4k blue marble july

[cartrite]

I created a BMNG 64k texture a while ago. The web site I got currently dosesn't have the space for the 64k version but here is a link to the 4k version. It has a 4k earthmap with alpha-spec texture a 4knormal map created with nm16, a 4k cloudmap, 4k cloudnormalmap created with the gimp, and a 4k ocean overlay. About 25mb. Beware it's a sloooooow connection.

Here is a a solarsys file to go with the textures if you are using a cvs version of Celestia. Click here to download the zip file. The solarsys file is called solarsys1.ssc and I think it must be renamed to solarsys.ssc to work. DON'T overwrite your original file. Save it to a safe place before doing this. For those who don't know, it goes in the Celestia/data folder.

Along with the slow connection is a 1gb daily limit on downloads. If the link doesn't work, it probally means that my daily limit has been reached. Apparently it will become available again the next day.

cartrite

[rra]

Cartrite , I tried your 4K maps , they are nice and they seem to work OK,
even the normap map,
only thing I can't get to wotk is the specular water.
You included an ocean-alpha.png bitmap,
but this was "commented out" by your solarsys.ssc file.
When I enable the alpha-spec (as an overlay-texture) I also doesn't
work.
It won't show me any specular effect.
By the way I use the CVS of 10-4-06 on a windows system.


Ren?©

[cartrite]

rra wrote:

You included an ocean-alpha.png bitmap,
but this was "commented out" by your solarsys.ssc file

All these files should go in the hires folder which should be empty if you are using the setup.exe for the cvs version. The ssc file can be uncommented as follows to ativate the oean layer.

Code: Select all

   Texture "earth.*"
   NormalMap "earth-norm.*"
   NightTexture "earthnight.*"
   
   #SpecularTexture "earth-spec.*"
   Color [ 0.85 0.85 1.0 ]
   OverlayTexture "ocean-alpha.*"

Don't uncomment the SpecularTexture line. If you are using the bmng texture with the alpha spec it is not needed and causes problems when uncommented. Try uncommenting

Code: Select all

   SpecularColor [ 0.5 0.5 0.55 ]
   SpecularPower 25.0

to brighten the spec color. I had it pretty low. The ocean layer is not a spec map. It will turn the oceans a lighter blue color, a little too light, I think. I mainly used it when veiwing in low light around sunrise or sunset. That got put into the zip archive by mistake and I didn't realize till after I uploaded it.

Also the specular highlights on the water only work in Open GL vertex program, Open GL vertex program/Nvidia Combinners, and Open GL 2.0 rendering modes.

cartrite

[rra]

Cartrite,

in your 4K maps distribution there is no specular earth map at all;
where should Celestia then get its specular information from ??
I was under the impression that the ocean-alpha overlay would do the trick.
Do you have a separate specular map somewhere else
(possibly in the medres directory) ??

Ren?©

[cartrite]

rra wrote:

in your 4K maps distribution there is no specular earth map at all;
where should Celestia then get its specular information from ??

The specmap is in earth.png's alpha channel. The code in Celestia sees the alpha channel as containing the specular information. Just like it sees the specmap in Celestia's default earth.png in the medres folder. There is no need to declare a specmap. Just make sure you are in Open GL vertex program, Open GL vertex program/Nvidia Combinners, or Open GL 2.0 rendering modes. Everything works automaticly.

If you still can't get the spec to work check out the texture page here.

If you use the specmap from that page you will have to remove the alpha channel from earth.png.

cartrite

[rra]

Cartrite wrote:

The specmap is in earth.png's alpha channel.

Oops , I forgot about the earth-alpha channel ,
however , my Celestia seems also to have forgotten .
I downloaded your seperate spec-map , changed the solarsys.ssc file to include this spec-map,
but, as you may guess: no specular rendering.
Ofcourse I use openGL 2.0 ;

Why am I allways having difficulties with these bitmaps ?
either VT's , DDS normal maps or now: spec maps:
they all give me trouble.
It all used to work (and stil works) in the official Celestia 1.4.1.

