Standardization of virtual texture tilesize

[wcomer]

Hi Don,

I would be the first to download and use your 32k texture as my primary earth texture. Your work is splendid. In working on buiilding a spec map I have noticed quite a few errors throughout the bluemarble texture. I had wondered what was going on with the odd white spots where they clearly shouldn't be; the noisy patch in the South Pacific; the black gash in the ocean off Antartica, the square patchwork in the arabian desert, etc. It desperately needs to be cleaned up but I am not even remotely qualified. And, yes, both the ocean and land colors are compromised because they were not color masked. Ultimately Celestia would be well served by having your 32k work.

cheers,
Walton

[jim]

Hi Don,

Sorry, I can not unterstand your reaction. I didn't say anything against your texture. I want only offer my help for creating virual textures.

The whole reason I started it was that I felt the coloring of Walton's virtual texture is just too green

I wrote: "Sure the colors of the BlueMarble map are not the best..."

Now that you guys are locking rules on textures sizes, types, and texture coloring I guess there just isn't a place for me here any longer.

How can you write such a bull shit?
Nobody said anything about locked rules. The intention for the standartization was that different textures and addons can be used together. But nothing speakes against your own color version of Earth. It's simply a fact that my high level addons at the moment will not very well work together with your map. But you could ask me if i would recolor it.

I really hate to write such words. Please don't see in every post an attack at your great work!

By Jens

PS: At the moment we need ugrent a 32k specular map VT and a 32k normal map VT. I can't upload with my 'dialup' the needed source files.

[praesepe]

Jim,

Looks like there's a mistake (with quote command ), I didn't write anything...

[Brendan]

Please don't leave for such reasons. I have used 1k tiles for the virtual texture I made and it doesn't mean that it would hurt other textures if there was a standard tile size other than 1k because it can be used as an alternate surface. And what about the 18000 B.C.E earth texture? It would be sad to see that be thrown away.

Brendan

[jim]

Jim,

Looks like there's a mistake (with quote command ), I didn't write anything...

Sorry Praesepe. Now corrected.

Jens

[don]

I'm not sure if it's a good idea to build a second 32k Earth map. Sure the colors of the BlueMarble map are not the best but is it really worth to do all this work? I have also another problem. I've build some high level addons and the colors adapted to Walton's 32K Earth. This texture tiles will not correct work with your Earth.

Well Jim then I will just keep this texture to myself.

Huh? What did I miss here?

Don, Jens simply asked a question: "is it really worth all the work?" My personal answer to this question would be an emphatic YES!

Then he mentions some "high level addons", without saying what they are or what won't work with your Earth, so I would ask those specific questions:
* What kind of addons?
* What is the problem with Don Edwards Earth and your addons?

The discussion that started this thread was merely an attempt to get opinions about defining a standard VT tile size. Personally, I think it is way too early for such things, as Chris is still working on the VT code. I wouldn't even think of such a thing until several months after the code writing / debugging / enhancing phases are done with, and everyone has a chance to actually try Virtual Textures for themselves.

The whole reason I started it was that I felt the coloring of Walton's virtual texture is just too green and with the new cloud textures I am making they do not go well together.

This is exactly why there are so many of the "same" products on the market from many different manufacturers. Each one has their own idea as to what is "better". This is great for the public, because we have a choice!

Now that you guys are locking rules on textures sizes, types, and texture coloring...

Ummmmm, I don't think anything is "locked" Don. The choice to work on Celestia textures is yours, and only yours to make. If you think it is a waste of time, then don't bother. If you want to provide textures that you think are better quality and color, by all means please do! You must remember, there are thousands of visitors to these forums, so the few that actually post may *not* be a representative sampling of the "average" Celestia user.

Have you looked at your web logs to see how many times your textures have been downloaded? That would give you a decent idea as to how many folks are using your textures, or at least tried them out.

So I guess I will just move on. It’s no skin off my nose ... free up the bandwidth I would end up wasting on further uploads. ... So I guess this time I am really going to bow out. ... I just can’t see me wasting my time any further on projects for this forum.

(About 4-1/2 hours later) ... I will keep working on my texture and pop in from time to time to show how things are going. ... I myself am going to pull over to the side of the road and see witch way most of the traffic is moving ...

It sounds like "pulling over to the side of the road" would be a good idea -- to figure out what YOU want to do Don. You don't need to follow anyone else, that's for sure. Your work is in a class by itself, as has been proven time and again. The questions are:

* "Have you had enough of texture work for a while?" Based on your firey reply to Jens, and the two different statements you made within a five hour period, it would seem that you are still quite "emotional" about your working on Celestia textures right now. Is this healthy for you?

If it's just a "bad day", then...

