MARS NORMALMAPDXT3

[STEVE555]

Hi to all,I have a problem with the Mars Normalmapdxt3 add-on for Celestia.The problem is that I had downloaded the four zip files from the Motherlode website and unzipped them into my extras folder.The problem is that when I lanched Celestia(i'm using version 1.3.2),I went to Mars and selected the alternative texture'mars normalmapdxt3',the next thing that happened was that mars turned into a smooth pink ball with NO detail!!.I hope that somebody can help with this,Steve


My O.S is windowsXP professional with service pack2,my Graphics Card is a Sapphire Atlantis A.T.I Radeon 9,200 with 256Mb of memory on it.

[selden]

Steve,

Some Addons are rather disorganized. You can't just dump them into the /extras/ folder: parts of them need to be placed in directories that you have to create manually.
Unfortunately I don't have a copy of the one you mention and don't have the time to look at it right now.

A smooth globe means that Celestia was unable to locate the specified surface texture image. There are too many possible reasons to enumerate them all here.

Please take a look at
http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/addon-intro.html#6
( common Addon problems)
http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/textures.html (creating and using textures)
and
[url]http://home.earthlink.net/~bobhegwood/sitebuildercontent/
sitebuilderfiles/Dummies.pdf[/url] (Bob Hegwood's VTs for Dummies)

[DaveMc]

Steve,

Selden's right about some Addons being a disorganized mess. If it helps here's a Windows Explorer screen capture of my directory structure for this Addon:



Dave

[Oni2501]

I go a few steps further myself to be more organized (or anal) I've added subdirectories within subdirectories. Extras are split into space (real) and space (fictional) and within those are even more subdirectories of objects. Maybe not a perfect system or way of doing things but it works for me. My fictional space contains far more add-ons than my real space does So much that it slows the system greatly at startup. Would be nice if there was some sort of file managing system built into the program itself one day (hint, hint) to select which files to enable or disable. Takes my pc (650 MHz Win98) 5-8 minutes to start Celestia with everything as it is. Once it starts though it's fast enough except when viewing some of the more detailed models or systems, then the framerate takes a big hit. If I need a faster startup (for testing, etc) I move some or all unnecessary extras to a temp location outside of the Celestia directory and that's where having detailed subdirectories comes in handy. Just my 2 cents

Sample directory


Directory of C:\Celestia

05/07/2004 12:53a <DIR> CD-DVD Covers
08/30/2004 09:10p <DIR> data
05/07/2004 12:53a <DIR> Educational Activities
08/30/2004 09:25p <DIR> extras
08/30/2004 09:10p <DIR> fonts
08/30/2004 09:10p <DIR> models
08/30/2004 09:10p <DIR> shaders
08/30/2004 09:10p <DIR> textures
05/07/2004 12:55a <DIR> User Guides

Directory of C:\Celestia\extras

05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Space 1 (Real)
05/07/2004 01:15a <DIR> Space 2 (Fictional)

Directory of C:\Celestia\extras\Space 1 (Real)

05/07/2004 12:53a <DIR> Asteroids
06/17/2004 01:11a <DIR> Comets
05/11/2004 12:57a <DIR> Galaxies
05/07/2004 12:53a <DIR> Kuiper Belt Objects
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Nebulae
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Planets
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Spacecraft
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Stars


Directory of C:\Celestia\extras\Space 1 (Real)\Planets

05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Comparison Maps
06/17/2004 02:05a <DIR> Earth
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Jupiter
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Mars
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Mercury
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Neptune
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Saturn
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Uranus
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Venus
07/02/2004 05:30a <DIR> Virtual Textures

Directory of C:\Celestia\extras\Space 1 (Real)\Planets\Virtual Textures\textures\medres\Mars VT

05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> level0
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> level1
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> level2
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> level3


Directory of C:\Celestia\extras\Space 1 (Real)\Spacecraft

05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Earth
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Interplanetary
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Mars
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Moon
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Venus

Directory of C:\Celestia\extras\Space 1 (Real)\Spacecraft\Earth

05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> AMSAT Oscar 7
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Apollo-Saturn V
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Apollo-Soyuz
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Chandra X-Ray Obseravtory
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Cosmos 1
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Explorer 1
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Hubble Space Telescope
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Infrared Space Observatory
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> International Space Station
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Mercury and Gemini
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Mir
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Salyut 7
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Shenzhou V
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Shuttle Atlantis
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Shuttle Columbia
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Shuttle Discovery
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Skylab
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Sputnik


Directory of C:\Celestia\extras\Space 1 (Real)\Spacecraft\Interplanetary

05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Cassini
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Deep Impact Impactor
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Galileo and Probe
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Genesis
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Giotto
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Helios 1 and 2
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> International Cometary Explorer
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Mariner 02
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Mariner 10
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Near Eros Landing Site
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Nozomi
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Pioneer 06 and 07
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Pioneer 10 and 11
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Sakigake
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Spitzer Space Telescope
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Stardust
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Ulysses Solar Probe
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Vega 1
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Venera
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Voyager 1 and 2
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Zond 3