Ren?©

[cartrite]

It may be your graphics card. When was your last driver update?
If your using the spec map seperately you have to remove the spec map from earth.png. The gimp can do this by clicking on Image/Mode/Decompose to rgba. Make sure the "Decompose to layers" is checked. Then on the new image that is created click Layer/Delete Layer. Now Image/Mode/Compose to rgb. All the land areas should be fully visible now. Name it earth.png

But I suspect your card doesn't support OGL2 fully for some reason. Some new shaders were added that your card or card's driver may not support. What card do you have? The original earth.png should work with the proper solarsys.ssc file. If it doesn't then something else is wrong and a seperate spec map will no't help.

cartrite

[rra]

I always have the "latest" NVDIA drivers (they are 1 month old or so),
I have a NVIDIA 6600 graphics board, and it is running OK for the 141 version, also the specular effects are rendered perfectly.
I will try to remove the alpha layer (this evening , I am at my work now)
and see what happens.
I also tried to set the specular power to a higher value, may be the specular effect is there but only very weak. What is the max. value one can give the specular power ?? (can't find any links to more infprmation)

Thanks allready ,


Ren?©

P.S. in your website I noticed a cloud-normal map, have can I bring alive
this map, what entrees in the solarsys.ssc file does this need (once I get the specular map running, that is) ??

[cartrite]

rra wrote:

I always have the "latest" NVDIA drivers (they are 1 month old or so),
I have a NVIDIA 6600 graphics board

That's strange. You got a better card than me so it should work. Try to use the solarsys.ssc at the site with ( earth.png alpha spec included ). It should work without editing it. For CloudNormalMaps too.
Here is the code to turn on Cloudnormalmaps.

Code: Select all

CloudNormalMap "earth-clouds-norm.*"

I don't know what the max value is for SpecularPower. I do know that if you set it to 75 for example, The highlighted area is more focused or a smaller area. Setting it to 1 almost covers the whole planet. This a setting I sometimes use for Mars. If it's set to 25 for Earth, that should work fine.

The value for SpecularColor can be up to [ 1 1 1 ] but [ 0.5 0.5 0.55 ] is used a lot and the specular highlights on earth are very noticeable.

This may also apply. http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic ... 9025#79025

cartrite

[rra]

Cartrite,
finally it works ,
I decided to completely remove the CVS build and re-instal the 4 oct build (also yours I believe).
Then place your texture pack & SSC et voila : it works,
'out of the box' so to speak.
I don't know what happened with the prior installation,
must have corrupted some files.
The earth looks much less artificiall with specular effects, normap-maps and such.
Anyway thanks a lot,


Ren?©

[cartrite]

You may have been corrupting the files by editing them. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with using Wordpad. But at least Reiko's recent experience seems to contradict this. I'm trying to figure out what is really going on here. If the real reason is found it may save EVERYONE a lot of headaches.

rra wrote:

I decided to completely remove the CVS build and re-instal the 4 oct build

That is the same file that you first downloaded. I only changed the name so future builds can have a unique name. It also provides better identification.

Edit: Dumb Me. That is a different file. The defaut installation directories are different. But the program that creates the file doesn't build it. It only compresses a list of files and allows Windows to install those files along with creating some registry settings. The files that affect Celestia at run time were the same.

Edit2 If you used 10-04-06-cvs-setup, this was the same file as setup.exe. If you used the international version the defaut installation directories were changed. So that was a different file. Confused Yet? So am I.

cartrite

[cartrite]

In the past, I was advised to use Notepad to edit files because Wordpad caused problems. It seems that having "Word Wrap on" may cause problems for Notepad. In the future, you may want to try editing your files with "Word Wrap off" to see if this was your problem too. See here: http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic ... 9074#79074

Hope this helps.

cartrite