Improved rendering - a preview

The place to discuss creating, porting and modifying Celestia's source code.
Kolano
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Post #41by Kolano » 12.07.2006, 05:19

I'm pretty sure it's a spectral map you can fit in the alpha channel. A normal map won't fit in the 8-bit space. A bump map might, but that isn't supported.

Or ar you refering to Selden's mention of using non b/w spectral maps?
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Post #42by t00fri » 12.07.2006, 06:53

cartrite,

as I mentioned previously, if you use the conventional specmaps either as rgb-alpha or separately with rgb, you won't see any significant effects from Chris' new code. On the land, the (black) specmap mask suppresses any spec light and thus the new effects due to spec + normalmap cannot work. However, if you /combine/ some speclight with normalmaps ON land (e.g. by using a gray rather than black mask!) the effects are as I have illustrated previously. This also works of course, by just using plain rgb and some speclight (without mask) via solarsys.ssc.

Bye Fridger
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Post #43by PlutonianEmpire » 12.07.2006, 07:21

t00fri wrote:cartrite,

as I mentioned previously, if you use the conventional specmaps either as rgb-alpha or separately with rgb, you won't see any significant effects from Chris' new code. On the land, the (black) specmap mask suppresses any spec light and thus the new effects due to spec + normalmap cannot work. However, if you /combine/ some speclight with normalmaps ON land (e.g. by using a gray rather than black mask!) the effects are as I have illustrated previously. This also works of course, by just using plain rgb and some speclight (without mask) via solarsys.ssc.

Bye Fridger

What about putting together the bumpmap and the spec map, would that work as well?
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Post #44by cartrite » 12.07.2006, 10:27

I found the lighting effects quite impressive for the native sphere of mars.

But I see only slight to no effects on my addon model. Did I read correctly that normalmaps are supposed to be visible on addon models in cmod format? Would they need uv coords for the normalmap also? I can't get normalmaps (external or alpha channel)to work on the addon model. RGB-alpha files are also transparent on the addon model.
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Post #45by ajtribick » 12.07.2006, 11:02

What does Iapetus look like with this?

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Post #46by selden » 12.07.2006, 11:35

Remember Chris is still in the middle of adding this new code. Some of the features may not be working yet -- like specifying it in an SSC.

In principle, a normalmap should work if you edit the cmod file to specify one. An appropriate image file also must be in the /medres/ folder.
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Post #47by cartrite » 12.07.2006, 11:47

10/4 Selden. I had a feeling that it may not be active yet.
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Post #48by cartrite » 12.07.2006, 13:54

In case anyone is curious.
I found that the "modify" statement in the ssc file was stopping the normalmap from being loaded properly. If I just say "mars2" "sol" at the start of the ssc file and put in the orbit, the normalmaps work on addon planet models. In the case of mars it's fine for mountains or places with a height > then the planet radius. But valleys get buried under the normalmap.
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Post #49by selden » 12.07.2006, 13:59

Please provide the full text of the Modify SSC that fails. It is a waste of Chris' time for him to try to create one that might or might not fail.
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Post #50by cartrite » 12.07.2006, 15:12

After closer examination nothing ever worked. By using

Code: Select all

"Mars2" "Sol"
{
       Mesh "mars2.cmod"
       Texture "mars.*"
       Normalmap "done.png"
       SpecularColor [ 0.5 0.5 0.55 ]
       SpecularPower 125.0
       SpecularTexture "spec1.png"
       Radius 3396 #small
       Atmosphere {
      Height 250
      Lower [ 0.8 0.6 0.6 ]
      Upper [ 0.7 0.3 0.3 ]
      Sky [ 0.83 0.75 0.65 ]
                Sunset [ 0.7 0.7 0.8 ]
                # Slightly bluish sunset, as seen in true color pictures
                # from Pathfinder
   }
   CustomOrbit "vsop87-mars"
   EllipticalOrbit
   {
   Period            1.8809
   SemiMajorAxis     1.5237
   Eccentricity      0.0934
   Inclination       1.8506
   AscendingNode     49.479
   LongOfPericenter 336.041
        MeanLongitude    355.453
   }

   RotationPeriod        24.622962
   Obliquity             26.72
   EquatorAscendingNode    82.91
   RotationOffset       136.005
       Albedo            0.150
}
I was loading the spec and normalmap onto the native sphere, which occupied the same space as the addon model Mars2. When I changed the orbit I was back at square 1.
No spec. No normalmap.
I'm going to bail on this and wait till things are finished. Don't want to waste anyones time. Including my own.

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Post #51by t00fri » 12.07.2006, 17:58

Here are some further exercises with Chris' new code for combining normalmaps with spec light rendering. What I did is this:

1) I quickly made a new 32k specmap using my custom tools as follows:

-- from the 32k, 16bit RAMP2 elevation map, I extracted an ocean specmap (elevation==0?) with oceans assigned to 0xff while land was assigned 0x40 (64 decimal) instead of the usual black (0x00)! So there was a little bit of residual spec light remaining on land!

-- then I logically OR-ed this map with the 32k watermap to also have the rivers and lakes implemented, without changing the base gray value of 0x40 for land!!

