# Monster's manic gadgets - Starmap bakery and Starbox **URL:** \ **Category:** Game Engine Resources\ **Created:** [July 17, 2015, 1:01am UTC](https://blenderartists.org/t/monsters-manic-gadgets-starmap-bakery-and-starbox/646989 "2015-07-17T01:01:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Monster](https://blenderartists.org/user_avatar/blenderartists.org/monster/32/2958_2.png) [@Monster](https://blenderartists.org/u/Monster)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 1:01am UTC](https://blenderartists.org/t/monsters-manic-gadgets-starmap-bakery-and-starbox/646989/1 "2015-07-17T01:01:50Z")
Hello Blenderheads, Here is a new manic gadget from your Prof. Monster. This time I want you to grab for the stars … This is much easier (theoretically) when you can see them. ![](https://blenderartists.org/uploads/default/original/4X/4/7/7/4778cd2591853a79621fc2e91ad82277cf547231.png) Prof. Monster presents: # The STARMAP BAKERY to create your own **STARBOX** The Starmap bakery allows you to create a random star map texture. You can adjust the input channels and bake it to a texture to get some nice stars. ![](https://blenderartists.org/uploads/default/original/4X/d/0/5/d05793c3c68655bb4efdb930b58f6bd99ccccfbd.png) Never forget to save your skymap to file after baking. Otherwise it gets lost. I used a 3x2 UV texture wrapping. It is not a default one, but save a lot of texture space. The starmap needs to be pretty large to allow high detail background image. The bakery contains a little demo that allows to watch the generated skymap in action by applying it to a skybox. - Hover over the 3D window - press P and - turn the camera with the mouse. - Esc to exit. **Skybox from library** The bakery comes with a ready-to-use skybox. After baking and saving the skymap to file the group Skybox shows your skymap. I suggest to save the StarmapBakery under a different name (e.g. Starbox.blend), that it persists the assigned map within the blend. Then you can directly link the skybox from that file. - Open your game’s blend. - Go to File/Link - Navigate to your saved Starbox.blend / Scene / \_starbox.lib and - click [Link from Library] Now you can add a starbox to your scene via Shift+A Group Instance/Starbox [short: shift+ags] You can parent the instance to your camera, to avoid seeing scaling effects or to leave the skybox area. **Skybox without library** If you do not want to use the above library you can append the Skybox mesh or Skybox object from the bakery. This way you get the UV-coordinates, but you need to apply the sky map texture manually. Maybe you find it useful. Monster ### Attachments [StarmapBakery.blend](https://blenderartists.org/uploads/default/original/4X/3/1/7/3176b5d19460d7a0d9f3f62805608000f673edbb.blend) (479 KB) ---
**Author:** ![S-Markt](https://blenderartists.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@S-Markt](https://blenderartists.org/u/S-Markt)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 2:41am UTC](https://blenderartists.org/t/monsters-manic-gadgets-starmap-bakery-and-starbox/646989/2 "2015-07-17T02:41:17Z")
this is exactly what i need for my spaceflight template. ok, i have generated my first starfield and it looks ok. there are some things i would like to mention. in space you can find red giants and also little blue suns. also some stars give a yellow light. if it is not too much work, maybe it might look even better when you give a few of the stars a light touch of colour. i have made a png sprite which may give it an extra kick. it has some sort of corona around it. ![](https://blenderartists.org/uploads/default/original/4X/3/e/b/3eb84d5357f82941a508b22d888910e36a1a5455.png) ---
**Author:** ![Monster](https://blenderartists.org/user_avatar/blenderartists.org/monster/32/2958_2.png) [@Monster](https://blenderartists.org/u/Monster)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 7:15am UTC](https://blenderartists.org/t/monsters-manic-gadgets-starmap-bakery-and-starbox/646989/3 "2015-07-17T07:15:41Z")
Yes, this is a nice idea. Unfortunately I have no idea how to add sprites to the texture. I created that method to get a simple star map that looks a bit as it does when we look at the sky (without the atmospheric flickering). What it basically does is to render a noise texture which looks like an awful lot of stars (way to much for my needs). Then it subtracts a cloud texture to cancel large areas of stars. Then it subtracts another cloud with much more density. This removes a lot of the stars that stay closed together. You can indeed add some color noise/cloud whatever. That creates colored stars. I got them by accident. But I do not really need them. Therefore the focus was on a few small white stars. ---
**Author:** ![BluePrintRandom](https://blenderartists.org/user_avatar/blenderartists.org/blueprintrandom/32/598195_2.png) [@BluePrintRandom](https://blenderartists.org/u/BluePrintRandom)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 1:05pm UTC](https://blenderartists.org/t/monsters-manic-gadgets-starmap-bakery-and-starbox/646989/4 "2015-07-17T13:05:44Z")
It’s beautiful . Great work Dr.Monster ---
**Author:** ![S-Markt](https://blenderartists.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@S-Markt](https://blenderartists.org/u/S-Markt)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2015, 1:06pm UTC](https://blenderartists.org/t/monsters-manic-gadgets-starmap-bakery-and-starbox/646989/5 "2015-07-17T13:06:59Z")
i have tried it on my template and it looks great. even without coloured stars. use a starmap of the size of 4096x4096 so i masked the baked output of your generator and deleted all black stuff. than i made 4 layers with gimp and a black backgroundlayer. i turned the layers 0, 90 180 and 270 degrees and got a very nice looking starfield. maybe i write a java that creates a starfield even with some coloured stars. not that hard to do. the only problem i have got is that i dont know how to save the canvas in java.