Orulex 1.0 Alpha testing

[MJR]

I finally got it working. Thanks guys! It looks wonderful.

 

[Coolhand]

Most likely no, that is too far beyond the line of impossible for default Orbiter.
OGLAClient is the closes place to see it fully.

Can Nebo be used to simulate that effect as a previous poster indicated? All i've managed to get it to is to render volumetric clouds that reduce my FPS to 2-3.

 

[McWgogs]

Any kind of improvements with non-default settings? Single-threaded mode, or other lines from performance guidelines?

I use a polycount of 70000, lev limit of 16 multicore on, so it renders the mesh faster, 15 fps (I got 25fps without Orulex.) It's comfortable, although seeing your demonstration videos, i guess i need a cpu upgrade.

Saving the specified bit of the global texture along the download net is exactly the only thing what the texturer tool can do now, being a work in deep progress.

What exactly "it doesn't work in other places than earth" means?
Just tried it on Mars, works fine.

Yes you can save a bit of the global texture, but only 'save current view' works, not 'save selection', which is what i meant.
Like on earth it should automatically name the bit like "mars-lv6-40-25-4-2", and make a config entry for this image in the mars.cfg in the terrain folder.

Suggestions about it are welcome. Currently i plan to make it to merge and blend the textures different ways - flat blend, blend with edges, like below, etc.

I don't think it's a good idea, an human artist can always blend them better textures than the computer can, it's not that simple as changing color and brightness.

Heightmaps are 16-32bit while any legible BMPs are 8-9 bit most.
They could be saved in crazy color mode, but not much editing that way.
I think, making heightmap editor in world studio along with image to heightmap import/export could help.

Can you save them in TIFF? I think i could manage that crazy color bmp with rgb splitting.
Either way, import/export with bmp support is much desired.

What kind of instrumentation is expected in such a editor?

A brush with size, opacity, and softness
settings, such as the ones in paintshop.
Also a blur brush.

microtex_lev parameter in planet cfg files.
Or do you mean something different?

They seem to change the way microtextures are generated, not the draw distance. There are no microtextures above a certain distance.

? More specific please.

Exactly what it says, is there a way to change the brightness of the whole mesh?

 

[Artlav]

You can use the vector data for "drawing" water bodies above the surface.

Vector coastline data? Sounds worth exploring. Thank you.

And it would be possible some Landsat images post editing doing automatically for World Creator?? It's common to see two different Landsat tiles with different colour tone - it would be great if all the Landsat tiles have the same colour tone, some like an automatic colour equalization or something like that - yeah, maybe I'm a little demanding here haha.

Hm. I've added a config for a smoothed and processed landsat data, described as
"NASA derived global 15 meters per pixel satellite image mosaic, donated and processed by I-Cubed using equipment from Isilon Systems."

Here are the sample - left-top is world studio auto blended normal LandSat, upper-right is I-Cubed LandSat, on the bottom - unprocessed normal LandSat.

Yes you can save a bit of the global texture, but only 'save current view' works, not 'save selection', which is what i meant.
Like on earth it should automatically name the bit like "mars-lv6-40-25-4-2", and make a config entry for this image in the mars.cfg in the terrain folder.

Just saving the selection the rectangle marks, across tile borders?
Tiles are only defined along with some color dataset.
The saved file name is a WIP generic, will be fixed.
Why making a config entry, if the image will contain exactly what is on the screen now?
You mean, to simplify addition if you do "dump the data-paint and alter-put it back" kind of change?

I don't think it's a good idea, an human artist can always blend them better textures than the computer can, it's not that simple as changing color and brightness.

Not everyone is an artist, and many who are not will want to have a simple edge blending that a computer can do.

Can you save them in TIFF? I think i could manage that crazy color bmp with rgb splitting.
Either way, import/export with bmp support is much desired.

Can photoshop normally work with 16/32 bit channels? It seems to be like HDR image.
I'll probably just put all the saving options in there, and a default set of blend, merge and embed base craters for the internal tool.

