Celestia Forums

Hey all, my name is Brian Martin, this is an EXCELLENT program.. one thing though, I noticed when I downloaded Celestia Version 1.2.4, Thee earth looks kinda cheezy... I saw a new Reflected light Earth on the galley, any chance I can get that?

I wouldn't say the Earth looks cheesy, but there are lots of places you can get higher resolution textures, for example :
http://gw.marketingden.com/planets/
Make sure you resize the texture you download so that it measures 1024 * 512 pixels, or a whole number multiple thereof. Don't ask me why this is, just one of Celestias' (few) quirks I guess.
Re reflected light : I too would like someone to explain how to do this ! I notice it's apparent in the second hektor mesh, but nowhere else.

(Mad Boris)

You need a good graphics card - eg, Radeon or GeForce, and then you need to switch on pixel and vertex shaders. You can save a reflectivity map in the alpha channel of a PNG file, which stops unslightly reflective land.
Orbiter (another space sim), however, has a reflective Earth on any graphics card. Why does Celestia need a recent card and Orbiter doesn't?
The Hektor mesh has (I think...) refectivity "built in" to the mesh, which, I suppose, would mean you could make a reflective Earth mesh without the need for a fancy graphics card.
BTW, bump mapping clouds in Gimp makes them "stand out" from the surface of the Earth. It's really cool - it makes them look like they're actually above the surface, rather than part of it.