Celestia Forums

The link given in the sticky does not work:

http://www.bobhegwood.com/

I checked out the tutorials and they seem outdated or vague, and it's just too much to go through hundreds of posts here, when it seems like it should be fairly simple...it seems like there's several ways, for example, to install VT textures, and there isn't a whole lot of standardization going on. Even so, I don't know what's going on.

Say, if I download the Moon16kVT, there's a main folder, a sub-directory in which there are other folds containing the images, and a .ctx file, containing no read-me anywhere. Where does all of this stuff go? I've tried a few things, but none of it works, and it feels like I'm more or less stumbling about.

I'm using the Linux version, with an Nvidia card, if that affects it...

Please read the documentation on the MotherLode. It's down near the bottom of the page
http://celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/d ... ation.html

selden wrote:Please read the documentation on the MotherLode. It's down near the bottom of the page
http://celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/d ... ation.html

I had checked out the tutorials before, neither of which worked. I know WHAT the different files are, but there's no clear, concise way of their usage. When I thought I DID know, that way (those ways) didn't work. The only ones to work so far are the ones that are entirely self-contained (Mars16k works for me).

Partly, it's an appeal to a "Celestia Beginner's" section, or some-such; because while I'm mostly computer-literate and can get some of it working (not all of it, which was the point of the thread), it's sort of a struggle, and for somebody interested in these things who DOESN'T have the time or know-how...it'd be a frustrating experience. Heck, if I could get the little quirks working and understood, I wouldn't mind helping.

Have you looked at the Web page
http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/textures.html
especially section 2.5?

It's written from a somewhat different point of view than Bob's "VTs for Dummies".

Also, I hope you realize that just saying "neither of which worked" does not help anyone to improve the documentation. Bob's "VTs for Dummies" is written for beginners.

You need to specify which documents you were trying to follow and describe exactly where they went wrong for you. Trying to guess what needs to be improved is essentially impossible. There are just too many possibilities.

selden wrote:Also, I hope you realize that just saying "neither of which worked" does not help anyone to improve the documentation. Bob's "VTs for Dummies" is written for beginners.

You need to specify which documents you were trying to follow and describe exactly where they went wrong for you. Trying to guess what needs to be improved is essentially impossible. There are just too many possibilities.

Yes, I was doing that just now. At the time I was sort of frustrated, and didn't use my best judgment in words. I apologize!

Currently I'm attempting to get the moon's VT to work. Originally I tried getting it to work in the addon directories as modelled in Selden Ball's guide (the same one?), which, while informative, didn't work. Part of the problem is it came with no .ssc file, meaning I had to make one of my own (if I understand the guides correctly).

I renamed everything (in order to be more consistent with my own work) and came up with an .ssc (edit: originally forgot to paste newer version of .ssc):

AltSurface "moonvt" "Sol/Earth/Moon"

{

Texture "moonvt.ctx"
}

But this hasn't worked so far, though I haven't mispelled anything, at least. I'm not sure if I need anything else inside of an .ssc file (necessarily), except for the declaration of the ctx. The ctx is the one that came with it, with folder-name change:

VirtualTexture

{

ImageDirectory "moonvt"

BaseSplit 0

TileSize 512

TileType "dds"

}

And they're now sitting in the places laid out in Bob's guide. Still no luck.

The AltSurface ssc file has to go in whatever directory you created for the moonvt addon.
e.g.
Celestia\extras\moonvt\moonvt.ssc
(the contents of your ssc looks ok)

The ctx file has to go into one of the textures directories (hires is best).

Celestia\extras\moonvt\textures\hires\moonvt.ctx

The directories containing the vt images go beneath that:
Celestia\extras\moonvt\textures\hires\moonvt\level0
...
Celestia\extras\moonvt\textures\hires\moonvt\level5
etc


I don't know what you mean by "still no luck".
You have to step through the stages of installing the VT addon. If one stage doesn't work, then subsequent ones can't either.

First,
Does the AltSurface name show up in the right-mouse-button popup menu?

Click (and release) on the moon with the right-mouse-button
A popup menu should appear
Near the bottom, it should have an entry named
Alternate Surfaces >

If it doesn't, then there's something wrong with your AltSurface SSC.

Move the cursor down to the entry
Alternate Surfaces >

It should expand to show (at least) two entries:
Normal
moonvt

move the cursor to the entry moonvt
left-mouse-button-click on it

The appearance of the Moon should change slightly.

If the moon turns white, then it can't find the VT images.

Move closer to the moon.
You should experience some jerkieness as VT textures are loaded and you should see the resolution improve.