High Quality Texture Pack

[Axel]

why you don't sign up like "everyone" else?
Phoenix

Because as a guest I wrote the very first post to the (old) celestia forum. It's a spleen or a good old times thing or - you get it

Axel

[Little Newbie thanks Axel]

It doesn't work but maybe that's because of my videocard, i'm at work here. I'll try on my personal coputer tonight

I've got more questions...

1)What is a difference between using :
a square shaped texture (512*512 1024*1024 ...)
and a non square shaped texture (512*1024, 1024*2048 ...)


2)Where can I get a list of all parameters I can implement on a scc file
Like Texture ="xxx"
for
bumptexture? specular? bumpon cloud ?


Thanx

[Guest]

why don't you guys just burn your artwork of textures on CD and send them to me via mail?

i will put them on my ftp no matter what size (meaning less than 15 GB) :-)

i also have the hardware to merge/edit textures up to 1 GB and above but i don't have the time...

greets
Phoenix

In principle, a good idea, except I have no CD burner anywhere around. I do have a 4Gb SCSI HP-DAT (I) streamer in both my machines in the office and at home. So I can carry data up to 4GB easily in my pocket.
But these DAT-streamers are rather rare, since they are not quite cheap...If there was a really fast ethernet connection, I could upload the big textures "quickly" and the network would not be under load for too long. In principle, I can upload, but people cannot download from my machines for reasons of security.

Altogether, I think Pixel's textures are excellent and generally available now. I might simply add my Pluto with specular ice reflections that is not so long.

Also, I am continuously experimenting and usually do not like the things anymore that I made a little while ago.

For the moment I am very hot on implementing mild specular reflections into those bumpmapped Mars textures which simply looks great. I think Pixels Mars smiley also had some of this... Right Eugene?

Bye Fridger

[t00fri]

One word about beeing emotional.

I can't believe we go around in circles for days now. It can't be so hard to provide the textures on cdr, it can't be so hard to send a cdr by snail-mail or whatever.
It can't be so hard to edit solarsys.scc, glue them together into a zip and finally upload that thing everyone wants for a year or so.

So I get the impression of artificial delay, and that makes me - guess what - emotional. :x

CU, Axel

I have no CD writer around (we are not using such low-storage media), as I just wrote to Phoenix.

To make up a set of textures that look remotely like mine, you cannot use JPEG format, because of the alpha channel etc. So it needs a considerable amount of thinking /and/ expertise to assemble a hires texture set that satisfies most. In particular, given the different graphics cards that people are using.

And please, /you are trying again/, by suggesting that I am delaying on purpose that my textures become public! Why do you do this??

And by the way, this was NOT the reason why your adrenalin level rose into dangerous aereas before;-)

Bye Fridger

[Morpheus]

And please, /you are trying again/, by suggesting that I am delaying on purpose that my textures become public! Why do you do this??

And why exactely you don't want to share them ?

[t00fri]

And please, /you are trying again/, by suggesting that I am delaying on purpose that my textures become public! Why do you do this??

And why exactely you don't want to share them ?

Not again, please. This has been said so many times in this thread!
Just read a little more than the last mail in this thread;-))

Here is some quotes:

Last repetition: my internet-access goes through my lab and not via a
commercial provider. Since we even had ssh hacked and our scientific
data are very valuable, our security department has cosed up any
access from outside our domain, by ftp, telnet and even ssh! My
private WEB servers are not allowed to be made visible beyond our
domain either. My bandwidth from the computer at home where I
developed the hirez textures is 33KB/sec (!!!) with an analog
modem....

Anyhow, I know it's been said many times, but there's a very good
reason that the large DXT textures are hard to get: they're huge! I'd
love to make them available for download on shatters.net, but I'm
concerned that my poor DSL line would be completely saturated by
people trying to download them. No one is deliberately making it
difficult to get the textures, or just teasing with screenshots.

Bye Fridger

[Thilo]

How large would they approximately be?

I still remember i uploaded a 550 Mbyte EliteForce/JediKnight2 .pk3 file to a serverin about 12 hours with my DSL 128kbit/s upload ... and i think many many users would be anxious to mirror your texture files ;), as you might have guessed from a few replies here.

So, nothing is impossible with patience. I have patience ;-)

[Rassilon]

We can all learn from each other...I personally would like to learn OpenGL programming as I havent messed with it yet....I would even like to learn to compile dds format textures...and well I havent had much use for it yet...They are far too big so in order to dampen the flames here...to no success it seems...I make my lower res textures available..due to the fact they are smaller and usuable by most...

I like the fact that others want to make planetary textures...I want to see more variety in these planets...fictional or not...Not everyone likes what I do...not everyone likes what you do...what does it matter now if you do all of it for enjoyment...

However, "the other side" seems to be overtaking with
"lots of noise"...

That it is...but remember that they can learn to quiet the storm

So why dont we start looking for what we can learn from each other and stop pointing fingers...I personally feel that there is no conspiracy afoot...to keep us n00b from ever learning the ropes...or having hi-res textures...no reason to accuse anyone of holding out...just a bit of understanding will suffice...so lets all forget about these petty arguements and get back to decorating the universe...

