Celestia Forums

Hi,
im currently making a film for a local museum which will be used in a classroom environment in North Devon to teach kids about artifacts from the museum and to get them to come visit the museum later on. We have themed it around an alien visiting earth and the museum, collecting artifacts and then the kids get to 'play games' trying to work out what the artifacts are, how they were used, thinking more of information gathering and discovery, rather then the specific artifacts themselves.

so my question is.. are there any issues (copyright, license etc) using snippets of movies i generate in Celestia on the DVD ? I will be putting credits on the DVD of using Celestia to create the space environment, links from my website and from the new website being created by the museum for this dvd. Its not being sold and is being funded via the Lottery i think ultimately (museums Heritage fund but thats lottery money i think). Is there any specific wording required for copyright or acknowledgement of using Celestia ? I have looked through forums and found a few threads on it being used by ESA and NASA and a few other places and seen a thread on copyright but nothing seems to say I cant use it.... but thought id ask first..

Also.. we will be having a small display in the museum once filming has finished, with the space suited alien on display and a copy of some of the dvd playing as a loop, and also hoping we can have a copy of Celestia playing on a mac or pc - perhaps just running a scripted loop or maybe just earth orbit - i may have got my head around scripting by then if i get time. Is there any issue using Celestia in this way too ?

Also.... whilst on usage topic.. im in near-final stages of a 'rockumentary' dvd with a local reggae band 'the universe inspectors' and would like to add some views of celestia intercut with some green screen footage of some of the band members in a few sections of the dvd .. any issues with using Celestia that way ?

I made a rough cut video at the weekend for the museum dvd of a temporary intro using a 3d model of a spaceship (outside of celestia) intercut with a stylised trip from the outer reaches, through a 'wormhole' and into our solar system, finishing off orbiting round earth. I can only run Celestia on a mac so i was limited to capturing about 30 seconds at HD res (1280 x 720) using a third party video screen capture utility but after conforming to 25fps I end up with 4-8 second snippets only - which is fine for my needs.

the rough cut video is here if anyone is interested:
http://www.maniacfilms.com/maniac/media/intro-sample.mov
This is using h264 quicktime encoding so you need very latest QT to view it. its 20meg.

thanks
mark

Mark,

Chris made it clear in one of his posts (which I can't locate now) that anything you create using Celestia is your property and you can do anything you want with it.

A movie made using a version of Celestia with no Addons may be displayed or sold. Think of it as being similar to the situation when you use a compiler: the code you write and the program it generates are yours. Although Celestia and the files that come with it are subject to the Gnu Public License, its restrictions are not inherited by anything you use Celestia to create. This includes a public display of Celestia running a script.

While there is no requirement for any particular form of acknowledgement of your use of Celestia, it would be nice if you did credit it and mention its Web site.

Various Addon authors have placed restrictions on how their Addons may be used, so you should check what those licenses allow.

The video looks great!

A couple of minor quibbles:
The horizontal jitter of the text seems a little extreme. And, of course, stars wouldn't really be visible while looking at the Earth in bright sunlight..

Thanks Selden,
thats cleared that up for me .
re: video - there is a voice-over to go with the intro plus more space ship stuff before - the idea is to simulate travel through a wormhole whilst scanning solar system for lifeforms (needs some modification) and all jittery text is in an alien language/text so there is nothing to actually read until we hit the destination.. being earth.. when text is back to normal and not jittery. will hopefully be more apparent with the voice over on top of it.

we also have to setup the scenerio of wormhole being unstable as we need the class to finish the exercises/games within a time frame that leads to an end - with wormhole becoming unstable, so our alien must return home before its too late... so i was trying to suggest wormhole instibility with the jittery text also..

didnt think about stars being visible - that was just the default Celestia settings i think (i may have turned up fainter stars a bit) .. so when outside the atmosphere of earth, with sun being 'small' - your saying you still wouldnt see any stars around it because its so bright ? That makes sense as i suppose atmosphere is reducing solar radiation - so even brighter when orbiting the earth.. hmm.. i guess most sci-fi movies i remember seeing kind of pay that lip service a bit - although i will be on the look-out now!
I will probably add some lens flare and extra brightness to the sun, but i think i'll keep most the of the stars though.

thanks
mark

Showing the stars is a reasonable artistic decision. Actually, of course, the light reflected off the Earth is so bright and stars are so faint that you can't actually see both at the same time. As you say, though, this is what Celestia shows.

I've just become more sensitized to this since i learned that the non-visibility of stars in photographs taken on the Moon during the Apollo missions is one of the things that make some people think they must have been faked. Too many people know nothing about the physical effects involved in photography when bright and dim objects are in the same field of view.

Yes thats another one seen in movies a lot - moon features (craters etc) on a full moon with foreground . ive found it impossible to photograph or video a full moon and also keep 'other' (landscape/foreground) showing properly. Last time i tried i had to stop down the camera so much to show any moon details that i couldnt get any foreground showing at all (too dark). I managed to get some dark grassess wavering in front from a low angle and then when cloud cover came i could open the aperture up to get some sense of the grasses - took a long time that evening to get a sequence that looked the same as how its perceived by our eyes in real life.

