Stars! Supernova® Signature Kit © Copyright 2000 Mare Crisium, LLC, All rights reserved.

Signature Kit

Introduction | Graphics | Sound and music | Tools and resources

Introduction

In Stars! Supernova, you’ll be able to include your own custom race portraits, emblems, sound and music for individual games. This allows you to create games set in a specific universe not provided with Stars! Supernova (such as a Star Trek or Babylon 5 universe, or a universe taken from your imagination).

This document provides specifications you'll need to do this.

For information on how to actually create graphics and sounds, look on the Web, in online communities or newsgroups, or in your library or bookstore. You'll find a wealth of how-to information, tips and tricks available. We also expect that players experienced with graphics and sound production will produce libraries of portraits, emblems, sounds and music and make them available to the player community at large. Some of these people may also freely offer how-to advice.

You can also copy graphics and sounds from other sources for use in your games. As long as they’re in one of the formats listed under Graphics, they’ll work fine.

Note. We don't condone distributing libraries of materials copywritten or licensed by others without their permission.

Types of customizable material

Only race portraits and emblems, alliance emblems, and sound and music are customizable. Stars! Supernova can’t import custom ship designs (or "skins") or technology art because of the significant amount of artwork involved and rigid specifications for that art.

All custom race information, such as a portrait or theme music, is stored in the race description that you save from the Race Creation Wizard and sent to each player at the start of a game.

Tell your race's story, too

To go with your race portraits, emblems, and music, you could also prepare some of the following material in advance. You'll be able to enter all of it in the Race Designer once the game's out:

• Your empire's name
• Your name, as leader
• Your title, as leader
• Your race's motto
• The type of empire, such as "Federation"
• The name of your home system (if you don't like the name we provide)
• A description or history of your race
• The size of your race, from microscopic to gigantic

If you'd like ideas to help shape the personality of your races, see the descriptions of primary racial traits listed on our Web site.

Audience and caveats

We’re releasing this information early at the request of the existing Stars! player community, for people who want to have custom material ready for the game’s release. This material is primarily for people who already know how to use graphics and audio editing tools, or for people who have access to the art and sound they plan to use.

We (Mare Crisium) can’t answer questions about how to use these tools or to create the files. The complexity comes with using the tools and producing images that satisfy you. Stars! Supernova requires only that you provide files in the correct format and in the correct dimensions (for graphics) or file size (for sound/music).

Use the sample notebook page provided in Graphics to test the size and look of your picture. It’s not likely that you’ll be able to test your images or sounds in the actual game until it's released or until we hold a public beta (unless we’ve asked you to be a tester for our closed betas).