Celestia Forums

1) There are no Night Lights

2) when you zoom in it goes blurry then when you zoom further it focuses

I know it is possible to overcome these problems by switching textures but I do not have the space for two textures. Is there any other way around the problem?

Guest wrote:1) There are no Night Lights

2) when you zoom in it goes blurry then when you zoom further it focuses

I know it is possible to overcome these problems by switching textures but I do not have the space for two textures. Is there any other way around the problem?

How much phantasy is required to imagine that zero info about your system implies zero help!

I have never heard about your problems before, notably 2). Many many people in this forum and elsewhere use Celestia without any problems whatsoever...

So without /precise/ specification of your graphics card, OS, driver, Celestia version used, custom modifications, etc... help is not possible and just costs us unnecessary time!

Bye Fridger

Well, I think these are just beginners problems, without the need of system information.

1. You need to specify and provide a nightlights texture. It's not inherited in Blue Marble.

2. It blurrs when the actual texure level is enlarged, and it get's sharp again when celestia switches to the next texture resolution level. This is typical for Virtual Textures.

Does this answer your questions?

maxim

maxim wrote:Well, I think these are just beginners problems, without the need of system information.

1. You need to specify and provide a nightlights texture. It's not inherited in Blue Marble.

2. It blurrs when the actual texure level is enlarged, and it get's sharp again when celestia switches to the next texture resolution level. This is typical for Virtual Textures.

Does this answer your questions?

maxim

The blurring part answers my question but I have nightlights but they don't work. Thanks

I have a Gforce 4 fx, Windows XP, Version 1.3.1 and a 16k earth 8k night lights the 32k earth 4k clouds. Hope that helps.

Anonymous guest,

Just saying "I have nightlights" does not provide any information that anyone can use to try to help you: if you can't see them, obviously you do not "have nightlights."

Did you modify Celestia's solarsys.ssc or are you using a separate ssc to specify an alternate surface?

Please do a "cut-and-paste" that includes several lines (if not the entire file) so we can see the code that's in place in your ssc file which declares the nightlight surface texture.

A quibble: Nvidia's FX series of cards is designated GeForce FX 5200 (and other numeric suffixes) not GeForce 4 FX. The GF4 series of cards have quite different graphics chips from the GF FX series. So far as Celestia is concerned, the higher numbered FX cards primarily provide only performance advantages. They all provide the maximal eye candy that Celesita is capable of drawing.

Also, you probably should consider registering so you can edit your posts.

selden wrote:Anonymous guest,

Just saying "I have nightlights" does not provide any information that anyone can use to try to help you: if you can't see them, obviously you do not "have nightlights."

Did you modify Celestia's solarsys.ssc or are you using a separate ssc to specify an alternate surface?

Please do a "cut-and-paste" that includes several lines (if not the entire file) so we can see the code that's in place in your ssc file which declares the nightlight surface texture.

A quibble: Nvidia's FX series of cards is designated GeForce FX 5200 (and other numeric suffixes) not GeForce 4 FX. The GF4 series of cards have quite different graphics chips from the GF FX series. So far as Celestia is concerned, the higher numbered FX cards primarily provide only performance advantages. They all provide the maximal eye candy that Celesita is capable of drawing.

Also, you probably should consider registering so you can edit your posts.

I have an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200.

I cannot see the night lights when using the 32k VT Texture but I can when I use a 16k texture I do have nightlights.