Ive faked a few full moons onto stuff in the past though ! I even faked a full moon very close to a setting sun !! most people didnt realise until it was pointed out to them.... so I am guilty of perpetuating the myth too. sorry.

mark

about the only problem i can think of is with most of the hires maps / addon's
is they wer orig. from USGS ,NASA , JPL ,PDS . they are free to use and modify but selling that may be a bit of a mess .Seeing as it is for a museum,that may not be a problem
-----
JPL/PDS/NASA
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/policy/
earth lights
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/ngdcinfo/privacy.html
usgs
http://www.usgs.gov/laws/policies_notices.html

for the most part " give credit where credit is dew "

Hi John,
yes i read most of the info for NASA images recently - havent changed since i last used a few NASA images for a christian music festival promo in 2003 - we did put credits and links on that dvd for usage as i think there was a stipulation back then. I think as long as no NASA logo is used and no real NASA people are in the images then its ok as far as i can tell from the copyright info on thier site.. I will reread these links though thanks.

Incidently Im still waiting on a reply from Google about using any google earth images too. They say they can take 2-4 weeks for a reply.. similar sort of problem as even though they have an pro version you can pay for - they sttill dont tell you exactly how you can use the images or videos generated from gooogle earth in 'the media' - they hint at it but dont spell it out really. they seem to be more concerned about you using thier logo rather then not using the logo.. i shall wait and see what they say, but by then i may just have given up waiting and used a NASA satelitte photo of the UK instead (doesnt seem to be many out there though).

I do believe that Google earth uses NASA TeraServer so it should fall under the NASA copy right
there is also NASA's World Wind --almost the same as Google Earth --
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/index.html

selden wrote:I've just become more sensitized to this since i learned that the non-visibility of stars in photographs taken on the Moon during the Apollo missions is one of the things that make some people think they must have been faked. Too many people know nothing about the physical effects involved in photography when bright and dim objects are in the same field of view.

Just this afternoon I was watching NASA tv, and the astronauts aboard the ISS were discussing how they're unable to view stars very well because of the glare of the sun off the ISS. They claimed even the ISS's own exterior lighting obscures their view.

about " non-visibility of stars in photographs taken on the Moon"

I knew that years ago and after 10 years in photo darkrooms doing custom work the technical aspect of the lunar photos is a no-brainer
the lack of stars and the " odd" look of some of the shadows and the US flag looks to be waving ( at times) are what most conspiracy theorists latch onto
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast23feb_2.htm

Mark:

Nice video. A couple of suggestions. I would lower the ambient light to medium or low, so that dark shadows are more apparent. The planets look more dramatic that way. I would also include a short snipet up front to explain why the text is jiggling. Something like ... "wormhole unstable ... vibrations increasing ...", so your audience doesn't just think it is a messed up video.

I like the sound clip you used. Quite dramatic. Where is it from? Is there any more of it that I can use in my own classroom?

The computer interactive stuff you are developing for students seems cool. As an Astronomy High School teacher, I would love to be able to use it or access it on your teaching website, when it is ready. Could you provide us that web address?

Also, Celestia is already used quite extensively in education, at all grade levels. We have a website on the Celestia Motherlode dedicated to education. Your might want to post some links or comments to your work on that site. Its address is http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/educational.php

Regards

Frank

Thanks guys for all the info. I will try out the world wind on my pc - its not so fast as my mac so will see how i get on.
regarding music - the 'opera' style track is from Yopo music - its on a royalty free/buyout CD 'music to voice over take 3' and the track is called 'the almighty'. its only 40 seconds long unfortuantely and its the only one of that style on that CD. the Yopo music website is http://www.yopo.co.uk
I have been filming the rest of the DVD and doing some green screen work with our 'alien' and am just putting it all together right now and the voice over at the start explains workmhole travel so its all more apparent whats happening. I may have to chop out some of the other planets to shorten the intro but will get some feedback early next week. I will post up another draft clip soon after that.
Regarding the 'thinktank' website - not sure what the url is yet - will find out next week (other people on holiday still).

regards
mark

Well the DVD was finally finished in November 2007 and has been seen by over 1250 kids so far in Devon, UK with more due as the bookings come in for the Think Tank project.
Ive uploaded a sample to youtube which shows a few of the games/learning exercises and a brief snip of the intro and outro of the DVD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo5htCjfrjE

On Friday 14th march 2008 we won a Media Innovation Award for 'Best DVD' at the recent south west England Media Innovation Awards in Plymouth.
see http://www.mediainnovationawards.com for more details. Im well pleased with this! Thanks for the support at the start of this project and if any more sci-fi things come up I will certainly be trying this route again.

The Think Tank website is running fully for bookings of the Think Tank
http://www.museumthinktank.org.uk and we plan for a mini exhibition in the Museum of barnstaple and North Devon later in the year and hope to have a machine running Celestia.

cheers
Mark [/url]