Using the Nmtools package

[steffens]

Great, thanks!

I'll send you my private email address in PM.

steffens

[danielj]

Nobody answer if 1GB of RAM is enough to handle these monsters VT.The BMNG is that of Motherlode,from Fightspit,if I remember correctly.
The specmap is from the same author.
These 2 maps above,plus the Normalmap I produced,is causing HUGE swaps in my system.I always miss the point and the Earth gets too near or too far away.My settings are 800x600,4XAA,8XAF,perfomance image settings,trilinear optimization on,anisotropic mipmap optimization and on,anisotropic sample optimization on,gamma correct antialiasing on and supersampling transparency antialiasing.Is it something wrong?
About the problems with Open GL,this is very well known and still nobody did NOTHING to solve that.It have to be with the scaled disks,but the star looks big even if the mode is set to fuzzy points.More strange than that:every time I cycle the rendering modes and get to Open GL 2.0,one kind of problem appears.Could be light overxposing,seams in the normal map or something else.
I??m know that Celestia 1.5.0 is far from complete and I??m not REALLY complaining.I??m only giving my report and saying that at this time,it??s not possible to get to the results displayed in Celestia Matters.People that can is because he or she have your OWN version of Celestia,totally compiled by themselves...

[danielj]

Sorry,the computers settings were for an SPECIFIC game.
Now here is the general settings:
Antialiasing application controlled
Anisotropic filtering application controled
Image settings Perfomance
Trilinear optimization on
Anisotropic mipmap optimization on
Anisotropic sample optimization on
Gamma correct antialising off
Transparency antialiasing off

800x600,60 Hz,Nebulas and galaxies tagged off.

Again my system:
Athlon 64 3000 939
1 GB RAM DDR400
VGA 7600 GT PCI-E
HD 160.0 GB SATA 7200rpm
Windows XP SP2 Pro
driver Nvidia Forceware 93.71

[Johaen]

... it??s not possible to get to the results displayed in Celestia Matters.People that can is because he or she have your OWN version of Celestia,totally compiled by themselves...

Here's some screenshots.

Rocky Mountains near Denver, CO.


South America, over the Amazon, looking west:


New Zealand:




This is using Celestia 1.5.0pre2.
List of add-ons:
64K Jestr Earth Mark II (VT/DDS)
32K Earth Night Map Mark II
32K Earth Specular Map
64K Normal Map created w/ Fridger's nmtools

[danielj]

Well,I think it??s time to give up.I don??t know what resolution or setting did you use,but your computer is MUCH BETTER than mine(2 GB of RAM,dual core CPU and VGA with 512 MB) and even so,the frame rates oscilates between 17 fps and 46 fps.
I can??t snap pictures very close because the SWAP is so HUGE that I always MISS the POINT...
Maybe I have to become more humble and stick with "only" Blue Marble DDS (at least until August 2008 or if we have an improved pre version).It??s a pity,anyway.

Look to my BMNG NM images:
http://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... extyw3.jpg

http://img74.imageshack.us/my.php?image ... vidlo0.jpg

http://img74.imageshack.us/my.php?image ... 64kba0.jpg

http://img74.imageshack.us/my.php?image ... eripk3.jpg

http://img74.imageshack.us/my.php?image ... ngegc8.jpg

http://img58.imageshack.us/my.php?image ... siasp2.jpg

... it??s not possible to get to the results displayed in Celestia Matters.People that can is because he or she have your OWN version of Celestia,totally compiled by themselves...

Here's some screenshots. Large size used to make a point



This is using Celestia 1.5.0pre2.
List of add-ons:
64K Jestr Earth Mark II (VT/DDS)
32K Earth Night Map Mark II
32K Earth Specular Map
64K Normal Map created w/ Fridger's nmtools

[danielj]

BMNG NM 64K images of New Zealand.Look the problem in Open GL 2.0:

http://img58.imageshack.us/my.php?image ... zonom0.jpg

http://img62.imageshack.us/my.php?image ... ureub0.jpg

http://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... earbv5.jpg

http://img58.imageshack.us/my.php?image ... gl2vu6.jpg

http://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... earur3.jpg

I "shot" this pictures in 800x600,which can??t give a panoramic vision.Later I will try with another resolutions.Only when I get nearer than 1000 km,the frame rate drops to less than 50-60 fps.

[danielj]

Not so bad,huh?

Here are some images of Amazon and Andes:

http://img232.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... knmcd4.jpg

http://img71.imageshack.us/my.php?image ... earco7.jpg

http://img232.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... gl2hv9.jpg

http://img372.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... knmwy2.jpg

http://img71.imageshack.us/my.php?image ... knmfi7.jpg

http://img372.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... rbmki5.jpg

http://img235.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... rbmou8.jpg

Apart the Open GL 2.0 problem,the results are good,but still far from fridger??s and Johannen results...