Thanks

[t00fri]

How large would they approximately be?

I still remember i uploaded a 550 Mbyte EliteForce/JediKnight2 .pk3 file to a serverin about 12 hours with my DSL 128kbit/s upload ... and i think many many users would be anxious to mirror your texture files ;), as you might have guessed from a few replies here.

So, nothing is impossible with patience. I have patience ;-)

We talk about ~200MB altogether.

Clearly, my 33KB/s modem at home is out of the question and data can
only go out from my office machine since it has a /very/ fast ethernet.
I can transfer the data there in my pocket on a SCSI DAT tape. So far so good.

We went through the rest several times also with Bruckner. Our
computer load on the network is /really/ heavy (24h). We have about 5000
PC's on our domain alone (500 with Linux from the scientists that
usually generate heavy network loads due to data transfer). I can
also not manipulate the bandwidth myself by means of tools /and/ I
really need the office machine most of the day with full bandwidth,
since I have to transfer continuously /big/ sets of data from local to
other machines in the domain during my professional
computations/simulations that are running in the background over
extended periods of time.
We are running under AFS, I am sure you know what it is and why it sucks on the network!

So, "long-time" transfers /out of my domain/ are hard. The network is continuously monitored by our computer department! It all works, if we find a "fast-upload" solution, like 10 minutes or so.

But, honestly, I think Pixel's big textures are absolutely equivalent
and partly even better. After all, we are both using the same raw data. And
his textures are available NOW. For instance, I have NO 16k textures, since my
card only has 32MB! Also, my Mars textures on Bruckner's are "out"
meanwhile, since Pixel told me a much better source (RedMars 11k) that
is simply great and has no black seams...We are both using it since
some time.

I made some nice moving clouds for Jupiter and reflecting ice on
Pluto. This is no big deal. I can get those anywhere.

Also, my bumpmapped, "fluffy" earth clouds into which I somehow put a
lot of work, are small enough (2k) to be uploaded. I really like
those, but Pixel is not so hot on them; => c.f. my latest Central
America picture at Bruckner's-))


Bye Fridger

[t00fri]

It can't be so hard to provide the textures on cdr, it can't be so hard to send a cdr by snail-mail or whatever. It can't be so hard to edit solarsys.scc, glue them together into a zip and finally upload that thing everyone wants for a year or so.

So I get the impression of artificial delay, and that makes me - guess what - emotional. :x

CU, Axel

Here are a few further remarks concerning the hires texture kit and DXT files. They may also illustrate that there are /real/ reasons for the delay of a texture kit and /not/ what you are hinting at above!

Chris proposed two days ago that one might just set up a JPEG archive with RGB textures (without specular reflections, of course) and add the 'nvdxt' tool such that everyone can convert the JPEG's to dds files (if supported by the graphics card). In principle, the commands are so easy that everyone can do it. For individual files, for example, it just amounts to typing at the DOS prompt,

nvdxt -file <filename> -dxt1a

for RGB texture conversion. You may also convert whole directories at once.

But, now comes the glitch (this is just a little example why things
are NOT quite as easy as you always tend to see them).

As far as I can tell, the present nvdxt tool only converts .tga
files into DXT's NOT JPEG's (Chris mostly uses the photoshop plugin, I
think). So, either somebody with a Windows compiler examines and
corrects the respective nvdxt code or we are stuck with .tga files for
the time being.

These are HUGE compared to JPEG's => new problems. On the other hand
they also support an 'alpha' channel (unlike JPEG), which is positive.

We should also have a port of the nvdxt to Linux before the
distribution gets out, but this again is problematic. I have tried it, others have tried it. It does not work yet, since many Windows system headers are needed that are not included. Again, only someone with a full Windows compiler equipment has a chance. Some weeks ago, Chris has promised to
try, but I have not heard from him about it and suppose he simply had no time.


I got an old version of nvdxt from Eugene (Pixel), that might be more
stable for really big file conversions. Perhaps this older version still does DXT conversion from JPEG's and other formats as described in the README.

Perhaps, I should also mention that I have implemented in the forthcoming 1.2.5 code a new texture search algorithm that avoids some generic problems particularly frequent with Newbies: In 1.2.4 you see only a white ball (no texture) for earth, say, if you put a new hires texture (e.g. dds) into just the /hires/ directory and do not enter the /same file name & type/ also into medres! In the new version the search also goes upward in resolution, not only downward like at present.

So at present you better put new experimental textures always into the medres folder. Then they will always be found, as long as you have adapted solarsys.ssc, of course. This you might also tell to the user "Little_Newbie" if he comes back to you, because things did not work out.

Bye Fridger

[Rassilon]

Im personally looking for a 2k or greater jupiter texture...The best I got so far was one from JPL and its ~1000 x 600...

[t00fri]

Im personally looking for a 2k or greater jupiter texture...The best I got so far was one from JPL and its ~1000 x 600...

Sorry, I have nothing bigger, either. Mine is cut down to 1024x512.

