New 16k Earth Texture - Warning Large graphics inside!!

[Kendrix]

Amazing shots !!!

Where and When can we download that wonderfull 16k texture for the earth ! (and the clouds texture too) ?

[bh]

Great shots Don...thanks for posting them. I can't wait to get hold of this one!

Regards...bh.

[Don. Edwards]

Well the texture has reached what I feel is 98% completion. There are just a few more things to work out. I have hopefully enlisted the help of a few forum members to look the texture over and to give me some feedback as to anything that might need fixing. That being said I am hoping for a release as soon as this weekend if all goes well and the feedback is positive. I do know of just a few very small things that need adjusting. So hopefully everyone can wait just a few more days. Here is another shot of the texture again with that darker specmap.



This shot pretty much covers all the areas I just finished touching up. As I said I know of one small glitch. It’s a mismatch in the ocean along the seem. I will be fixing it as soon as feed back starts to filter in. In the mean time I am going to go back to working on the Earth 18000BCE texture.

Don.

P.S.
Please don't ask to test the texture. I hopefully have all the testers I need right now. The main reason I chose to do it this way was that I didn't want to release a beta texture around and then everyone have to download the thing again when it’s done. That way we all save bandwidth and we keep only pure original textures out there for everyone.

[don]

I will be trying it out on a NVida Quadro 2 64mb card to see how it works on lower memory and older cards.

Howdy DonE, DonG here,

One word for your work: AWESOME!

Are you using LANDSAT or other satellite photography / imagry for the realistic close-in detail you are showing?

If you would like a beta tester with an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (128 MB), just let me know. I have a 256 kbps DSL connection so if you post the file(s) somewhere I can download it/them.

Keep up the FANTASTIC work DonE!

-DonG

PS. Added edit ... ooops, I had only viewed the first of 2 pages, sorry.

[Don. Edwards]

Hey everyone. Well another day and a few more things done. I decided to play with the bumpmap I use, it is an 8k and see what I could do with it. Well after a little adjusting in Photoshop and then converting it to a normalmap these are the results.
Here is a shot of the Grand Canyon and to the west you can start to see signs of human habitation in Los Angeles.


Here is a close-up of the South American Andes mountains.


Here are the Alps.


Lastly we have the Canadian Rockies. This shot shows off the as of yet sloppy specmap.


Well everyone that is going to test should be hopefully giving this texture a run and I should start to here back soon about things that need fixing.
I am still hoping for a weekend release but that could get pushed back just a little If anyone finds something major.

Don.

[bh]

Don...awesome!!

bh.

[ANDREA]

Well everyone that is going to test should be hopefully giving this texture a run and I should start to here back soon about things that need fixing. I am still hoping for a weekend release but that could get pushed back just a little If anyone finds something major.
Don.

Don, I'm checking your 16k Earth, and at a first look I found a straight line connecting New Zealand and Anctarctica (may be the texture connecting line?), as shown here :



I have enhanced the image with Photoshop (Unsharp Mask plus Contrast-Luminosity) JUST to make it more evident, but in Celestia it's clearly seen.
To the next message for other info .
By

Andrea

[Don. Edwards]

Andrea,
This is one glitch that I am aware of. I will fix it as soon as I get feedback on anything else you might find.

Don.

[ANDREA]

Andrea,
This is one glitch that I am aware of. I will fix it as soon as I get feedback on anything else you might find.
Don.

Here is another one. It is more visible with OpenGL Vertex ON:



As the other image I have enhanced with Photoshop to make it more evident.
And for tonight is enough (it's 02.00 AM here!).
By this afternoon.

Andrea

[Don. Edwards]

I have seen this before as well. It’s not in the texture itself but in the normalmap when you get close to the transition from day to night. I guess I will have to scrap that normalmap and try a bumpmap instead. That is going to slow Celestia down some unless someone has a better normalmap we can try. I know DBrady has a nice one but I don't think he can upload it do to his connection speed. So now I need a better specmap and a better bumpmap. Well so much for a whole package release. I guess its just going to be the texture and everyone will be on there own to find the other parts.

Don.

[Darkmiss]

Well everyone that is going to test should be hopefully giving this texture a run and I should start to here back soon about things that need fixing. I am still hoping for a weekend release but that could get pushed back just a little If anyone finds something major.
Don.

