Oolite Bulletins

Hi folks,

I expect this may have been done before but I've been working on combining the textures of System Demux and System Redux for use in conjunction with Povray Planets. Explicitly: PP provides the 'main' planet textures whilst the SR & SD textures are used for additional planets and moons.

Those of you who are familiar with SR & SD will know that there were seperate textures for the 'home' or 'main' planets and the additional planets, well I've been tinkering it so that all such textures are now available as additional planets, therefore: much more variable additional planets.

I've also cubemapped the gas giant textues (thanks to the very useful 'PlanetTool' ) to avoid the polygon effects that could occur at the poles. It needs some tidying up and I expect there are some errors but, in it's current state, it appears to be functional.

SR & SD textures are of somewhat different styles of course (e.g. clouds present on SR but not SD) but, to me at least, this isn't a big problem. If their respective creators were agreeable, I might be able to release it as an oxp (with due credit given) that would work in tandem with either PP or Oolites native planet textures.

Any interest?

Now in collaboration with spara, here's what became of that simple idea...

Additional Planets SR 0.6




The SR was added both in recognition of the original System Redux, which paved the way for this oxp, and also as a nod to some of the oxp config opitons that this oxp can now take advantage of.

Spara has done much to improve this oxp whilst respecting it's original vision, and it's now his oxp as much as it is mine.
Some of the main features of this new version include:

• - Over 200 textures are made available for planets and moons, hopefully with more to come.
  
  - None of these textures are provided for the main planet, instead all of them contribute to the variety of extra planets which this oxp will generate.
  
  - Textures sets can be combined as wished by the user, with Oolite's native textures taking the place of any 'missing' sets and Oolite will only draw from the textures that you have installed, with no need for native textures to appear.
  
  - Gas Giants are given a seperate planetary class, and are significantly larger than other planets.
  
  - Planets placed further apart than the original System Redux et.al to avoid crowding of planets.
  
  - Checks to ensure that the same texture doesn't appear twice within the same system.
  
  - 'Cinematic' placement of bodies. You can now see all of the main planet's moons from the witchpoint and planets are kept away from the sun so as not to highlight how small it is.
  
  - Much easier to customise. Besides the texture packs themselves, you can also set max planets and moons within a system (with no strict limits). Other elements, such as rarity of gas giants, can also be adjusted.

How it works:

You'll need to install the base oxp (link below) and at least one of the texture packs into your AddOns folder for Oolite.
The base oxp will then draw from the pool of textures to create extra planets, moons and/or gas giants.

Some texture packs contain just one type of body (e.g. moons) whilst others contain more. If an approriate pack is not installed then some types of bodies may not appear.


Changes to the texture packs:

• - Extensive use of optipng to reduce download sizes.
  
  - Some textures 'improved' (hopefully) by modifications such as adding cloud layers, adjusting the colour balance and employing layering effects to disguise low-res origins.
  
  - Reordering of some packs so that it is more likely that like will appear with like.
  
  - Simpler method for textures to appear as multiple planetary types (e.g. as both planets and moons).
  
  - Easier to create your own texture packs. No need to re-write the planetinfo.plist... because there isn't one

Thanks for the interest and support provided on these boards and to all of the great artists and contributers to this work.
In particular, thanks to spara for taking on board my many suggestions, having some great ones of his own and for seeing the potential in my humble oxp


The Downloads:

So, if you'd like to give it a try then you'll need the main folder from here: https://app.box.com/s/ytxqh7i2s3zv6xej18dl

Then it's probably a good idea to download some of the texture packs

Please Note: NONE OF THE ORIGINAL TEXTURE PACKS WILL WORK WITH 0.6, you will need to download them in their new format (apologies for the inconvenience).

System Redux 1.1 (12.2 MB) 16 planet textures and 8 moons
https://app.box.com/s/8b6o3re5as4xwv09nufg

System Demux Originals (56.7 MB) 128 mostly low res textures, some now cube mapped.
Coming soon...

These can also be downloaded in smaller packs (see below).

Free Bitmaps 1.2 (242.2 MB) 36 high-res textures used for both planets and moons

https://app.box.com/s/abizmiiztmg648r1irf6

Others Gas Giants 1.1 (19.5 MB) 6 cube-mapped gas giants

https://app.box.com/s/nvyokba0dy62neor62ck

Others Planets 1.1 (13.4 MB) 10 planet textures
Pictures coming soon...
https://app.box.com/s/34k7sy880mm1p2pxwl4k

Others Moons 1.1 (9.5 MB) 10 moon textures
Pictures coming soon...
https://app.box.com/s/rzm9yqxh56b09mkc6tza


System Demux Mini-Packs

Because System Demux contains so many textures and is perhaps in a more 'fantastical' style than some of the other packs, users might wish to pick and chose which planets they want to use from it. Whilst this can be done by downloading the whole set and simply deleting the ones you don't want to appear, I thought it might be preferable for them to be available as 'mini-packs', grouping textures of similar style together.

