LunarCell
LunarCell is a plug-in filter for paint programs. It draws moons and planets.
To use this software, you need a paint program which accepts standard Photoshop 3.0 plugins.
Just put the plug-in filter into the folder where your paint program expects to find it. If you have Photoshop, the folder is Photoshop:Plugins:Filters or Photoshop:Plug-ins. You must restart Photoshop before it will notice the new plug-in. It will appear in the menus as Filters->Flaming Pear->LunarCell.
Most other paint programs follow a similar scheme.
If you have Paint Shop Pro: you have to create a new folder, put the plug-in filter into it, and then tell PSP to look there. In PSP's menus, choose File-> Preferences->General Program Preferences... and click the Plug-in Filters tab. Use a "Browse" button to choose the folder. The plugin will appear in the menus as Image->Plug-in Filters->Flaming Pear->LunarCell.
When you invoke LunarCell, a dialog box will appear:
| Quick start | |||
| If you just want to make a planet quickly, click the dice button
until you see a planet you like; then click OK.
To design your own planets, you'll need to familiarize yourself with the controls for each of the elements in a planet:
...and a few other controls that affect the whole image. |
| 1. Planet | |||
| These controls set the shape of the planet.
Size lets you choose planets from point-sized up to 2000 pixels diameter. Complexity specifies whether the landmasses have simple or complicated shapes. Land texture sets the height of the mountains and the depth of the oceans, if you have oceans. A setting of zero will give a smooth planet. Crater count Besides the fractal landscape, LunarCell can produce craters. This isn't the number of individual craters -- it's groups of craters. Crater size is the average size of a crater group. When the count is high and the size is large too, LunarCell may overlap crater groups. Crater texture is the roughness of the craters. It works just like Land texture. If Land texture and Crater texture are both zero, you'll get a smooth planet. The Color button sets the main color of the planet. Real Luna, when checked, gives you the shape of the Earth's moon instead of the fractal terrain. When you use this, you may want to reduce the Land texture setting. It's possible to add extra craters to the moon. |
 simple land
complex land
craters
color button |
| 2. Climate | |||
| These controls let you add color to the landscape. Ice sets the size of the planet's ice cap. Ice appears near the poles. You can choose the color of the ice by clicking the color button. Desert produces deserts near the equator. Use the color button to pick a color. Sea level makes oceans. Set it to zero for no oceans, or to 100 for a drowned world. Dark blue water is best but the color button lets you experiment. Lunar Climate, when checked, gives you the coloration of Earth's moon. The Ice, Desert, and Sea colors are disregarded, and the hue comes entirely from the planet color button.
|
 green planet color, pale orange desert, blue water, bluish-white
ice Real Luna and Lunar climate used together |
| 3. Air | |||
| Your planet can have an atmosphere.
Color button sets the color of the air. Pale, muted blue is the most realistic. Depth sets how far the atmosphere extends into space. Brightness changes the brightness of the air. Sunset influences the reddening of the light near the terminator (the line that separates night from day). Its effect is most plain when you put the light directly behind the planet.
|
 a planet with air
|
| 4. Clouds | |||
| LunarCell gives you the choice of synthetic clouds or, if you
have an Internet connection, real clouds from weather satellites.
The controls in this section apply to both kinds of clouds. Color button sets the clouds' color. Off-white is the most realistic. Coverage changes the amount of clouds. (When you use real clouds, you can't go up to 100% coverage -- because the satellite pictures are not 100% covered in clouds.) Edges gives the clouds a soft-edged or hard-edged look. Height sets the altitude of the clouds. Shadows sets the darkness of the clouds' shadows. Texture sets the amount of the clouds' surface texture. It's similar to Land texture and Crater texture. Real Clouds checkbox will make LunarCell use weather satellite photos for the clouds. First you need to download these photos using the Load Clouds button. Load Clouds button lets you download weather satellite images from the internet to use as clouds. This is explained below. |
 real clouds
load clouds |
| 5. Synthetic louds | |||
| There are extra controls to describe synthetic clouds. Coriolis produces the appearance of shearing winds between the equator and the poles. Viscosity sets the "soupiness" of the air. Air with higher viscosity has fewer small cloud details. Storm count sets the number of hurricane-like storms. Storm size is the size of the storms. LunarCell will not overlap storms. If you ask for more and larger storms than will fit on the planet's face, you'll get fewer storms than you asked for. Storm spin sets the twirliness of the storms. |
 synthetic clouds
Coriolis winds |
| 6. Cities | |||
| You can add cities on the night side of the planet. The Cities slider set the density of the cities. Cities are placed mainly in coastal areas, so you may not see any cities at all if your planet has no oceans. Color button sets the color of the cities. Dim, muted yellow works well.
|
 cities near the terminator |
| Frequently Asked Questions
Can it draw gas planets like Jupiter? No.
