DOWNLOAD Celestia patch3 final: sound, image/text overlay...

[Vincent]

Vincent:

Here are screen grabs of the comet image with the patch and without the patch. The patch comet is shallow and dish like, not at all like a comet. The unpatched comet looks natural. I am using an older 32Meg Quatro2 NVidia chip. Is this how you see the comets?

Don

Don,

Your screenshots shows the Halley comet at different dates. Since the 1.4.1 (maybe 1.4.0 ?) official version, the rendering of the comets' tail has been improved : the lenght of the tail depends on the distance to the star the comet orbits.

So, this has nothing to do with the patch version. Please try to compare the comet at exactly the same date.

[t00fri]

Vincent:

Here are screen grabs of the comet image with the patch and without the patch. The patch comet is shallow and dish like, not at all like a comet. The unpatched comet looks natural. I am using an older 32Meg Quatro2 NVidia chip. Is this how you see the comets?

Don

Wait a second. Your lefthand picture with the visible tail was probably NOT from Celestia 1.4.1, or corresponds to a different solar distance than the righthand picture? Because for 1.4.1 I have implemented the fact that comet tails cease to be visible if their distance from the sun exceeds 5-7 AU! Vincent's patch implement's this fact, as you can see: no tail!

Bye Fridger

[Vincent]

Wait a second. Your lefthand picture with the visible tail was probably NOT from Celestia 1.4.1, or corresponds to a different solar distance than the righthand picture? Because for 1.4.1 I have implemented the fact that comet tails cease to be visible if their distance from the sun exceeds 5-7 AU! Vincent's patch implement's this fact, as you can see: no tail!

Fridger,

I'm afraid this has nothing to do with Boux's patch. I tried to set back static const int MaxCometTailPoints and static const int CometTailSlices to their initial values (yours), but that doesn't change anything : the tail is still there. Moreover, the tail is also visible with the last CVS version !... Here's a screenshot from the last CVS :



We have to look for changes that have been done in the code since the 1.4.1 version, or perhaps in some .ssc/.stc files...

[Vincent]

Vincent's patch implement's this fact, as you can see: no tail!

Fridger,

First, I thought this last sentence was sarcastic, i.e., you meant there was a problem with the patch version since there should be absolutely no tail... But then, I read again your post and I realised you might have meant that on the contrary, the patch version shows the tail as it should correctly be... Am I wrong ?

There are 2 points here :
- As I wrote in my answer to Don, his screenshots are not taken at the same dates... That's why the tail is so long in the left hand shot.
- With the 1.4.1 official version, I can see absolutely no tail at all... That's why I thought your answer was ironic. I'm sorry to be such a paranoid !

[ElChristou]

Vincent's patch implement's this fact, as you can see: no tail!

Fridger,

First, I thought this last sentence was sarcastic...

Vince, we (non native english users) should take time to read perhaps two time before answering, as you have rectified, Fridger wasn't sacarstic; he was saying your patch was following this last modification in the tail rendering in cvs saying beyong 5 UA, the tail is no more visible...

[Vincent]

Vince, we (non native english users) should take time to read perhaps two time before answering, as you have rectified, Fridger wasn't sacarstic; he was saying your patch was following this last modification in the tail rendering in cvs saying beyong 5 UA, the tail is no more visible...

I agree with you Chris. I will follow this advice in future.

But this misunderstanding is not unfounded. In the 1.4.1 official version, there's absolutely no tail at all, whereas in the current CVS (and in my patch version), you still can see what looks like the coma of the comet. Here are 2 screenshots that show this difference between the official 1.4.1 version and the current cvs version (taken at exactly the same date) :

- 1.4.1 official version - - current CVS version -


Of course, I took care to check that 'Comet tail' rendering was enabled in both cases...

[Vincent]

Hi,

I'm about to release Celestia 1.4.1 patch3 final version...
In the beta release, only planets/moons/spacecrafts could have their own customized Info Script, accessible by the "More about..." option in the contextual menu. In the final version, that will be possible for any Celestia object (stars, deepsky objects,...) except for locations that don't have any contextual menu... I've also added the new 'fitscreen' argument to the 'overlay' script command [ http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic ... 3&start=87 ], and fixed a little issue in the ScriptImage function.

However, before releasing Celestia patch3 final, I want to think about the organization of the different folders... To my mind, here's the best setup :


***************************************************************************
> Has anybody got any other suggestion about the setup of the different folders/files ?
***************************************************************************

[selden]

It seems to me that it would be better if a script and its associated files were grouped together somehow, much like other Addons are, rather than mixing one script's files in with others'. It's likely that people will happen to chose the same names for scripts and other files that have quite different contents.

[Vincent]

Selden,

If I have correctly understood, you suggest something like that :


I agree with you : this setup looks more handy, and more conform to the general addons setup in Celestia.

But it also raises 2 new points :

1- What will be the default root folder to define the path of the image/sound files ? (-> the 'images' / 'sounds' sub-folders of the specific 'script' folder ?)

2- Then, if 2 scripts are sharing the same sound and/or image file(s), we will have to paste it in both images/sounds folders of the respective scripts... Since image/sound files can have a quite big size, that would cause a significant loss of space disk...

[selden]

I was thinking that one should keep the traditional layout.

