A couple issues

[Cyber]

Firstly, my predictable praise goes out to chris for all the hours I've spent tweaking and exploring Celestia.

Now, onto a couple problems I'm too much of a newbie to figure out.

1. When adding a bumpmapped texture to Earth, the planet loses its reflectivity with the sun... even if I add a transparency to the bumpmap.

2. I find that the Earth's nightlights texture is visible way too soon. Is there a variable in the code that could fix this?

3. More of a suggestion than anything. Comets in Celestia are indistinguishable from asteroids. Maybe in an update or add-on, comets in celestia could be given actual tails, perhaps by using volumetric fog or sprites. It would be a nice new eye-catcher

[Sum0]

1. Yup. It'll be fixed in the next version (1.2.5) with separate bump maps and specular maps.

2. I've noticed this, and it's annoying. The nightlights only disappear at midday. Hopefully we'll see something to change this (like the ambient light controls) in the next version.

3. Yup, this'll be in the next version too...

So, when will the next version be out?

[chris]

1. Yup. It'll be fixed in the next version (1.2.5) with separate bump maps and specular maps.

2. I've noticed this, and it's annoying. The nightlights only disappear at midday. Hopefully we'll see something to change this (like the ambient light controls) in the next version.

3. Yup, this'll be in the next version too...

So, when will the next version be out?

Version 1.2.5 will be out next week sometime. Unfortunately, I won't have all the new scripting stuff working. But, comet tails and much improved texture mapping will be working. I'm not sure if I'll have a fix for the night lights--I can probably do something with vertex programs to make the night/day transition more abrupt.

--Chris


--Chris

[Cyber]

That's great to hear

Good luck with the update