Celestia Forums

Hey everyone,
I know some of you have been wondering where I have been the last month and a half. Well I still do not have internet access of my own and it still looks like it is going to be a while before I do. I am still using my brothers conection to try and keep abreast of what has been going on. So again please keep in mind that any corespondance with me will be delayed at least by a week.
So on to the good stuff. I have been hammering away at the latest Earth texture I started back in January. It has been gone through many revisions and set-backs. The good news is there will not only be one new texure for Earth but a total of 6 all at the 16k level and a seventh at the long awaited 32k level along afterwards.
So why are there 6 textures you may ask? Here is a breakdown of what is coming.
Texture #1 is a replacement for the texture I released in 12-2003.
Texture #2 is an altered version for those who want lighter colored oceans or that have graphics cards that can't render all the effects that the GeForce family of cards can.
Textures #3-4-5-6 are the most ambisious project I have done to date.
They cover the Earth going through its seasonal changes.
So here are a few thumbnails of what things look at this point. You may see a few glitches here and there but be asured that they are being worked out. Enjoy!

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Hope you enjoy the pics. I would have gone into more detail about the pics but trying to do things on my brothers computer isn't easy. Its a mess and trying to format text under the pictures was just a nightmare.
As always any comments are welcome. I know some of you may think that the snow coverage looks a little extreme but this realy is fairly acurate with the data I have.
Remember that it will take me a while to answer back. I should be able to answer ant questions tomorrow but than it will about a week before I will be able to log in again.
So till then,

Don. Edwards

Wow...looking good Don.

Regards...bh.

These look good. Maybe there should be cyclic beginning and ending times for textures to change between the seasons automatically.

Brendan

Nice work so far, just a few problems I have though:

Is the large ice covered version supposed to be of the great ice age? If so they're not completely acurate. Britain and indeed the North Sea were completely covered by ice. Also you havent taken into account the increased landmass due to the lower sea levels such levels of ice would bring. For example Florida was twice the size it is now. You also show lakes in the middle of the thick ice but surely they should be shown as frozen over.

Will you be releasing them in packs and insturctions for replacing the default Earth?

Keep up the good work.

Don already did an ice age map. None of these are it.

Very, very cool. One thing, though. From what I've seen on the Visible Earth website, snow covering the ground doesn't look like that from orbit. Instead, you have a very patchy mixture of white snow and dark grey (I assume) forests and other dead foliage, as well as frozen-over lakes that appear brighter and more uniform.

HOLY CRAP. Thats from The Day After Tomorrow. thats what it exactly look like after the storm

Here are some examples of what the ground looks like in the winter.

http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/U_S__States/New_York/32.html

Maybe the season textures could be virtual textures so that the seasonal pictures from Visible Earth could be added to them.

Brendan

RND wrote:Nice work so far, just a few problems I have though:

Is the large ice covered version supposed to be of the great ice age? If so they're not completely acurate. Britain and indeed the North Sea were completely covered by ice. Also you havent taken into account the increased landmass due to the lower sea levels such levels of ice would bring. For example Florida was twice the size it is now. You also show lakes in the middle of the thick ice but surely they should be shown as frozen over.

The texture look like they are meant to be seasonal ones. So it's a winter texture, not an ice age one. Don already made an ice age one and it's on his site.

Brendan

Don, so beautiful!!! When will they be done?

Frank

Hey guys,
I new there would be some questions about the winter texture and there would be references to The Day After Tomorrow. First the data I used came from an animated video of snow coverage of the northern hemisphere. I will post the video ASAP for those that want to view it. I got it from Vissible Earth archives. As far as the opacity of the snow and ice that can be changed. It is a seperate layer that can be ajusted. Please remember that I said that they were nearly done. I can give more info latter.

BTW were do you think they got there data for the movie The Day After Tomorrow? The same place I did.

Don. Edwards

WHOW!!!
Great .
NICE
MOREandMORE
vdskjfnguigh8egveidsv83___#GREAT_.And now for somthing compleaty difforent, the Larch...

<br />
please sir may i have more...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



OK i am a bit tipsy so by for know

John Van Vliet


PS. not the one at ILM

John...I too know of this feeling!

Hey everyone,
Just a quick note. I have come up with a solution that looks very much like what actual satalite photos of snow covered areas look like. I haven't converted the textures to .DDS as of yet so have no screen shots.
Now on another point. One thing I want to make clear is the the snow coverage is to represent the avarage maximum of snow coverage on the ground. Snow patterns change constantly and quite dramaticly over days and even hours and trying to come up with the best solution was a tough call. Thats the main reason you will not see the snow banding seen in some photos from space. But there is always room for adaption. I will try and get the updated textures converted so everyone can get and idea of where things are headed and see what the input is on thoughs. If the input is good than we will call the texture complete at that point.
Also I originaly wasn't even going to show any of you any screenshots of the textures at all. I was just going to dump them on you in one big surprise. But as time went on I thought it best to get some feedback. So I decided to include all of you in the process.
Well that covers things for now. Have a happy 4th of July to thoughs members that celebrate it.


Don. Edwards

Warning Large Graphic Files!

Hey everyone,
I know its been a while again. I still do not have my own internet access so updates still have to go though my brothers conection.
In my last post here I said that I had solved the problem with making the snow look more realistic. So here are some screen shots. They are pretty big but I didn't have time to create thumbs and I couldn't find my text document that has the html code to set it all up.
So here are the pix.













And now 2 of the files that helped me achieve the winter and spring textures.


And the snow coverage video. You will have to have the Divx 5.x codec installed to it. The original was a 35mb mpeg and was just a little to big for posting.

http://216.231.48.101/~impulse/new_earth/GlobalSnow.avi

As things stand I am shooting for the textures to be uploaded Friday. The smaller versions will be available right away but the 16k textures will come online as soon as I here from Chris on his storage plan.
I am changing the way I distribute my textures. I will no longer be making 2k textures of any kind. I will be releasing all textures in 4k png & dds, 8k dds, & 16k dds. If anyone wants a 2k version they are more than welcome to resize the 4k png to create it. I just feel it will save on starage space, time and really these textures at that low of a resolution just are not worth it.
Well I now have to get back to work on the seasonal clouds and I have to start updating the Earth Central webpage.
As always all input and comments are welcome.

Don. Edwards

Don...simply stunning work...as usual...looking forward to giving these a go when I get back from vacation...(Hols). Are you planning to make vts of these...I ask because they work so much smoother on my old crappy box!

Best regards...bh.

Don, magnificent!! Can't wait to download them and have them load based on season of year. A great addition to Celestia.

Thanks

Frank

Hi Don,
Absolutely superb work as usual.
I would only robotically suggest that you upload these files to the motherlode, instead of shatters.net, since it has redundant copies and is served from an optical connection. Our back-end is compeltely transparent, so you can link to the files easily from Earth Central or anywhere else, as http://celestiamotherlode.net/creators/ ... nameoffile

As a matter of fact, we have a bunch of your files already and would appreciate your comments on which ones are obsolete, if any. Thanks.

Cheers,
Joe

I didn't really plan on keeping everything on shatters.net. Chris had some other storage to spread the load but if there is a viable alternative I would consider moving most of my files there and simply store the on shatters.net as a backup but to keep them hidden unless something were to happen.
If you can PM me with more conplete info and what tools I would need to upload that would be great. I haven't really been around much so I am not up to much as to the service you are talking about.

Don. Edwards

I love you.

You definitely fixed the problem with the snow covered ground. Looks awesome now.

Based on the more realistic ice cover,why don?t you release an 8k and 16k version of the Earth18000 BC?