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Through this program, the user will be able to traverse planets, moons, or even stars, just by navigating through the keyboard. Follow the simple layout presented in Figure 1. :

kbqwerty

Figure 1. Keyboard Layout for the Controls

The red area on the keyboard above allows the user to move the triangular object above the planets, as seen in the title image. 'w' moves the player "up", from the perspective of the camera. 'a' moves the player right, 's' moves the player down, and 'd' moves the player right. The camera follows the player so you don't have to manually track the player. The green box is for loading the next planet, moon, or star in the sequence. Finally, the blue box represents the key to press if the user wants to hide the player from view. So, the user can move the planet with the mouse by clicking and dragging. Also, the mouse in conjunction with the "shift" key and "ctrl" key can zoom in/out and translate the planet.

The WASD keys can be used in conjunction with each other. For example, 'w' and 'a' keys pressed together will move the player 45 degrees in the upper-left corner. So, there are a total of 8 directions the icon can move.

The "behind-the-scenes" of this project is basically the program swaps textures through the use of flat maps. Basically, any planet can be represented by creating a square image of it and the program will insert the textures on the spherical object.

If your are interested, here are images for the other planets:

Earth_Night

Figure 2. Earth Night

Moon

Figure 3. Moon

Mercury

Figure 4. Mercury

Venus

Figure 5. Venus

Mars

Figure 6. Mars

Jupiter

Figure 7. Jupiter

Saturn

Figure 8. Saturn

Uranus

Figure 9. Uranus

Neptune

Figure 10. Neptune

Pluto

Figure 11. Pluto

Sun

Figure 12. Sun