How do I composite the planet on top of another image? Click the "glue mode" popup menu and choose the "composite" item.
Now when you use LunarCell the planet will be...
Sometimes when I try to increase the number of storms, no new storms appear. LunarCell tries to keep storms from overlapping; sometimes there's not enough room for the number of storms you've asked for. Try using smaller storms.
What does the wavy-line button do? Think of it as the "same-but-different" button. It reshuffles the deck of random numbers used to build the planet. When you click it, your planet design remains materially the same, but the specific placement of landmasses, craters, cities, and storms changes.
What does the axis control do? It specifies where the planet's north pole is. It influences the placement of the ice cap, the deserts, the cities, the storms, and Coriolis winds.
It's awfully slow. Yes.
The sunset control doesn't do anything. Its effect is subtle: it reddens the edge of the sunlit part of the planet. To get a good look at what it does, put the light directly behind the planet and then try different sunset settings.
I turned the cities slider up to 100, but still no cities appear. Cities only appear near coastlines, so try changing the sea level.
I can't download satellite clouds. You need to have a working Internet connection. If your connection is fine but you still can't get the clouds to download, it may be that the server that sends the files is not working. Try again later.
I downloaded some satellite clouds and the image is corrupted. Sometimes the supplied pictures contain errors like bright horizontal lines or blank areas. LunarCell isn't smart enough to fix this.
I loaded a preset that calls for real clouds, but I get the synthetic ones instead. If LunarCell can't find any clouds images on your computer, it will fall back to synthetic clouds. To get real ones again, use the cloud-downloader button.
How often are the clouds updated? Typically once per day.
When I'm using real clouds I can't make the coverage go above 50%. LunarCell can remove clouds from a satellite cloud image, but it can't add new ones, so the control maxes out at 50%. If you use synthetic clouds, you can use the whole range of the coverage slider.
I can't see any clouds. Try increasing the "coverage" and "edges" sliders.
In the cloud-chooser dialog box, I clicked the "update this list" button, but the list didn't change. Why? The cloud list rarely changes. We only renew the list when one of its items stops working.
Where do the satellite clouds come from? At the time of this writing, LunarCell is configured to get its cloud images from The Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and The Laboratory for Atmospheres NASA Goddard Space Flight Center .
I just want to make a plain picture of Earth's moon. How? Set the air depth, sunset, sea level, and crater count to zero. Check the "Real Luna" and "Lunar climate" checkboxes. Set the Land color to bright gray and set planet texture to about 15.
How do I make a terraformed moon? Start with the above recipe for a plain moon. Then adjust the sea-level, air depth, and clouds. If you want, turn off the "Lunar climate" control to get a green and verdant moon.
What is terraforming? It's the speculative technology of turning lifeless worlds into habitable Earth-like ones.
Does the moon have a name? The moon's name is Luna. It's useful to know when you need to distinguish it from the sixty-odd other moons in the solar system. The sun's name is Sol, and sometimes the earth is called Terra.
Where can I get more spacy pictures?
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| Hints Use the "Composite" item in the glue mode popup menu to draw the planet without the black background. Updates and hints are online at http://www.flamingpear.com/lunarcell.html . |
| Version History Version 1.0 September 22 2000 The first public release. Version 1.01 September 23 2000 Fixes a problem where the Windows version would forget its registration code. |
You can place an order online here. A secure server for transactions is available.
Answers to common technical questions appear on the support page, and free upgrades appear periodically on the download page.
Trouble with your order? Orders are handled by Kagi; please contact them at admin@kagi.com .
For bug reports and technical questions about the software, please write to support@flamingpear.com .