Don, I'm checking your 16k Earth, and at a first look I found a straight line connecting New Zealand and Anctarctica (may be the texture connecting line?), as shown here :

http://www.ara-frasso-sabino.org/n%20ze ... 20line.jpg

I have enhanced the image with Photoshop (Unsharp Mask plus Contrast-Luminosity) JUST to make it more evident, but in Celestia it's clearly seen.
To the next message for other info .

Hello Andrea there is also a problem with this seam line to the north too, but you have to be very close to see it.

I have sent this report to Don via PM

[ANDREA]

Hello Andrea there is also a problem with this seam line to the north too, but you have to be very close to see it.
I have sent this report to Don via PM

Hello Paul, yes, you are right, it is on North side too .
I have found that when in NvidiaCombiners, strong black bands appear at the terminator :



I'm sure that this has been already spoken about, but after a brief search I have not found it. Anyhow, I was thinking that the problem had been solved in the last versions, but probably I'm wrong .
Someone can give me a link on this matter?
But this is not a problem of the texture, that is very good, but alas with the problems involved with the patchy specmap.
I'm sure that Don will solve the problem with some other wonderful creation .
By soon

Andrea

[Don. Edwards]

Ok we are on track and I think on schedule. I have the "seam" problem fixed but I have not generated the .dds as of yet pending any further glitches that might be found. So If the testers don't find any other major glitch that are not in the texture then we will be a go for release on Sunday.
I am going to have to manually edit the specmap so that it works better with the 16k texture. There are still some problems to resolve there.
The weird pixel problem Andrea found is caused by the normalmap I made for the texture. I exaggerated elevation to far and it introduced some very interesting but unwanted effects. At this point I am making as clean an 8k normalmap as I can to go along with the texture. A 16k normalmap at this point isn't going to be possible unless someone can tell me how to make one outside of the NVDXT Photoshop plug-in or the regular NVDXT utility. If anyone has an idea send it my way.
Also this texture in its 8k form will be officially replacing my older 8k Earth texture and the other sizes as well but after some further editing. I am considering this texture a version 1. I have a great deal of cleaning up to do in the oceans of some left over artifacts. There not really that noticeable unless you go looking for them. But the second and hopefully final release that will be at least a month away will fix all that junk for good.
Well I think that covers everything for now.

Don.

[Darkmiss]

Don I managed to find a very high quality 8k spec map, with all the small rivers and lakes, on my hardrive.
I found it purley by accident.

I can't remember where i may have got this from.
its not from spacegraphics.com.

Its 8192 x 4096 very sharp and only a 837kb PNG file
have a look see if it will do for your needs.


http://www.bt.homepage.btinternet.co.uk/images/Earth-Spec.png

[Don. Edwards]

Well everyone the 16k texture's release is on hold.
A few things have been pointed out to me that need checking into and we here in the Pacific Northwest are going through another heat-wave that is going to put temps up to century mark. That is hot for Oregon and because I don't have A\C I don't like to run my computer during the hotest part of the day. It has the tendancy to shut itself down when it gets to hot. I can't take the chance of it doing this while I am in the middle of working on the texture. It would mean data loss and I don't think we want that.
So I will working on it at night only. So just hang in there and it should be done by the end of the week if not sooner.

Don.

[Don. Edwards]

Well the first phase of the 16k texture project has come to an official close. Version 1 of the texture will be available to download very shortly.
I want to thank everyone that was kind enough to play with this thing and look for things I missed. There are still a few issues that need some ironing out but that will be in version 2 several weeks down the road. I decided if make everyone wait would just to much torture.
The next version will have most of the artifacts in the oceans cleaned up as well as some of the Northern European coastlines being a bit dark. They almost look outlined. Actually all the coastlines in the texture looked like they had been traced with permanent marker. I had to go along every coastline and gently erase just enough of the dark areas so that it looked natural. The overall look is quite good so I guess it worked out ok. If you look close enough you might find a coastline that may be off by just a little bit. But to see this you would have to zoom in very close indeed.
So here are some final shots to wet your appetites until the download is ready.












Well that’s it for now. Stay tuned

Don.

[granthutchison]

Hey, good to see an up-to-date coastline for the Aral Sea - most textures have it as big as it was in the '70s.

Grant

[don]

Very nice Don

Looking forward to version 1.0 final

[jamarsa]

Hey, good to see an up-to-date coastline for the Aral Sea icon_smile.gif - most textures have it as big as it was in the '70s.

That's really one of the worst environmental shames - the fate of the Aral Sea.

[bh]

Hello Don...I've really been enjoying your test texture...are there many major differences between this and your official release? I ask because I've only got a dailup connection at the moment.

Regards...bh.