Celestia Forums

hi everyone, know its been a while (ok, a looong while) since i've last posted, but i was hoping i could get a little help. i recently reinstalled celestia, and i cant get my old system to work. well, thats not completely true, the system loads, the custom star is there, the planets, moon, and models are there, but the textures for all of them are flickering awfully.
short video clip
all other planets and such have their textures (like from other systems), so im hoping its just a problem with my ssc, and if someone wouldnt mind taking a look at it. ive zipped it and you can download it here: http://www.geocities.com/billybob8448/MikeSystem.zip (giv it a minute or 2 to finish uploading).

also, my alternate surfaces arent working.

Hey man, I tried to download it, but YahooGeocities told me it was "unavailable."

Glad to test it when you figure that out. You could email it to me if you want: just private message me.

-

right click, save target as

I couldn't open the zip file. From what I see in the clip, I don't think it's the ssc file. What version of Celestia did you install? What video card are you using? What driver is it using? Did you try different rendering modes? What is your time set to when this happens? If you freeze time can you produce a white globe?

cartrite

Okay. I got it to open. I had to use Internet Explorer. Couldn't download it with Firefox. What system was this written for.

"E-Green" "E-White"
{
Texture "e-green.*"
Radius 6052
Atmosphere
{
Height 70
Lower [ 0.00 0.92 0.76 ]
Upper [ 0.00 0.95 0.65 ]
Sky [ 0.00 1.0 0.80 ]
Sunset [ 1.0 0.79 0.17 ]
CloudHeight 7
CloudSpeed 60
CloudMap "earth-clouds.*"
}
EllipticalOrbit
{
Period 0.8 #292 days
SemiMajorAxis 0.9948
Eccentricity 0.2198
Inclination 11.5
AscendingNode 0.0
LongOfPericenter 0.0
MeanLongitude 0.0
}
RotationPeriod 25
Obliquity 0.0
}

You should have a line like this at the beginning for the newer Celestia's. That's a start. Possibly at the beginning of every section?

AltSurface ""E-Green" "E-White"" "Sol/Earth"

I think.

The way your scc file is currently written, I'm not sure how to access it in Celestia. That's 1.3.2 and newer.

cartrite

I made the following changes to your ssc file


AltSurface "Political Map (colored)" "Sol/Earth"
{
Texture "e-blue.*"
OverlayTexture "eblueoverlaycolored.*"
}

AltSurface "Political Map (borders)" "Sol/Earth"
{
Texture "e-blue.*"
OverlayTexture "eblueoverlay.*"
}

AltSurface "Grid Overlay" "Sol/Earth"
{
Texture "e-green.*"
OverlayTexture "grid.*"
}

AltSurface "Grid Overlay" "Sol/Earth"
{
Texture "e-blue.*"
OverlayTexture "grid.*"
}


So they load onto the earth. I'm not sure what star you wanted these at.

But I see no flicker. I see this.







cartrite

Your ssc file doesn't make sense to me because I haven't used extra solar systems around different stars. I'm not sure how to get to the star you are
you are using. I would disregard everything I posted above about altering your ssc file. I loaded your files onto the earth to see if I could get them to display and they do. With no flickering.

cartrite

billybob884 wrote:hi everyone, know its been a while (ok, a looong while) since i've last posted, but i was hoping i could get a little help. i recently reinstalled celestia, and i cant get my old system to work.

Hello Mike, nice to see you again here How, Can't open your file... [EDIT: ok, Cartrite tell me the right way to open your file, so I find no problem with your overlays -tested on Celestia 132 and Celestia ED, but I have an old computer, maybe these probs take place with more recent graphic cards, yes?]
I have a little question: did you archived the .ssc I tested with your ships (to place them like the screenshots shown in my catalog) because I have lost my proper copy! My old version of 'E-White.zip' is corrupted Jeam

Jeam Tag,

I also had trouble opening/downloading Mike's zip file with Firefox. When I used Internet Explorer (right click, save target as)the file downloaded and I was able to open it.

cartrite

Jeam Tag wrote:Can't open your zip, sorry, can't test it... (:-( Jeam

Ah, another way to test for me: Is this pack you linked the same as your old two parts one you shared on your Bruckner's mirror site (Mikesystem part 1 and 2) or an old 'HIP 83858.zip' i re-found in my archives? this last one had some overlays:I tested it with Celestia ED, and all works well, no problems at all...

cartrite wrote: When I used Internet Explorer (right click, save target as)the file downloaded and I was able to open it.