For example, you might find that the earthlike worlds to be strangely lacking in detail and so look odd next to system redux planets; however you might wish to use the demux gas giants to complement redux's lack of them. In some cases the boundaries between one set and another may be blurred but I'll post some sample pics to illustrate.

Total of 9 Mini-Packs to come.

Currently available:

Demux Gas Giants 1.1 (16.6MB) 13 textures, now cube-mapped

https://app.box.com/s/6ra1a0dtb75f2pali76m

Demux Earthlike (with added clouds) (56.9MB) 20 textures, slightly altered from the originals

https://app.box.com/s/2or9pwqg5uov7x6byqgg

Demux Alien (with added clouds and colouring effects) (54.5MB) 17 textures, in some cases heavily altered from the originals

https://app.box.com/s/knt3l6g6dktlxu17avcb

Demux Ocean Worlds (with added clouds and effects) (26.1MB) 8 textures only, all modified from the originals

https://app.box.com/s/q4zg1k9q66luyf4m76cj

Demux Volcanic (with added effects) (7.6MB) 10 textures, nearly all modified from the originals

https://app.box.com/s/w5uivx7wr0n6tvdo8nm9

NEW: Demux Cratered (1.2MB) 9 planet textures
Pictures coming soon
https://app.box.com/s/15joxsq84gp29z5yyc6z

Hope you like it...


25/01/14 Updated to 0.5.5 to fix bug that was stopping some textures froom appearing.
12/02/14 Updated to 0.5.6 to address issue found by Duggan (thanks!)
16/03/14 Updated to 0.6 thanks to spara's coming on board to address multiple issues (many thanks )

Hi Redspear!

It would be cool if somebody concatenate the benefits of more planet sets to solve the problem of choosing the best.
There are one more what you shoud check: Deep Horizon - Systems

I think you can make a new one from the DH, SD and SR sets and leave the largest part of Povray Planets optionally. In this way you can get good result below 100MB and perfectionist players can download additional 4.5GB to get all Povray Planets also.

Hi Norby!

I like your work on the telescope.oxp. I've been wanting something that could show a close up of a target for ages. Thanks!

I thought that the Deep Horizons textures were reused in System Redux? Am I wrong???

Anyway, I've sourced some other textures that are available under the creative commons licence.
You can see them here: http://freebitmaps.blogspot.co.uk/

I now have over 90 moon textures and 100 planet textures to play with.
I'm considering which ones to cut / duplicate (as a moon and a planet) and how much to reduce image quality by for the more dense textures.

Another option I've got (and am likely to include) is to utilise Oolite's native textures in some capacity, as my goal here is really to increase variety.

Well, It's looking good in my game anyway

Thanks for your interest

Redspear wrote:

I thought that the Deep Horizons textures were reused in System Redux? Am I wrong???

System Redux came first - Deep Horizons came later, and uses its own textures.

Thanks Cody.

Sounds like I'd better look again...

I use DH (with its planet textures turned off, moon textures on) to provide extra planets and moons, in combination with Povray Planets for the main planet textures. Works well most of the time, although occasionally I get non-textured main planets (when a restart usually fixes it).

Hi JazHaz.

So your additional planets all have Oolites native textures? Do you notice any duplication in them from time to time or are they sufficiently, er, 'simple' for it to be a non-issue?

BTW
I've Checked out DHS and SR and whilst there is some duplication, DHS has more textures, notably the gas giants...

Redspear wrote:

So your additional planets all have Oolites native textures? Do you notice any duplication in them from time to time or are they sufficiently, er, 'simple' for it to be a non-issue?

Only the main planets use Povray textures. All other planets and moons use DHS textures. No native textures used. Can't remember how it was set up though.

Redspear wrote:

I've been wanting something that could show a close up of a target for ages. Thanks!

(It is offtopic here, but thanks!)

Redspear wrote:

I now have over 90 moon textures and 100 planet textures to play with.
I'm considering which ones to cut / duplicate (as a moon and a planet) and how much to reduce image quality by for the more dense textures.

It is a good news! But please do not reduce quality.

