Improved rendering - a preview

[ElChristou]

TX for those improvement Chris!
The specular highlights are really much better!
(a pity I cannot use OpenGL 2... ...but this will change soon )

Very glad to hear that! What graphics card are you getting?

Ah...Graphics card... this is my big problem...
Well because I'm flying from here to here I need a laptop and because I'm a Mac user since looong years I don't have much choice... I suppose it will be an intel Macbook with the GMA950... no choice... (I'm waiting a bit more to see more Universal apps)

Do you have a modeling tool that can work with a specular mask?

Right now... no... (for Celestia I was using Amapi for modeling and Cheetah for mapping), but I suppose I will find something...

[dirkpitt]

it will be an intel Macbook with the GMA950... no choice...

I would really reconsider that choice since you're a heavy graphics user.
Get at least a MacBook Pro with the ATI x1600. The GMA950 may seem to run Celetia "all right" now,
but frankly 30 fps is only about as good as my 3-year old machine (G4 1.33 with 64M Radeon 9700).
If speed is not an issue, I'm guessing it will run out of vram real quick. That means forgetting about big textures.

[ElChristou]

it will be an intel Macbook with the GMA950... no choice...

I would really reconsider that choice since you're a heavy graphics user.
Get at least a MacBook Pro with the ATI x1600. The GMA950 may seem to run Celetia "all right" now,
but frankly 30 fps is only about as good as my 3-year old machine (G4 1.33 with 64M Radeon 9700).
If speed is not an issue, I'm guessing it will run out of vram real quick. That means forgetting about big textures.

No way to change the GMA950 by the ATI on the Intel Mac? Seems the futur of Mac is now based on those intel duocore chips so...

[selden]

Unfortunately, the graphics chipset is soldered into the motherboard, so you have to choose the laptop with the appropriate graphics.

The MacBook Pro is a dual-core Intel Mac with ATI graphics. It comes in three versions, with different CPU speeds and screen resolutions.

[t00fri]

Hi,

I played a bit with Chris' new normalmap+spec rendering code and my high-quality 64k Earth normalmap etc data, all produced with the new normalmap tools that I announced above.

Note: With the standard spec map (no spec light on land areas!) there is no visual difference wrto the original rendering code. HOWEVER, if one superimposes some uniform spec light, things change DRAMATICALLY! The rendering becomes very crisp, more 3d like and still does not "shine". So what would be needed are spec maps that are not black but some shade of gray on land...

Here are some illustrations from my selfmade 64k Earth texture set. Click on the "bonsai" images to enjoy their full resolution!

Bye Fridger

PS: personally, I like the last one best, since unlike previous renderings, there is now a beautiful more uniform illumination...watch the amazing amount of detail!

[ElChristou]

Unfortunately, the graphics chipset is soldered into the motherboard, so you have to choose the laptop with the appropriate graphics.

The MacBook Pro is a dual-core Intel Mac with ATI graphics. It comes in three versions, with different CPU speeds and screen resolutions.

True, I was thinking in the MacBook, but definitively the MacBook Pro will be my choice...

[julesstoop]

When choosing the right MacBook Pro, you might also want to know that the GPU in the 17" MBP has vraiable clockspeed, alowing for better performance upon higher demand. The X1600 in the 15" o.t.o.h. has a fixed (rather low) clockspeed. The GPU in both cases is the X1600, by the way.

[ajtribick]

That detail level is superb... unfortunately I'm sure if my ISP will appreciate downloading yottabytes of texture/normal maps though!

[ElChristou]

Sorry for the off topic comment

When choosing the right MacBook Pro, you might also want to know that the GPU in the 17" MBP has vraiable clockspeed, alowing for better performance upon higher demand. The X1600 in the 15" o.t.o.h. has a fixed (rather low) clockspeed. The GPU in both cases is the X1600, by the way.

Tx for the info, this is a news for me... (I though the graphic card was the same on both...).
One of my problem is that I really need a "nomad" machine, in this, my actual G4 12" is really cool. A 17" is much too big to my taste, IMO it's a desktop computer designed as a laptop... I was thinking in the MacBook also because of the size (13"); so definitively I think I will go for a MBP 15"...


****

Coming back on the topic!