Directory of C:\Celestia\extras\Space 2 (Fictional)

05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> 2001
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Alien
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Altair
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Babylon 5
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Celestia Spaceships
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Dune
05/07/2004 01:16a <DIR> Jules Verne's Gallia
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> M57
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Planet X
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Protodisc
05/07/2004 12:54a <DIR> Protostar
05/07/2004 12:55a <DIR> Red Giant Earth
05/07/2004 12:55a <DIR> Space 1999
05/07/2004 12:55a <DIR> Space Lift
05/13/2004 12:06a <DIR> Star Trek
05/07/2004 12:55a <DIR> Star Wars
05/07/2004 12:55a <DIR> Terraformed Mars
05/07/2004 12:55a <DIR> UFO
05/07/2004 12:55a <DIR> V380
05/07/2004 12:55a <DIR> War of The Worlds
[/img]

[maxim]

AMSAT Oscar 7, Dune, Planet X, War of the Worlds?
Where did you get these from?

maxim

[hjw]

WOW - AMSAT Oscar 7

...long long time ago I used this satellite (amateur radio)...
It is still working after 30 years. Between 1981 and 2002
the batteries were dead but in 2002 to everybody's
supprise it came back and can be used again...

MfG - HJW

[STEVE555]

Hi DaveMc,your windows explorer screen capture does seem to clear things a little,i'm just wondering which flatmars zip folders you are using and where I can get them from,Steve

[TERRIER]

AMSAT Oscar 7,..........?
Where did you get these from?

WOW - AMSAT Oscar 7

If you're wanting the model of AMSAT Oscar 7, then check out this previous topic on the forum;

http://216.231.48.101/forum/viewtopic.p ... at+oscar+7

regards,
TERRIER

[selden]

STEVE555,

I'm not DaveMC but the "FlatMars" VT is by DBrady. One listing for it is on the Celestia Motherlode's Mars page at
http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/mars.html

[Oni2501]

AMSAT Oscar 7, Dune, Planet X, War of the Worlds?
Where did you get these from?

The first 3 were mentioned at some time in this forum. The Dune system was obtained from here though it doesn't seem to be working at the moment:

http://www.duniverse.de.vu/

War of the Worlds only contains the Martian ship model from the movie The model is on a site that offers them for free use, found it here:

http://members.ozemail.com.au/%7Edproc/

I've tried to convert it to 3ds that works in Celestia, but still have problems with the textures (the wingtips mostly, which should be green). I see the website has changed a bit since I was last there. It also has a Martian Tripod walker using the design from Jeff Wayne's 70's "War of the Worlds" rock drama And a few other models.

[Jeam Tag]

The first 3 were mentioned at some time in this forum. The Dune system was obtained from here though it doesn't seem to be working at the moment:
http://www.duniverse.de.vu/

The site is out of work, and it seems to me that Icehunter has no time to update his work If he was agree, Maybe could we upload a copy of the Canopus sys on the Motherlode?Jeam

[STEVE555]

I'm very sorry Selden,I was addressing to the person who replied to my problem below yours but I did copy the directory tree that he showed me and the alternative texture still doesn't work!Do you think I ought to alter the Solar.sys file to make Celestia look for the textures it is looking for?I noticed a section for Mercury that has a 'limit of knowlege' section.I just wondered if I could put a similar section in there for Mars as well,i'm just a little aprehensive about tinkering with it.Steve

[selden]

Steve,

Be sure to make a backup copy of solarsys.ssc before you start editing it. It's easy to make typos that'll mess things up.

Have you tried turning on the "console log" to see if Celestia has any complaints? (Type a tilde "~") It doesn't report all errors, but it might help.

Why don't you post a copy of your alternate surface ssc here? There might be something "obviously" wrong that someone here might notice.

[DaveMc]

Steve,

Selden's right...he's not me . He's also correct about the source of the FlaMars VT.

One problem could be that for some reason I think I changed the name from "FlatMars" to "MarsFlat", probably just because I liked it better that way. Any changes that are made must be reflected in the .ssc and .ctx files or things won't work. Here's the code of my .ssc and .ctx files:

Code: Select all

# MarsNormalMapDXT3.ssc Code:

AltSurface "MarsNormalMapDXT3" "Sol/Mars"
{
   Texture "MarsFlat.ctx"
   NormalMap "MarsNormalMapDXT3.ctx"

   Color   [ 1 0.75 0.7 ]
   HazeColor [ 1 1 1 ]
   HazeDensity 0.45
   Radius 3396 # equatorial
   # Oblateness 0.0069

}


# MarsFlat.ctx Code:

VirtualTexture
{
        ImageDirectory "MarsFlat"
        BaseSplit 0
        TileSize 256
        TileType "dds"
}


# MarsNormalMapDXT3.ctx Code:

VirtualTexture
{
        ImageDirectory "MarsNormalMapDXT3"
        BaseSplit 0
        TileSize 1024
        TileType "dds"
}


the .ctx files are in the following directory:

Celestia
- extras
- - MarsNormalMap32k_DXT3
- - - textures
- - - - medres

Hope this helps, sorry if it caused any confusion.

Dave