For Mr. Hutchison #1

[Bob Hegwood]

Grant,

I just thought that I'd suggest a Central Meridian solution for those gaseous planets that have some constant, identifiable feature.

It would make life a lot easier if we could define common Central Meridians for Jupiter and Neptune, since they both have identifiable features from which to work.

Maybe the Central Meridian could be located down the middle of Jupiter's Red Spot, and down the middle of Neptune's Dark spot.

I know this doesn't really do anything for planets like Uranus, but it would sure make life easier if we could simply agree on where the CM could be located on those planets which do have constant features. This way, every Jupiter texture could be manipulated into working like it's supposed to from within a script.

Just a thought...

Thanks, Bob

[granthutchison]

Bob:
I'm not seeing any advantage to moving the GRS and GDS. Are people who produce or distribute Jupiter texture add-ons going to be any more like to manipulate their texture into alignment with a centrally-placed Great Red Spot than with the GRS in its current position? I can't see why they will be.
The available textures on the Web are all misaligned with both the current Celestia texture and with a centrally-placed Great Red Spot, so those textures will all need the same (small) amount of image manipulation to bring them into alignment with Celestia, wherever we place the Spot. Anyone building a new texture from scratch is well able to place the GRS wherever they like, and I guess they'll choose if they want to align with Celestia or not.

Grant

[Bob Hegwood]

Bob:
I'm not seeing any advantage to moving the GRS and GDS.
Grant

Well, I just thought that it would be nice to know that there IS a standard for the Central Meridians on the planets which have an identifiable feature.

Maybe I'm just being thick here... Are you telling me that I can simply adjust my textures to align these features with the current Celestia textures?

I suppose I could do that, but then what happens when Chris decides to use a better/different texture for one of these planets?

If that happens, then we'll be right back where we started won't we? Then we'll have to re-adjust the Central Meridians all over again.

Sorry, but I simply thought that if we could DEFINE a STANDARD for these planets, then anyone who created a new texture for them could set them up for use without adjustments.

This issue caused me some concern because I got some messages from people who were NOT seeing the GRS during the Jupiter Tour, mainly because they were using a different texture than the one I included with the package. By the way, why isn't Chris using Fridger's Jupiter texture? It's clearly superior in both coloring and detail. Just my opinion, of course.

At any rate, it was just a thought.

Thanks for your opinion. You ARE the MAN!

Take care, Bob

[granthutchison]

Are you telling me that I can simply adjust my textures to align these features with the current Celestia textures?

Sure, why not? I know you've already tweaked other textures to align their central meridians. The GRS in the default Celestia texture is 406 pixels from the left edge of a 1k texture. That's equivalent to 406x2=812 in a 2k, 406/2=203 in a half-k texture, and so on. So you open your new texture in GIMP, place the cursor over the GRS, and read off its current position in the X coordinate. You subtract that from the equivalent position of the GRS in Celestia. Shift+Ctrl+O and type in that number of pixels as your desired texture offset in the X direction. Done.
If we changed the position of the GRS to make it central, you'd have to go through exactly the same procedure with a non-aligned texture, except the default position of the spot would be different. Do you see why I can't see any advantage to the change?

I suppose I could do that, but then what happens when Chris decides to use a better/different texture for one of these planets?

Hey, give us some credit - I'd adjust any new texture so that the spot stayed in the same place. Same as if we adopted a new planet texture we'd adjust it to the correct central meridian.

This issue caused me some concern because I got some messages from people who were NOT seeing the GRS during the Jupiter Tour, mainly because they were using a different texture than the one I included with the package.

I'm afraid there's no way we can force add-on creators to put the GRS in the same place as Celestia does; nor should I run around waving my arms in the air telling folk they can only install certain "correct" textures. It's that "add-on police" thing again.

By the way, why isn't Chris using Fridger's Jupiter texture? It's clearly superior in both coloring and detail.

And there was me very much preferring the current Celestia texture. Takes all kinds, I guess.


Grant

[Bob Hegwood]

Well, I *am* made a little differently than most. Ain't you noticed that yet?

At any rate, compare the following... Here's Fridger's Jupiter on MY machine:



And, here's the original texture on MY machine:



I'm sorry, but I like the clarity, and detail of the first texture better.

Take care, Bob