New Celestia-1.4.0pre-FT1.1 Version for Download

[hank]

Fridger,

Where did the gorgeous new textures for Iapetus come from? Wow!

- Hank

I made it from"scratch".

Of course, who else? (Actually I knew that.)

I think this is by far the best and most accurate Iapetus texture available.

It's certainly by far the best and most accurate Iapetus texture I've seen.

There are other familiar textures where I could immediately point out where there are large misalignments.

Have you fixed any others?

There is also a bump-map texture that accurately models the color-imaged smooth ice coverage on the brown surface.

I noticed that. Simply amazing.

Here is my original thread with several views of the full-size texture within Celestia. You will also find the URL for my full-size iapetus as a downloadable add-on.

How did I miss that?

Note: None of my textures, add-ons, locations, scripts etc are to be found on the MOTHERLODE!

Would it be possible to add a link to your textures to the Celestia wikibook?

Again I say: Wow! THANK YOU Fridger. And please keep up your excellent work.

- Hank

P.S. I don't suppose you've updated your Titan texture using images from the most recent Cassini encounters? Or has all the time you've been wasting on galaxy rendering prevented that?

[t00fri]

Hank,

thanks for encouragements...

...

There are other familiar textures where I could immediately point out where there are large misalignments.

Have you fixed any others?

Certainly, NOT. I am not interfering with other people's personal standards and their resulting textures.

Note: None of my textures, add-ons, locations, scripts etc are to be found on the MOTHERLODE!

Would it be possible to add a link to your textures to the Celestia wikibook?

Of course, whatever you consider useful!

P.S. I don't suppose you've updated your Titan texture using images from the most recent Cassini encounters? Or has all the time you've been wasting on galaxy rendering prevented that?

No, since there was not really very much new information so far. I am waiting now for material from flyby's that exhibits info from hitherto /unknown/ surface regions

Cheers,
Bye Fridger

[hank]

...

There are other familiar textures where I could immediately point out where there are large misalignments.

Have you fixed any others?

Certainly, NOT. I am not interfering with other people's personal standards and their resulting textures.

Fridger,

What I meant was: Do you have your own correctly-aligned textures for these cases which would be available to other Celestia users to substitute if they desired?

- Hank

[t00fri]

...

There are other familiar textures where I could immediately point out where there are large misalignments.

Have you fixed any others?

Certainly, NOT. I am not interfering with other people's personal standards and their resulting textures.

Fridger,

What I meant was: Do you have your own correctly-aligned textures for these cases which would be available to other Celestia users to substitute if they desired?

- Hank

Not really, Hank.
In such cases I'd rather start from scratch!

Actually, my Iapetus and Titan texture projects were precisely initiated with the aim to do really accurate, state-of-the-art textures (instead of what was available).

[Well there are my 8k Mercury and 8k Moon textures. While they are quite nice, I made them quite long ago and would take another approach today.]

Cheers,
Bye Fridger

[hank]

In such cases I'd rather start from scratch!

Fridger,

Sorry, I think again I didn't make myself clear. What I meant was: Do you have your own correctly-aligned (and probably also otherwise much improved) textures (made from scratch or otherwise as you judged best) for these objects which would be available to other Celestia users to substitute if they desired?

But it sounds like you've just worked on Titan, Iapetus, Moon and Mercury. (If that's right, no need to reply.)

Thanks,

- Hank

[ElChristou]

Question: there is 20 degrees in the setting for brightness... Is there a special reason for this or it's just arbitrary?

What do you mean, more precisely, please? Galaxy brightness?

Yes.

At which level: user level or code level?

Unfortunatly as I have nothing of coder, can only be at user level...

I don't even understand where you get the unit [degrees] from?

Sorry in French "degr?©" is the same than degree and grade... I should use grade; 20 grades in the scale of galaxie brightness...

[t00fri]

In such cases I'd rather start from scratch!

Fridger,

Sorry, I think again I didn't make myself clear. What I meant was: Do you have your own correctly-aligned (and probably also otherwise much improved) textures (made from scratch or otherwise as you judged best) for these objects which would be available to other Celestia users to substitute if they desired?

But it sounds like you've just worked on Titan, Iapetus, Moon and Mercury. (If that's right, no need to reply.)

Thanks,

- Hank

Actually, I made many more high-quality textures during the last 4 years. As an automatic display and download platform for these, I created my TextureFoundry site already 3.5 years ago. This was the first dedicated Celestia texture site and existed much before the ML, for example.

But due to security constraints (from my lab), updating the textures was most complicated, before I had a fast ADSL line outsite the network of my lab.

For quite a long time, I also intensively collaborated with Mario (SpaceGraphics) on special NOISE reduction techniques for GIGANTIC textures. We used a multi GB site with a very fast interface... So from that time, I still have amazing ~noiseless Mars textures far TOO BIG to be moved anywhere I made plenty of VT's using directly the 16bit (NOT 8bit) RAW data from the scientific sites. At that time I also wrote my 'virtualtex' script that many VT builders have used meanwhile... More recently, I had less time to address these "king-size" issues further.

