Forgot I had these - Early Spore Prototype Program Gaslight
A lot of you that have played spore over the years probably have no idea the massive ideas that Maxis wanted to implement. I’m sure you heard that the development was troubled. One of the reasons Spore was a disappointment for many people was because of the tech demos that Maxis released that were amazing - such as water physics or this one with galaxy simulation and star formation. I still enjoy the game, but it’s just not what I hoped it would be. Let me know if you want to see more.
Gaslight - A Spore Prototype
Copyright(c) 2001, 2008 - Electronic Arts/MAXIS
Overview
Gaslight simulates a process called stochastic, self-propagating star formation (SSPSF.)
Interstellar gas and dust begin to collapse under the force of its own gravity. This gives rise to regions of dense material that eventually give rise to stars. When the stars ignite, they heat up the surrounding material, which moves away from the stars, creating more regions of increased density, which give rise to more stars, which moves more material, which creates more stars and so on.
The Controls
On startup, Gaslight generates an uneven nebula of gas (appears blue.) As the nebula condenses, stars are born. The stars range from small, cool, long-lived red dwarfs to large, hot, short-lived blue giants.
The Gaslight control panel allows users to modify the parameters of the simulation. There are also three tool modes available in Gaslight: the heat tool adds heat in the selected region, the gas tool adds gas, the star tool adds stars.
Stuff to Try
Set "Nova Energy" to a high value (>0.1) to see the effects of extreme heat events on SSPSF.