The tip of Tierra del Fuergo then looks like so, for example (32k)

Image

Note it's "ONLY" 32k instead of 64k, but this size I can just load without making tiles...

2) I combined this modified specmap that features some little amount of residual spec light on land with my 64k RGB base texture and the 64k normalmap

Comparing the result with the canonical setting with a BLACK specmap for land, gives the following striking improvements:

top: specmap = 0x40 for land
bottom: specmap = 0x00 for land

Note e.g. the much improved visibility of the fine river arms etc...Also note the "white" of the glaciers has become whiter...

Image

Bye Fridger
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Post #52by t00fri » 12.07.2006, 19:52

To give you an even better idea what's going on, I have prepared another 32k specmap that now has double the spec light on land as my previous one: i.e. 0x7f (128 decimal)

Now you can see clearly that the land mask is a dark gray (rather than black)

Image

The resulting image with the same settings as above is now even MUCH more crisp. So I have enlarged the scale to make you see the considerably increased clarity:

Image

Bye Fridger
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Post #53by Fightspit » 12.07.2006, 20:12

Can you show the base texture of "Tierra del Fuergo" with your spec texture to see the result ?
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Post #54by t00fri » 12.07.2006, 20:19

Fightspit wrote:Can you show the base texture of "Tierra del Fuergo" with your spec texture to see the result ?


But the picture above is from there. I have shown quite a few images already above with my 64k normalmap. Another one doesn't tell much more...I showed the spec map just to illustrate the mask color used, i.e. the amount of spec light that is remaining on land.

Byen Fridger
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Post #55by ElChristou » 12.07.2006, 20:50

Fridger, this is a very nice improvement, but the question is: should the spec maps of the default package be treaten this way? what about the rendering with other rendering path?
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Post #56by t00fri » 12.07.2006, 21:08

ElChristou wrote:Fridger, this is a very nice improvement, but the question is: should the spec maps of the default package be treaten this way? what about the rendering with other rendering path?


I don't think so, it's vasted effort for such small textures.

To make a new custom specmap with an arbitrary gray color and 32k size just takes < 2 minutes with my little program that I hacked. So one just has to load the official 32k Watermask as a layer in addition and OR the two textures. Saving gives the desired result. Altogether about 5 minutes of work...Everyone can do that.

Bye Fridger
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Post #57by Fightspit » 13.07.2006, 10:40

t00fri wrote:
Fightspit wrote:Can you show the base texture of "Tierra del Fuergo" with your spec texture to see the result ?

But the picture above is from there. I have shown quite a few images already above with my 64k normalmap. Another one doesn't tell much more...I showed the spec map just to illustrate the mask color used, i.e. the amount of spec light that is remaining on land.

Byen Fridger


OK ! I notice now it is not the same "zoom" :lol:
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Post #58by PlutonianEmpire » 13.07.2006, 10:51

t00fri wrote:
ElChristou wrote:Fridger, this is a very nice improvement, but the question is: should the spec maps of the default package be treaten this way? what about the rendering with other rendering path?

I don't think so, it's vasted effort for such small textures.

To make a new custom specmap with an arbitrary gray color and 32k size just takes < 2 minutes with my little program that I hacked. So one just has to load the official 32k Watermask as a layer in addition and OR the two textures. Saving gives the desired result. Altogether about 5 minutes of work...Everyone can do that.

Bye Fridger

So, the gray color for the land is uniform in the specular texture, or is it textured?
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Post #59by t00fri » 13.07.2006, 12:46

PlutonianEmpire wrote:
t00fri wrote:
ElChristou wrote:Fridger, this is a very nice improvement, but the question is: should the spec maps of the default package be treaten this way? what about the rendering with other rendering path?

I don't think so, it's vasted effort for such small textures.

To make a new custom specmap with an arbitrary gray color and 32k size just takes < 2 minutes with my little program that I hacked. So one just has to load the official 32k Watermask as a layer in addition and OR the two textures. Saving gives the desired result. Altogether about 5 minutes of work...Everyone can do that.

Bye Fridger
So, the gray color for the land is uniform in the specular texture, or is it textured?


It's uniform: instead of the usual black (0x00) it's a more or less dark gray (0x40 - 0x7f)

Bye Fridger
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Post #60by PlutonianEmpire » 13.07.2006, 13:25

t00fri wrote:
PlutonianEmpire wrote:
t00fri wrote:
ElChristou wrote:Fridger, this is a very nice improvement, but the question is: should the spec maps of the default package be treaten this way? what about the rendering with other rendering path?

I don't think so, it's vasted effort for such small textures.

To make a new custom specmap with an arbitrary gray color and 32k size just takes < 2 minutes with my little program that I hacked. So one just has to load the official 32k Watermask as a layer in addition and OR the two textures. Saving gives the desired result. Altogether about 5 minutes of work...Everyone can do that.

Bye Fridger
So, the gray color for the land is uniform in the specular texture, or is it textured?

It's uniform: instead of the usual black (0x00) it's a more or less dark gray (0x40 - 0x7f)

Bye Fridger

Ah. ok. thanks. :)
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