What's new for OS X

[ElChristou]

On other cards, the textures will be rescaled to the nearest power of two size when they're loaded.
...

Yes, but will that internal reduction to the nearest power-of-two be equally good than my optimized external reduction at the original 16bit raw graylevel (normalmaps) or 8x3 rgb raw level (other textures)??

If non-power-of two NORMALMAPS are internally rescaled, will they be renormalized properly (r*r+g*g+b*b=1) ? Unlike the original grayscale elevation maps, the rescaling of rgb normalmap textures MUST be done with an advanced algorithm >= cubic in order to retain their crucial smoothness.

I don't believe that the normal map quality will not suffer this way....Normalmaps are the most sensitive part of the whole texture set for a given body.

Bye Fridger

That's what I was wondering...

[chris]

On other cards, the textures will be rescaled to the nearest power of two size when they're loaded.
...

Yes, but will that internal reduction to the nearest power-of-two be equally good than my optimized external reduction at the original 16bit raw graylevel (normalmaps) or 8x3 rgb raw level (other textures)??

If non-power-of two NORMALMAPS are internally rescaled, will they be renormalized properly (r*r+g*g+b*b=1) ? Unlike the original grayscale elevation maps, the rescaling of rgb normalmap textures MUST be done with an advanced algorithm >= cubic in order to retain their crucial smoothness.

No, the automatic scaling will not be of the same quality as when it's done in advance. If you use non power of two (NP2) textures in an add-on, you should be aware that users with graphics hardware that doesn't directly support NP2 textures will get lower quality than if you had resized the textures to a power of two size in an image editing application. Also, rescaling large textures consumes a lot of CPU (or GPU) cycles and may result in an additional lag when a texture is loaded.

For color textures, the quality loss shouldn't be too bad. You're correct that it's more of a problem with normal maps. The biggest problem is that naive rescaling may result in 'normals' that no longer have unit length. When rescaling the texels in a normal map need to be renormalized, but this step is not currently performed. It would be interesting to see how seriously rescaling affects normal map quality.

--Chris

[Cham]

Chris,

why bother about adding this texture feature into the code, instead of working on more important matters, like bugs and depth-sorting problems with transparent models ? I don't see this non-power of 2 textures as a very important feature.

[ElChristou]

Chris,

why bother about adding this texture feature into the code, instead of working on more important matters, like bugs and depth-sorting problems with transparent models ? I don't see this non-power of 2 textures as a very important feature.

Well it's clear this won't be a polular feature, I mean only very few people are able to work on very huge files to generate giant VTs (the interest of using NP2 is here for now)...
But I suppose this wasn't a big challenge for Chris to enable the feature, so I don't think he lost so much time on it... (or I'm wrong?)

Now I suppose we should not promote too much this feature till 1 year or 2 when all boards will be able to use them...

[ElChristou]

BTW, bug? I don't get anymore stars Labels... someome can confirm? (on last Dirkpitt build)

[chris]

Chris,

why bother about adding this texture feature into the code, instead of working on more important matters, like bugs and depth-sorting problems with transparent models ? I don't see this non-power of 2 textures as a very important feature.

Because I have a graphics card that supports non-power of two textures and wanted to see the new 3600x1800 Jupiter map at full resolution:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07782

Also, because more and more new graphics cards support non power of two textures, it seemed like a good idea to take the few steps to enable them in Celestia. If order independent transparency was anywhere near as simple as adding support for NP2 textures, I certainly would have focused on that first.

--Chris

[selden]

Unfortunately, there are other depth sorting problems in addition to order-independant transparency.



I've circled a wide-angle image model that's been placed just above a 3D topological model. It's on the northern side of a hill. (right hand picture).

Unfortunately, when looked at from the south, as seen in the left side of the screenshot, it's drawn in front of the hills, on their southern sides. It should not be drawn: it should be blocked by the hills.

Also note the black holes where some of the distant hillsides are not being drawn. This problem appears when looking approximately parallel to the model's surface

I'm reasonably sure it's not a problem in the model itself. cmodfix -normals was used.

These bugs can be seen when viewing my Philmont-3D Addons.

[dirkpitt]

we really need the menu bar to reappear, while in full screen mode, by placing the cursor next to it. It's very annoying to have to go out of the full screen mode, just to select a menu item. I tested this feature on the Windows version today, and it's really a usefull one. Some Mac programs are doing something similar.

Done - menu bar should appear when the mouse touches the top of the screen but it has not been tested on multiple screens. The fix turned out to be embarrassingly simple (for those in the know, which apparently excluded me and it's in CVS.

I also committed Sui Ota's Japanese localization. Thanks!

[ElChristou]

we really need the menu bar to reappear, while in full screen mode, by placing the cursor next to it. It's very annoying to have to go out of the full screen mode, just to select a menu item. I tested this feature on the Windows version today, and it's really a usefull one. Some Mac programs are doing something similar.

Done - menu bar should appear when the mouse touches the top of the screen but it has not been tested on multiple screens. The fix turned out to be embarrassingly simple (for those in the know, which apparently excluded me and it's in CVS.

I also committed Sui Ota's Japanese localization. Thanks!

Cool, Tx Dirkpitt! I'll test on multi screen as soon as I do a new build.

*****

EDIT: Works fine!... on second screen, no problemo, the menu don't appear... because it is on first screen!

Note: after a fresh cvs update/build (minutes ago), orbits labels still untranslated...

[dirkpitt]

Note: after a fresh cvs update/build (minutes ago), orbits labels still untranslated...

Pardon me, but what are orbits labels? Do you mean planet labels?

[ElChristou]

Note: after a fresh cvs update/build (minutes ago), orbits labels still untranslated...

Pardon me, but what are orbits labels? Do you mean planet labels?

Yep... but I think I will re-download a source from scratch... this seems strange to me...

[ElChristou]

Note: after a fresh cvs update/build (minutes ago), orbits labels still untranslated...

Pardon me, but what are orbits labels? Do you mean planet labels?

All my apologies, after a new download of the source and a new build, all is fine with planets label.
I think I should do some cleaning, actually I have 6 different sources on board...

[ElChristou]

I get a problem (?) with eclipses; left, multitexture rendering, right DOT3+ARBVP and NVC+ARBVP...



Is this normal? I cannot recall if before 1.4 the DOT3+ARBVP and NVC+ARBVP rendering were black completly opaque like multitexture...

[dirkpitt]

I get a problem (?) with eclipses; left, multitexture rendering, right DOT3+ARBVP and NVC+ARBVP...

I have ambient light dialed down to zero and I cannot reproduce this issue. Could you post a cel url?

[ElChristou]

I get a problem (?) with eclipses; left, multitexture rendering, right DOT3+ARBVP and NVC+ARBVP...

I have ambient light dialed down to zero and I cannot reproduce this issue. Could you post a cel url?

I also always have ambient light to zero, no need of a cel url, whatever eclipse (or jupiter or other) result in the same rendering (as above)... probably my card

[Rich]

Hi,
I've posted thsi before, but time has passed and mayber there's more info...
In Celestia 1.4.1/Mac when I "Go" to some of my 3rd pary models (ie, ISS, Apollo lander), I get about 66 km away from them and Celestia crashes and quits: This happens at the time I believe, when the "speck" turns into a 3D model proper, on the screen. I was able to get a fleeting closeup view of the ISS when Earth was not also in the frame at the same time...but the it crashes after a second. And I can us the deafult downloaded stock celestia package & shipped models with no problem. So it looks like a texture issue or a 3D model issue, unless it's a Mac security or OS update problem...? Earlier versions of celestia worked fine.

Any ideas?

Thanks!
Richard