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Seasons Greetings and Merry Christmas to everyone.
Well it ended up two days late but here it is. My much needed update to Earth Central.
So what are you going to find here this time around. For starters the updated 16k Earth texture. It is not perfect but I think it’s better than the last one. There may be a few things a little off with it and if its idiosyncrasies are to many than I can always go back and fix it. I will not give away what they are so you will just have to look for them. There are not many of them luckily. Of course it is also available in smaller resolutions.
The next is that I have the new Northern Summer-Southern Winter Static 8K cloudmap ready for download. To use it you will need to go into your solarsys.ssc file and set Earth's cloud speed to 00. This will lock the clouds to where they are supposed to be in relation to the surface. It also allows your video card to render the cloudmap at its highest level. The 8k cloudmap will not render properly if you do not shut down the cloud spinning. I also have lower resolution versions you can use with the clouds in motion as before. But you will only have 1/4 of the detail and you will have storms moving over areas that they just don't move in the real world. So the choice as to which you use is completely up to you. I personally do not miss the clouds moving that much. It is much more interesting seeing all the details instead.
The Northern Summer-Southern Winter Static 8K cloudmap was based on BlueMarbles 8k cloudmap. This cloudmap was of a more Northern summer weather pattern to begin with. There are some tropical storms here and there. So I decided to add to the texture. So I went through many of the pictures of typhoons, hurricanes, and cyclones on the BlueMarble site and chose the ones that had what I felt were the best features. I then desaturated the color; adjusted brightness and contrast to match the 8k cloud map and located the proper places for the storms to go. Then it was a simple task of pasting in as layers and doing some nice blending into the background texture. After this was done I used the time tested way of using Gimp to create a transparent cloudmap. The rest of my process is very complex and you might call my trade secret. I did learn a few of these tricks from Fridger so I have to give him some credit here.
I think that the cloudmap can and will speak for itself. I hope everyone enjoys it.
Now there is more. I also have put up another rebuild of my Night-lights & Auroras texture. It is available in several resolutions and formats so everyone can play with this and let me know what you think.
Lastly I updated the site with a link to the Earth 18000BCE texture.
So that should wrap up the biggest update to Earth Central to this date.
I am considering doing some revamping of the whole Celestia Hub concept. I do not have my own textures for all the planets in our solar system and I do not plan on making one for all of them. But what I might do is contact other texture artists and see if they would like me to mirror there work in the wholes that need filling. That way the hub can look more complete and it will be another resource for downloads of some really nice textures that at times are not available.
As always I welcome input either positive or negative. And of course I always take what ideas are given very seriously. Also if you have any ideas for the Celestia Hub don't be afraid to contact me either by PM, email, or a post here in the forum with your ideas and input.
Hope this makes this Christmas for all Celestia users a happy one.
Don. Edwards
Seasons Greetings and Merry Christmas to all,