Only scripts,etc that actually are distributed with Celestia should be in a high level scripts,etc folder. All others should be in an extras folder, either extras or one declared in celestia.cfg



Scripts that are part of an Addon should be in a directory appropriate for that Addon.

However, if one is providing a script that shares components with a previous Addon, it adds some complexity, as you point out.

Hmm. How about a script "Require" statement?

If you write a script that uses resources originally provided by another script Addon, a Require statement would tell Celestia where to find the necessary files. I think it would only need to include the directory name used by the root of the original Addon if the file organization is predefined for all such scripts.

Alternatively, I suppose a script could be provided in a folder with the same name as that original Addon, so that they get merged together when they're extracted from their Zip files.

Another option might be to include the full directory structure, but to use shortcuts or Unix style softlinks that point to the necessary files rather than including the files themselves. I think this might require modifications to Celestia's file open code, unfortunately.

[ElChristou]

I agree with Selden, script and children files should go at the root of the addon (no need to move files when installing the addon).

[fsgregs]

In considering the problem, I can see it both ways. I may be using more patch sound scripts than anyone else in Celestia at the moment. I have 12 separate sound scripts already in use in the educational activities. The 12 scripts each contain or reference:

1. up to 8 sound files
2. a cockpit overlay image (which is now in an images folder in Celestia's main root directory.
3. The celx script itself, located in a general scripts folder in the root directory.
4. Infotext and infoimage files are currently in the extras folder within an add-on folder. This is the initial directory tree outlined by Vincent above.

When a user downloads an activity, the script goes into the root scripts folder, the sounds go into the root sounds folder, the cockpit overlay goes into the root images folder, and everything else goes into an add-on folder inside extras. It works well, because a script can use the sound files and the same cockpit image as another script.

That said, it probably will not make much problem to place everything associated with a script into its own add-on folder. Although there will be some duplication of sound files and the cockpit overlay image from add-on to add-on, I don't see it getting so big that it will use up too much Disk memory.

In summary, I can work with any way that makes it easiest for you.

Obviously, thank you for such a wonderful new feature.

Frank

[Chuft-Captain]

> Has anybody got any other suggestion about the setup of the different folders/files ?

Vincent, I agree that in general everything for an addon should be kept together as Selden suggested.

What about using a search strategy to identify the sound/image file to use?
I think Celestia should first search for the file in the addon subdirectory (images/sounds etc), and if not found, look for it in the appropriate extras subdirectory.

So a Celestia distribution could for example include some generic default sounds/images which could be used by any addon (in the absence of an addon specific file of the same name), however these generic sounds and images would be over-ridden by any files of the same name provided by the addon itself in the addon sub-directory (images/sounds etc).

This strategy could be extended to 3 levels (or any number of levels).
eg. <script specific> overrides <addon specific> overrides <generic>
with the search always starting at the lowest level, then going up the tree if not found at that level.

EDIT: This means an addon creator can customise or override Celestia default sounds/images, and a script creator can in turn customise or override the addon creator's sounds and images.

Any comments?
Any implementation/performance issues with this idea?

[Vincent]

Selden, Frank, ElChristou, Chuft-Captain,

Thanks a lot for your precious comments ! I too agree with Selden's : the best choice would be to keep the traditional layout...
Then, we all agree that this would require a more complex strategy to identify the sound/image files that are associated to a specific script... As for this, Selden's 'Require' statement and Chuft-Captain's suggestion are both very interesting...

But to be honest, for the moment, I have neither the time nor the skill to implement this in the code... As Selden suggested, another option to bypass this difficulty would be to use the full directory structure. But unfortunately, I never managed to make Victor's full path declaration work with soundfiles...

So, unless some skilled coder helps me to integrate this great idea in the code, I'm afraid I will have to use the first setup I suggested for the Celestia_patch3 final release...

But I really hope I will get enough help to include the new setup in a next Celestia_patch release...

[Vincent]

Hi everybody,

Celestia 1.4.1 patch3 final is available here : http://celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9503

Since I have added/modified some files and changed the general layout, please delete all the folders/files of the previous beta release(s) before installing Celestia 1.4.1 patch3 final.

[nicku]

IMHO phpBB offers a lot more advantages than the developers mailing list (eg coherent formatting, immediate visibility, hystorical trace, better time coherence, search capabilities, later-edit and reorganization of posts).

phpBB offers the capability of giving permissions with high granularity both to users and to forums in order to control and limit the posting activitiy. http://www.phpbb.com/support/guide/#section3_1_2

So why not a new forum dedicated to the dev team, where everyone of us can read but only developers can post?

Perhaps you have wonderful high speed Internet access. In Sydney, I only have 512Mbs and using this forum is excruciatingly slow. Death approaches too fast.

Mailman mailing lists seem so much more efficient with my time, especially using mutt. Perhaps you are stuck with some miserable email client created by some vast multinational.

[Paolo]

I'm still on PSTN 56 kbit/sec modem connection , the slowest possible on the planet. But I still believe that a dedicated forum should be quite more better than the mailing list.

Kind regards

[bidmaron]

It is unclear from this thread ---what was the final decision? Which of this patches functionality will be in 1.5?

[phoenix]

have a look at http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10093

[Sky Guy]

Hi Gang,

Sorry to ask a newbie question but I am running 1.4.1 on my Mac. To install the patch do I get just version 3 or do I need the earlier versions as well.

Thanks!