Celestia Forums

Helllllllp, I'm drowning

The screen shots I've just seen have convinced me to take a look at some of the Virtual Texture / Map stuff y'all are working on.

I've not been following the Virtual Texture stuff and just tried to get up to speed -- by reading a whole bunch of messages. As a matter of fact, I've not gotten much into textures, mipmaps, normal maps, bumpmaps, specular maps, night maps, or any other kind of maps -- since installing Celestia (with one exception - Don Edwards Earth texture). I've been focusing on scripting stuff instead.

So, I am totally LOST right now.

I would like to try the "latest and greatest" combo of Virtual Earth textures and all add-on maps. So far, I have downloaded Walton Comer's 32K Blue Marble Earth (90 MB), but have not yet installed it. I want to get *everything* before I start installing it all.

What *should* I get for all the rest of the maps?
* Normal?
* Bump?
* Specular?
* Nightside Lights?
* Other?

Is anyone keeping a link list of all the Virtual Texture / Map stuff you expert graphics folks are working on and offering for distribution I didn't see any references to "virtual textures" on Selden's page, which is usually up-to-the-minute, so I probably looked in the wrong places.

And no, I'm not interested in making my own textures -- it's plum beyond my medicated mind right now. I have a DSL connection, so I don't mind spending hours downloading 100+MB files. Much easier than trying to turn my Windows box into a Linux/Unix emulator.

Thank you ALL for your hard work on these things I barely even understand

-Don G.

don wrote: I didn't see any references to "virtual textures" on Selden's page, which is usually up-to-the-minute, so I probably looked in the wrong places.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but if you look closely on the textures page, you'll see a "To be continued..." in the last section.

Sorry: I just haven't had the time to try to write it up in an understandable format. Chris' original description is just a little confusing, I think...

At the moment I don't think virtual textures other than the surface map are publicly available, so it's a matter of finding high resolution individual textures that you like.

There's a reasonably good night texture on the NASA site, and Don Edwards includes large bumpmaps and specular maps in several of his Earth collections.

Don...go ahead and install Waltons texture...it will blow you away! As far as bump. normal,spec maps go...I'm just using a standard 4k spec map...my own night lights texture(see seperate thread) again 4k and no bump or normal maps...it still looks staggering.

Also i've installed Jens island group textures...just amazing...

Regards...bh.

selden wrote:Thanks for the vote of confidence, but if you look closely on the textures page, you'll see a "To be continued..." in the last section.

Ahhhh, the fine print.

No worries Selden. I just didn't want to get "left behind".

Anonymous wrote:Don...go ahead and install Waltons texture...it will blow you away!

Thanks bh -- I did, and it does

Amazing indeed!

Thank you Walton.

Hi Don,

You are looking for some virtual textures? You can find a 8k Moon VT on my site. Further does John Van Vliet build some virtual texture but I have not tested this.

Bye Jens

Hi Jens,

Thank you for the locations. Your moon, KSC and Islands are amazing!

If I remember right, John's site is only up part-time, so I will try it tonight.

-Don G.