I liked more the 4096x2048 non-cubic textures in Famous Planets v2.5 than the 1024x6144 cubic ones in FP v2.7 with Povray Planets. I am not a graphical artist so I can not give you proper advices but I think cubic textures take more size and I can tolerate distortion at the poles but I want to see as small pixels as possible after I undocked from the main station. So I would like to see more 8192x4096 textures.

Norby wrote:

...I would like to see more 8192x4096 textures.

Given your hardware specs, must be great. Povray planets reduces my inferior hardware to almost a complete halt. What planet texture I do see is distorted.

JazHaz wrote:

Only the main planets use Povray textures. All other planets and moons use DHS textures. No native textures used. Can't remember how it was set up though.

That's how I see this project working (i.e. in the manner that you are employing DHS) but with a greater variety of textures.

Well, I'm learning a few things working on this...

Norby wrote:

It is a good news! But please do not reduce quality.

I liked more the 4096x2048 non-cubic textures in Famous Planets v2.5 than the 1024x6144 cubic ones in FP v2.7 with Povray Planets. I am not a graphical artist so I can not give you proper advices but I think cubic textures take more size and I can tolerate distortion at the poles

It seems that cubemaps do indeed require more memory but they have their advantages...
Interesting to hear that you preferred that lat-long ones in FP; maybe a mix of the two types is the way to go

Norby wrote:

I want to see as small pixels as possible after I undocked from the main station. So I would like to see more 8192x4096 textures.

Given that this is just for additional planets and moons, perhaps that is less of an issue. Then again, there is now an oxp that puts stations around additional planets (and why not I say? )

CaptSolo wrote:

Given your hardware specs, must be great. Povray planets reduces my inferior hardware to almost a complete halt. What planet texture I do see is distorted.

Sometimes the most complex textures suffer the most from approaching them; like getting close to someone wearing too much make-up
Your textures for Worlds of Galaxy 1 look very promising CaptSolo, I'm eagerly awaiting that one

Norby wrote:

I liked more the 4096x2048 non-cubic textures in Famous Planets v2.5 than the 1024x6144 cubic ones in FP v2.7 with Povray Planets. I am not a graphical artist so I can not give you proper advices but I think cubic textures take more size and I can tolerate distortion at the poles but I want to see as small pixels as possible after I undocked from the main station. So I would like to see more 8192x4096 textures.

A 2048x12288 cube map would have about the same pixel size as a 8192x4096 lat-long map, and no distortion at the poles. (The cube map is also able to provide more detail around the equator than the lat-long map: the LL devotes far more pixels to the polar regions, but then wastes them with distortion)

Both would have pixels - on an average-sized planet - about 30 metres across. From the main station, those texture pixels would be about 0.5-1.5 screen pixels across, depending on monitor resolution. Really, you'd need a 4096x24576 cube map (or possibly a 16384x8192 lat-long) to not be able to notice the pixels from the station's orbit - which at 3Gb of uncompressed texture data might be a little too large to be practical.

(Which is to say: to get really detailed planets probably requires a clever approach rather than just throwing ever-bigger textures at them)

Thanks cim for the details, you are right, I wanted to say only the texture quality is better in FP v2.5 (4096x2048 lat-long) than in PP (1024x6144 cubic).

For example here is a central part of Anerbe in v2.5 (left) and central also in PP (right):

FP is sharper due to has more pixels to show the same part near the equator (similar with the raw power: 8Gpix vs 6Gpix and 15MB file size vs 11MB).

But the planet is turning and often show a part near an edge of the cube. Here is a situation:

Lat-long is better in quality, I guess due to the blur of cube projection.

But if we stick with cubes then the 2048x12288 sized famous planets would be better which cost more in download size of PP but it is less important: about 6GB vs the current 5GB.

cim wrote:

(Which is to say: to get really detailed planets probably requires a clever approach rather than just throwing ever-bigger textures at them)

Something clever with shaders. Which I find is getting almost none of my time for ages now sadly.

Imagine a cube map as providing the gross shape of the surface - and cheating with a latlong map to modulate it. The nice thing I can say about lat-long maps is that you _can_ increase the lookup by factors of two so as to get more detail at the cost of repetition.

I also see in the example above that it is the pseudo relief details which are being blurred in the coordinate transform would be the sort of thing added by normal mapping.

submersible wrote:

Something clever with shaders. Which I find is getting almost none of my time for ages now sadly.

It's a tough thing to sort out. I did find out why cubemaps weren't working with NEW_PLANETS, though - do you want the code for that?