Do you ask for pictures?Here,tons of them...

Athlon64 3000 939,1 GB RAM Kingston Value Select DDR400 Dual,XFX Geforce 7600 GT PCI-E,256 MB,HDD 160 GB SATA(60% free),Windows XP SP2,Forceware 93.71,Celestia 1.5.1 pre2.

[Fightspit]

Danielj,

If you want to see clearly the effect of the normalmap , use it with a blank (white) texture and you get that :

[danielj]

Your system is FAR BETTER than mine.You can??t compare.
Hum...now I understand the reason of the HUGE SWAPS.The VT should be in DDS format.Otherwise,the program runs too slow.BUT Celestia 1.5.0 pre2 have trouble in displaying DDS VT textures and since Celestia 1.4.1 don??t support dxt5nm,the only thing I can do is to keep my normal maps and wait for further improvements in Celestia 1.5.0...

Danielj,

If you want to see clearly the effect of the normalmap , use it with a blank (white) texture and you get that :

[ANDREA]

Your system is FAR BETTER than mine.You can??t compare.

Danielj,
If you want to see clearly the effect of the normalmap , use it with a blank (white) texture and you get that :

Danielj, please, stop useless images duplication: when you reply to a message containing an image link (i.e. with [img]at%20the%20beginning%20of%20the%20link%20and[/img] at its end) like Fightspit's one, cancel the link, and the image will not be shown again, so reducing the message opening time and the needed bandwidth.
Thank you.

Andrea

[danielj]

Sorry for copyng the pictures in EVERY post.
Can??t you see the DIFFERENCE,Fightspit?

YOU:Core2 Duo E6700(dual core) Me:Athlon 64 3000(single core)
YOU:2 GB RAM DDR2 Me:1 GB RAM DDR
YOU:8800 GTX 640 MB(384 bit) Me:7600 GT 256 MB(128 bit)

So,of course,for you,Andrea,Kolano and Johaen,frame rate is NOT an issue.

[Fightspit]

Sorry for copyng the pictures in EVERY post.
Can??t you see the DIFFERENCE,Fightspit?

YOU:Core2 Duo E6700(dual core) Me:Athlon 64 3000(single core)
YOU:2 GB RAM DDR2 Me:1 GB RAM DDR
YOU:8800 GTX 640 MB(384 bit) Me:7600 GT 256 MB(128 bit)

Yes, I see the difference on ...... money

[t00fri]

...
BUT Celestia 1.5.0 pre2 have trouble in displaying DDS VT
textures and since Celestia 1.4.1 don??t support
dxt5nm,the only thing I can do is to keep my normal maps
and wait for further improvements in Celestia 1.5.0...

...

Daniel,

please stop telling such NONSENSE!!

Since many weeks, I am using Celestia-1.5.0pre2 by
Chris on my Windows XP notebook together with my
64k normalmap VT's (DXT5nm), my 64k base & spec
VT's (DXT3) and my 32k nightlight VT's (DXT1).

The VT display is just perfect and fast. Your above
statement is plain wrong. Probably, you messed up
things again in connection with installing Celestia-1.5.0pre2 besides Celestia-1.4.1.

Bye Fridger

[danielj]

Could be,but you are a developer.The recent "version" of Chris can??t be found in Celestia SourceForge or Motherlode;so I have the same Celestia 1.5.0 pre2 of the launch day.Could you please say me where can I found this Celestia 1.5.0pre2 with no problems with DDS VTs?

...
BUT Celestia 1.5.0 pre2 have trouble in displaying DDS VT
textures and since Celestia 1.4.1 don??t support
dxt5nm,the only thing I can do is to keep my normal maps
and wait for further improvements in Celestia 1.5.0...

...

Daniel,

please stop telling such NONSENSE!!

Since many weeks, I am using Celestia-1.5.0pre2 by
Chris on my Windows XP notebook together with my
64k normalmap VT's (DXT5nm), my 64k base & spec
VT's (DXT3) and my 32k nightlight VT's (DXT1).

The VT display is just perfect and fast. Your above
statement is plain wrong. Probably, you messed up
things again in connection with installing Celestia-1.5.0pre2 besides Celestia-1.4.1.

Bye Fridger

[t00fri]

Could be,but you are a developer.The recent "version" of Chris can??t be found in Celestia SourceForge or Motherlode;so I have the same Celestia 1.5.0 pre2 of the launch day.Could you please say me where can I found this Celestia 1.5.0pre2 with no problems with DDS VTs?

