Virtual textures and texture configuration problems on Earth

[danielj]

I have a Geforce 4 MX 440 SE in an Athlon XP 1800,256 MB and Celestia 1.3.1 pre 11.I downloaded John?s Virtual Textures of Earth(EarthNormal.ctx,EarthLOI.ctx and EarthNight.ctx)and earth-spec.ctx from Jim?s site.It worked well only when the rendering is basic(well,the only problem is that the nightlights are disabled in this rendering and so do the specular).If I put multitexture rending,OpenGL and others,there are serious problems like the northern hemisphere at night and the southern hemisphere at day.When I use NVIDIA Combiners,much more odd thing happens like one part of Africa with the nightlights,BELOW the continent at sunlight and some parts of Africa invisible.
Does it mean that GF 4 MX is not compatible with VT textures?Or Jim and Johns textures aren?t compatible?
Look to my solarsys.ssc

"Earth" "Sol"
{
Texture "EarthLOI.ctx"
NightTexture "EarthNight.ctx"

SpecularTexture "earth-spec.ctx"
Color [ 0.45 0.45 0.6 ]
SpecularColor [ 0.3 0.3 0.35 ]
SpecularPower 150.0
HazeColor [ 1 1 1 ]
HazeDensity 0.3
Radius 6378.140 # equatorial
# Oblateness 0.0034

NormalMap "EarthNormal.ctx"
#Bumpmap "earthbump.jpg"
# BumpHeight 4.5

Atmosphere {
Height 60
Lower [ 0.43 0.52 0.65 ]
Upper [ 0.26 0.47 0.84 ]
Sky [ 0.40 0.6 1.0 ]
Sunset [ 1.0 0.6 0.2 ]
# Sunset [ 0.3 1.0 0.5 ]
CloudHeight 12
CloudSpeed 150
CloudMap "earth-clouds.dds"
}

CustomOrbit "vsop87-earth"
EllipticalOrbit {
Period 1.0000
SemiMajorAxis 1.0000
Eccentricity 0.0167
Inclination 0.0001
AscendingNode 348.739
LongOfPericenter 102.947
MeanLongitude 100.464
}

RotationPeriod 23.9344694 # 23.93419
Obliquity -23.45
RotationOffset 280.5 # offset at default epoch J2000

Albedo 0.30
}

[TERRIER]

Daniel

Although I'm only running the earthspec texture of those that you have listed above, I'm wondering if you might have a nvidea graphics card driver problem?

I'm currently using version 44.03 which is compatible with Windows XP and 2000, while my graphics card is a GeForce 4 MX440 64mb DDR.

I notice that version 45.23 is now out, which I'm just about to download!

Here's the link to the 'download' page for Windows XP/2000 latest compatible nvidea driver;

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp-2k_45.23

regards
TERRIER

PS I'm soon to be upgrading to a FX 5200 256mb DDR

[danielj]

I had already had the Nvidia driver 45.23 installed
Look to my installation :
Celestia>Textures>hires>EarthLOI>Level 0,1 and 2
Celestia>Textures>hires>EarthNormal>Level 3
Celestia>Textures>hires>EarthNight>Level 0 and 1
Celestia>Textures>hires>earth-spec>Level 0,1,2 and 3.

Multi Texture,only one problem.In the same hemisphere,South American is lighted and North American is too,but with the night lights on.
Nvidia Combiners: The Northwest of Africa is at day,other parts are at dark,with some skylight.Parts of Greenland are at dark and parts are in shadow.The strangest problem is the light in horizontal band
Open GL Vertex Problems;the weiderst of all.The Northwest of Africa DISSAPEAR,and below there is a light source.The tiles appear and depending of position and distance,half of the Earth dissapear.
The Nvidia/Open GL Vertex Combiners make the Earth very dark at day,the clouds in a hue of gray and parts of the same continent in the dark and parts in the day.In South America,only a small part of North America is iluminated regularly.There are irregular shadows in the continents.iN aFRICA,at 15000 km,there is a band of night in the middle of the continent.The northern and southern part are at day,and so on.

What I did wrong?

[selden]

DanielJ,

It looks like you didn't create the empty directories.

The same directories must exist in all of the virtual texture directory trees, even if they have no textures in them.

You must create
EarthLOI\level3

EarthNormal\level0
EarthNormal\level1
EarthNormal\level2

EarthNight\level2
EarthNight\level3

If you do not have those empty directories, then Celestia draws strange things. Hopefully this bug will be fixed in a future (pre)release.

Does this help?

[danielj]

I did exactly as you said,but Celestia is still drawing the same strange things.

It looks like you didn't create the empty directories.

The same directories must exist in all of the virtual texture directory trees, even if they have no textures in them.

You must create
EarthLOI\level3

EarthNormal\level0
EarthNormal\level1
EarthNormal\level2

EarthNight\level2
EarthNight\level3

If you do not have those empty directories, then Celestia draws strange things. Hopefully this bug will be fixed in a future (pre)release.

Does this help?[/quote]

[selden]

"It works fine for me".

But I didn't change Celestia's solarsys.ssc.
I use a separate addon directory and alternate surface texture.

Here's a screengrab showing the directory structure and definition file.


(as usual, this links to a larger image)

[danielj]

I did what you said,but there isn?t the option Alternate textures in Earth.Only in Mercury,this happen.I am very worried because the trend will be only VT texture,and I don?t know how to use

[selden]

DanielJ,

I think you're trying to do too much at once and overlooking tiny but critical details.

I'd suggest starting over again with a clean copy of Celestia, not one that you've modified.

Add a simple alternate texture for the earth. Just a single surface texture map. It doesn't matter what the image is --- maybe a mars map -- but just a surface texture. No bumpmap. No nightlights. Make sure it works.

Then add a second one that's different. Make sure that one works, too. Both should be listed in the menu, for example.

Then add a nightlight to one of them. Again, keep it simple. Do one thing at a time. Make sure each works before you do something more complicated.

You really need to understand how the simple things work before you start doing more complicated things. Otherwise you just get confused. Like now.

[John Van Vliet]

Hi danielj i see you like my work and we have the same nvidia card
but i cant remembor if you are running win XP or not

for help you can email me at
and mark it re: celestia
that way i will read it

johnvanvliet2003@yahoo.com