Celestia Forums

Hi I'm trying to create a nice visual effect (to 'record') of zooming from deep space to the Milky Way, and then perhaps to the earth from there. I've spent several hours trying to create the results I'm llooking for but it always seems to 'teleport' to the final destination (of whatever) and it kills the visual effects.

I think the goal is to have it travel from far away, but have the process take roughly 30 seconds or so. This duration should allow for all of the visual effects. Like from the 'edge' of the 'universe' to the Milky Way.

Or if that isn't possible I wouldn't mind it zinging to and from several galazies until it reaches the Milky Way. But I can't seem to figure out how set 'waypoints' for it to follow.

I'm less concerned about instructions for the final part of zooming to Earth. The space travel is key.

Light speed effects would be really killer.

Any help or ideas is greatly appreciated.

IIB wrote:I'm less concerned about instructions for the final part of zooming to Earth. The space travel is key.

Light speed effects would be really killer.

Any help or ideas is greatly appreciated.

Have you used the F1-F7 keys to travel at several times the speed of light? I think the problem you are having is that Celestia presents the universe in real terms. By that I mean the stars are really really far away and to get anything that looks like what is see in the movies/TV you need to fake it. I know there are ways of defining a path that you can follow but others will need to help. If you have a compositing program you could record several POVs with movement and combine them in the compositor. That is how most people do a scene with several shots in it.

IIB:

You can do what you want with scripts. A script can be set to fly your scene at a particular speed. You can go far out to the edge of the galaxies (Celestia contains about 10,000 galaxies), then direct the script to fly inward toward the Milky Way over a 30 second journey.

The Motherlode "script" page has tutorials on how to write a script. A forum member named Selden also has great resources on his website.

When a script is running, you can "record" the scene using Celestia's built-in movie generator. See the users Manual for details.

Alternatively, you can simply go to the edge of the galaxies yourself manually, without a script, point your ship at the Milky Way hold down the [A] key until your speed is about 500,000 ly/s or more, and fly toward our galaxy. Record the movie journey as you go. When you get close to the MW, slow down with the [Z] key while still recording. In that way, you can fly all the way to Earth over any time period you wish.

Hope that helps

Frank