v 5

Another redone of the texture and model. This version is meant to be similar to the default Milky Way, but with some liberties. Roughly, the changes are:

-Modified dust map of the galaxy for a better representation of the chaotic shape commonly seen in other barred spiral galaxies.

-Slightly different coloration.

-Improved view of the galaxy while seen edge-on.

-Increased detail overall.

In summary, that's it, but it looks very different from the previous version, so you should probably check it out in-game to notice these things. Anyway, enjoy!

v 4.4

Small update with some improvements:

-Improved core of the galaxy. It should resemble better the bar structure commonly found in other barred spiral galaxies.

-Improved view of the Great Rift from Earth.

-Minor adjustments on color and general shape.

-Slightly darker dust.

v 4.3

A somewhat minor update with some changes to improve realism:

-Improved texture quality.

-Turned down the colors a little to improve realism.

-Some changes to the dust distribution map. Now the dust is less scattered and follows the spiral arms better.

-Slightly thicker dust, but less dark.

-Different view of the Great Rift from Earth (there's not much I can do to control this.)


I don't know if someone really reads these lol, but I wanted to thank you all for using this addon. It makes me really happy that other people enjoy something I made (even if it is for something minor like a retexture mod). It keeps me motivated to continue engaging with this community. Anyway I'm overreacting a little, but thank you :)

v 4.2.1

Some very small tweaks to the dust. Otherwise, same as the previous version.

v 4.2

This version improves (hopefully) the realism even further with some changes I made with the overall texture. You may notice the galaxy is a lot messier, which is how our galaxy supposedly looks. Apart from that, I managed to get the Great Rift from Earth to look even closer to real-life (It's more apparent in-game, trust me.) I also toned down the colors because sometimes it was a bit too much color in the background. It should fit better with other galaxies now.



Generally, I'm quite happy with this update (my favorite for now). It took a while to get it to look right for me, so I hope you can enjoy it as well. I'd love to see some screenshots with it!

v 4.1

Some minor changes I did over certain things I wasn't satisfied with. Overall it should look mostly the same as the previous version.

v 4.0

This update improves the realism of the texture drastically compared to previous versions. You may notice:

-Improved texture clarity.

-Improved size and shape of dust clouds. In previous versions, dust clouds used to have inconsistent sizes and odd shapes that ruined the realism. Now they are vein-like shaped, something like the Pinwheel galaxy: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxia_espiral_M101#/media/Archivo:M101_hires_STScI-PRC2006-10a.jpg

-Changed dust distribution near the Solar System.

-A thinner disk that fits better reality (around 1,000 light-years thick)

-Some slight color changes.

v 3.1

This update improves some aspects of the previous update. Some of the new features are:

-Improved dust distribution near the Solar System (More accurate view of the Great Rift)

-Reduced dust near the edges of the galaxy.

-Fixed some texture artifacts from the last update.

-Small quality improvements.

-Tweaked colors of the galaxy near the core and around the edges.

-Less scattered dust.

-Overall improved shape of the spiral arms.

v 3.0

This update changes the texture of the Milky Way. Overall, it should look different, aiming for a realistic style and improving the characteristics of barred spiral galaxies that our galaxy should have. This update takes inspiration from galaxies such as NGC 6744, NGC 4535, and UGC 12158. Some notable changes are:


-An increased resolution up to 8K! (Experimental right now, since it might have some performance implications. Let me know if you get low FPS.)

-Improved distribution and shape of spiral arms.

-Improved dust distribution near the Solar System so it matches closely the Great Rift as seen from Earth (due to certain limitations, it's really difficult to create a perfect representation, but it should be close enough.)

-Corrected size of the galaxy (Before version 3.0, it was as big as Andromeda! which is incorrect.)

-Reduced brightness of the galaxy.

-Changed colors of the galaxy (If you increase the saturation to 2.0, you should have something similar to real Milky Way photographs in terms of colors.)