"Clean" or "Dirty" spaceship textures?

[ANDREA]

I'm showing you with an example what I mean on the subject:
here we have a very nice (and very clean ) texture of Magellan+IUS by Jack Higgins



and here we have the "dirty" wonderful Shuttle by BH, with Canadarm by Terrier



Well, many thanks to both of them for their enjoyable work, but in my opinion and for my taste, I would like to see rochets, satellites, probes and what else is in the space or on the planets/mons/asteroids surface, a bit more dirty, giving so the appearance of something living in extreme environmental conditions as they do .
It's only my opinion, but I would like to know if you think the same or in a different way, this the reason of the new poll.
By and thank you

Andrea

[Darkmiss]

Well i picked Dirty, but im still a bit on the fence...
as some models can look very good with nice texture added.
and some look great without any texture at all.

But if anyone is making a nice model and uses a texture, you can stil choose not to use that texture if you wish.

but it is harder the other way around, if you dont have a 3D package.

So with a texture, you have a choice.
Without, most people don't.

[Brendan]

I didn't vote in the poll because I have an idea. Why not have the textures of space probes start out as clean and then become dirty over time. I guess we could use Beginning and Ending with different versions of the spacecraft. Or would such dates be added to textures so we could have one object with textures that change?
Edit: I have another idea: use such features to cause planets' textures to change. Since Celestia goes back like 3 million years, the 18000 BCE texture could be added, then people could try to make more textures for the Earth if Celestia gets updated to go back further in time. But we could just use alternate surfaces for now.

Brendan

[TERRIER]

Hello Andrea

I only did the 'Canadarm' part of the model which is actually very clean, mostly pure white! bh had the idea for dirtying-up the shuttle by adding the texture which I must admit makes it look more realistic.
The Canadarm is covered by a white sleeve, and I joked about putting creases and wrinkles in it for added realism. bh was thinking of putting a texture on this too but I pleaded for him not to, now I'm thinking it might be interesting to see what it will look like with a texture.

The only drawbacks with adding all these textures is actually producing them, I'm just a modeller and definately no artist! Also you are looking at increasing the download file size of each model - but generally the textures are fairly small so the increases should not be too great.

Perhaps what we really need is for Chris to program in a general 'wear and tear' factor into Celestia (which is what I'm voting for!)because lets not forget the spacecraft do start off clean!

regards
TERRIER

[ANDREA]

Hello Andrea
I only did the 'Canadarm' part of the model which is actually very clean, mostly pure white! bh had the idea for dirtying-up the shuttle by adding the texture which I must admit makes it look more realistic.
The Canadarm is covered by a white sleeve, and I joked about putting creases and wrinkles in it for added realism. bh was thinking of putting a texture on this too but I pleaded for him not to, now I'm thinking it might be interesting to see what it will look like with a texture.
The only drawbacks with adding all these textures is actually producing them, I'm just a modeller and definately no artist! Also you are looking at increasing the download file size of each model - but generally the textures are fairly small so the increases should not be too great.
Perhaps what we really need is for Chris to program in a general 'wear and tear' factor into Celestia (which is what I'm voting for!)because lets not forget the spacecraft do start off clean!
regards
TERRIER

Terrier and BH, sorry for my mistake in forgetting BH's texture paternity, I apologize .
Regarding the possibility to have a kind of "aging" included in Celestia, my God, would be fantastic , but I hink that Chris is jumping on his chair reading this post .
Anyhow, let's hope.
I agree with you that the space objects before becoming space junk are "clean", but my critic is only aesthetic, not technical.
I think that a slighty "weathered" probe or satellite gives more the idea of a "true" object and not a plastic model in a space diorama.
I'm from a long time a plastic modeller, mainly aircraft and rochets, and one of the most difficult targets to reach is to make the model "real looking".
What do you think ?
By soon

Andrea

[JackHiggins]

I'm going to sit on the fence too...

"Dirty", or "textured" is good for some, but it really depends on the user & model!

I didn't really think a craft's appearance would change that much while in space...? That's the impression i've always got...

[bh]

Hello Andrea...great topic, although I'm a fence sitter too...ow!

I made the shuttle texture originally for the Eagle from the TV series and thought I'd try it on the shuttle.

I like/don't like it!?

Regards...bh.

[TERRIER]

Andrea

Jack wrote

I didn't really think a craft's appearance would change that much while in space...? That's the impression i've always got...

I'm beginning to wonder if using the word 'dirty' is the right thing here, perhaps 'textured' might be better

There is a case for saying that our models look too clean cut and pristine, and that they need roughing-up a bit.

Otherwise to save Chris from having a fit, I think Brendans idea would be best if we want to see a 'before and after' weathering effect. This of course means two different models and a larger ssc.........now you've got me thinking about animation using the current version of celestia. Just imagine how many different helios models it would take to show a few seconds of it's propellas turning, not to mention the massive ssc file.

regards
TERRIER

[ANDREA]

Hello Andrea...great topic, although I'm a fence sitter too...ow!
I made the shuttle texture originally for the Eagle from the TV series and thought I'd try it on the shuttle.
I like/don't like it!?
Regards...bh.

Perhaps you are a fence sitter, but your textures ... wow!
I would like to show the slightly greasy panels on the Shuttle tail/engines



Someone can say it's doesn't look real?

By

Andrea

[ANDREA]

By the way, what happened to the poll?

I asked an endurance of 30 days, not 30 minutes!
Some idea someone?
Thank you.

Andrea

[don]

I didn't really think a craft's appearance would change that much while in space...? That's the impression i've always got...

This would be my impression also. However, any craft that goes through an atmospheric re-entry, such as the shuttle, would obviously have wear and tear on it.

As for other man-made space objects, unless they get hit by a meteorite or space junk in orbit around Earth, I don't think there is much else in space that would make an object look "worn". Unless all the different kinds of radiation in space would have some effect on certain materials.

So, I would vote for "light texturing" (for realism), but not "wear and tear", except on re-entry and re-usable objects.

Just my two cents worth

-Don G.

[Star Lion]

OK, if Chris added a fetur that let you have a texrur on top of a textur, and added an opacity level changer for the top lyer, so it looks like this:

Code: Select all

"Hubble" "Sol/Earth"
{
   Texture "Hubble 1.jpg"   
   Texture-top "Hubble 2.jpg"   #Top textur
   Sot "0"                      #Starting_opacity_level_for_Texture-top
   Eot "100"                     #Ending_opacity_level_for_Texture-top
   Roc "5"                     #Rate_opacity_Changes_for_Texture-top
   

this would make it fade between one textur and another (sorry, this wouldent work for changing planate texturs sorry)

[bh]

When I get some time I would like to 'tile' the shuttle...it would mean texturing every visible surface...and might make the model a bit too wieghty in file size.

I need to find the relevant reference pics and play around with good old photoshop.

TERRIER...I won't texture the Canadarm...it will just detract from your excellent model.

Regards...bh.