New thread for my cloud texture issue

This thread is for determining how to get cloud textures not to show up on a planet. It is a continuation of my "Capital of the Terran Star Empire" thread, which became overrun with other very cool conversations.

GrandpaTrout suggested trying to figure out which cloud texture was being displayed as a start.

Ok GT, it's Clouds1 that's showing up. But there's no way to know if it's the FTU or FTC image (there's one of each). Where do we go from here?

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Clouds1 is the zero index of atmosphere textures.

Normally, my next move would be to look for that index number in one of the "unknown" bytes of geography record. But zero is a very common value.

So what I actually recommend, is find a planet with a non zero cloud texture, so you can find the index easier. The fastest way I can think to do that is to create 4 new textures for clouds that are really, really easy to tell apart. Then change the planet.ini file to point to your new textures. Then go to the badlands and look at planets. (Use the map to target the planet, and F3 to look at the object without flying there. While I am sure everyone else knows that trick, I did the whole SDK by flying to each site... Sigh)

If you don't have a hex editor, just let me know what planet has what texture and I will try to find it.

The FTU and FTC should be duplicates, just with one pre-compressed with DirectX compatable compression. (I wish we had that utility).

-Gtrout

To get a cloudless planet, don’t you just have to set the cloud texture number (byte 356) to 255? It worked for Emerald. (I have a screenshot of a cloudless Emerald, but nowhere to host it.) Or am I misunderstanding the question?

And I still have my middlestates.zip file with star colors and lws files and everything if you want it. It’s still a work in progress, but so is everything else in Epic

It's unnecessary to create new cloud textures for this. Each of them is already very distinct and easy to tell apart. The reason I was able to detemine the texture so easily was because I went to Uranus, which basically just uses a blank blue texture map with no detail. Perhaps what I'll do is temporarily replace all the planet maps with blank black textures so the clouds show up really clear.

I have a hex editor, but I'll be damned if I know how to use it . So I'll definitely have to communicate with you GT.

I assumed the FTC and FTU were duplicates. Is it a matter of using DirectX uses one texture and using software uses the other? I know that FTUs contain mip-maps, not sure about FTCs.

mdvalley, it sounds like you're right on target about what we're looking for. Could you send me that pic? I can host it. GrandpaTrout, can you check his info and confirm it?

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Ok, here's the pic. It looks like your right on target mdvalley, this is exactly what we're looking for. GrandpaTrout, can this new info be worked into the geog.exe setup? Strangely, the geogSDK talks about using 255 as an input for the Cloud Texture Map value if you want no clouds, but this doesn't work. Can you double-check which byte this value is modifying?

mdvalley, do you have any additional info? Maybe something on cloud opacity?



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Odd, using 255 in Cloud Texture Map worked for me. Are you sure that you’re putting it in the right place? Here’s my csv entry for Emerald:

Body,Emerald,Emerald Alpha,62500000000,210,0,1,0,0,0,2149845.882,2,0,1,55,55,255,255,255,0,0,0,127,44,34,255,0,0

That last 255 is the one that controls the cloud texture. The last number is cloud opacity. 0 seems to give full clouds, so I assume that higher numbers makes them transparent. Emerald is pretty tiny now that I look at it. And it’s awful close to the sun. I should fix that sometime.

New Constantinople is that little star to the right, if you’re wondering.