Celestia Forums

Thank you once again Selden,

I am determined to get this working and in trying to do so have moved into (for me ) new territory. I am using your intro to add-ons as a guide as well as the sticky's at the top of the forum. I am going ahead with your advice to make this portion (i.e Normalmap) an alternate surface. To view the ssc. file I am using windows notepad. It seems to show the data so I assume this is okay.

Thanks again for your help.

Osmium

Hi Selden and others...

Ummm.....should that file read

AltSurface "16kmaps" "Sol/Mars"
{
not:

AltSurface "16kmaps" "Sol/Earth" ?
(see previous posts)

cheers

Osmium.

Sorry re-read your original post


you wrote:
Replace the filenames shown in this example by the correct ones, of course.

silly me!

I gave it a shot but it didn't work

I created said file then added(and amended) till I got to the following which I thought was right:

AltSurface "16kmaps" "Sol/Mars"
{
Texture "16K-surfacemap.*"
NormalMap "m46normal_dds.*"
}

sorry to bother with this again but I am just really exploring this level of Celestia manipulation for the first time.

thanks

Osmium

You'll have to describe what you mean by "doesn't work".

Do you see the entry Alternate Surfaces in the right-mouse-button-select popup menu for Mars?
(I do when using your AltSurface catalog)

If not, then the .SSC catalog isn't being recognized. Maybe there's a typo that isn't obvious.


What name did you give the catalog?
Remember it must have a filetype of .SSC

Where did you put the catalog?
Where are the texture files?
Please show the full path in your description:
exactly what directories are where.

Hi Selden,

I am not ignoring this thread I just seem to be having trouble posting my response..does the log-on into this forum time out? or perhaps it is a glitch at this end, in any case I have written out the steps I have taken in another format (had to dig out my pencil sharpener )& will post here promptly...with any luck..

Cheers

Osmium

Osmium,

Logins aren't supposed to timeout until you explicitly logout. I haven't had to login on the Celestia Forum for a very long time.

However, apparently browsers sometimes cache a not-logged-in copy of the Web page, which would cause you to have to login again when you return to that page. You might try logging in and then emptying your browser's cache. That ought to cause it to then cache the logged-in version of the page.

Thanks Selden,

I never thought of that. I will give it a shot. I have attempted to detail (i believe quite exactingly) what I did, to save on posts & time 3 times now.

4th time lucky. ..I hope

Thanks for the tip

osmium

Downloaded Jestr's http://celestiamotherlode.net/creators/ ... dds_vt.zip
Installed as alternate texture.. all good

Found the Don's great work (this thread) and downloaded:
http://216.231.48.101/~impulse/Mars_Cen ... 16kDDS.zip and set it as my default hires ..still all good

Then sighted the normal map downloadhttp://216.231.48.101/~impulse/ ... ap_16k.zip


& put it into Celestia>extras>mars_M46_dds_vt>textures>hires>m46normal_dds

Continued in next post (don't want to take any chances )
Osmium

I did this in the hope that I would be able to set the normalmap as an alternate (right-click) feature.

this didn't work so Selden kindly had a suggestion
I then created a file in Celestia>data called 16maps.ssc

and within added the following text:

AltSurface "16kmaps" "Sol/Mars"
{
Texture "16K-surfacemap.*"
NormalMap "m46normal_dds.*"
}
Still didn't work

I am not really sure now, when I open Celestia and go to Mars I can right click on planet and I get an alternate surfaces option which gives me a choice of Jestr's alternate or 'normal' if I click normal there is no discernable change....as far as I am aware...

Osmium

"no discernable change" means it's working.

If it were not working, either Mars would be a white ball (no textures at all) or the volcanos
would look flat instead of like mountains (alternate Texture but no Normalmap).

You will see differences only if you get very, very close and look at (for example) Olympus Mons while it's near a terminator. The 16K selection will show more detail than does the "Normal" selection.

Aaaaahhh

Perhaps that is where the confusion is, before embarking on this I downloaded every thing I could from the ML to enhance the Mars model
including jestr's Mars features ...so that being the case i guess my question is, apart from the 4 large volcanoes and Gusev crater ,does this normalmap enhance any other features or have I just 'doubled-up' so to speak..? it seems that Jestr's Mars features remain regardless of which texture used


Thanks yet again for your help on this

Osmium

In principle, you should see more, smaller, shaded craters. Their shadows will be most visible when they're near a terminator: at local dawn and sunset.

Valles Marineris and the nearby Noctis Labyrinthus region should show lots of detail, too.