest i worry about being told to look in the manual!,  and i know that some of the questions i've asked on other forums i've had abuse for asking simple questions. So again, thanks.

jon

Nobody is born knowing this stuff (although some people seem to acquire the knowhow by osmosis or something!)
Keep on asking and we'll keep on answering :biggrin:

Yep it's a pretty friendly and helpful forum, that's for sure :) Thanks everyone for helping to make it so. I hope I add my $0.02 to that.

I hang out a fair bit on the Ableton forum (music software) and it is one of the worst for bad manners, rudeness, know-it-alls and some really wounded people justing firing off at everyone.

There are polite ways to inform someone that their question is answered in the manual, or is too general for a specific answer or whatever.

Thanks
Richard