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01

SUMMARY

Team members:

  1. Chris Yun (SID 3031799512)

  2. George Tao (SID 26517399)

  3. Jireh Chew (SID 3034453271)

Project Title: Star Simulator​​​

We will be simulating the lifespan of a star from creation to death. Additionally, this timeline is interactive and you will be able to scrub back and forth on the timeline like a video. Lastly, you will be able to create your own stars, defining their mass and size to run in our simulator.

THE PROBLEM

Realistic visualisations and simulations of stars are uncommon, and amongst them, they represent a snapshot in time of the lifespan of a star. However, many do not showcase the changes it undergoes throughout its life.

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Why is this important? Well, understanding stars is a big part of understanding what elements are created inside them, as well as understanding the Big History, the history of our Universe. Our simulation can be used as an educational tool to teach astronomy and inspire future astrophysicists.

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Our challenge is that the lifespan of a star is orders of magnitude beyond our own, and the only evidence and data we have is what we have collected and researched on over the many stars we have found. This is also driven by the theories of astrophysicists of the evolution of stars. Our job is to visually model these theories to simulate what they look like.

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Lastly, our solution. For example, in order to accurately replicate our Sun's lifespan, we need to examine the various stars with similar mass and size as our own Sun at their different points in their lifespan, and interpolate between these to accurately represent how our own Sun might change. We will be using  data and models such as the Hertsprung-Russell diagram, a scatter plot determining a star's brightness from its color and temperature.

Summary
The problem
The deliverables
Schedule
02

OUR DELIVERABLES

We plan to deliver an interactive simulation of the lifespan of a star. Controls and variables include the starting mass and size of the star. Our simulation will take that information and simulate the following phenomena:

  1. Solar flares

  2. Animated surface activity

  3. Accurate colour spectra

  4. Evolution of star's size and spectra

  5. Preset timelines of common stars (Our Sun, Alpha Centauri, Betelgeuse)

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We plan to achieve these things using custom written shaders and effects based on parameters such as mass, temperature and size.

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Using Unity's High Definition Rendering Pipeline (HDRP) and their Shader and Visual Effects Graph, we will create animated materials and effects to mimic stars and the phenomena as listed above. 

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With the final product, screenshots of the images would be very similar to those taken by telescopes. We would deliver a full simulation of the life and death of the Sun, and we hope to achieve a custom star creator and seeing how their lifespans progress from life to death according to the initial user-defined parameters.

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To have a successful project would have the fully simulated life of our Sun from creation to death along with time scrubbing along a timeline.

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As a visual measurement , we can compare our simulation with stars created in Universe Sandbox 2, a popular space simulator that simulates stars and other bodies in space.

03

SCHEDULE

  • Week 1 (4/2-4/9) Proposal Due

    • Website completion​

    • Aggregation of data and research on stars

    • Select model to use in our simulation

  • Week 2 (4/10-4/16)

    • Create prototype with no shaders/materials

    • Create generic shaders and materials for all stars

      • Input variables for spectra, size, etc

    • More data collection and research for other types of stars

    • Base timeline scrubbing for size, spectra to be accurate

  • Week 3 (4/17-4/23)

    • Implementing materials and shaders driven by data

    • Animating shaders and materials

    • Additional animation elements such as solar flares​

  • Week 4 (4/24-4/30) Check In Due

    • ​Scrubbable timeline for at least our own Sun​

    • Implementing star creation and fully automated timeline creation

  • Week 5 (5/1-5/7)

    • Creation of more preset star timelines​

    • Polishing animations, preparing presentation

  • Week 6 (5/8-5/14) Presentation Due

    • More polishing, bug fixes​

    • Promotional Video

04

RESOURCES

  1. Unity3D as our interactive platform engine

  2. Using High Definition Render Pipeline with advanced material and shader support

  3. Unity Shader Graph (node-based shader builder)

  4. Universe Sandbox 2 as our comparison

  5. Makin' Stuff Look Good (Unity tutorials for animated shaders)

  6. Various NASA and research papers on solar spectra, solar characteristics and graphs for our data

Resources
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