Surface Base Apollo Landing Site Sceneries for Orbiter 2016

[moonheart]

I would also like to see other Legacy Elevation versions of the previous landing sites - the Apollo 15 works well for me!
-excellent work!

 

[Mr. Residuals]

Okay, I just installed this addon again, but in beta and here's what I got. It looks as if the Astronauts, LM, and the tools are slightly under the ground.

 

[Glowworm51]

I am using the d3d9 client 4.5 (r1446) with Orbiter 2016, AMSO 2016 123-191221, Apollo 11 LS Texture v1.1 and Elevation 1.2. As far as I am aware I have followed all the installation instructions. I don't appear to get the high res features when landed at Tranquillity Base - see attached. Any suggestions as to what I am doing wrong.

 

[moonheart]

I am using the d3d9 client 4.5 (r1446) with Orbiter 2016, AMSO 2016 123-191221, Apollo 11 LS Texture v1.1 and Elevation 1.2. As far as I am aware I have followed all the installation instructions. I don't appear to get the high res features when landed at Tranquillity Base - see attached. Any suggestions as to what I am doing wrong.

Just wondering, did you also download the micro-textures?

Elisa Sähköpostipalvelun kotisivutila

Täältä löydät ohjeita Elisa Sähköpostipalvelun kotisivujen käyttöönottoon, luontiin ja päivittämiseen.

users.kymp.net

 

[Glowworm51]

Just wondering, did you also download the micro-textures?

Elisa Sähköpostipalvelun kotisivutila

Täältä löydät ohjeita Elisa Sähköpostipalvelun kotisivujen käyttöönottoon, luontiin ja päivittämiseen.

users.kymp.net

Thanks for your response. Is the micro textures download separate from the D3D9 one?

 

[Glowworm51]

Thanks for your response. Is the micro textures download separate from the D3D9 one?

I see it is - I’ll give that a go. Many thanks

 

[Glowworm51]

Thanks for your response. Is the micro textures download separate from the D3D9 one?

That seems to have sorted it! Thank you very much

 

[gamer19]

thanks for this, however...
looking at my Moon.cfg I can't find

Please also make sure that you can see the following settings in the Moon config file (could be either Config\Moon.cfg, Config\ProjectApollo\Moon.cfg, Config\AMSO\Moon.cfg or any other, depending on the scenario):

ElevationResolution = 0.5

as suggested here
http://absimp.org/orbitersim/apollolandingsites.html

I CAN find
MaxPatchResolution = 18 (mine was actually "15" so I correct it to 18)
but that elevation line is not there. is it ok if I just create one ?


edit:
it's the same in AMSO Moon config, there's no that elevation resolution line.

 

[Wedge313]

Hello! I've been running the Apollo 15 mission, and have been enjoying the landing site sceneries you created. They make exploring Hadley much more enjoyable (see attached before and after views of the rille). But I have a question: sometimes the astronaut seems to sink below or hover above the surface. Same issue with the LM, some of the landing pads are "sunk", others floating. Is this a known issue, or is it a result of me incorrectly installing the textures?

Thank you for the work on these scenes.

 

[ggalfi]

Hello! I've been running the Apollo 15 mission, and have been enjoying the landing site sceneries you created. They make exploring Hadley much more enjoyable (see attached before and after views of the rille). But I have a question: sometimes the astronaut seems to sink below or hover above the surface. Same issue with the LM, some of the landing pads are "sunk", others floating. Is this a known issue, or is it a result of me incorrectly installing the textures?

Thank you for the work on these scenes.

Thanks for your kind words!

Yes, it is a known problem and it is not your fault, and neither mine, as far as I can judge. The problem - I think at least - is rooted in different resolutions used by the graphical and physical engine. The solution would be to tweak the core module of Orbiter to make it to use a little bit higher - and simultaneously the same as D3D9Client - resolution elevation tiles. Even the Orbiter is open source now, I don't feel the force to make that change at the moment, I not even got through the potential barrier of setting up a compile&build environment for that.

I wish you happy and space flight rich new year!

 

[ggalfi]

thanks for this, however...
looking at my Moon.cfg I can't find


as suggested here
http://absimp.org/orbitersim/apollolandingsites.html

I CAN find
MaxPatchResolution = 18 (mine was actually "15" so I correct it to 18)
but that elevation line is not there. is it ok if I just create one ?


edit:
it's the same in AMSO Moon config, there's no that elevation resolution line.

Hi,

sorry for the belated answer.
Yes, you should add that line if it is missing.

 

[4throck]

@ggalfi I'm using your surface textures and, while using high sun imagery makes sense, having some slight shadows would make details much more visible.
So may I suggest that you do a version with small shadows, with light coming from a direction compatible with the Apollo landings?
For example: http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/posts/1135 with small shadows, http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/posts/70 with no shadows.