Some of the textures (also the default one) need a substantial offset in solarsys.ssc in order that Jupiter's conspicuous /red spot/ apears at the right time. Since the light takes a pretty long time already from juppi to earth, and the travel time is not yet accounted for, this requires some fiddling...

But perhaps you simply do not care...

I just thought, I let you know.

Bye Fridger

[t00fri]

Here are some further thoughts about transfering some of my textures.

I could transfer my stuff by DAT tape during next week to my office
computer and transfer the things by remote action from my computer at
home in reasonable chunks (20MB, say) to some ftp server /on a
weekend/. This would not work for the coming one, since I am very busy
finishing some conference paper where the deadline is this weekend.

But, I think triggering 20 MB transfers remotely on a Sunday could
work fine, even if the transfer is fairly slow.

This still leaves me with the BIG problem what I should select from
the big mess of textures that I have produced here, meanwhile;-))


Bye Fridger

[Thilo]

I think the general opinion is, after having seen what CAN be done is to get these nice things to run ... and many people will ask to combine the best of Pixel and your work...
So if you'd supply your fluffy clouds and pixel the other things maybe we could come to a solution that pleases everyone? (blabla i know ... that's you who got to decide that ;)

I think after the large "community" Celestia has gained you should find webspace for these textures. maybe start a call on celestia's main page (huh, chris? ;)

nothing against the users who selflessly donate their 256 k lines, but that will definitely not be enough ;) And of course you will have to calculate in much traffic... though you pay in the german science network (DFN ? dont know its english substitute) as much as 40 euros per gigabyte (that'd be about 40 dollars right now) after what i've heard of someone there, there still should be some people who have the luck who dont have to pay for traffic or very little ;) (or you couldn't finance all these quake3 servers etc)

[Commander David]

@ Rassilion

Hi, i`m new but i use Celestia since Month.

I have a 2048x1024 Texture of Jupiter. The Map looks very cool. I don`t no how i can post screenshots in this Forum. Mail me if you are interested @ graphics@stadt-geyer.de

[Rassilon]

Im personally looking for a 2k or greater jupiter texture...The best I got so far was one from JPL and its ~1000 x 600...

Sorry, I have nothing bigger, either. Mine is cut down to 1024x512.

Some of the textures (also the default one) need a substantial offset in solarsys.ssc in order that Jupiter's conspicuous /red spot/ apears at the right time. Since the light takes a pretty long time already from juppi to earth, and the travel time is not yet accounted for, this requires some fiddling...

But perhaps you simply do not care...

I just thought, I let you know.

Bye Fridger

Maybe if I ask them [JPL] nicely they may offer me a better one

What would be nice to see is the ability to animate textures in Celestia...that way the clouds on jupiter could be rendered more in detail...but thats me...I love F/X

And for the bits on detail...My main focus is to make even the fantastic look real...Comes with the ability to get people to see what you want them to see...Thats where all hidden talent lies...

[t00fri]

Hey, Commander_David's 2k Juppi is great! I just got it from him by email. With my semi-transparent, rotating white cloud bands it looks amazing. I think, those rotating bands really make a lot of difference. The file is not very long (330k) and I can get it out of my machine to some place where others can download them.

Bye Fridger

[Redfish]

I messed up my saturn. Could someone post the saturn part of the solarsys.ssc?

[Rassilon]

Aye! Look at this...done with speculars...

http://cybermindtraveller.freewebspace.com/pics/jupiter-new.jpg

Thanks to D. Nestler...if he doesnt mind me putting up this texture for download...its the spectural one I will shortly...

Fridger I would like to use your clouds if thats ok?

Original saturn...

Code: Select all

"Saturn" "Sol"
{
   Texture "saturn.jpg"
   Color [ 1.0 1.0 0.85 ]
   HazeColor [ 0.0 0.0 1 ]
   HazeDensity 0.25
   Radius 60330
   Oblateness 0.1076

   CustomOrbit "saturn"
   EllipticalOrbit
   {
   Period           29.4577
   SemiMajorAxis     9.5371
   Eccentricity      0.0542
   Inclination       2.4845
   AscendingNode   113.715
   LongOfPericenter 92.432
        MeanLongitude    49.944
   }

   RotationPeriod      10.65622
   Obliquity           28.052 # old value: 26.73
   LongOfRotationAxis  168

   Albedo            0.50

   Rings {
      Inner   74658
      Outer  140000
      Texture "saturn-rings.png"

      # Bjorn Jonsson <http://www.mmedia.is/~bjj> recommends this
      # color for rendering Saturn's rings.  No idea if it's right,
      # but it looks nice
      Color  [ 1.0 0.88 0.82 ]
   }
}


[t00fri]

Aye! Look at this...done with speculars...

Fridger I would like to use your clouds if thats ok?

Your New-Juppi is amazing!

My clouds are on their way to you, around half the globe...takes a little while since the data have to be uploaded twice, once for you and once the copy for the central mail server. All that with 33KB/s;-))

type Y and 2-3 times L

And I think, Commander_David's Juppi map needs a horizontal flip, in order to get the red spot about right etc. No problem for GIMP.


Bye Fridger