I told you already that I am using Chris' official release of Celestia-1.5.0pre2 from the users board

http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic ... 28&start=0

++++++++++++++++++++++
It has NO problems with DDS VT's contrary to your false statements.

It is absolutely unrelated to being a developer --once more a false statement!
++++++++++++++++++++++

Bye Fridger

[danielj]

Sorry,Fridger,I put the dxt5nm in the SAME POSITION of the PNG VT 64k normal map.It simply DIDN??T WORK.Of course you compiled the program a bit,because your version is not the same as me.Maybe the problem could be the script...

Could be,but you are a developer.The recent "version" of Chris can??t be found in Celestia SourceForge or Motherlode;so I have the same Celestia 1.5.0 pre2 of the launch day.Could you please say me where can I found this Celestia 1.5.0pre2 with no problems with DDS VTs?

I told you already that I am using Chris' official release of Celestia-1.5.0pre2 from the users board

http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic ... 28&start=0

++++++++++++++++++++++
It has NO problems with DDS VT's contrary to your false statements.

It is absolutely unrelated to being a developer --once more a false statement!
++++++++++++++++++++++

Bye Fridger

[t00fri]

Sorry,Fridger,I put the dxt5nm in the SAME POSITION of the PNG VT 64k normal map.It simply DIDN??T WORK.Of course you compiled the program a bit,because your version is not the same as me.Maybe the problem could be the script...

It is way more probable that you made another configuration error than that Chris' Celestia 1.5.0pre2 does not function with dxt5nm !

Did you enter 'dxt5nm' as format specifier in the normalmap.ctx file??


Bye Fridger

[Fightspit]

Danielj,

You should have this in the ctx file:

Code: Select all

VirtualTexture
{
        ImageDirectory "the_folder_where_you_have_put_the_normal_maps"
        BaseSplit 0
        TileSize 1024
        TileType "dxt5nm"
}


[danielj]

Well,the normal map worked but not without problems.
There is a thin dark line in the Pacific Ocean,beggining in the western coast of Canada.And when I get nearer than 1000 km,the southern hemisphere become blank; apparentlu some part of level 1 and 2 is lacking because the files tx_0_1.dxt5nm,tx_1_1.dxt5nm,for example, have only 1 kB.I don????t know what happened,but I think I will have to generate the maps again later...
Even with the DDS format,the lockdowns still remains.There is a severe slowdown running with the BMNG,BMNG_spec and Earth Normal dxt5nm together.Since Fridger has 3 GB of RAM and some developers have about it,it??s no surprise!Unfourtanetelly,there is nothing I can do right now about this,unless I can inprove the framerate by increasing the Virtual Memory to 2.5 GB or more.Does it help?
See the images.There are good,but not so.It appears that combining a PNG texture map with a DDS Normal Map is not a good thing to do:

http://img236.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... nmvik0.jpg

http://img409.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... ultal6.jpg

http://img409.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... nm2bh7.jpg

http://img409.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... inedj0.jpg

http://img409.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... anksn5.jpg

Danielj,

You should have this in the ctx file:

Code: Select all

VirtualTexture
{
        ImageDirectory "the_folder_where_you_have_put_the_normal_maps"
        BaseSplit 0
        TileSize 1024
        TileType "dxt5nm"
}


[t00fri]

Daniel,

your shown images (apart from the first and last ones) look quite ok.

But again you are mixing up many things incorrectly!

-- my normalmap VT's don't have a problem with a thin dark line. It's most probably Fightspit's base texture...

--your .dxt5nm tiles up including level 2 must ALL have a size of ~ 1MB each. So some of your present tiles of the lower levels are simply INCORRECT. This causes the white areas, I suppose.

-- My 3 GB of RAM are IRRELEVANT in the context of VT display speed! It's the speed of your harddisk and the RAM of your graphics card that matter. Please don't tell the same WRONG stuff over and over again.

-- In higher levels quite a few tiles are small or even very small (just have a few bytes!). These are due to the optimizations from high polar latitudes and monochromatic tiles (oceans = altitude 0), respectively.

--what is a big --still missing-- quality factor is an optimal combination of excellent quality base texture tiles (RGB) with my much improved spec tiles (alpha channel=A) into RGBA tiles. My new software tools do all this automatically.

-- moreover, I keep a tiny little bit of "rest light" in the dark spec texture areas (continents), which makes the normalmap effects much more crisp, yet does not yet create an unnatural "plastic" appearance. This turned out to be a great improvement.

Bye Fridger