Io Volcanic Plumes mark 2

[BobHegwood]

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

Yes, but it also shows up using Chris' point-sprites too, so there's a
problem in there that doesn't have to do specifically with the add-on.

[chris]

The albedo of the volcanoes should be set to zero so that they're not rendered when they occupy less than a single pixel on screen.

But, Celestia should really have a new object class called 'surfacefeature' (or something like that.) Objects of this class would never be rendered as star-like points at a distance, and it's a more accurate tag than the fallback of asteroid or spacecraft.

And Buggs, this is a very cool add-on!

--Chris

[buggs_moran]

The albedo of the volcanoes should be set to zero so that they're not rendered when they occupy less than a single pixel on screen.

But, Celestia should really have a new object class called 'surfacefeature' (or something like that.) Objects of this class would never be rendered as star-like points at a distance, and it's a more accurate tag than the fallback of asteroid or spacecraft.

And Buggs, this is a very cool add-on!

--Chris

Coming from you, that is one heck of a complement. Thank you.

I have set the albedo to 0, everything is better now.

I REALLY like the idea of the surfacefeature. That would work well with so many of our addons. Would/could the surfacefeature have/cast shadows?
There are infinite applications of this.

[buggs_moran]

Okay now,

I have replaced the zip file. Delete the old folder and replace with new.
IO ZIP FILE 071229

Changes
- Albedo set to 0 on all parts, plumes vanish as you pull away.
- Pele turned off but left in directory (change .off to .ssc to turn on)
- While doing more reading on the topic, it turns out that Pele's plume
is actually not visible to the eye. It is a different type of plume than
the smaller ones. So I disabled it.
- Tvashtar size made 100 km smaller to 200km height.
- Added Pillan and Zamama (erupted during Galileo's visit).

[BobHegwood]

The albedo of the volcanoes should be set to zero so that they're not rendered when they occupy less than a single pixel on screen.

But, Celestia should really have a new object class called 'surfacefeature' (or something like that.) Objects of this class would never be rendered as star-like points at a distance, and it's a more accurate tag than the fallback of asteroid or spacecraft.

And Buggs, this is a very cool add-on!

--Chris

Thanks for the albedo tip, Chris, but weren't you the person who
berated me for liking this approach more than your point-sprites
add-on in the first place?

I've been telling you all that this was a VERY cool add-on since
day one. Must have been because the praise came from that
Brain-Dead Mouthy guy who never really knows what the hell he's
talking about anyway I guess. Hee, hee.

Thanks again Buggs. I repeat my earlier observations here...

SUPERB!

[BobHegwood]

Note: These revised plumes are even nicer if that's possible. The
way the ejecta seemingly floats back to Io's surface is - again -
SUPERB!

By the way, no more problems with bright lights from Io now.

Thanks again.

[buggs_moran]

I've been telling you all that this was a VERY cool add-on since
day one. Must have been because the praise came from that
Brain-Dead Mouthy guy who never really knows what the hell he's
talking about anyway I guess. Hee, hee.

Don't sell yourself short Bob , your praise and input on this is one of the things that keeps me going back to it... I finally feel like I've made some kind of contribution.

Now I just have to finish those pesky binary systems...

[BobHegwood]

Better watch yourself there Christopher...

You'll burn yourself out if you keep it up at this rate.
At any rate, very cool stuff. By the way, I kept ALL of the
plumes working on Io. Kinda drops my FPS rate, but it's worth
it.

Thanks again my friend.

[buggs_moran]

I tried messing with the cmod model a bit to shrink it down and speed up frame rates. To try it out (and give me input on any noticeable change) download the cmod below and replace it in your io plumes models directory (option 1) or just download the whole addon again (option 2)

1: Just the cmod

2: The whole kit and kaboodle

[mikej]

OK so your latest is even better!
The new cmod helps a little but the add-on is too good to not use! (All plumes on)

What is that V426 OPH? Can we have it

Thanks!

[buggs_moran]

OK so your latest is even better!
The new cmod helps a little but the add-on is too good to not use! (All plumes on)

What is that V426 OPH? Can we have it

Thanks!

Glad you like it.

v426 Oph is a cataclysmic variable intermediate polar binary system. I think I got that right. It is something I worked on quite a while ago and then shelved. Certain aspects were never quite right. I hope to have some time now to dedicate to firming up the addon. I couldn't give a date even if I wanted to. Sorry.

