Support for normal, clouds, and roughness maps

[andreasfranke1]

Describe what is missing or deficient and why it should be included or improved.

It would be nice to be able to have some more detail on the earth in regards to e.g. reflective surfaces and mountains, especially because it looks a bit flat right now. Technically, it should be doable by exposing this in the IVAssetPreloader to allow models to provide these respective textures.

If this is a simulation or planetarium "content" proposal, describe how the content should appear and how users should interact with it.

No response

If this is a "code" or "development platform" proposal, describe how developers will use the new system. Provide detailed API if possible.

No response

If applicable, provide implementation code, pseudo-code, mock-ups, diagrams, or orbital maths. Do you have any helpful tips or gotchas to watch out for?

No response

Which of the following describes your feature? (1) A feature or content improvement for our Planetarium. (2) An improvement for game/app developers that should be in our core repositories. (3) An improvement for game/app developers that should be an optional addon.

I believe both the planetarium and the core repositories can profit from this change.

[charliewhitfield]

For better graphics, there's two parts needed and it's hard to separate: capability and content. The capability needs to be added in IVAssetPreloader as you identified. The content is the assets. The problem is that it's hard for me to code without the latter, since I don't know exactly what's needed and have no test material. I'd strongly suggest you do this (since you have the content) and then submit a PR that adds the capability. Alternatively, you can subclass/replace IVAssetPreloader to make it work for your project without contributing to Core. But we certainly want the capability in Core. Happy to have content too if it happens to be appropriate and you want to share (but that's not required).

BTW, I'll get to your other posts soon. There's a giant new core feature about to land.

[andreasfranke1]

Honestly, for the assets, I would use publicly available sources as well. For earth, for instance, there are scattered resources from the NASA, which this dev referenced: https://github.com/franky-adl/threejs-earth (most of them are outdated, but I could find e.g. the ice and rgb one on archive: https://archive.org/details/VE-IMG-2430)
And for the moon, NASA directly provides us with a displacement map! https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4720/

By the way, during my research, I stumbled across https://science.nasa.gov/3d-resources/, that might be interesting for you as well :)

Very cool new feature!

[andreasfranke1]

If these maps are fine to you, I can take a look at it :)

[charliewhitfield]

Normal maps is priority. Working on that now.

I (that is, Claude Code) am also building custom models for Ceres, Iapetus, Mimas, and others where we have good elevation data but no one has produced an open-source model that isn't just a sphere. These have too much distortion for normal maps alone.

[charliewhitfield]

[andreasfranke1]

That looks super cool!

[charliewhitfield]

Recoded IVAssetPreloader so it supports anything that Godot takes as a texture to add to a mesh:

const _CHANNEL_FEATURES := {
	BaseMaterial3D.TEXTURE_EMISSION: BaseMaterial3D.FEATURE_EMISSION,
	BaseMaterial3D.TEXTURE_NORMAL: BaseMaterial3D.FEATURE_NORMAL_MAPPING,
	BaseMaterial3D.TEXTURE_BENT_NORMAL: BaseMaterial3D.FEATURE_BENT_NORMAL_MAPPING,
	BaseMaterial3D.TEXTURE_RIM: BaseMaterial3D.FEATURE_RIM,
	BaseMaterial3D.TEXTURE_CLEARCOAT: BaseMaterial3D.FEATURE_CLEARCOAT,
	BaseMaterial3D.TEXTURE_FLOWMAP: BaseMaterial3D.FEATURE_ANISOTROPY,
	BaseMaterial3D.TEXTURE_AMBIENT_OCCLUSION: BaseMaterial3D.FEATURE_AMBIENT_OCCLUSION,
	BaseMaterial3D.TEXTURE_HEIGHTMAP: BaseMaterial3D.FEATURE_HEIGHT_MAPPING,
	BaseMaterial3D.TEXTURE_SUBSURFACE_SCATTERING: BaseMaterial3D.FEATURE_SUBSURFACE_SCATTERING,
	BaseMaterial3D.TEXTURE_SUBSURFACE_TRANSMITTANCE: BaseMaterial3D.FEATURE_SUBSURFACE_TRANSMITTANCE,
	BaseMaterial3D.TEXTURE_BACKLIGHT: BaseMaterial3D.FEATURE_BACKLIGHT,
	BaseMaterial3D.TEXTURE_REFRACTION: BaseMaterial3D.FEATURE_REFRACTION,
	BaseMaterial3D.TEXTURE_DETAIL_ALBEDO: BaseMaterial3D.FEATURE_DETAIL,
}

IVAssetPreloader also allows adding additional MeshInstant3D's at different heights, so you can do this:

(I'm giving a subtle "limb" texture to Titan, Earth and Venus. You can change table values to make it less subtle.)

All can be done from data tables and file naming. Above required a few fields in moons.tsv, which tell the preloader to look for "limb" and add it 5% above the surface. So Titan now has two textures specified by table file_prefix = Titan and mesh1 = limb that allow it to find "Titan.albedo.2048.jpg" and "Titan.limb.albedo.16.png". Several more fields tell code what to do with mesh1: mesh1_height = 0.05, mesh1_opacity = 0.05, and mesh1_rim = 0.1.

I'm adding code to support two more: mesh*_process and mesh*_shader. In the former you will be able to specify a Callable by name that will run on IVPhysicalBody._process(), e.g., to rotate independently of the surface. In the latter you can specify a shader.

I'll release this together with new assets in a few days.

[charliewhitfield]

Here's Earth now with lights, normal map, an independent moving cloud deck, and a feint atmospheric "limb" layer. Values are realistic which means that the normal effect is only visible in a terminator view like this. But you'll be able to exagerate if you want by setting normal_scale in a table.

[andreasfranke1]

Awesome! Shouldn't the limb layer be more blue?

[andreasfranke1]

Also it looks like there is no roughness map yet, right?

[charliewhitfield]

Earth roughness added with the last dev assets (20260628).

"Spheroid" models are now fully configurable in spheroids.tsv and shells.tsv. The former provides defaults by world type (icy, gas giant, etc.). The latter allows surface overrides per body and shell additions: presently, Earth clouds; Earth, Venus & Titan atmospheric limbs.

Note: I still need to modify depixelation.gdshader so it can be applied for Earth surface at the same time as a metallic_specular setting. (I just forgot in my last master merge.)

[andreasfranke1]

Very cool, thank you!