Curiously, the file can be downloaded as you say, but seems corrupted: can't unzip it

Jeam Tag,

I sent you 2 e-mails. The second was rezipped and should open. The original could not open with XP's zip program. I unzipped it with 7-zip.

cartrite

cartrite wrote:Jeam Tag,I sent you 2 e-mails.

Received, many thanks: I missed 7zip to try to open the file, argh.. Jeam

cartrite wrote:Your ssc file doesn't make sense to me because I haven't used extra solar systems around different stars. I'm not sure how to get to the star you are using.

theres a small bit of text in a document in the zip file, 300010:E-White, you need to add that to the starnames.dat file in Celestia/Data

Jeam Tag wrote:I have a little question: did you archived the .ssc I tested with your ships (to place them like the screenshots shown in my catalog)

mmm, no, im not sure i know which one your referring to, all i have left over is whats in that zip

Jeam Tag wrote:Ah, another way to test for me: Is this pack you linked the same as your old two parts one you shared on your Bruckner's mirror site (Mikesystem part 1 and 2) or an old 'HIP 83858.zip' i re-found in my archives?

no, this 1 is slightly different, it has newer textures, some models, alternate surfaces, and it orbits around a custom star

Jeam Tag wrote:Curiously, the file can be downloaded as you say, but seems corrupted: can't unzip it

perhaps its because i used winrar to compress it as opposed to winzip?

----edit----
i just tried putting the system around an already existing star, and it works fine (except that the ring shadow darkens the whole moon around e-blue, but the shadows work fine on saturn an other planets... maybe its too small for hte shadow to be accurately shown, or the ring is too big). perhaps something changed in the way that stc's are written? or maybe its just a bug for custom stars (im using pre9)?

Mike,

If you're using XP, please just use XP's Zip utility.
Otherwise, use the Info-Zip utility from http://www.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/

Fancy compression programs like WinRar and 7-Zip simply cause more problems than they're worth due to their incompatible file formats. My impression is that, at best, they produce archives that are about 10-15% smaller than the standard Zip format. That's really not enough to matter.

The code that draws rings is known to have bugs related to the size of the rings. There is a fairly extensive thread somewhere around here describing the limitations that were discovered just this past summer. So far as I know, those bugs have not been fixed in the v1.4.0 prereleases.

billybob884 wrote:(Mikesys version)
no, this 1 is slightly different, it has newer textures, some models, alternate surfaces, and it orbits around a custom star
...
perhaps its because i used winrar to compress it as opposed to winzip?

mm 'Dommage' for the .ssc file: remember, for example, i placed the descent module upside down after the separation to simulate the trip departure onto the planet..
OK, i noticed your new package: is the location (link you've provided) the one I can quote in my catalog?
About compression, as I said, with 7-zip I can unzip the pack, neither Winzip (BTW of Winace) nor Winrar opened it, maybe I have too old versions...
Jeam

ok h/o, i'll install 7-zip

clicky (save target as)

Mike,

Now I can reproduce what you were seeing. I can't understand why. I tried to edit the stc file to give E-White the same settings as sol. That seemed to have a little effect but not much. The textures display then no display(white globe) when orbiting or zooming in and out. This is a strange one indeed.

cartrite

Hey Mike,

Good News. You have duplicate ssc files. I deleted the one in the data folder and the flickering was gone. Hope this works for you as well.

cartrite

allright! works!