Celestia Forums

While flying with a spacecraft over the surface of a planet (e.g. earth) I'd like to have a "look out of a side window" without changing my flight direction. Is there a possibility to look in a direction different from the flight direction? Of course there is need to align these directions again afterwards.

thanks for an answer.

Though perhaps a glitch, I've gotten it to do that before. It's hard to reproduce though. When using the arrow keys to navigate, along with moving foreward, sometimes you can move the FOV with the mouse and it will not affect the direction of travel, allowing you to essentially look all around without disturbing your flight. Any keyboard movement commands overrides this, and the mouse is again responsible for direction.

I have often been able to select the spacecraft I wish, ElChristou's
Atlantis FD model for example, in the following manner:

Right-click Earth and select Atlantis.
Press the G key to go to it.
Use the HOME key to get close (or inside).
Press the F key to follow the spacecraft.
Then, hold down the right mouse pad and move the view to
whatever perspective I want.

Don't know if this works in all versions, but it certainly works
on my machine. Just trying to help.

Thanks, Brain-Dead

Bob, I think he is wanting to know how to look around without changing direction of travel. When he refers to a spacecraft, I think he is talking about having a speed in Celestia, as if you were in a spacecrarft.

Hungry4info wrote:Bob, I think he is wanting to know how to look around without changing direction of travel. When he refers to a spacecraft, I think he is talking about having a speed in Celestia, as if you were in a spacecrarft.

Well, as usual, I'm not sure I know what you mean...

When I right-click and move the view though, the spacecraft continues
in it's predefined orbital path. I use the right mouse pad only to look
around as it travels.

This is not what he wants?

Once you have selected the (F)ollow mode, this is exactly what it does.

I found that if you select an object, say m 33, and center m 33, then type the "f" key, then type the "F7" for light speed travel, you can left click the mouse and rotate your view. The stars will be going by as if you are looking out a side or back window in a car traveling down the highway.
cartrite

It also seems that every time that a spacecraft control is used it cancels out Follow. So every time I press a spacecraft control, I need to press f again. Not sure how to lock in Follow. Or if Follow was locked whether the spacecraft controls would still work?
cartrite

Hungry4info wrote:Bob, I think he is wanting to know how to look around without changing direction of travel. When he refers to a spacecraft, I think he is talking about having a speed in Celestia, as if you were in a spacecrarft.

That's exactly, what I wanted to say. Thank you for replies. I forgot to mention, I prefer [Y] mode when I hover over the earth's surface.

lidocorc wrote:While flying with a spacecraft over the surface of a planet (e.g. earth) I'd like to have a "look out of a side window" without changing my flight direction. Is there a possibility to look in a direction different from the flight direction? Of course there is need to align these directions again afterwards.

thanks for an answer.

Just turn your view with pressed left mouse pad, but don't change the velocity.
So take into account: If you increase or decrease the velocity while looking around, you simultaneously will change the movement direction!

Adirondack

BobHegwood wrote:Well, as usual, I'm not sure I know what you mean...

Apparently yes.
Please see the section 'Spaceflight' of 'controls.txt' file.
With best regards, Robert

Adirondack wrote:

lidocorc wrote:While flying with a spacecraft over the surface of a planet (e.g. earth) I'd like to have a "look out of a side window" without changing my flight direction. Is there a possibility to look in a direction different from the flight direction? Of course there is need to align these directions again afterwards.

thanks for an answer.

Just turn your view with pressed left mouse pad, but don't change the velocity.
So take into account: If you increase or decrease the velocity while looking around, you simultaneously will change the movement direction!

Adirondack

This seems to work all the time when out in space traveling towards a star or planet. But when your close to the surface of a planet, it's hit or miss. Sometimes it works and sometimes the direction changes just by moving the mouse with the left button held down. I wonder if this is a bug?
cartrite

@ cartrite:
I agree with you.

I followed the hints given by Adirondack and RVS and realized the same strange behaviour of the program.

I was about to submit a bug report but I found this out.
After you press a spacecraft control key, the view and direction will change while holding down the mouse button. But after a velocity key is pressed, only the view changes and the direction remains constant. So one must always remember to press either "a" or "z" after using the spacecraft controls. I'll hold off on submitting a bug Tracker until I find out if this is normal and intended behavior.

EDIT: It seems that when running at a slower than normal frame rates, the "a" or "z" key must be typed twice or 3 times to get the direction of travel to remain constant while moving the mouse with the left key held down. It doesn't always work when I'm near surface of a VT or my 3dmars model after typing "a" or "z" once.
cartrite

In F(ollow)-Mode I can reproduce, what you are saying, Cartrite. In this mode and all others, but eccept Y-mode, Celestia is well behaving (if one takes care of the difference between mouse navigating and cursor navigating). So you can get used to it, whereas it doesn't seem to be the best solution as it is right now.

Have a look at Y-mode. Chose a (far away) star, whose rotation we suppose to be zero. Then focus the star and press the Y key. Now our view is connected to a coordinate frame, which rotates exactly with the star. But as the star does _not_ rotate at all, our frame is equivalent to any inertial system, thus equivalent to the 'universal' frame (ESC-mode) and the 'ecliptical' frame (F-mode) - at least for short periods.

Accelerate to a typical speed through the galaxy (5 ly/s). You will see the stars coming from a certain point in the sky. In my books, it's called 'apex'. Now set the apex to the middle of the screen by mouse movement (left button being pressed). If you now press the X key, travelling direction suddenly changes, indicating the x key _did_ work, but not the way it should: the apex vanishes off the screen or, at least, is being offset.

That's what drove me mad, when I tried to navigate my 'aircraft' smoothly over the earth's surface in Y-mode. Even when I set the earth's UniformRotation>Period = 1E38 (maximum of floating point data type 'single') to make the earth stand still, I couldn't use Y-mode anyway.

I can't use a spacecraft correctly either in Y mode. But I compensate for this by slowing time down "k". If your reason to use Y mode is having the universe rotate around you as your spacecraft zooms along the surface, I'm not sure how this is done.
cartrite