Io Volcanic Plumes mark 2

[buggs_moran]

I am pretty content with my redesign of the volcanic plumes that I recently released. Some of the changes include:
- A sulfur "snow" effect rather than the long tail ejecta (the old texture is included)
- I set all the plumes to be Emissive True so they show on the dark side as well. This is unrealistic, but I was having too much trouble.

I look forward to you critiques...once I make the final tweaks I will post to the Motherlode as well.

http://www.clanmoran.net/celestia/site/files/Celestia_Add-ons3/Io_Volcanos_2.0/ioplumes.zip

Some images

[ElChristou]

Look nice; will test in a few hours! Hic!

[ANDREA]

Chrois, just tested and they are very very nice.
A little suggestion:
just like in your first release, I think that the overall dimensions are excessive, at least the double of the real plumes, as for what I've seen in the real pictures.
Can you please check it?
Thank you, and Merry Xmas
Hic!!
And Hic! again!!!
Bye

Andrea

[ElChristou]

Just test it and yep, I have to agree with Andrea, the size of the 2 biggest is a bit excessive.
Now when you look at the center, the impression is very nice.
Concerning the texture, I'd like to see a few stripes from the old one (perhaps faded) to give a bit more nerve...

[buggs_moran]

I know they seem ridiculously large. I've looked at the pictures from New Horizons and checked my model sizes many times. In fact, I just overlayed the New Horizons shot from Feb 28, 2007 over the same moment in Celestia and they are almost a perfect match... Much of the data I have gone over claims a plume size of anywhere from 300 to 500 km for Tvashtar and Pele. If you look at Pele in Celestia, you will see that the ring around the center of the plume matches quite nicely with my plume. I didn't think they were realistic either. Perhaps the size evident in the photos is picking up more gas and therefore the plumes "look" larger, I don't know. I think one of the big problems is that my plume might be the right "height", but since it is made up of circular paths, it's overall diameter is larger than the real plume extent. (Cannot model cyclic parabolic motion in Celestia )

I am willing to shrink them down a bit. It's not a problem.

Chris, I will play with adding some projectiles.

Thanks guys, happy holidays.

[ElChristou]

...I think one of the big problems is that my plume might be the right "height", but since it is made up of circular paths, it's overall diameter is larger than the real plume extent...

True, so a compromise would be nice to match the right feeling... ...or if you have a way to ad a few rotating spheres on top to increase the height then reduce the whole...

[ANDREA]

Chris, you are right about dimensions compared with New Horizons images, but (there is always a "but"!) such images were taken with long exposures, if my memory is correct.
So the overall dimensions look greater than those visible with naked eye.
It's only a matter of discussion if to choose the corrispondence with images, or the one with the actual visible shape.
The decision is yours, obviously.
Anyhow, it's a notable addon as it is now, so whatever will be your decision on the matter, well done and appreciated, on the screen next week!
Bye

Andrea

[ANDREA]

Chris, it looks very, VERY, VEEEEERY NICE!






Appreciated.
Bye

Andrea

[BobHegwood]

Chris, it looks very, VERY, VEEEEERY NICE!
Appreciated.
Bye

Andrea

To this, I simply have to add my unadulterated approval and
appreciation. I love these representations.

Many thanks my friend.

[Hungry4info]

For a second, I thought the second image was a real one. Dangit haha. Well, indeed it does look very nice!

Is it just me, or does Io look a bit... oblate in the New Horizons image in comparison to the Celestia image?

[buggs_moran]

For a second, I thought the second image was a real one. Dangit haha. Well, indeed it does look very nice!

Is it just me, or does Io look a bit... oblate in the New Horizons image in comparison to the Celestia image?

You'll have to forgive me. I was in a rush (Xmas morning and all) and resized poorly...

[buggs_moran]

...I think one of the big problems is that my plume might be the right "height", but since it is made up of circular paths, it's overall diameter is larger than the real plume extent...

True, so a compromise would be nice to match the right feeling... ...or if you have a way to ad a few rotating spheres on top to increase the height then reduce the whole...

That's actually why I was trying to get a hold of Cham before he left for those convection spheres... The plume height would be correct and the fallout would look better too... Guess I'll have to wait for his return.

[danielj]

Very interesting,but I can??t see the hot spots in the dark side and the locations are not correctly labeled.What do I do with the old folder?This is not explained in the installation instructions.
Look how the location appear:
http://img143.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... ionnl4.jpg
http://img241.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... ionzu8.jpg


Look to how computer demanding this addon is.I barely reach 15 fps and only when I disable clouds,I get around 19 fps.And my computer is not the worst of all;Athlon64 X2 3800,2 GB RAM and 7600 GT.So the model HAVE to be modified to improve perfomance in most computers.If this is a preview of what to come,everyone that CAN??T buy a Phenom or Athlon 64 5000+ and a Geforce 8 or 9 until the middle of 2008 will be DOOMED!
My configuration is 1024X768,0XAA AND 0XAF.
One more thing;the model is flickering sometimes...

