Alternate surface for a nebula

[buggs_moran]

I downloaded Reinhard F's Kepler Supernova Remnant form the Motherlode. I created a alternate texture from Chandra data and added a line to the ssc

Code: Select all

Nebula "SN 1604"
{
    Mesh "SN1604.3ds"
    Radius    9.5
    Axis  [-0.059 0.718 0.694]
    Angle 177.192
    RA    17.511
    Dec    -21.486
    Distance 1.3e4
}
AltSurface "Chandra X-Ray" "SN 1604"
{
    Texture "SN1604ax.png"

}

If I replace the main texture with my new one it works fine. But the altsurface doesn't seem to want to play. The alternate texture is in the same directory as the main texture for the nebula. After an hour of this I don't have enough patience to keep going. My hope (as has been noted in numerous posts) is to have overlay textures from Chandra & Spitzer...

Of course it just dawned on my that it might be the 3ds file referencing the png file... How hard is it to change that without 3ds Max? Would I be better off creating the whole thing from scratch? Any help would be appreciated.

[selden]

The AltSurface and Texture declarations are not recognized in DSC files. A Nebula's surface textures are declared inside the 3D model of the Mesh.

You probably should consider reading http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celest ... board.html
which explains how to construct "billboard" Nebula objects.

You can use a binary file editor to change the texture declaration within a 3DS model, or you can use a textual CMOD model and use your favorite text editor.