They seem to change the way microtextures are generated, not the draw distance. There are no microtextures above a certain distance.

It defines the maximum size of the tile that will have microtexture noise.
There is no concept of distance in texture generation subsystem, only tile size for microtexture and split level for disk loadings.

Exactly what it says, is there a way to change the brightness of the whole mesh?

For now, only by a brightness knob on the monitor.
It is only as bright as the sun angle and textures provided.

Some photoshopped examples may be helpful, as i don't really understand what you want to expect.

I can put a brightness filter in color function, like that:

 

[amalahama]

Wow, the new LANDSAT image server looks very impressive. Waiting for the next version.

Regards!!

 

[Artlav]

Wow, the new LANDSAT image server looks very impressive. Waiting for the next version.

A better view for it:

A new version will be in a few days, once i get the world studio downloader fully thread-safe and get all the newest stuff presentable and testable.

 

[MJR]

My world studio does not look like that. Instead, everything is black.

 

[Artlav]

My world studio does not look like that. Instead, everything is black.

Try pressing "8" button to switch to high compatibility mode.
Is there blue windows visible, or it's just a black rectangle?

 

[Namahage]

Can Nebo be used to simulate that effect as a previous poster indicated? All i've managed to get it to is to render volumetric clouds that reduce my FPS to 2-3.

There are even adjustable parameters such as altitude, color and some stuff I haven't played with yet.　　The two main issues with this haze module IMHO are

- It's quite banded when viewed from outside the ship, even some flashing/fading with fast zooming etc..

- The entire planet (I believe) shares the same degree of haze.


**One quick question related to World Builder, could anyone answer this for me? How do I change the time? Parts of the planet are in the dark.

 

[Artlav]

One quick question related to World Builder, could anyone answer this for me? How do I change the time? Parts of the planet are in the dark.

Press the "Sun" button on the right side of the map, then double-click the map to put the sun above the clicked position.

 

[jedidia]

Memory leak: gone
Odd reflections on the moon: gone

great work!

if I might throw in another suggestion for the craters: an adjustable radius would be nice. Some add-on bases are a bit bigger than those that come with orbiter, and half the bases get lost beneath the mesh.

 

[McWgogs]

Here are the sample - left-top is world studio auto blended normal LandSat, upper-right is I-Cubed LandSat, on the bottom - unprocessed normal LandSat.

Looks nice.

Just saving the selection the rectangle marks, across tile borders?
[...]
You mean, to simplify addition if you do "dump the data-paint and alter-put it back" kind of change?

Yes, the program saves a image and adds config entry, and all i have to do is to add details to the saved bmp.

Can photoshop normally work with 16/32 bit channels? It seems to be like HDR image.

I don't know about photoshop, but paint shop works with 8bit per channel.
Perhaps a large resolution 8 bit image could be smoothed by the tool to create a smaller resolution but 16 or 32 bit heightmap?

I can put a brightness filter in color function, like that:
<image>

Yeah that's what i was asking for.
can the color function of the whole mesh change with altitude?

 

[Coolhand]

Fixed

 

[Tholin]

Some comments:

+ No Windows Vista planet leaving CTD in this version

- No way, it seems, to have textures cover the whole visible area:

This was done in earlier Orulex versions. Here's a comparative picture from an Orulex version released late last year:

I think you and McWgogs discussed this a couple of posts ago. If I understood correctly changing the microtexture option in the config files should help, but I see no difference.

The work you do Artlav is amazing!

 

[jedidia]

Can photoshop normally work with 16/32 bit channels? It seems to be like HDR image.

16 bit yes, 32 bit no.

 

[MJR]

Try pressing "8" button to switch to high compatibility mode.
Is there blue windows visible, or it's just a black rectangle?

Blue windows and the background is black.

 

[MJR]

My map is white as well.

 

[amalahama]

Three more, Artlav:

1.- Is it possible to use NASA World Wind's realtime cloud layer for Orbiter clouds?? Maybe a realtime download of the cloud layer at Orulex initiation would be fine.

