You all remember of course our play with Ringworld scenes a couple of 
years ago. I decided to investigate Banks Orbitals this time, from the 
Culture novels by Iain M. Banks.

Here is a typical Orbital measuring 3 million km in diameter, 6000 km 
wide, and with walls a 1000 km high. The Orbital is slightly inclined 
upon its orbit, allowing for changing seasons with typically two winter 
solstices when the Sun is partly hidden behind the Orbital. Th yellow 
band in the sky is the path of the Sun across the year.

I include in a zip file (1) a 24 hours succession of views from above 
the Orbital surface (you can make an animation if you want), (2) a scene 
file and (3) an ini file to enable you to play. An attached image shows 
one of the vistas.

I used Galaxy.inc by Chris Colefax for the star background, and CIE.inc 
from the LightsysIV package for the Sun's colour. If you do not have 
those, just replace by whatever is most convenient to you.

Enjoy!

-- 
Thomas

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Attachments:
Download 'orbital2.zip' (3561 KB) Download 'orbital2_151.png' (296 KB)

Preview of image 'orbital2_151.png'