Celestia Forums

I feel like I am on the cusp of figuring this out, but after several unsuccessful attempts as well as carefully reading/searching the Celestia forums, I truly do not know what else to do.

To make a long story short, I recently installed Celestia on my MacBook Pro out of curiosity. However, I feel that no matter what I add into the extra's-standard folder, no add-ons that are not specifically for our solar system will, work at all. For example, I recently downloaded the exoplanet add-ons from both SpaceStalker & Sirius_Alpha. Even after I followed both of their add-on installation readme's to the T, I cannot seem to get them or other add-ons to properly work. So far, the only add-ons that have worked for me are spacecraft add-ons that orbit Earth.

Would anyone know why this is occurring or how to fix/solve this issue? I'am using Celestia 1.6.2b(3) on MacOS 10.14.6.

To select an object in a planetary system (i.e. anything that's not a star/DSO) in Celestia, you need to either already have an object in the system selected, or type the full path to it (like "Star/Planet"). For instance, if you're in the Solar System, typing "TRAPPIST-1 b" won't select anything; you need to either select "TRAPPIST-1" and then "TRAPPIST-1 b", or type "TRAPPIST-1/TRAPPIST-1 b".

Some notes: As long as you're using Sirius_Alpha's catalog, both the full name ("TRAPPIST-1 b") and the component letter ("b") should work. You can also use the 1-9 keys, or the solar system browser (not sure where it is on Mac), to select objects in the currently selected planetary system.

Does this help?

First I want to say thank you for the help as it at least seems to have moved me in the right direction. However, I've now encountered a new problem. The addons now mostly work, (though most stars are fail to show their addon textures), but now when I go to various planets or dwarves, I find that the stock Celestia objects are merging with the addons that replaced them. So I end of with half of an addon texture, and half of a default texture. However overall, yes, I am able to run several addons.

This is what I have been encountering currently since getting the addons to run. I have mainly encountered this with pulsars, dwarves, and certain exoplanets. Stars in particular will almost never load the addon textures, and has been a constant since getting past my initial problem.


Thanks again for the help. Really glad to see that Celestia is being worked on once again.

In the first screenshot, you're missing the RSG model and texture. I think this is my "extragalactic stars extras" addon, which does include the model and texture, so if you didn't mess with the addon I'm not sure what's wrong there.

The second screenshot seems to be a loading order problem. My pulsar planets addon is supposed to load after the exoplanet catalog; if it loads before it you'll have duplicate planets. On Windows Celestia loads files alphabetically; on Mac there's no clear loading order - but I see you've placed the pulsar planets addon in "extras-standard", which always loads before "extras" - so this issue can probably be fixed by moving the addon to "extras".

Seven, you can force a Mac to order the files alphabetically by dragging and dropping them into the folder's icon from the directory above it.

Moving the pulsar planets addon to "extras," has seemingly fixed the duplicate issue from what I can tell. However, the issues with the red supergiants not appearing, as well as stars not using the addon textures persists. I will add that I see this issue with other addons such the one I have for Ross 128. In which the planets textures work correctly, but the star for some reason still uses the stock textures.


Pulsar planet & red supergiant with the described issue after moving the pulsar planets addon to , "extras.":

The first screenshot is the same as before, you're still missing the model and texture. Did you make sure you have them in the right place?
I don't see anything wrong with the second screenshot. My pulsar planets addon doesn't define custom textures for the pulsars.

Whoops, wrong screenshot, my bad. Anyways, yes, I made sure that the addon was in the correct folder. Unless I'm mistaken and the extragalactic stars addon should be in, "extras," rather than, "extras-standard."

Endeavor35 wrote:Anyways, yes, I made sure that the addon was in the correct folder. Unless I'm mistaken and the extragalactic stars addon should be in, "extras," rather than, "extras-standard."

Generally all addons should be in "extras", but I don't see anything wrong with your setup. I have no idea what's wrong in this case.

Added after 1 minute 32 seconds:
EDIT: actually I see your problem - the models and textures are in the right place, but the stc file isn't. If you moved it somewhere else, move it back; otherwise try redownloading the addon.

It may only be one star thats working, but hey, one is way better than none! Thanks for the help!

since 1.6.2 does not really change anything with rendering compared to 1.6.1, all I knew so far is that 1.6.2 stops working for 10.7~10.9 due to some mysterious reasons inside macOS or Xcode in terms of the render target in rendering earth texture.

I would be surprised if anything that used to work on 1.6.1 ceased to work on. 1.6.2. but let me know if there is.

also check lines logged to a console (press ~ button)