But at least (since my clash with ML), there are very early stage plans together with Runar and ElChristou for a JOINT superlative "high quality something" site ...

Again due to my "full (spare) time" FT1.x engagement these ideas are resting peacefully...for NOW.

Bye Fridger

[t00fri]

I don't even understand where you get the unit [degrees] from?

Sorry in French "degr?©" is the same than degree and grade... I should use grade; 20 grades in the scale of galaxie brightness...

Chris,

but please, from where did you get or derive this information?? When you push SHIFT + '(' , then the brightness increase is NOT indicated in [degr?©] but rather in [%]! That's my problem.

Bye Fridger

[ElChristou]

I don't even understand where you get the unit [degrees] from?

Sorry in French "degr?©" is the same than degree and grade... I should use grade; 20 grades in the scale of galaxie brightness...

Chris,

but please, from where did you get or derive this information?? When you push SHIFT + '(' , then the brightness increase is NOT indicated in [degr?©] but rather in [%]! That's my problem.

Bye Fridger

... I know it's in %... forget degrees, was a wrong use of a word... I was talking of the 20 grades (5% each) in the scale of the galaxies brightness... Is "grade" also incorrect?

[t00fri]

I don't even understand where you get the unit [degrees] from?

Sorry in French "degr?©" is the same than degree and grade... I should use grade; 20 grades in the scale of galaxie brightness...

Chris,

but please, from where did you get or derive this information?? When you push SHIFT + '(' , then the brightness increase is NOT indicated in [degr?©] but rather in [%]! That's my problem.

Bye Fridger

... I know it's in %... forget degrees, was a wrong use of a word... I was talking of the 20 grades (5% each) in the scale of the galaxies brightness... Is "grade" also incorrect?

Anyway, after our long quest for what we mean: YES that amount of brightness increase is arbitrary, but fixed by some sensible maximal brightless level.

Bye Fridger

[ElChristou]

Anyway, after our long quest for what we mean: YES that amount of brightness increase is arbitrary, but fixed by some sensible maximal brightless level.

Ok! tx

[jdou]

Hi Fridger and Toti,

Congratulations for your excellent work.

No real problem with FT1.1 excepted I no longer see the comets tail ?
I verified the options check box, tried all rendering mode, tried to see Borrely, Halley...no tail ! (1.4.0pre6 works)
I don't know if I have something wrong or if it's a FT1.1 bug ?

And, just to start again the debate
what about the black hole(s) at the center of our galaxy ?

Cheers
Jdou

[t00fri]

Hi Fridger and Toti,

Congratulations for your excellent work.

No real problem with FT1.1 excepted I no longer see the comets tail ?
I verified the options check box, tried all rendering mode, tried to see Borrely, Halley...no tail ! (1.4.0pre6 works)
I don't know if I have something wrong or if it's a FT1.1 bug ?

And, just to start again the debate
what about the black hole(s) at the center of our galaxy ?

Cheers
Jdou

Jdou,

I CANNOT confirm any problem with comet tails in FT1.1 (under Linux, at least) . After typing 'Halley' and G, here is how it looks



Cheers,
Bye Fridger

[jdou]

it's a great pity, so I have to search

Jdou

[Toti]

Comets do work fine in Linux-KDE.
Could any other Windows user confirm jdou's problem?

[hank]

I CANNOT confirm any problem with comet tails in FT1.1 (under Linux, at least) . After typing 'Halley' and G, here is how it looks ...

They seem to be okay for me on Mac OS X too. But I have to say, now that galaxies look so good, Celestia's comet rendering has become a more glaring weakness.

Fridger, if you're not busy...

- Hank

[t00fri]

I CANNOT confirm any problem with comet tails in FT1.1 (under Linux, at least) . After typing 'Halley' and G, here is how it looks ...

They seem to be okay for me on Mac OS X too. But I have to say, now that galaxies look so good, Celestia's comet rendering has become a more glaring weakness.

Fridger, if you're not busy...

- Hank

indeed (<--glaring weakness)

Cheers,
Fridger

[hank]

I CANNOT confirm any problem with comet tails in FT1.1 (under Linux, at least) . After typing 'Halley' and G, here is how it looks ...

They seem to be okay for me on Mac OS X too.

Oops. I have now found some clipping problems with comet tails in some circumstances. But I also see this in a pre-FT version, so it's evidently an old bug.

- Hank

[jdou]

Good news

I deleted all and installed again FT1.1 and that works

Sorry

Jdou

[hank]

indeed (<--glaring weakness)

At the very least, comet tails should go away when the comet is distant from the sun. If you look at Halley in 2005, you shouldn't see any tail. So jdou's bug is actually a feature!

- Hank