SPACE FX WEB PAGE
Home of SPACE FX
PLANETARY ANIMATION SOFTWARE!

IT'S HERE!! SPACE FX 3.0!
DOS protected mode and Win9x versions.
CLICK HERE to see a 640x480 screen shot of the new version which will run in truecolour modes up to 1024x768.
Requires 486++, SVGA card and at least 8M RAM.
There are more than 30 planets to play with, and RINGS!

NOTE: THIS IS A BETA COPY: There will be some unfinished business!
Spacefx is now FREEWARE for Alpha/Beta version testing!

LINUX VERSION NOW AVAILABLE! You need three files...

Some more details: SPACE FX

SPACE FX is an animation program used to generate a series of 320x200 or 320x240 true-colour 24-bit TGA files suitable for conversion to FLIC, AVI, MPEG animations or GIF images.
Version 3.0 now extends this to 1024x768 and uses SVGA screen sizes!

SPACE FX allows every man and his dog to make up realistic "outer space" type animations using real images of planets, moons and spacecraft. This can be used for a neat intro to your own program or for educational purposes.

In order to make up an animation (a movie), you need a way of generating the individual "frames". A 10 second movie displayed at 24 frames per second requires 240 separate images. That's a lot of work!
If only someone could come up with a program to generate those images automatically...

SPACE FX version 1.0: has the following helpful features:-

• Easy Menu selections and full on-line context sensitive help screens.
• Documentation in HTML format as well as text format.
• Starry backgrounds compiled from a real star catalog (not just random dots).
• Backdrop can be a cool colour fade or your favourite BMP image.
• Your choice of planets and moons. You can pick the size and placement.
• Planets can rotate between frames and be viewed from almost any angle.
• Add a comet or halo around the sun...
• Add images of spacecraft (or whatever) in TGA, BMP or PCX format.
• Specify "movement" for any planet, comet or imported image and the program will take care of sizing, positioning and scaling of all objects as the animation frames are created!

Just press the DO-ALL button to generate up to 1000 true-colour images!.

STEREO IMAGES can also be generated with this unusual package.
(View this image with a "cross-eye" technique)

How do I get it?

The old version (spacefx2.zip) is still available from here. I recommend getting the latest version 3.0
(See above table for the files to download). Version 1.0 is available from SIMTEL as a shareware version (1.4M) (yes!) which includes the planets out to Jupiter and its major moons as well as a couple of sample spacecraft images I found. If you find that this link is busy, try firing up WS_FTP, point it at ftp.cdrom.com and go to the pub/simtelnet/msdos/graphics directory.

SPACE FX Version 3.0 uses protected mode (DOS) or Windows 9x. It requires at least a 486DX to support the large file sizes, preferably a pentium class machine to cut down on the coffee breaks. If all you have is a 386SX16 and no copro, well, a run around the block will do you good! Take in the stars, breathe the fresh air!

If you get no joy from the links above, please leave an email message and I'll try to send you a copy as an attachment. As long as your email host puts up with 1.8meg attachments, that is!

Version 3.0 contains additional planets and moons (out to Pluto) and a few extra features that I could not squeeze into the the older versions (such as Saturn's rings and increased resolution).

To see the capability of SPACE FX why not download a sample animation? (182k) created with version 1.
It shows a comet and a near-Earth asteroid narrowly missing a spinning satelite (Commsat1) in high Earth orbit as two spacecraft whiz by! (Hey! It's dangerous up there..) Note that this is a "zipped" archive and will need to be UNZIPPED to extract the animation (spfxdemo.fli).

On my 486, the 60 frames in the demo animation took only 6 minutes to generate! DTA compiled the FLI animation in just one minute. Imagine what a faster computer could do...

What else do I need?

Animated GIFs

To convert the animation frames to an animated GIF, I use Paintshop Pro to reduce to 256 colours and then Animagic to put the animated Gif together. The spinning Jupiter in the top RHS of this page is an example.

FLI Animations:

To convert the animation frames to a proper animation FLIC you really need DTA (Dave's Targa Animator). It works like a treat and is cheap as well. You also need FLI player such as AAPLAY. In Windows 3.1, the Multimedia Player should also display FLI files.

Single Images:

Many graphics/paint programs will convert individual TGA files to 256 colour images.
I have used Paint Shop Pro, but there are many similar programs around.

Spacecraft:

You might also look for some Ray-tracing software to generate some nifty spacecraft of your own. I've tried both POVRay and VIVID and liked them both.
A good 3D modeller to try is MORAY. You can make models of everything from spacecraft to teacups and pass the files to POVRay to render.
Net-surfers stuck on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (Australia, New Zealand etc.) can use ARCHIE.AU to obtain VIVID and DTA programs.

Hardware:

SPACE FX requires a 486 or better IBM-compatible at least 4-8 Meg RAM, 5Mb hard disk space and an SVGA card with a minimum of 640x480 256 colour display. Since a 320x200 true-colour file takes up 192k disk space, you will need plenty of hard-disk real estate for your space epic!

Contact yours truly:

For further information about my work or the items mentioned above, please email me!

SPACE FX Version 1 has been accepted on the SimtelNet archive for download. Check local mirrors under the directory: msdos/graphics/spacefx1.zip

The next update (Version 3.0) is now here!

Who am I?
I am a Professional Electrical Engineer and sometime programmer with an interest in animation graphics, raytracing and astronomy. I do most of my programming in C and a little asm when necessary. I have also used Visual Basic and am currently trying out C++.

These days I make myself busy looking after my wife and three children who all have chronic asthma and other assorted medical conditions. Check out the alt.support.asthma newsgroup for discussion about this disease. The children do home schooling with the Brisbane School of Distance Education.

I am always on the lookout for some part-time work, having worked in the engineering field for nearly 30 years. So if you have a Power station on the blink, an Electric Locomotive that just wont go, or need someone to do a little CAD work on a home computer, give me a call!

I'm a member of the Institution of Engineers, Australia. My last employment covered many diverse areas of engineering such as Automated Test Equipment for PCB analysis and Quality Management to AS/ISO/9001,9002.
I live on the beautiful Mt. Tamborine in the Gold Coast hinterland in sunny Queensland, Australia.

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