2.- It would be great if Orulex could download hi-res tiles on-the-fly. Something like World wind. Some predefined mesh and colour tiles (level 10/11) and, when we fly over a location below a certain altitude, hi-res level 16 tiles would be downloaded in RT.

3.- How about a season change in the general texture?? Blue Marble has several season images, it would be nice if Orulex looked for the date in the spacecraft and adjust the proper Earth's texture.

Regards!!

 

[Artlav]

if I might throw in another suggestion for the craters: an adjustable radius would be nice. Some add-on bases are a bit bigger than those that come with orbiter, and half the bases get lost beneath the mesh.

Well, the crater radius is the same as defined in base config, so technically they are already adjustable.
Will put it separately.

Perhaps a large resolution 8 bit image could be smoothed by the tool to create a smaller resolution but 16 or 32 bit heightmap?

Don't exactly understand what do you mean there, and what resolution have to do with bit depth?

Initially 8bit image can be easily transformed to 16-32bit one, but initially 16-32bit one will be severely degraded if it was transformed to 8bit and back.

Can the color function of the whole mesh change with altitude?

Well, it can as it was in the first 0.8 demos, but it will mean linking color function to the terrain function, resulting in about 50% decrease of performance.

Brightness/Altitude:

Isolines:

What kind of color/altitude dependency do you want to see?

1.- Is it possible to use NASA World Wind's realtime cloud layer for Orbiter clouds?? Maybe a realtime download of the cloud layer at Orulex initiation would be fine.

Hm. Orulex don't do clouds, it's a part of OGLAClient.
Downloading real time clouds is feasible, and there are even servers for that, besides WorldWind.
May be an option for a distant version, or a separate add-on that will do it along with conversion to default Orbiter cloud format.

2.- It would be great if Orulex could download hi-res tiles on-the-fly. Something like World wind. Some predefined mesh and colour tiles (level 10/11) and, when we fly over a location below a certain altitude, hi-res level 16 tiles would be downloaded in RT.

Almost what World studio does, only manually...
It's too big a change - the terrain/color algorithm is static now, downloading new data leads to full reset of what was already generated.
Changing that will require some lengthy changes in the core, that is beyond the scope of 1.0, unless you want to wait till Christmas.

3.- How about a season change in the general texture?? Blue Marble has several season images, it would be nice if Orulex looked for the date in the spacecraft and adjust the proper Earth's texture.

Download separate textures for every season? What about hi-res transition discontinuity? Going to land on the snow-covered plains of Siberia, and finding fields in blossom once you are below the clouds may seem weird.

Blue windows and the background is black.
My map is white as well.

Have you tried pressing "8" key? Any result from it?

And, do you have an ATI or Intel GPU?
In that case, it is current limitation.

- No way, it seems, to have textures cover the whole visible area:
{IMG}
This was done in earlier Orulex versions. Here's a comparative picture from an Orulex version released late last year:
{IMG}
I think you and McWgogs discussed this a couple of posts ago. If I understood correctly changing the microtexture option in the config files should help, but I see no difference.

microtex_lev in planet cfg file should do it nicely.
What values have you tried?

microtex_lev=20000

microtex_lev=200000

 

[McWgogs]

Don't exactly understand what do you mean there, and what resolution have to do with bit depth?

Initially 8bit image can be easily transformed to 16-32bit one, but initially 16-32bit one will be severely degraded if it was transformed to 8bit and back.

Suppose we have a heightmap with 1 pixel per meter.
if the resolution is two times larger we get 4 different pixels per meter.
A large 8bit image can hold enough information to create a smaller 16 bit image. You just need to use error diffusion when converting a 16 bit image into a larger 8 bit image, so the information isn't lost.

Well, it can as it was in the first 0.8 demos, but it will mean linking color function to the terrain function, resulting in about 50% decrease of performance.

That's not really what i meant. What i meant was the whole mesh dynamically changing brightness as you ascend, giving a simple effect of atmospheric haze. The landscape looks dark at from outside the atmosphere. Is this possible? (Nebo is buggy)