Moon textures need re-assessing

[Fidcal]

SneaksieDave pointed out the moon texture I'm using in Den shows a lunar eclipse rather than a crescent moon. So the name of that texture needs changing. May not be worth keeping in. There might be the odd mission in the future where an eclipse is part of the story I suppose.

 

Anyway, I'm looking to replace it and the crescent moon seems to have two problems to me.

 

ROTATION:

One is that the crescent texture is rotated relative to the full moon texture. Now I can't pretend to be an expert (else I should have spotted that eclipse!) but I do know that the same face of the moon always faces the earth and it only oscillates very slightly from that. The moon rotates on its own axis (in the same plane as the earth rotates) in the exact same period it goes around the earth so the same side faces the earth. It does not rotate in the axis perpendicular to the earth so my guess is a photo has been rotated. So all the images need to be checked at some time to find which is correct. Some photos may even be taken through a telescope and many of those turn the image upside down. I believe astronomers are used to that but it is not the correct sky view. However, this might not be considered important as few if any players would ever notice.

 

ALPHA TRANSPARENCY:

The crescent image is moved to one side of its panel and the crescent given an alpha channel. I'm assuming anything outside that alpha channel will allow the stars to shine through. This will probably not affect Thief's Den as the storm clouds hide the stars. But in other maps I suspect that the stars will shine through the dark edge of the moon.

 

Both the above problems may or may not affect other moon textures we have.

 

For now I'm only trying to change the eclipse texture for the crescent in Den. I shall move the crescent moon so its 'sphere' is central and try to line up the crescent over the full moon image and use the full moon to create the alpha for the crescent (then remove the full moon after obviously.) They don't quite line up but might be good enough.

 

Comments welcome as I'm no texture expert. I'll hold off for a few hours doing this.

[SneaksieDave]

ROTATION:

Perhaps, I'm not sure. I'll try to remember to check, maybe tonight. Also note though that you can do the same in the editor - you can rotate or flip the texture to be however you want it to be (inverted, proper, different hemisphere of the planet, etc). If the default image is flipped though, I agree it'd be best if it was fixed at the source. I certainly don't have the moon's crater pattern memorized though.

 

ALPHA TRANSPARENCY:

Yep. There may be a better way to do this (e.g., a design which filters only stars), but this (just making that portion transparent) is what I ended up going with, because blackness (to obscure any stars shining through) looked far worse. The black of the moon disk will likely always vary somewhat from the author's chosen sky, and getting clouds involved makes it even worse. When I tried obscuring with simple black, the moon like like a giant fake cardboard cutout hanging in the sky - looked terrible! So I settled with transparency figuring it's easy enough to place it at a spot in the sky where stars don't shine through. It takes some manual placement, but solves all the other concerns.

[SneaksieDave]

Actually, what am I saying, I can do it right here; don't need my full install to check this.

 

I got the current full and crescent files from SVN to compare. IIRC they all came from the same source, so they should be the same origin (land based telescope). See in the attached image that they are in fact in agreement (note the indicated crater). The same side of the moon does always face Earth, however it does wobble in orbit, and grow and shrink in size throughout the month.

[Tels]

SneaksieDave pointed out the moon texture I'm using in Den shows a lunar eclipse rather than a crescent moon.

 

Maybe he read the bugreport I filed after posting here pointing this out on the after some months?

 

http://bugs.angua.at/view.php?id=472

 

So the name of that texture needs changing. May not be worth keeping in. There might be the odd mission in the future where an eclipse is part of the story I suppose.

 

Eclipses happen in the manner of minutes and it would be certainly very odd if the moon stayed the same for even 10 min, let alone for an hour mission playtime.

 

 

ROTATION:

 

This is also affected by the place from where you photograph the moon. I think that by just looking at the photo you might be able to deduce where it was taken. Moon looks different in Europe than in Australia.