High sun (no shadow) images would be great for a global replacement texture though. The one used in Orbiter is problematic for Apollo, since light comes from the opposite direction...

 

[jalexb88]

@ggalfi I guess if we are following the timeline we can expect some nice Descartes terrain this coming April? ?

 

[ggalfi]

So may I suggest that you do a version with small shadows, with light coming from a direction compatible with the Apollo landings?
For example: http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/posts/1135 with small shadows, http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/posts/70 with no shadows.

High sun (no shadow) images would be great for a global replacement texture though. The one used in Orbiter is problematic for Apollo, since light comes from the opposite direction...

As you may guess my original plan was to acquire detailed enough DTMs, so all the craters would be visible in 3D. And as you see, this plan failed to some extent. I have a few ideas on how to cure this thing, also I have got some promising results with Ames Stereo Pipeline's shape-from-shading feature, which is capable to capture small craters (that is missing from some of the factory-made DTMs). However there are other obstacles like Orbiter limitations for elevation maps like horizontal and vertical resolutions, so later maybe I will convince myself to give up this elevation map thing, and I will create some surface texture with historical lighting conditions. But there are some difficulties with this method as well:

• Most of my surface maps are stitched together from two NAC images. It is easy to find fitting images for high-sun conditions, because in that case even a ten degrees of difference in sun position makes no visible effect. However for low-sun pics, you'd immediately discover that. So with the other filtering conditions (resolution and covered area) it could be an unsatisfiable query even in the huge LROC imagery .
• To avoid decal-effect. I always fit the NAC images to the original Orbiter textures, and I managed to achieve satisfying results when the high-sun NAC images matched with the shadowy Orbiter textures. However this fitting method will give significantly worse result when two images with opposite shadows are fitted.
• Even if I'm able to create nice textures for the lighting conditions given at landing, these could be crappy-looking at the time of the lunar ascent. Don't forget that during J missions there were almost 3 days between touchdown and liftoff, which means circa 40 degrees of difference in sun elevation.

But anyway, I understand the problem, and I also see that your idea is one possible solution, so it is on my ToDo list to experiment with some low-sun textures, and if the result is acceptably nice, I will publish it.

 

[ggalfi]

@ggalfi I guess if we are following the timeline we can expect some nice Descartes terrain this coming April? ?

You have discovered some pattern, don't you? Yes, I've already begun to review the Descartes DTMs available on LROC site , and they are quite pretty, on one of them even the House Rock is clearly visible. So the goal is to make the "mysterious and unknown Descartes highlands" be discoverable for the Orbiter community in April.

 

[4throck]

But anyway, I understand the problem, and I also see that your idea is one possible solution, so it is on my ToDo list to experiment with some low-sun textures, and if the result is acceptably nice, I will publish it.

Thanks! For surface or low-level views, high sun images with just a bit of shadow work well. Something like this: https://airandspace.si.edu/multimedia-gallery/m175428601re25cmap12areapng
From my tests, it looks decent from sunrise to mid-day. Orbiter terrain provided hard shadows where needed (in this case Surveyor crater will be in partial darkness for Apollo 12).

 

[indy91]

The website seems to be down, ggalfi. Anything you can do?

 

[ggalfi]

The website seems to be down, ggalfi. Anything you can do?

Seem to me it was down since 28th Feb. I've restarted it right now. Thanks for notifying me!

 

[ggalfi]

If you want to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the flight of Apollo 16, you may download the the scenery files from my site. There is one novelty: as I've promised to @4throck , beside the usual overhead illumination texture, I gave a try with much lower sun position (at circa 40 degrees, so approximately the sun position at the beginning of the 3rd day of the lunar stay). The result was not that bad at all, so I shared both of them, certainly you have to decide which one to use, and install only the selected one. For the screenshots below I used the low sun illumination set. Regarding the elevation map, it works exactly in the same way as in case of the previous, Hadley-Appenine elevation map. And some screenshots:

Moderately succesful attempt to replicate the famous "jumping salute" photo.


Astronauts are visiting the (Jail) House Rock


Same story, different viewpoint - you may feel the immense size of the North Ray crater.


The landing site from the north. The large crater is the North Ray crater, that little dark spot at the south-east rim is the House Rock


The landing site from the east (practically from approach angle). The black spot in the middle is the landed Orion, the large crater on the right is Palmetto.
Gear up, and have a nice flight to the Descartes, and let me know - and especially let NASA know - if you are able to find any traces of volcanism!

 

[FordPrefect]

Excellent work ggalfi!

I just tried it and for some reason, my terrain seems to be enlarged on the z-axis (vertically) by a factor of maybe two or three? Not sure what I did wrong, just installed the files as mentioned in the doc.
Here's some screenshots, the elevation of the surrounding look exaggerated.. hmm..