So I thought I would take everyone on a little tour of were this all began and were it is today.
So first up is the official first version of the 16k texture that was not released. This texture was based on two separate textures. Mario's Space-Graphics old Earth Render texture and the 21k BlueMarble textures we are all familiar with. What I did was enlarge the S-G Earth Render 8k texture to 16k and then removed all the water from a downsized BlueMarble 21k to 16k texture. I then placed the 16k BlueMarble continents over the S-G Earth Render texture and that is how my first 16k texture was born. Of course it was quite rouge and not ready for public use. But here is what it looked like as of 4-17-03.
The next was the completed and released texture. After allot of post work and coastal cleaning I released this version on 4-30-03.
Well after the texture was out for a while I had a few users mention that there was some strange pixelization going on in the oceans. After examining the texture I found that there were some problems in the texture. Some of it came from enlarging the S-G Earth Render texture and the rest was from the conversion to DDS. So in May I started working on an all new texture that have an entirely new ocean layer not based on the S-G Earth Render texture or at least not use it so strongly as a base. As I made this texture I and things advanced on it I called on a few of the members here to help out by beta-testing the texture and to look for any glitches I may have missed. I did end up using more of the S-G Render ocean layer than I wanted to but I had gone through and cleaned up as much of the bad blockyness that had been reported by some of the first ones users. So on 7-30-03 I released the second 16k Earth texture. This is the one that goes by the name Realistic Earth. How realistic it is or was is left up to the user. I was never very happy with it really. So this is what it looked like.
In August I started probably the hardest texture project to date. The 32k Earth texture. I pounded away at this thing for weeks, and than months. I am sure many Celestia users wonder what ever happen to it. Well to this day it sits at about 50% finished. I had created a whole new ocean layer for the texture. That part was finished and I was about 95% finished with the post work cleanup of the western half of the texture. I had made promises of a new 16k texture based on the beast and working on the 32k was just getting to be crazy. Every time I thought I was finished with something I found more that needed to be done. And I was still trying to figure out how to assemble this thing into a single texture to the final work. Well I figured out that with my computer the way it stands the 32k texture will never get put together as a single texture for the final editing. I just do not have enough memory to stitch the thing together. And the problems I was having with cleaning the coastlines were just going to get worse in the eastern half of the texture because there is simply much more coastline in the eastern half versus the western half. In November 2003 I decided it was time to put the 32k texture to rest until I could figure out a better way to work on it or until I could afford to get 3gigs of RAM for my computer. I had been working on it for almost four months.
So I decided to keep one of the two promises I made. I would get the next 16k texture out the door for everyone here. In mid November I had the first version ready for testing and was going to enlist the old beta team when I found a major problem with the texture myself. Here is what the 11-2003 texture looked like.
The problem I found was partly due to the fact that the new ocean layer was from the stillborn 32k project. It had never been loaded into Celestia so I had no idea that there were problems with it. Those problems were in the south, the Antarctic Ocean to be precise. The new marble effect was getting very badly stretched the closer you got to Antarctica. So a November (USA Thanks Giving Day) release date had to be pushed back.
I scrambled to try and fix this problem. In the end I fixed most of the visible distortion by increasing the amount of marbling in the water layer. This helped but it was not the best solution and I felt it was a stop gap measure. But I felt I needed to get something out the door. I wanted there to be some use of all the work I had done on the 32k texture. So in the end this texture was half Realistic Earth and part of the 32k. I used my continental layer over the new ocean layer to cut time down. This was the result. An early Christmas present for the users of Celestia.
In January it had been mentioned here n the forums that there was an ftp site that had very nice BlueMarble files. I was most interested in the shadowless textures of Earth for both the ongoing 32k project and possibly a new 16k texture. I have figured out a way to clean up most of the coastal garbage from the large BlueMarble textures using high res masks made from of all things Specmaps of Earth's oceans. After a few experiments it looked like this was the way to go. So I went over to my brothers to download these beasts of textures. Well It was a total waste of time. For some reason Windows just didn't report the size of the file right and if I tried to move them off my brother computer I got a useless file. I tried this for about a month on and off and then the ftp site disappeared. I did get the large cloud textures but all the Earth textures I wanted I never got. So were is this going. Well I did find another source of those shadowless textures, Space-Graphics. Yes I have gone full circle. Right back to using Mario's excellent work to achieve my goals. His first 16k shadowless Earth texture had a few problems. Namely a big lake in the middle of California’s central valley that did not belong there. But also the coloring was very rich and bright and I wasn't happy with the look. Than he came out with his new e43_color_s2 texture and now I had something to work with. Here is what his new texture looks like.
My intention was to simply remove his oceans so I could plug mine in instead. But after looking the texture over I decided to try something else. I took my reworked 32k ocean layer and blended it with his and than did a ever so slight hue value change. Now you may ask why I just don't use his texture as is and leave well enough alone. Well there are a few reasons. The first is that Mario makes his textures for use with 3DSMAX and as such the coloring he chooses just isn't right for Celestia. Mainly his ocean color. He gives his oceans a more vivid blue color to help with the visual effects in 3DSMAX. 3DSMAX also renders atmospheres differently than Celestia does. So there are a few good reasons to take his textures and to tweak them a bit. The other main reason is that his coloring losses the beautiful teal blue colors around the Bahamas and other tropical areas. His are more turquoise in color and not as vibrant. Of course this is all just my personal opinion. You may look at his textures and see nothing wrong at all. I do love his work, but for my taste it needs just a little tweaking. So here is what I have come up with at this point.
Realistic Earth v.2
Now you may be asking what it looks like in Celestia. Well the following thumb-nail shots should answer your questions. And if you want to see a bigger version of the shots below just click the thumb-nail image.
My December 2003 texture 16k DDS
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Mario's e43_color_s2 render texture under Celestia in 16k DDS
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Realistic Earth v.2. A blend of Mario’s e43_color_s2 renders texture and my oceans with just a hint of re-coloring.
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Well that sums things up for now. I should have a release date very soon.
If you have any thoughts please don't hesatate to post your ideas. As always I am open to input.
Now, I have Earth Central and my other Hub sites to fix.
Don. Edwards
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