New 64k DDS Earth texture

[jestr]

I have made a new,more realistic looking (I hope),version of my 64k Earth texture in DDS (DXT3) format.

I made it DDS to work easier in Celestia and as it is DXT3 I have included a 32k Specular Map in the Alpha channel.This means you dont have to have a separate specular map,and the file size of each surface texture tile is the same,so it should work better all round.

Because of the format the size of the whole Virtual Texture is 2.67Gb,so I have split it up into 2 parts to make downloading easier.You should download the first part (levels0-4) first, here
http://celestiamotherlode.net/creators/jestr/JMII_DDS_Level0-4_32K.zip
which will give you a 32k texture,and then the level5 tiles,here
http://celestiamotherlode.net/creators/jestr/JMII_DDS_Level5_Full.zip
and put these in a folder called 'level5',which you should create in the same folder as levels0-4,ie extras/JMII DDS/textures/hires/JMII DDS
Unfortunately this texture will not match with my levels6-10 of south UK,but I hope to get around to changing these soon also.I am in the process of uploading DDS versions of my Normal and Night maps to make the display smoother,and will let you know when I have the links,hope you like it Jestr

[rthorvald]

I have made a new,more realistic looking (I hope),version of my 64k Earth texture in DDS (DXT3) format.

Hello, Jestr, this looks great!
I wonder, though, if you could post a screenshot without the specular map active? My graphics card does not support it; it would be nice to see what i get before going for such a gigantic download

-rthorvald

[Guest]

Thanks so much! I've been meaning to ask why folks weren't using the alpha channel for specular for a while now.

Do your levels 6-10 for Britain still align with this?

[Guest]

Oops, you already said they don't

[DBrady]

Hi jestr,

Are your 64k earth maps preshaded or flat? I was going to make a flat texture myself but this looks very nice.

[Kolano]

It looks like you may need to do a little jimmying of your specular around the Middle East. I've heard of white sand beaches, but these don't seem right to me...

[Guest]

er

[jestr]

DBrady-this texture is shaded,but in the screenshots I also have a normal map,I know it clashes with the shading at different times of day,but it just looked so much nicer than the flat map.A flat version would be a great idea though to see what it looked like in Celestia with the normalmap
Kolano,it does look like the spec is a bit out around the middle east,but I have used the one on Nasa FTP site to go with the Blue Marble textures,there are lots of little inaccuracies with both the surface and spec maps though,for instance there is no hawaiian islands at all in the original 43k Specmap,or many other islands around the world,I have had to go around uncovering them by hand.There are also differences between the time of year the different maps were sampled from,this is evident around rivers,marshes,flood plains etc,Ihave corrected a lot of the really nasty ones,I think-I will try to sort out any really bad errors people notice though,but it is quite a task for me uploading these files I will probably wait a while and correct a few errors before uploading a newer version.Let me know where it could be improved.All the best Jestr

[Dora]

Hi Jestr,

thanks a lot. Loading and switching between levels is now faster!

Ciao
Dora

[jestr]

You can now download a 32k DDS Night Texture VT ,URL is here
http://celestiamotherlode.net/creators/jestr/JNight_VT_DDS_L10_L14.zip
and a 32k DDS Normal Map VT here
http://celestiamotherlode.net/creators/jestr/JNormal_VT_DDS_L10_L14.zip
to complement the above Surface/Specular textures.Hope you like them,Jestr

[Kolano]

Aw, no 64k Normal

Guess I'll have to see how well John's aligns.

[jestr]

I guess I should point out that the 64k surface texture is not really 64k.The Blue Marble textures have a resolution of 1km/pixel and so they are 43200x21600 pixels for the entire Earth.Left at this size it is not possible to use in Celestia so you must either scale it down to 32k or up (as I have done) to 64k.Others have said they see no real difference between the 32k and 64k,and this is why I have made the NormalMap 32k.Of course with a shaded surface texture,the Normal map will cause problems but it looks better with it,at least at the right time of day (when it matches the shading),Jestr

[Kolano]

Doing a scan around Earth I noticed some specular trouble around southern Japan as well, besides that things looked good.

[danielj]

I think it is more detailed.I really like the specmap included in the main texture.I wonder if it?s not possible to have a real 64 k Earthmap because we don?t have data.Is it true?
And by the way,why is possible,in some cases,to scale up and in others don?t.

[jestr]

Hi Daniel,I guess the data is out there,it just isnt freely available,and could take up an awful lot of disc space.The Blue Marble is the most detailed one freely available (to my knowledge),I guess it is quite an undertaking to collate thousands of images of little parts of the world and to only use images without clouds,with the light consistent,same time of year etc.Of course it is possible to scale up the normal and specular maps,but I dont see so much difference with these maps (and the extra level is quite large in both cases) as with the surface texture.The largest night map is only 32k anyway I think,and this is not great (lots of plain even spots for the large cities) so there would be little point in doing this.Oh yes ,the specmap included with the surface texture was Haralds idea,Cheers Jestr

[Guest]

wonders if there is a 32k cloude map floating around somwhere

[Kolano]

Yes there is, see http://www.h-schmidt.net/celestia/earth-vt/

[Guest]

WOW

[DaveMc]

Very nice work on the 64K Earth Jestr! Now it's stupid question time. The graphics card on my system at home (ATI Radeon 7000) doesn't support specular reflections so I noticed right away that your ocean textures show the oceanic ridges, trenches, etc. Was this done on purpose? Just curious, it does add an interesting effect.

I didn't notice this at first as my work computer has a Nvidia GeForce 5900 and always have speculars enabled which kind of masks this.

Thanks,
Dave

[jestr]

Yes it was done on purpose,on the Nasa FTP where the full scale textures are to be found
ftp://mitch.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/stockli/bluemarble/
there is a flat texture,a shaded, and a bathymetry one.My texture was made by combining the shaded with the bathymetry texture.I wanted to add some detail to the oceans as they looked a little dull otherwise,and I thought this would be a nice way to do it.The bathymetry texture on its own has a lot more contrast with black areas where the ocean is the deepest,which look a bit ugly in Celestia-my texture seemed like a good compromise,glad you like it.Jestr