Celestia Forums

Hello everyone - I am brand new to this Forum. I have been around graphics for about 3 years now, and still learning.

I downloaded the excellent Moon textures by John Van Vliet, and installed them in my Xtras folder (Win XP). In an attempt to see if they were loading, I removed the Xtras folder to my desktop, and the textures remain the same.

I have read the readme file etc, and some other posts on the forum regarding Xtras, but I am still not sure that I have installed them properly. I feel that I must have to make a change to a .cfg or ,ssc file before Celestia will know to open them.

The only other file that is in Xtras folder is minormoons.ssc, which does not seem to apply to me. Can anyone help this poor old noob?

Hello JimmyC,
Welcome.
After you install the hires textures you see them by right clicking on the planet or moon and choose (move the cursor over) Alternate Surfaces. If all went well you should see an entry for the addon or texture. That is how Celestia knows to load the texture.
cartrite

For All ( well almost all ) for all of the NEW .zip files all one needs to do is extract them into your celestia folder then start Celestia
maybe i made them to simple?


Hi first off what exactly did you download and install
if it is
MoonLevel_012.zip
MoonLevel_3.zip
then the zip file will automatically ( if extracted to the celestia directory)
unzip to

if you downloaded 1k_2k_4k_Moon.zip then it will unzip to

and for the 1k,2k,4k maps the only thing in extras is the Moon.ssc
and if it was MoonLevel_012.zip then there will be a folder called "JohnVV" in extras
for the VT maps you must download part 0,1,2 then 3 then part 1,2,3,4 of part 4

Thanks for the quick replies.

@cartrite - I tried right-clicking before, I don't get an 'Alternate Surfaces' option!

@john Van Vliet - I downloaded MoonLevel_4 parts 1 to 4. They were all installed into the 'Xtras' folder with a file called 'minormoons.ssc' they are in JohnW\textures\hires\moon\level4. There are 512 files in all.

I moved the folder Xtras out of Celestia, but it made no difference to the quality of the image when re-started. I don't think they are being loaded.

I have only had Celestia for 24 hours - so please forgive me if I have done somthing stupid

EDIT: Doh! I see now that I should have downloaded Parts 0-2 and part 3 first - sorry for the confusion. I am on it now.

first You must install level 0,1,2,and 3 BEFORE the level4 tiles
the level 0,1,2 zip has the *.ssc and *.cxt files also the vt will not work with out the
level0
level1
level2
level3
see this forum post
http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5195

Thank you for your help. I got it sorted out last night, by downloading and installing the missing files. Looks geat!

I don't know how I missed the first parts.

Thanks again for your help.

John, do you also have a high-detail normal-VT map for the moon? I have a "normal" normal map, but it is much more detailed than the normal map on the motherlode.

But there is no good normal map of the moon. Otherwise we would have included it in the distribution. The best one available is part of Celestia 1.5.0.

Some people "cook up" normal maps with various image manipulation tricks. But this is really not what we are out for in the Celestia Dev team.

F.

2k_4k_MoonNormal.zip is a cooked up one based on rosiek_lunarDEM_simp_8b.tif and ulcn2005_lpo.tif
except for the data at the poles ( inferred from Clementine stereo images )
this jpg image is even to big ( ithink the luner grav data makes an image about 360 px there is not much data

I use this normal map (converted to grayscale and resized):



I don't remember what the source is for this map, but I think it looks fairly realistic (though some craters look a bit artificial), though the resolution could be better.

Firstly, what you show is NOT a normal map but an elevation map. Next, there is NO way around elevation measurements that are done independently of the texture recording. Anything else is FAKE. Your map is definitely FAKE, since I know about all existing real normal/elevation maps. There are 1001 bad tricks to make a normal/elevation map from a base texture map. But again this is cheating! Some people don't mind, I am told

F.

Uhh okay

Didn't know this was an elevation map. Funny that we do have detailed normap maps for earth, venus and mars but not for our next-door neighbour, the Moon.

