Planet/Object "clipping"...

[smbika]

Hi,

Please forgive me if you think me lazy (only partially true, i assure you) but i need a little learned guidance...

I am gearing up (meaning i have not the facility to buy it but will soon) to visual studio .NET which is required (at least v7 of the compiler) for doing maintenance and enhancement of Celestia's current version.

My problem is:

smbika



Joined: 06 Jul 2004
Posts: 18
Location: Eastern Seaboard clipping?


Hi!

Celestia 1.3.2 is awesome! Better in many ways than the last version...except:

I may be wrong here but i transferred a star wars/star trek pairing of addons wherein i have the enterprise orbiting the deathstar in the trench - close to the surface. On 1.3.1 there is no "clipping" which i take to mean the object dissappears at a certain distance say at the bottom of the screen because the camera is too close. In 1.3.2 i get the same distance from the enterprise in the trench as 1.3.1 and a portion of the death star beneath disappears - as if i had gone beneath the surface of and was seeing what one sees when one enters into the interior of planets and such. Assuming i am not actually doing this (and i am quite reasonably sure i do not) this seems to be a minus for the new version. Anyone else seeing anything similar?

Thanks!
Sean

ps - otherwise, wow!
_________________
The only show that could beat Stargate<whatever> in a fair fight is Firefly...
Tue Aug 31, 2004 12:25 pm


selden



Joined: 03 Sep 2002
Posts: 3204
Location: NY, USA


Yes.

I've sometimes seen it after using Ctrl-G to goto the surface of a planet. Sometimes part of the planet's surface disappears that's near the bottom of the screen.
_________________
Selden

and it's driving me nuts because i get a lot of enjoyment from the down-on-the-deck flybys possible with celestia.

I wish to go into the code and adjust it to its previous state (1.3.1 up to 1.3.2p8, say) wherein this problem does not occur. I have no real clue as to which module[s] control this feature but my assumption is at least one of them experienced a change between 1.3.1 and 1.3.2 and was carried thru. It could be a side effect of one or more of the many changes which produced the otherwise smooth-as-silk (well, there IS a little problem with object occlusion which i won't go into now) version out now - 1.3.2.

Of course, i could just ask Chris thru the forum but i am sure he has more to due than lead me by the hand and all i really want is a place to start so i can do some diffs maybe on the source or something standard like that.

If anyone has researched this (i know selden has seen it but again, i am sure he has a bit more to do that babysit flegdlings like myself - and grateful i have been for the times he has done it anyway!!!) i would be most obliged!

Thanks,
Sean

[chris]

I'm working on fixing this problem. While it's not that hard to change the clipping plane distance (by making the MaxFarNearRatio constant in render.cpp larger), you will lose depth buffer precision if you do. It's a difficult compromise. May I ask what graphics card you have? For people with GeForce FX or GeForce 6000 series cards I can turn off near plane clipping.

--Chris

[smbika]

Chris,

I appreciate the response - i know you are busy and i meant no criticism i assure you!

My system is a VAIO with a P4 Hyperthreadder with a half gig RAM and a
Radeon 9200 AGP (0x5961)
Internal DAC(400MHz)
128 MB
with BIOS info: BK-ATI VER008.015.051.001

Again thanks and when i get my rig (.NET and such) set up i will tinker further with it...

I figured it was a balancing act and applaud your ability to stay above the taxi-cabs (a sad reference to the one and only time i saw the Flying Wallendas perform) with such maximal improvement overshadowing - minimal drawbacks!

Thanks again,
Sean