[ajtribick]

(Cannot model cyclic parabolic motion in Celestia )

Do you actually need parabolic motion for realism? If the particles are in a bound orbit, that would be elliptical, with the centre of Io at one focus, while parabolic is the trajectory you get in a uniform gravitational field, or am I getting confused here?

[buggs_moran]

Very interesting,but I can??t see the hot spots in the dark side and the locations are not correctly labeled.What do I do with the old folder?This is not explained in the installation instructions.
Look how the location appear:
http://img143.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... ionnl4.jpg
http://img241.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... ionzu8.jpg


Look to how computer demanding this addon is.I barely reach 15 fps and only when I disable clouds,I get around 19 fps.And my computer is not the worst of all;Athlon64 X2 3800,2 GB RAM and 7600 GT.So the model HAVE to be modified to improve perfomance in most computers.If this is a preview of what to come,everyone that CAN??T buy a Phenom or Athlon 64 5000+ and a Geforce 8 or 9 until the middle of 2008 will be DOOMED!
My configuration is 1024X768,0XAA AND 0XAF.
One more thing;the model is flickering sometimes...

Hmm,

Well first off, the night side texture is not included in this addon. It is something I created (it is by no means scientifically accurate) in my medres textures folder. You can get it below, but you will have to create the appropriate lines in your solarsys.ssc.

You need to delete the old folder and everything in it. It is running slowly and flickering due to the old one still existing. Sorry about that. Those are the bits of information I am looking for to get this ready for a final release to my site and the motherlode.

I just loaded Celestia 1.5 pre 5 and turned on locations with CTRL-& and everything seems fine. The locations may be a few kilometers off, but the center of eruptions move over time, I used the data from the USGS for placing the plumes.

Here is the night side png
http://www.clanmoran.net/celestia/site/files/Celestia_Add-ons3/Io_Volcanos_2.0/ionight.png

[buggs_moran]

(Cannot model cyclic parabolic motion in Celestia )

Do you actually need parabolic motion for realism? If the particles are in a bound orbit, that would be elliptical, with the centre of Io at one focus, while parabolic is the trajectory you get in a uniform gravitational field, or am I getting confused here?

Well, no. That is workable and I tried it early on. It's not too tough to model half an ellipse as a parabola, yay Algebra! However, binding hundreds, if not thousands of png "billboards" to an elliptical orbit to achieve what we see in this addon would severely cripple a system. I don't know if you've ever tried the LARGE asteroid addon for Celestia, but it makes my system crawl. Neat to see, easy to implement, hard to justify.

What I would really like to see is the ability to repeatedly send a billboard along a curved path. It would have to conform to the shape of the path, in my case, a parabola, and do it over and over. This would allow numerous addons (more realistic solar flares, gas streaming, and of course, volcanoes).

Even better, the ability to show a clip of motion, like a video, on an object so we could have all of the above and more.

I really just need to get off my butt and learn how to program.

[mikej]

I have no idea how you folks do this kind of stuff, but this is BRILLIANT!
I am keeping the original in case you change it! The night side is also very good.
My only "complaint" is that, from a distance, this gives Io 2 or 3 large bright spots which protrude from the surface. Io looks more like an artificial sattelite than a moon. Could this be made into an alternate surface? Or could it br made to "turn off" after a certain distance?

Thanks!

[buggs_moran]

I have no idea how you folks do this kind of stuff, but this is BRILLIANT!
I am keeping the original in case you change it! The night side is also very good.
My only "complaint" is that, from a distance, this gives Io 2 or 3 large bright spots which protrude from the surface. Io looks more like an artificial sattelite than a moon. Could this be made into an alternate surface? Or could it br made to "turn off" after a certain distance?

Thanks!

You are quite welcome. I love it when my work is called brilliant. I get that ego-boost glow about me...

The only change I am working on is throwing in a couple of streamers, or path of larger objects being thrown out. The "original" version of this addon looked like this.



As you can see there is quite a difference. The "streamers" give an implied motion, where the "snow" doesn't, so I will add a few for (heh) impact...

As far as the bright spots go. Do you mean how bright they are as dots when you are far away? If so, I am going to work on that, but there is only so much I can do...

[fsgregs]

Andrea, your Io texture is very high res. Where can I get it? Is it available on Motherlode?

Frank

[fsgregs]

Buggs:

it is a great add-on.

I seem to have a problem, however. when I back away from Io a bit with the add-on running, the plumes don't just fade away, they turn bright white and form a big crazy white blob on both the light and the dark side of Io. I suspect it has something to do with the way 1.5.0pre5 handles albedo. Does anyone else see this?



Frank