My Easter Island Statue needs putting up the right way

[ziggy]

Hi All,
Would anyone be able to help me with this please?
I have found a nice model of an Easter Island statue, (or Moai) here http://www.3dcafe.com/wrapper/ and have been trying to place it on the island. I can't find any very high res. pictures, not for free, anyway; the Island is at -109.24417(long)-27.11406(lat).The model is not of a particular statue and there are dozens, so I'm not looking to place it in an accurate (in reality)position.
Without enough hi res imaging to go to level 12 or so, to keep the model somewhere to scale with the surroundings I thought I'd have it giant sized, in the middle of the island, it comes with a few rocks, I'm having difficulty getting the orientation right for an ssc file, and the model comes with red eyes that I can't get to work in Celestia, although they are there in Anima8tor. It would be a nice addon for anyone's Celestia, there's not much else in that part of the Pacific!
cheers folks.

[selden]

You'll have to be explicit about where you got the model. We don't have the time to search through the whole site.

A common problem is having the surface normals reversed. Try Anim8or's "flip normals" in the Edit menu.

Sorry.

[ziggy]

Selden- My apologies ':oops:' I know very well the value of time I just copied /pasted the address off the page I was looking at, this is the one for the model ; http://216.165.190.200/models/easter4.zip
thanx

[selden]

The first material definition in the model specifies a surface texture image that is not provided (noise2_1.sxp) I don't recognize that filetype. It's certainly not a filetype that Celestia can do anything with. Celestia can only use JPG, PNG or DDS surface texture images.

The model also includes a file that is not referenced (sand.cel).

I redefined the first material to be a simple red coloration with no surface texture image. Celestia has no problems showing the resulting red eyes.

[ziggy]

Selden-Thanks for looking at this, when I open the model in Anim8tor, change the eyes so no texture called and set a colour, I think like you've said here, and then save as the same name file as the original, the file size doubles and it won't open in Celestia.A copy of the original file swapped back in works ok, so I'm breaking it somewhere.Still, I can live without the red eyes on the model, as I now have a pair of my own ... . Any chance of posting a very basic ssc to place the model at the long/lat.? I've tried to make one, but often the ssc file is not even listed in the navigation menu when I open Celestia, I just don't see why it shouldn't, it looks like other ones, all the brackets and so on ok. I've read the ssc pdf to no avail, I would like to put some other models from that site in too (eg Statue of Liberty) pleeeeeeeeze. I feel so useless at this, especially humiliating as I'm considered capable in other fields that a llot of people would think much tougher.Such is life...
cheers

[selden]

Selden-Thanks for looking at this, when I open the model in Anim8tor, change the eyes so no texture called and set a colour, I think like you've said here, and then save as the same name file as the original, the file size doubles and it won't open in Celestia.

"Save" saves the model in .AN8 format, not .3DS format. Use the Object menu, Export option to write the model in 3ds format.

A copy of the original file swapped back in works ok, so I'm breaking it somewhere.Still, I can live without the red eyes on the model, as I now have a pair of my own ... . Any chance of posting a very basic ssc to place the model at the long/lat.? I've tried to make one, but often the ssc file is not even listed in the navigation menu when I open Celestia, I just don't see why it shouldn't, it looks like other ones, all the brackets and so on ok.

It's easy to make a typo that you don't recognize if you're unfamiliar with the format. Or even if you are familiar with it.

I've read the ssc pdf to no avail, I would like to put some other models from that site in too (eg Statue of Liberty) pleeeeeeeeze. I feel so useless at this, especially humiliating as I'm considered capable in other fields that a llot of people would think much tougher.Such is life...
cheers

You're probably making it harder than it has to be.

Code: Select all

"Tiki" "Sol/Earth" {
   Model "tiki.3ds"
   Radius 0.01
   LongLat [ -109.4333 -27.15 0.01 ] # 129d26m W, 27d9m S
  Orientation [ 117.15 0 0 1 ]      
  RotationOffset 351.0667      
}


I use Grant Hutchison's Panorama spreadsheet to get the Orientation and RotationOffset values.
http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celest ... ets.html#4

You'll have to rotate the model -90 degrees in X, looking at its feet in Anim8or's "front" view, for it to be vertical in Celestia.

[jestr]

Is this the location of this particular statue or just somewhere on Easter Island (though I think Easter Island is -109 degrees Longitude)?I can make a model of Easter Island if you want ,but does anyone know where this statue should be located,there are quite a few of them scattered around the island,Jestr

[selden]

Oops. You're right: I made a typo (2 instead of 0). Fixed.

The model is just a generic one, so ziggy will have to decide which one it is.

[ziggy]

Hi Selden and jestr
Thanks for the help, I've got things going a bit better now, after some more chaos with the model, trying to rotate it -90 degrees, I found I had to group it first as the stone and eyes didn't rotate with the body, so I've learned something. Now, much heartened by the success I'm trying to get it to use a texture, a stone finish that's a bit better than the grey plastic look, but it's going to take a bit more fiddling about
A model of the Island would be great,jestr; there are a lot of moai, some very funky ones with stone hats on! I wonder if I could make a hat...
I found a map http://www.janeresture.com/easter/map.htm as you can see they are everywhere, I think they all look out to sea, hoping for someone to come I wouldn't mind betting,
cheers

[jestr]

OK,Ziggy,I've made a start with the model


and here's another picture


It still needs a bit of tidying up around the coasts though,cheers,Jestr

[Kitteh]

Wow, that looks cool! Great work!