which hektor mesh is better?

[ravinfinite]

hi people

I'm creating a mesh for hektor and since it's the first mesh I'm making for this project, I thought I should get some feedback from the pro's. Note that the final object will have textures, bumps, etc. This poll is only for the "shape" of hektor. Since nobody knows exactly what it looks like, there are three possible scenarios (check at my previous post "help with hektor", it has a link to a site that describes the 3 possibilities). I've omitted the first case because if I made that, it'll look like any other ordinary asteroid.

please send some feedback, suggestions, whatever...

thanks in advance

check out the meshes at this link:
http://ravinfinite.tripod.com/index.html

[chris]

The page isn't working correctly . . . looks like the image URLs are "file:///c:..." type URLs, so they're pointing to images on your own HD rather than the server.

--Chris

[bruckner]

"The New Solar System", 4th edition (1999) cites Hektor (page 342) as a "possible contact binary", and gives a shape estimation similar to your second mesh, albeit a little bit more elongated and with a slightly bigger contact zone. We don't know for sure, but it looks cool!

Kindest regards.

Bruckner

[LeaderOne]

You said before:

the first one looks like an ordinary lame asteroid and the third kind of defies my logic for some reason. i think i'll make a poll after some time to get other peoples' opinions.

I think that the third option is the most interesting: two higly elongated asteroids orbiting tightly and almost at contact at the mass center of the system... I imagine that since each component is around 150kms lenght. the minimum separation between them could be few kilometers or even some hundred meters. In such an environment, wouldn't it be awesome to go there and hike to the almost contact zone, and have this incredible sight of a huge surface hanging above your head, and being able to "leap" the hundreds of meters of separation "(with a cool turn around in mid flight) to the other asteroid due to the very low gravity?

Just for the fun of it, you can calculate the behavior of gravity close to that point assuming that both components have the same mass. I'm sure it's possible, and as I said, if so, that will be THE place to visit in my next vacations!

[ravinfinite]

That's exactly what the second mesh is on my web site. The two asteroids are actually slightly apart from eachother, but they look like they are touching because the mesh is being viewed from an angle. I guess you're right about the part that both asteroids are elongated. I'll fix that shortly.

When I said the third one defies my logic, I meant it the good way, ie. it makes me deeply wonder about the mysteries of the universe and makes my head spin.

btw, I would like to use two different textures for each of the individual asteroids, however, I can only use one because Celestia supports only one texture per object (someone correct me if I'm wrong). For example, an asteroid, a single entity, can only have one texture because it is one "thing", which makes sense. However since Hektor is actually two "things", does that mean I'll have to make 624 Hektor as two separate asteroids, each with their own name and texture in the asteroids.ssc file and put them very close to each other in Celestia? Is there a way I can load the two textures under one entry in the asteroids.ssc file? I mean something like this...

it's on my web page; check it out here, it's the last image...

http://ravinfinite.tripod.com/index.html

thanks in advance

ravINFINITE

[bruckner]

I've seen the last image in your web site... and it's gorgeous. However, all the documentation I've read so far seems to imply that 624 Hektor is a contact binary asteroid, so both bodies should be in contact.

You cannot (afaik) use two different texture entries for a body in Celestia ssc files. However, I don't know what's the case with 3ds files (i.e.: if you can somehow include texture data with the mesh...)

Best regards.

Bruckner