twisted tree games

I’m starting work on a geocentric model of the heavens. Gallileo would be upset.

After fixing a problem with palette interpolation*, I’m working on the day-night cycle. I’ve decided to implement a geocentric model, with the sun(s), moon(s) and stars stuck to a giant sphere that rotates around the gameworld.**

As soon as I started thinking about this, obviously I decided that I wanted to have planets, so would need to implement epicycles.

Then I remembered how really damn cool analemmas are. (See this article for an amazing and thorough treatment!)

Then I slapped myself hard in the face with the feature-creep glove. The “Celestial Sphere” model should be enough to do the required sky visuals and also some cool things with the landscape - neolithic sunrise-aligned monuments, etc. Spoilers!!! ;)

Today’s APOD is very appropriate (click to see the full panorama!)

* (C# tip - to check if you’ve taken a reference to a class rather than copied it, use Object.ReferenceEquals(a,b), stupid error)

** Also, the Earth is flat. Next task: implement the infinite waterfall at the edge of the world.