When Titan is displayed while " stars as points" or "fuzzy points" is enabled, it's a reddish brown. When "scaled discs" is enabled, it's white. It should be colored then, too.
Here's a Cel:// URL to demonstrate the problem from Cassini's viewpoint in October, 2002. Select the different star-styles to see Titan's color change.
cel://Follow/Sol:Saturn/2002-10-21T15:56:37.80?x=AAC6TfcG70axDA&y=CswQzdE7/ID//////////w&z=VcrqlbInmTmJ/////////w&ow=0.901303&ox=0.033362&oy=0.431736&oz=0.012032&select=Sol:Saturn&fov=0.106107&ts=1.000000&rf=5895&lm=0
Cel. v1.3.2pre1: "scaled discs" moons are white
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Chuft-Captain
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I don't often have "scaled discs" enabled but when I happened to have it enabled today (in 1.4.1), I noticed a strange thing happening as I got further away from objects. I did a search of the forum and came up wih this old post of yours Selden. I think the effect I'm seeing may also be the cause of what you saw 2 years ago at Titan.
Perhaps it hasn't been noticed in 2 years because no-one is using scaled discs.
I noticed that the star-rendering which produces scaled discs seems to be being applied also to planets, moons, and spacecraft as you back away from them...
At an intermediate distance you can see a bit of both, but then as you get further away the meshes get washed out by this effect.
The montage is a CelURL, click on it and then back away from the moon, Hit the END key a few more times and Earth comes into view, a few more END keys, and the same happens for earth:
This is also happening with models:
Perhaps it hasn't been noticed in 2 years because no-one is using scaled discs.
I noticed that the star-rendering which produces scaled discs seems to be being applied also to planets, moons, and spacecraft as you back away from them...
At an intermediate distance you can see a bit of both, but then as you get further away the meshes get washed out by this effect.
The montage is a CelURL, click on it and then back away from the moon, Hit the END key a few more times and Earth comes into view, a few more END keys, and the same happens for earth:
This is also happening with models:
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Topic authorselden - Developer
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Yup.
The problem's still there. Hopefully Chris will be fixing this as part of the conversion of "scaled discs" to HDRI (high dynamic range imaging).
Getting HDRI to do "the right thing" seems to be a difficult problem. Right now, it makes an abrupt transition from a "blindingly bright large circle" to Celestia's observable solar surface, for example. My current belief is that that's wrong: if HDRI is enabled, blinding objects should stay blinding -- but I also think there needs to be a user-adjustable slider for the amount of the effect, too, sort of like what Partiview provides. Something like an f-stop adjustment, perhaps.
I used Titan as an example because of its color. I'd expect it to keep its color (or, rather, display the color defined in the Color [] specification) when it's reduced to an unresolvable blotch.
The Moon's grey, so I'd expect it to be a neutral color as it fades from being drawn with details to just being an unresolvable blotch.
The problem's still there. Hopefully Chris will be fixing this as part of the conversion of "scaled discs" to HDRI (high dynamic range imaging).
Getting HDRI to do "the right thing" seems to be a difficult problem. Right now, it makes an abrupt transition from a "blindingly bright large circle" to Celestia's observable solar surface, for example. My current belief is that that's wrong: if HDRI is enabled, blinding objects should stay blinding -- but I also think there needs to be a user-adjustable slider for the amount of the effect, too, sort of like what Partiview provides. Something like an f-stop adjustment, perhaps.
I used Titan as an example because of its color. I'd expect it to keep its color (or, rather, display the color defined in the Color [] specification) when it's reduced to an unresolvable blotch.
The Moon's grey, so I'd expect it to be a neutral color as it fades from being drawn with details to just being an unresolvable blotch.
Last edited by selden on 24.09.2006, 13:09, edited 1 time in total.
Selden
I'm confused, this is on 1.3.2pre1? Did you type in the wrong version number?
My Celestia page: Spica system, planetary magnitudes script, updated demo.cel, Quad system
It is just a old post (Thu Jan 29, 2004 ) that Chuft shows the same "bug" in 1.41.
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Oh right, didn't notice the date!
My Celestia page: Spica system, planetary magnitudes script, updated demo.cel, Quad system
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Chuft-Captain
- Posts: 1779
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I believe that this is also happening in the other star styles, however the effect is less pronounced, and in fact can produce
quite nice results in "points" and "fuzzy" modes.
The effect appears to be bound to the "subtended angle" of the object, so it affects smaller objects sooner (at shorter distances) than larger ones.
It may be that Chris intended this to be used deliberately to allow distant objects to stand out better, and in those 2 modes it's generally OK,
however in scaled discs mode it's certainly not.
Let's hope you're right about HDRI Selden. As for me, I never use scaled discs mode, so I'm not too worried.
BTW, I realised that my Rungworldis the perfect demonstrator of this effect.
If you've already installed it, click on this celURL
and then toggle between star styles.
I'm not using this as an excuse to peddle the Rungworld, Honest!
quite nice results in "points" and "fuzzy" modes.
The effect appears to be bound to the "subtended angle" of the object, so it affects smaller objects sooner (at shorter distances) than larger ones.
It may be that Chris intended this to be used deliberately to allow distant objects to stand out better, and in those 2 modes it's generally OK,
however in scaled discs mode it's certainly not.
Let's hope you're right about HDRI Selden. As for me, I never use scaled discs mode, so I'm not too worried.
BTW, I realised that my Rungworldis the perfect demonstrator of this effect.
If you've already installed it, click on this celURL
and then toggle between star styles.
I'm not using this as an excuse to peddle the Rungworld, Honest!
"Is a planetary surface the right place for an expanding technological civilization?"
-- Gerard K. O'Neill (1969)
CATALOG SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING TOOLS LAGRANGE POINTS
-- Gerard K. O'Neill (1969)
CATALOG SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING TOOLS LAGRANGE POINTS