My pre9 'gripes' for anyone who's interested

[bh]

Well...I've been using pre9 for a few days now...and I must say the vitual texture feature is stunning. I've been mainly an Earth dweller on this one, but I have taken some time to to a bit of exploration.

1/ Black crosshairs are a real bummer...also experiencing some difficulty right clicking on a star, even though I know the cursor is on one (star).

2/ Stars no longer twinkle...I loved this effect. Is there any way we can have this an option on 'star syles'?

3/ There is no three that I can think of ...yet.

Before you jump in and say 'latest drivers' I have them!

Looking forward to the latest Mars 32k...Fridger?

Anyone with similar thoughts, or am I just moaning?

Many regards...bh.

[chris]

Lots of people have been complaining about the black crosshair. It's not something that I see on my system, but I'll put in some sort of option for restoring the arrow. In all likelihood, this will involve making the arrow the default and requiring you to modify celestia.cfg in order to get the crosshair.

--Chris

[billybob884]

why not just give the crosshair a border? like a white, or if that shows up transparent, a really light yellow or something.

[don]

1/ Black crosshairs are a real bummer

On an XP system, using an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro graphics card, and a flat panel monitor, the crosshair shows up as two colors:

1) Black inside (1 pixel lines?)
2) White "border" (1 pixel lines?)

I seem to remember reading somewhere, that some (graphics cards or monitors?) had problems displaying 1-pixel wide lines at high resolutions.

So, maybe the white "border" or "outside" lines should be 2 pixels wide?

[DJ_Night]

1/ Black crosshairs are a real bummer

Greetings.

Celestia calls and use the Windows Crosshair/PrecisionSelect that is set in the Mouse Properties/Pointers tab and thats by default a black crosshair.

Change your "Precision Select" cursor in Mouse Properties/Pointers and use a lighter Crosshair, I use a very nice Lightblue Precision Select, looks great in celestia. Link below:

http://medlem.spray.se/greetings/precision.cur

cheers..

[bh]

Yep...thats fixed it...many thanks DJ!

Regards..bh.

[don]

Celestia calls and use the Windows Crosshair/PrecisionSelect that is set in the Mouse Properties/Pointers tab ...

That's great to know! Thank you DJ_Night.

If Frank G. is lurking, maybe he could make a note of it for the Celestia Users manual.

[JackHiggins]

Any idea when there will be an option so that it only becomes a crosshair when you're over a selectable object...?

[don]

Any idea when there will be an option so that it only becomes a crosshair when you're over a selectable object...?

If I remember right, Chris talked about this in another thread a couple of weeks ago, saying this kind of feature would really slow Celestia down -- and we sure wouldn't want to do that.

-Don G.

[JackHiggins]

Well, would it be possible just to have it as an option in the render box...? Exactly how much would it slow down celestia like...? 1/2 the speed? 3/4?

I wouldn't mind seeing it in action just to try it out for a while...

[don]

Since I don't program in C++, I can't answer your question Jack, sorry.

[bh]

What about the 'twinkle'...anyone?

bh.

[selden]

bh,

What twinkle are you referring to?

The real one is due to changes in atmospheric density causing varying lensing effects. It's not an effect you'd see from a viewpoint in space. I suspect it'd be rather difficult to simulate, too.

There was an effect similar to that in Celestia when distant objects like galaxies flickered on and off whenever the viewpoint changed slightly. As I recall, it was due to a bug in the sort algorithm. Chris fixed that by switching to a "stable sort" routine in one of the 1.3.1 prereleases. As a side effect, that fix seems to have made really large Nebula objects work reliably.

[fsgregs]

Ah heck

I just now not 10 minutes ago, finished updating the Users Guide to reflect version 1.3.1. Took me forever. I just posted it to my website (see related new post). Now I notice the crosshair point. Ahhhhh ....

I'll make a note in the Guide about adjusting the crosshair in the Windows control panel if the crosshair is still appearing in 1.3.1 final. I notice above that Chris said he will return it to a pointer.

Anyway, to see the updated Users Guide, download it from my website.


Enjoy.

Frank

[don]

... to see the updated Users Guide, download it from my website.

That's great news Frank!

Thank you for your time and effort to update the Celestia User's Manual. Thousands of people will love you for it.

[JackHiggins]

Thanks frank! I'm sure it'll be even more helpful for the droves of new users celestia will get, with the official 1.3.1 release...!

[bh]

Thanks a lot guys...I've no more pre9 gripes...except the 'twinkle' which appears to have been a bug anyway! Strange...but true!

I'll get used to 'static' stars, I'm sure. Chris...I'm really enjoying my new Celestia experience!...well done!

Regards...bh.