CAP-Team wrote:Uhh okay

Didn't know this was an elevation map. Funny that we do have detailed normap maps for earth, venus and mars but not for our next-door neighbour, the Moon.

Just wait a little while

http://wms.selene.jaxa.jp/index_e.html

F.

Doctor Schrempp?

Sorry to butt in here, but my usual Brain-Deadedness has me
curious about this topic. How is it that we have Bump Map data then?

Please forgive my ignorance, but I really do not understand the
difference between a Normal Map and a Bump Map, even though I
believe that this has been explained before. Can one not simply use
the Bump Map to create a Normal Map?

Again, sorry for my ignorance, but I really do not understand this
process.

Thanks, Bob

hi bob it is my understanding ( maybe t00fri or grant can correct me if i am wrong) but for the north and south poles .
It is a combination of stereo imaging to calculate the height in the image and radio reflection ( an assumed altitude ) to make the dem of the poles

see this pdf
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/moon98/pdf/6010.pdf
the rest is gravity data
raw image
h??p://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/geo/clem1-gravity-topo-v1/cl_xxxx/images/topogrd2.img
and a .jpg

see this pdf
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2002/pdf/1281.pdf

But as to why well you will need to ask congress as to why there is no cash for a dead and uninteresting body ( as they see it )

BobHegwood wrote:Doctor Schrempp?

Sorry to butt in here, but my usual Brain-Deadedness has me
curious about this topic. How is it that we have Bump Map data then?

Please forgive my ignorance, but I really do not understand the
difference between a Normal Map and a Bump Map, even though I
believe that this has been explained before. Can one not simply use
the Bump Map to create a Normal Map?

Again, sorry for my ignorance, but I really do not understand this
process.

Thanks, Bob

Bob,

how about glancing in my respective nmtools tutorial in CM:

http://www.celestialmatters.org/?page_id=39#1

Start reading in Section 2.

Bump or elevation maps:
-----------------------------
Bump or elevation maps are grayscale maps that encode the measured height as a gray value in each point of the texture surface. Black is lowest, white is highest. One needs to use signed 16bit <=> +/- 32768 gray values for Earth or Mars to have enough resolution (in meters). 8 bit <=> 256 gray values would only give a VERY rough altitude profile of these planets.

Normal maps:
-----------------
Each pixel of a normal map (color-)encodes which direction in space a particular surface point is facing. This requires specification of the components of a 3-dimensional (unit) vector - the ?€?normal vector?€

t00fri wrote:Bump or elevation maps are grayscale maps that encode the measured height as a gray value in each point of the texture surface. Black is lowest, white is highest.

Each pixel of a normal map (color-)encodes which direction in space a particular surface point is facing.
Given a bump or elevation map, one can always calculate the corresponding normal map. That's what our 'nmtools' do (among other things). Celestia does it internally, if one furnishes a bumpmap rather than an external normal map. Hence a normal map saves time for Celestia's engine...

F.

Thank you very much for going to the trouble for the
understandable explanation of the differences for the
Brain-Dead here Doctor Schrempp. I now finally understand
the differences between a Bump Map and a Normal Map.

Thanks also to John for his help. You guys are the BEST! I'll try
not to bother you any more.

Again. thank you very much, Brain-Dead Bob

"Thanks also to John for his help. You guys are the BEST! I'll try
not to bother you any more.
"
no problem I don't mined being bothered .I do have a habit of showing the height map used to make the normal. Looking at the blue norm map it is very hard to tell anything about it

john Van Vliet wrote:... Looking at the blue normal map it is very hard to tell anything about it

There is a very good trick!

Just invert the normal map (GIMP) and display it

Here are 2 examples:



F.

Wow - that is impressive. Bunp with a vengance. Gives a super idea of the topography. I agree with John that the normal maps are hard to look at, all sort of pastel shades, but they make a great difference when used in a render, and cover a much flatter range of viewing angles than bump.

Thanks for the tip.