* "Are you ready to move into the world of Virtual Textures, along with all the problems, differing opinions, etc. that are bound to come up?"

Only you can answer these questions for yourself Don. Celestia should be fun, even though it also involves a lot of work for some of us. If it is no longer fun, then just play with it for a while and come back to working on textures later.

Hope this helps,

-Don G.

[Don. Edwards]

I think part of the problem is that I spent to much time away. By not comming in and checking on things more often I am a little out of the loop.
Remember that I stated in my "bugging out" thread that I had to some major work to my Celestia files as well as do major clean up to my system. After the cleanup was done I started having problems with internet explorer. It kept making me double login and in the process all the threads that I was following would not be marked for me. So I had to do a hit and miss shearch through the theads or speand many hours reading everything everywhere on the site. I have since done a clean install of XP but I am still plagued be IE problems. So I have moved over to using Firebird as my browser for most sites. At least it doesn't have all thoughs security holes.

As for my coments to Jens they were not ment to be firey. They were made as a matter of fact sort of thing. I just used the twisted emoticon as an antention graber. Some of the sites I visit have many more choices of emticons to choose from. So I gues I could have phrased that better and I could have chosen a better one. I will be the first to admit that my response could have been a bit smoother.

So this is what I will do. I will continue work on the texture as I find working on them very relaxing to a point. When I finish the western hemishere I will break it down into tiles of an as still not decided size and make some some screen captures. Then I will work on the eastern hemisphere. The main reason I asked if anyone wanted to help with this project was I am going to have distribution problems. If I can't figure a good way of breaking the thing into a managable size for downloading I will not be able to host it on shatters.net. I think the bandwidth will just kill the server and Chris probably will not be very happy with me. So again if anyone has some ideas shoot them my way. I am going to need all the help I can get. I can make textures till the cows come home but if I can't get a real good idea of how to asemble these into a good tile set I am back to square one.

Don. Edwards

[Paul]

Hi folks, I was reading this thread with interest, and I just wanted to make a smalll suggestion.

Wouldn't it be straightforward to write a tool that processed a virtual texture to merge/split tiles to a chosen size, e.g. to split all its 512x512 tiles into 256x256, or to merge its tiles into 2048x2048?

That way, if somebody wants to improve the performance of a "standard 512x512 virtual texture" for their system, they need only process it with the tool after they download it.
That way, the downloaded texture can stay in a standard format and thus actually work with other standard format textures, as Jim originally pointed out. This is more important than the performance of the texture.

Cheers,
Paul

[Paul]

Wouldn't it be straightforward to write a tool that processed a virtual texture to merge/split tiles to a chosen size, e.g. to split all its 512x512 tiles into 256x256, or to merge its tiles into 2048x2048?

Additionally, I just noticed that Chris mentions here that you can cut up DXTn textures:

http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic ... &start=120

Cheers,
Paul

[don]

By not comming in and checking on things more often I am a little out of the loop.

Ahhh, you mean like trying to step onto a moving sidewalk (like at airports) that's moving 30 miles per hour?

Sorry to hear IE is giving you fits. Browser problems can be a real drag.

As for my coments to Jens they were not ment to be firey. They were made as a matter of fact sort of thing.

Ahhhh, where the emoticon might have been a better choice? At times, it can be difficult to express one's correct "feelings" here in writing.

So this is what I will do. I will continue work on the texture as I find working on them very relaxing to a point.

This is great news Don

The main reason I asked if anyone wanted to help with this project was I am going to have distribution problems.

Yes, it would seem that this is one of the initial "stumbling blocks" of Virtual Textures.

Personally, I think one way around this would be to distribute the base texture as a single file, like is done now, and then have a detailed instruction list of the steps and programs necessary for the end-user to create their own VT tiles from the base texture -- for each platform supported (Windows, Linux, Mac, etc.). The hard part would be making the process as simple and hands-off as possible.

Until someone can do this, maybe the creators of VT tile sets could distribute their sets by level number? Such as having a zip file for each level. This does not get around the bandwidth problem for distribution, but will help the end-user manage the download part.

Good to have you back Don!

-Don G.

[timcrews]

Wouldn't it be straightforward to write a tool that processed a virtual texture to merge/split tiles to a chosen size, e.g. to split all its 512x512 tiles into 256x256, or to merge its tiles into 2048x2048?

<snip>

Cheers,
Paul

Paul:

That seems like a great idea to me. There shouldn't be any runtime performance / memory issues either, since we would be working with smaller tiles. A small driver in conjunction with one of the command line utilities should be able to handle this.

This would solve the problem of us not really knowing / agreeing what is the best tile size, but would allow adventurous texture designers to go ahead and start producing those huge textures we are all dying for, without worrying that they might have made the "wrong" tile size decision.

Tim Crews