[fsgregs]

For those who want to use the Ionight texture in their add-on that Buggs placed a link to earlier but do not want to permanently edit their solarsys.ssc file, all you have to do is place the texture in the medres folder inside the Io sub-folder, which comes with the volcano add-on. Then, paste this into a text document and create an ssc file named "ionight.ssc".

Modify "Io" "Sol/Jupiter"
{
NightTexture "ionight.*"
}

The path would be:

extras/ioplumes/io/ionight.ssc
extras/ioplumes/io//textures/medres/ionight.png

Thanks Buggs for this incredible add-on. I am astounded how many ssc entries you had to make to get this thing working. It looks like well over a 1000 lines, if we total all the separate plumes. GOOD GRIEF

Frank

[BobHegwood]

Buggs,

Just so you know, I actually get a better frame-rate using the first
cmod, even though it's much larger.

My FPS dropped to about 3.8 with the new CMOD vs 6.98 via the
old one.

Like I said though... I really don't care. The beauty and realism of
this add-on makes it worthwhile.

So PLEASE don't worry about it. I am extremely grateful for this
perspective of Io. I can watch it all day.

[buggs_moran]

Thanks Buggs for this incredible add-on. I am astounded how many ssc entries you had to make to get this thing working. It looks like well over a 1000 lines, if we total all the separate plumes. GOOD GRIEF

Frank

Hey, thanks for that modify bit. I never remember that stuff.

As far as the thousands of line of code, I have to admit there was some heavy handed help from Excel and Word. I never learned to code (well unless you count BASIC and FORTRAN77 but that was eons ago) so I set up a merge. In Excel, I set up columns for the parameters I needed, entered a plume height, threw in a random seed and bingo.

Code: Select all

deg   x   y    coord         RAN     ROTOF  ROTPER   RAD
0    99.6  0  [99.6 0 -12.5]  0.9829  353.9   0.26   99.6

The spreadsheet made the coordinates, gave me a random offset and rotation period for 60 points around a circle. All I really needed was Algebra, couldn't be done without it (for all you students out there). I used the Algebra to convert from lat and long, to find the exit velocity of different sized plumes (which set their rotation period, I think it's pretty close to reality) and to give x and y coordinates around the center of the volcano. Then I merged it. I am currently attempting the same thing with an accretion disk.

Fun stuff. I am so pleased people like it. Thank you.

[buggs_moran]

Buggs,

Just so you know, I actually get a better frame-rate using the first
cmod, even though it's much larger.

My FPS dropped to about 3.8 with the new CMOD vs 6.98 via the
old one.

Like I said though... I really don't care. The beauty and realism of
this add-on makes it worthwhile.

So PLEASE don't worry about it. I am extremely grateful for this
perspective of Io. I can watch it all day.

Problem is I do worry about it. I ran a cmodfix

Code: Select all

cmodfix -u -w -n -s 45 in.cmod out.cmod

but I guess it made thinks worse, help...

[BobHegwood]

but I guess it made thinks worse, help...

Well, remember too, that I'm on a Vista machine, so there ain't no
telling what else is going on. See the latest Motherlode Peer Group
Review post for more entertainment.

[fsgregs]

Buggs:

My fps went from 7 to 14 after switching to the new CMOD, so ....

Frank

[danielj]

Something WRONG happened.Look:
http://img138.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... rorsz1.jpg

Then I realize that all the files inside Io plumes folder were missing.(because of a virus?).So,I reinstall,but the problem persists:
http://img169.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... rsiox9.jpg

Any clue?

[ANDREA]

Something WRONG happened.
Then I realize that all the files inside Io plumes folder were missing.(because of a virus?).So,I reinstall,but the problem persists: Any clue?

Danielj, have you checked that, after reinstalling, in your Iovolnanoes directory (or whatever be its name) there are both models and textures subdirs, and that
"models" contains "ejecta.cmod" (2137 KB), and
"textures" have
"hires" subdir with "ejecta.png" (1346 KB) and
"medres" with "ejecta.png" (464 KB) and "old ejecta.png" (70 KB)?
Hope this helps, but if all the stuff is installed in such a way, dunno what can be the reason, sorry.
Bye

Andrea

[danielj]

Well,I could get the PREVIOUS version to work:
http://img247.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... ionue8.jpg

I will try to put manually the textures in the folders and see if it works.The problems may be that each new instalation messed up with the old one...