New user with a Q about Educational versions?

[Europa99]

Hi all,

I only discovered and downloaded CELESTIA yesterday and boy, am I impressed!

As a Sound Engineer, sound is very important to the experience for me and as such, I chose to download the educational version (1.4.1 ED) of Celestia, and thus, have warp drive and ambient sound as I cruise through the Galaxy and beyond!).

What I have noticed however, is that I cannot get my Joystick to work no matter what I try.

I have only one Joystick plugged into my Windows XP P4 3.0Ghz, (2Gb RAM, ATI Radeon X800 256Mb), and I have tried pressing F8 to activate it, but with no luck. Moxing the axis will not result in any movement no matter what I try.

Is the problem caused because the educational version has no Joystick support?

Any clues? Do I need to do something to a .cfg to activate the Joystick?

I am a newbie to Celestia but am a seasoned flight simmer, with a custom set-up.

Also, am I missing out on anything else by using the educatonal version 1.4.1 , rather than an 'official' version of the program ?

Finally, the only other issue with the program, is that when I hit 'S' to decellerate to a standstill, the speed display counts down to a 12th decimal place fraction !! Is this normal or a bug ?



Thanks for any help !!

[DonAVP]

Welcome aboard! 8^)

I cannot answer you question about the joystick. Never used it. I would suggest you download the pdf manual and learn as many of the keyboard shortcuts as you can. A few a day will do. I have found that is the best way to get the most out of navigating/displaying what you want to see.

Version 1.5 is in pre-release and will be official some time next year (hopefully in the spring). I believe it will have sound as well. Sound has been one of the most asked about features. I currently load a CD I like or get something off the net to play while I am running Celestia. Kind of wild sound but it works if you use classical music.

As you will notice you can become as involved with the creation of the project as you want. Since you mentioned you are a sound person maybe you could contribute background and foley sound in the future. Just a thought

Don

[fsgregs]

Europa99:

Hi. Glad you are enjoying the sound in Celestia-ED.

Celestia-ED had to "borrow" the keys used by the joystick, in order to get some of its overlay features to work. Sorry, but the joystick will not work with Celestia-ED.

The failure to reach "0" in speed when decelerating is a bug that is present in Celestia, and occurs whenever a script is run. It is annoying but apparently, difficult to fix. Just try to ignore it. If you want it to go away, make sure you have some object selected, and just press the [C] key to center the screen. The display speed will return to "0.00" (although you may swing you view away from something else you were viewing).

Celestia-ED includes the entire base program of Celestia, plus the added features of sound and overlay textures, and of course, the educational journeys themselves. Thus, there is nothing in Celestia that is not in Celestia-ED. In fact, Celestia-ED is itself, undergoing wholesale improvements, with extensive on-screen displays and overlays being designed by Vincent. Much of it is being incorporated into Celestia 1.5.0. As it approaches final release in the spring, the educational version should be a bit enhanced over Celestia 1.5.0, by including some features specific to educational use. Watch for it in the forum area titled "Celestia in Education".

Regards

Frank

[Vincent]

The failure to reach "0" in speed when decelerating is a bug that is present in Celestia, and occurs whenever a script is run. It is annoying but apparently, difficult to fix. Just try to ignore it.

Frank,

Chris has fixed this bug recently, before releasing 1.5pre1.
See http://celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8887