Celestia Forums

Does anyone know when celestia 1.6.0 pre or beta will be released?
Just a few questions:
Will it be with high dynamic range lighting? I mean like high-def mode atmospheres,planets,galaxies,stars e.t.c
Is there any chance to see planets with virtual textures like seeing the mountains of planets
And my greatest wish and i will be very grateful guys,if you do the rings of saturn rocky
What i mean with this?? Well i mean when you get close enough,to be able to see the rocks of the rings,when you are inside of the rings,See the image below if want to know what i mean.

Plz someone answer

Sanctus, don't you see you are asking for features from an already known game? Why don't you just simply use THAT game?

First,the game isnt out yet and secondly,i just ask for the rings to be rocky if you get close enough and my apologizes if it is impossible
I am just giving ideas for celestia to make it better and better
That's all i'm trying to do
And anyway,when celestia 1.6pre it is going to be released does anyone have any idea??
Thats my primary question

If you are asking about the final version of Celestia 1.6, then only Chris can answer that question. He probably doesn't know either though,
since we keep adding request features and bug reports for him to have to wade through each day.

If you want a 1.6 Pre version, you are aware that Cartrite maintains weekly updates on his site HERE though. Are you not?
Of course, these are Windows executables, so I don't know if they will do you any good or not. I don't think that anyone else is performing
this service for non-Windows operating systems.

At any rate, all this is just FYI...

Thanks, Brain-Dead

Is that picture from a game?

--- edit ---

Danial wrote:Is that picture from a game?

Yes it is a picture from a game called Infinity:The Quest For Earth

To be a little purist how do you know that the rings would look like that you posted. As far as I know Cassini has not given any images at that close a range. Correct me if I am wrong. One of the things I like about Celestia is it's effort to be scientifically correct or if subject to speculation it so states the fact. Mind you I am not saying that the rings will not look as you show but they my not. Now what if a lot of effort was put into making this possible then it was all or most wrong.

As far as HDRI I do something about that. Are you saying you want dim and faint stars, galaxies and nebula with a slider of some kind that lets us see the real range or amount of light that these bodies generate? Or are you speaking of something else and calling in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging.

Virtual texture? I think a lot of work has been done in this area. Unless you are asking for bump maps? Not sure what graphic card you have but if you don't have one that supports OGL 2.0 you are missing a lot of the virtual texture look.

--- edit ---

DonAVP wrote:To be a little purist how do you know that the rings would look like that you posted. As far as I know Cassini has not given any images at that close a range. Correct me if I am wrong. One of the things I like about Celestia is it's effort to be scientifically correct or if subject to speculation it so states the fact. Mind you I am not saying that the rings will not look as you show but they my not. Now what if a lot of effort was put into making this possible then it was all or most wrong.

Like the way you put it ??? hmmm.
I see that you have absolutely right 'cause neither i have seen images from Cassini at this range.
And it was my mistake because i was thinking that nobody would care about how scientifically correct would be



And as for high dynamic range imaging,yeah that what i was talking about,like the pictures you showed in wikipedia

Now for the virtual texture, yes i mean bump maps like the one which john Van Vliet has.
BTW i have 8800 GTS 512 nvidia,i think that supports OGL 2 right?



Thanks

--- edit ---

sanctus wrote:BTW i have 8800 GTS 512 nvidia,i think that supports OGL 2 right?

That's a better card than I got and probably a large number of people here. You should be able to run just about anything you want and yes, that card supports OGL2.


As for HDR, I was building an HDR executable but there has been no development on that code for a few months now. If you want I could do a HDR build tonight. Then if you have 1.5.0 or 1.5.1 installed you can use the executable that has 1.6 code that has been developed up till now.
cartrite

cartrite wrote:If you want I could do a HDR build tonight

Yes if want,make one i would be very grateful but only if have time i dont want to pressure you

Thanks BTW

OK Revision 4407 now has the HDR executable also. It is available at my web site on the index page.
Keep in mind that this HDR version still needs work. You'll notice that if you are using a specmap on the earth when the program starts. The HDR code has not been updated since last March or so.
cartrite

cartrite wrote:OK Revision 4407 now has the HDR executable also. It is available at my web site on the index page.
Keep in mind that this HDR version still needs work. You'll notice that if you are using a specmap on the earth when the program starts. The HDR code has not been updated since last March or so.
cartrite

Actually Dirkpitts last post at shatters was on March 29 2008 and concerned HDR. And thereafter he apparently has not reappeared !!?

Anybody knows what happened ? He's been a fairly steady dev so far and all that HDR stuff is still kind of half finished... too bad.

Fridger

t00fri wrote:Anybody knows what happened ? He's been a fairly steady dev so far and all that HDR stuff is still kind of half finished... too bad.

He is back and has posted on the dev list a few minutes ago!

ElChristou wrote:

t00fri wrote:Anybody knows what happened ? He's been a fairly steady dev so far and all that HDR stuff is still kind of half finished... too bad.

He is back and has posted on the dev list a few minutes ago!

Indeed That's nice....

Fridger

Concerning the VT,I really would like ready to use high resolution textures and NOT that required the F-TexTools to be done,or in other words,DYI textures.For example,Dione 23k and Enceladus 14k are only available if you have these tools.Almost ALL new textures of saturnian moons REQUIRES this software to produce this and since is based in DOS,IS VERY ANNOYING.Very good high textures maps requires THE F-TexTools and ALSO the nm-tools.Even the Moon,so much visited,don?t have a good normal map BIGGER than 4k...

danielj wrote:...and since is based in DOS,IS VERY ANNOYING...

What do you mean? they are not a Windows only tool, they work fine also on Mac and Linux...