 

Technically, at least all the moon pictures in TDM should either:

 

* look like they are from the same place, preferable the northern hemisphere

* are of (always the same) fictional moon

 

ALPHA TRANSPARENCY:

The crescent image is moved to one side of its panel and the crescent given an alpha channel. I'm assuming anything outside that alpha channel will allow the stars to shine through. This will probably not affect Thief's Den as the storm clouds hide the stars. But in other maps I suspect that the stars will shine through the dark edge of the moon.

 

Yes, they do. As I wrote last year. And in the bug report.

 

http://bugs.angua.at/view.php?id=472

 

This is not a personal attack/critic, but I really do wonder how bad our internal team communication must be if 2 or 3 persons can "discover" the same issue over the course of a few months and not notice the other "discoveries".

 

(I also blame myself for wasting countless hours on the forums but not finding 30min to just fix the dang moon myself

 

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, I also wrote that clouds heavy enough for rain also block the moon. The only way you could see the moon if you have partial clouds, e.g. heavy rainclouds over you, and less/no clouds to the side where the moon is. However, the cloud layer in TD is uniform.

 

So I would say just remove the moon from the missing. The texture should also be fixed, tho.

[SneaksieDave]

This is not a personal attack/critic, but I really do wonder how bad our internal team communication must be if 2 or 3 persons can "discover" the same issue over the course of a few months and not notice the other "discoveries".

Chill. I changed the prefab months ago, if we're debating whether or not this just came up, and snickering over "discoveries." As already stated elsewhere for those reading, if an old copy of the prefab was used, the eclipse will show.

 

And surprise, texture rotation is part of what the editor does. The user can simulate pretty much any position on the planet they desire, but we obviously don't have source images from everywhere on the planet, so people will have to settle for craters not being in the right spots, if they change the rotation. Such is the burden of TDM players... all that gaming goodness, but damnit, the craters, man!

[Tels]

Chill. I changed the prefab months ago, if we're debating whether or not this just came up, and snickering over "discoveries."

 

But not the texture of the moon? I don't know when I did my map, but my OldMill map has still the wrong texture, which means that my map must have used the "wrong" prefab?

 

If you did indeed change anything, then:

 

* it was before my time, but still in SVN when I started my map

* it happened without me noticing it

 

This is why I did a forum post about it, and added a bug report. All needless work if there was better communication

 

And surprise, texture rotation is part of what the editor does. The user can simulate pretty much any position on the planet they desire, but we obviously don't have source images from everywhere on the planet, so people will have to settle for craters not being in the right spots, if they change the rotation. Such is the burden of TDM players... all that gaming goodness, but damnit, the craters, man!

 

I was more thinking about fixing the prefab, but if you already done that, I don't understand why we are still talking

 

(Btw, I think we need to remove the eclipse texture as it isn't really useable at all, unless you make a mission where time is "frozen" - which would make for boring play

[SneaksieDave]

But not the texture of the moon? I don't know when I did my map, but my OldMill map has still the wrong texture, which means that my map must have used the "wrong" prefab?

The original version of Gil's skybox used starry1_moon_editor.tga as the moon. IIRC when Gil put it together, it was a proof-of-concept, a mockup, not meant to be used for 'real' purposes. However like many side projects or new techs or new ideas in TDM, they get swept in and shelved, left to be returned to later, because there is so much other work to do. Often the POC becomes the accepted version by mistake, or lack of time, or misunderstanding. Well, people started using the skybox for 'real' maps before it was revisited. When talk of the moon being eclipse came up, I wanted to revisit and fix that once and for all. Found and prepped some moon shots, and changed the default moon to be one of the 'real' ones. Anyone seeing the old eclipse moon in their map's skybox grabbed the prefab before this change was made. It's simple to remedy - in your map, delete the skybox and grab the prefab again - voila, fixed.

[sparhawk]

This is not a personal attack/critic, but I really do wonder how bad our internal team communication must be if 2 or 3 persons can "discover" the same issue over the course of a few months and not notice the other "discoveries".

 

Well, you can not force everybody to read everything. Much less remember it.

[Tels]

Well, you can not force everybody to read everything. Much less remember it.

 

No, I was just astonished that not only had other people missed my post *and* the bug report, but apparently I also missed sneaksies changes to the moon texture.