about specular maps

[Guest]

I don't quite understand what the specular map is or what it does. I have the Earth Surface Map (Virtual Texture) by John van Vliet from Celestia Motherlode installed and working and I have 32K Earth Spec Map (VT) by Buzz and I think I have it in the right place but I am not sure if it is working. I see no difference with it or without it. I don't know if its becasue I have it installed wrong or if its because it uses .dds files or what.

I would appriciate it if you could give me some idea of what is wrong. And what should look different with and without the specular map.

Thanks

Brandon

[rconn2]

Try Ctrl-V to change the rendering mode. I don't think specular works in Basic mode... may require one of the OpenGL or FX modes (if you have an NVidia graphics card).

Specular gives, i.e. a shiny reflection off the surface of Earth from the Sun.

-- rc

[bmeaker]

I tried doing ctrl-v and still didn't notice a change. It could be the way I've set it up or I may not have a good enough graphics card, I'm not sure what I've got right now. Here is a picture of how I have it set up




Here is what my Earth looks like.




Thanks for your help

Brandon

[bmeaker]

Also what does the bump map and the normal map do to change the apperance of the texture.

Brandon

[maxim]

It seems that you will have to select an alternate surface called 'Earth' in the Earth's context menu to show up your settings.

Bumpmap OR normal map (use only one of them) shows depth shading on elevating surface structures.

maxim

[selden]

Brandon,

You'll need to tell us exactly what kind of graphics hardware you have. Please read the first few Q/A in the "Preliminary User's FAQ"

p.s.
Also, please read http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/textures.html#3.2

[bmeaker]

I did have the alternate surface 'Earth' selected when the picture was taken. I think the problem is with my graphics hardware. I thought that might be the problem but I just wanted to make sure I was trying everything right before I did anything with the hardware.

This is what it shows me when I look at OpenGL info under the help menu in Celestia:

Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Renderer: RAGE 128 Pro x86/MMX/3DNow!/SSE
Version: 1.2.1716 WinXP Release
Max simultaneous textures: 2
Max texture size: 1024

Supported Extensions:
GL_ARB_multitexture
GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp
GL_ARB_texture_env_add
GL_ARB_transpose_matrix
GL_ARB_vertex_blend
GL_ARB_window_pos
GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once
GL_ATI_vertex_streams
GL_ATIX_vertex_shader_output_point_size
GL_EXT_abgr
GL_EXT_bgra
GL_EXT_clip_volume_hint
GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array
GL_EXT_draw_range_elements
GL_EXT_fog_coord
GL_EXT_packed_pixels
GL_EXT_rescale_normal
GL_EXT_secondary_color
GL_EXT_separate_specular_color
GL_EXT_stencil_wrap
GL_EXT_texgen_reflection
GL_EXT_texture_env_add
GL_EXT_texture3D
GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp
GL_EXT_texture_env_combine
GL_EXT_texture_object
GL_EXT_vertex_array
GL_KTX_buffer_region
GL_NV_texgen_reflection
GL_SGI_texture_edge_clamp
GL_SGIS_texture_border_clamp
GL_SGIS_texture_lod
GL_SGIS_multitexture
GL_WIN_swap_hint
WGL_EXT_extensions_string
WGL_EXT_swap_control




My computer has windows xp pro, 1.80 GHz AMD Athlon XP 2200+, with 512 MB of RAM


Thanks for all of your help and your explanations of what the different types of maps were, I had read some of the things from the webpage but was still a little unsure but I think I understand now.

Brandon

[selden]

Brandon,

Unfortunately, the Rage video cards are a rather old design. To see specular highlights and bumpmap shadows, a graphics card needs to support "GL_ARB_vertex_program", which you will notice is not included in the list of OpenGL routines that your card does support

At this instant, the least expensive cards which will display all of Celestia's current "eye candy" are those based on Nvidia's FX5200 chipset. They're typically $50-$100. Unfortunately, Celestia does not include the routines needed by ATI cards to display all of its "eye candy", so if you want to "go for broke", get an Nvidia 6800 Ultra. They cost close to $500. And need a lot of power.

[bmeaker]

Yeah that was kind of what I was thinking, I knew my video card wasn't that good and had been thinking I need a new one sometime.

Thanks for all your help.

Brandon