Hi,

I played a bit with Chris' new normalmap+spec rendering code and my high-quality 64k Earth normalmap etc data, all produced with the new normalmap tools that I announced above.

Those shots are incredible ... with this quality of rendering, we should try to do something to improve the cloudmap actual system... (rotating VT, shadows, bump...)

[PlutonianEmpire]

Grrr, you people and your evil supercomputers.

lol

[MKruer]

@ chris

I have a few questions.
Is the next release going to be a 2.x release do to the engine changes, if so are you planning to redo the ssc files to allow for more flexibility such as more dynamic atmosphere and addition cloud layers, etc?€¦ stuff like that?

Also on the OpenGL 2.0 granted that I am probably ?€?privileged?€

[Telepath]

MKruer,

I think it's pretty hard (if not impossible) for people with laptops to upgrade their graphics.

[MKruer]

Ok you got me their but for desktops its a diffrent story.

[cartrite]

After a quick scan of this thread and the cloud shadow thread I find it quite impressive work. I compiled the latest cvs today for winxp and kde on suse 10. Both had a slight problem with some models I created of Mars with open-gl. If I use the textures in celestia/textures/ everything works fine.
If I use the texture in celestia/extras/3dmars/textures/lores or medres, the models are transparent in open-gl rendering mode a shown below:
Model using the lores texture from the addon folder

Model using the medres texture from the addon folder

Model using the hires texture from the addon folder

This only affects the lores and medres tetures. The hires teture is not affected. Just thought you all might want to know this before commiting to a new offical version.
cartrite

[selden]

cartrite,

Where can the Addon be downloaded? I recall that there are several 3D Mars Addons but not where they're located.

What types of images are being used for the surface texture images? PNG? JPG? DDS?

[edit]
Also, it isn't clear if you're trying to say that the same texture file works differently when it's in different folders or if there are different texture files in each of the folders.

If they're different, is there any chance that some have alpha channels and some do not?
[/edit]

[chris]

After a quick scan of this thread and the cloud shadow thread I find it quite impressive work. I compiled the latest cvs today for winxp and kde on suse 10. Both had a slight problem with some models I created of Mars with open-gl. If I use the textures in celestia/textures/ everything works fine.
This only affects the lores and medres tetures. The hires teture is not affected. Just thought you all might want to know this before commiting to a new offical version.
cartrite

Which Mars add-on are you using? I'll need to know in order to debug this.

--Chris

[cartrite]

I made an attempt to upload this file to the motherlode a couple of weeks ago. The file uploaded fine but I think I forgot to put in my e-mail address as password. So it may have been ignored. This upload was only the model. It includes moderate resoloution areas of olympus mons and valles marineris. It uses any texture =< 4k of mars. I can try this again tonight if the file was ignored beause of the missing password.

cartrite

[cartrite]

Sorry. A while back I downloaded a number of mars textures to test with this model. I changed them to png format if they were in dds format. Can't remember why. I think I was having some kind of problem They are the files(converted from dds to png) that are affected. But they were not affected with the Celestia cvs version 5182006. With that version they work fine.

I just downloaded a dds texture of mars and it works fine in any folder.
So it must be something with the converted files.
Edit:Something with this new version of Celestia must have changed that exposes defects in texture files. When I open the affected files with the gimp and decompose to rgb, then compose as rgb, the new file works fine.

EDIT:2
Selden wrote

If they're different, is there any chance that some have alpha channels and some do not?

This seems to be whats really going on. These problem files are rgb-alpha. When opened with the gimp there is no mention of the alpha channel unless you look at the preview for the file.
It only seems to affect extra addon models. The bmng files which are rgb-alpha (spec files included) are not affected on the native earth sphere.
cartrite

[cartrite]

When I was converting dds to png with the gimp that in it's self created an unintended rgb-alpha file due to my inexpierience in such matters. But I just tried to create a rgb-alpha with a normalmap in the alpha channel. With the new cvs version 07112006 the model is still transparent in open-gl.
With the 5182006 cvs version the model is normal with shadows and all.
Edit; No shadows, Just solid.
Mabey this is a bug after all.
cartrite

[cartrite]

For some reason I thought you could put height info in the alpha channel as a normalmap.
But I guess you can't. I'm confused. Back to the drawing boards.

cartrite