"Earth" "Sol"
{
Texture "Realistic-Earth16k.dds"
# Texture "earth8k.dds"
NightTexture "land_ocean_ice_lights_aurora_8k.dds"

# SpecularTexture "earthspec2k.jpg"
Color [ 0.85 0.85 1.0 ]
SpecularColor [ 0.5 0.5 0.55 ]
SpecularPower 25.0
HazeColor [ 1 1 1 ]
HazeDensity 0.3
Radius 6378.140 # equatorial
# Oblateness 0.0034

# NormalMap "earthbump4k.jpg"
# BumpMap "8kEarthBump.png"
# BumpHeight 4.5

Atmosphere {
Height 60
Lower [ 0.43 0.52 0.65 ]
Upper [ 0.26 0.47 0.84 ]
Sky [ 0.40 0.6 1.0 ]
Sunset [ 1.0 0.6 0.2 ]
# Sunset [ 0.3 1.0 0.5 ]
CloudHeight 7
CloudSpeed 65
CloudMap "Realistic_Earth_clouds4k.dds"
}

CustomOrbit "vsop87-earth"
EllipticalOrbit {
Period 1.0000
SemiMajorAxis 1.0000
Eccentricity 0.0167
Inclination 0.0001
AscendingNode 348.739
LongOfPericenter 102.947
MeanLongitude 100.464
}

RotationPeriod 23.9344694 # 23.93419
Obliquity -23.45
RotationOffset 280.5 # offset at default epoch J2000

Albedo 0.30
}

I am the 'Guest'. I have now registered.

Is the information given all you need or is more required?

Couldn't log in sorry.

Keram,

You'll need to provide the code that's in place when you cannot see the nightlights.
Also, please provide the filesizes of the surface textures that are involved. It could be that you're simply running out of memory on your graphics card. FX 5200 cards are available with 64 or 128MB. I think 256MB versions may be available, too. Which do you have?

fwiw, I use a separate SSC file which declares an AltSurface, and have no problems seeing all of the features.

Here's the BlueMarbleDDS.SSC file that I use for VTs of Earth. If you substitute the names of the files you have, I think it should work for you.

The BlueMarble DDS files are all 128KB.
The earthnight DDS files are all 128KB
The earth-normal DDS files are all 256KB
The earth-spec DDS files are all 128KB

I am using the coding that came with the 32k texture :

AltSurface "BlueMarble DDS" "Sol/Earth"
{
Color [ 0.85 0.85 1.0 ]
Texture "BlueMarble DDS.ctx"
}

Is what you mean by code when night lights don't show?

As for file sizes they are all of varying sizes e.g. 129bytes - 21MB this doesn't make sense.

When it comes to coding I an still very new to this. I once tried coding Jupiter's rings but ended up losing the planet entirely.

If it means doing lots of coding I may just leave it as it is.

Thanks for the help.

Keram,

When you select an AltSurface, Celestia draws only the textures that are declared within its definition. In other words, if you want to use the BM VT DDS and overlay it with the same NightTexture you're using with the standard Earth definition, you need to add to your BlueMable SSC the line

As a result, it'd look like

Similarly, you need to add appropriate lines for specular reflections and bump mapping if you want those effects, too.

You might want to consider downloading the corresponding virtual textures so that all the surface effects have comparable resolutions.

selden wrote:Keram,

When you select an AltSurface, Celestia draws only the textures that are declared within its definition. In other words, if you want to use the BM VT DDS and overlay it with the same NightTexture you're using with the standard Earth definition, you need to add to your BlueMable SSC the line

Code: Select all

NightTexture "land_ocean_ice_lights_aurora_8k.dds"

As a result, it'd look like

Code: Select all

AltSurface "BlueMarble DDS" "Sol/Earth"
{
Color [ 0.85 0.85 1.0 ]
Texture "BlueMarble DDS.ctx"
NightTexture "land_ocean_ice_lights_aurora_8k.dds"
}

Similarly, you need to add appropriate lines for specular reflections and bump mapping if you want those effects, too.

You might want to consider downloading the corresponding virtual textures so that all the surface effects have comparable resolutions.

Thanks for the help I think I understand now. The only problem now is where do I get the necessary Virtual Textures?

I got the 8k Night Lights working now thanks!

I've been using the ones on "Jim" Jens' site.
http://home.arcor.de/jimpage/earth.html

Thanks again.