Celestia Forums

Hey there!

GREAT WORK!
I was experimenting with openuniverse for quite some time and while looking for a new beta, found Celestia. This prog rocks.
I'm using it on all three platforms (Win, Linux and OSX). The graphic Quality on my GF2 is just amazing, especially the shadows of craters and stuff.

Unfortunately I only have a Ati with 8MB Video memory working in my Macintosh so these features are all not visible on OSX. I also can't view the new earth-textures (1.2.2) in Fullscreen (will only go up to ~800*600 then the texture fucks up). This probably is a memory-problem too? So far I just copied the old earth-textures and changed the solarsys.ssc to use it. I realized that the old one is much bigger. Is there any way to decompress the new one and use it uncompressed or won't that help my problem?
Another thing is that many shortcuts won't work since "[" or "{" are made with "alt+7" etc on my ibook. This doesn't work since it always chooses the planets instead of the options (e.g. 5 for Jupiter instead of alt+5 for... well whatever ). So I never was able to turn off ambient illumination (which I think doesn't exist in space does it?) and other features. Finally I decided... well, why not write my own startup-script where everthing is set the way I want it. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find all the needed flags, like showing fps, changing ambient illumination etc. Is there a complete list of calls in .cel-files? Or, is there any easy way to change shortcuts ind the cfg?

Well, this was a bunch of questions.
<flame>And I know I thought far too much for a mac-user</flame>

boertje wrote:Unfortunately I only have a Ati with 8MB Video memory working in my Macintosh so these features are all not visible on OSX. I also can't view the new earth-textures (1.2.2) in Fullscreen (will only go up to ~800*600 then the texture fucks up). This probably is a memory-problem too? So far I just copied the old earth-textures and changed the solarsys.ssc to use it. I realized that the old one is much bigger. Is there any way to decompress the new one and use it uncompressed or won't that help my problem?

On a card with only 8MB, you really want to be using the low resolution texture set, otherwise you might see some blank planets.

Another thing is that many shortcuts won't work since "[" or "{" are made with "alt+7" etc on my ibook. This doesn't work since it always chooses the planets instead of the options (e.g. 5 for Jupiter instead of alt+5 for... well whatever ). So I never was able to turn off ambient illumination (which I think doesn't exist in space does it?) and other features. Finally I decided... well, why not write my own startup-script where everthing is set the way I want it. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find all the needed flags, like showing fps, changing ambient illumination etc. Is there a complete list of calls in .cel-files? Or, is there any easy way to change shortcuts ind the cfg?

Unfortunately, there aren't script commands for all Celestia features yet. I'll add some for the next version, but I'm afraid that you're sort of stuck with ambient light on the Mac for now. Sorry about this.

--Chris

ehmmmm...
is there any plain low-resolution-set? I can only see the complete win-version.
Anyway if anybody could give a list of working script-commands I'd appreciate it. So far the OSX-version runs great, but is one helluva workaround compared to the win-one.

I've been working on a Cocoa-based front-end for Celestia (to replace the current one that uses GLUT), but I've had no success building the Celestia source code on MacOSX. Can anyone assist?

- Hank

Here's a quick guide to scripting . . . I'll include this with the next release, and convert it to HTML if I get the chance.

--Chris


Scripting Commands


wait

Parameters:
float duration = 1.0

Description:
Pause for a number of seconds specified by the duration parameter



select

Parameters:
string object = ""

Description:
Set the selection to the specified object. Names can be in 'path' form, e.g.
"Sol/Earth/Moon" Otherwise, the object selected may depend on the location
of the camera. Just using "Moon" works fine within our solar system, but the
full path form is favored.


goto

Parameters:
float time = 1.0
float distance = 5.0
string upframe = "observer"
vector up = [ 0 1 0 ]

Description:
Go to the currently selected object. Trip duration is controlled with the
time parameter. The distance parameter specifies how far away from the object
to stop in units of the object's radius. The goto command executes
instantaneously so that you can use other commands such as print while the
camera is moving toward the destination. In order for goto to complete, there
should be wait commands with a combined duration equal to the value of the
time parameter. For example, consider this script:
{ select object "Sol/Earth" }
{ goto time 1.5 }
{ select object "Sol/Mars" }
{ goto time 2.0 }
{ wait duration 2 }
It will not take you to Earth . . . instead, you'll zoom off immediately
toward Mars. In order to make this script work as expected, there needs to
be a wait with duration 1.5 after the first goto command.



gotolonglat

Parameters:
float time = 1.0
float distance = 5.0
vector up = [ 0 1 0 ]
float longitude = 0
float latitude = 0

Description:
gotolonglat works exactly the same as goto except that you can specify
coordinates on the surface of the object as well as a distance. Since the
distance is in object radii, a distance of 1.0 will put you right on the
surface. Typically, you want to be just above the surface, so giving a radius
of 1.001 is a better idea. Latitude is negative for the southern
hemisphere and positive for the northern hemisphere. Longitude is negative
for the western hemisphere and position for the eastern hemisphere.



center

Parameters:
float time = 1.0

Description:
Center the currently selected object in the field of view. Time specifies how
many seconds it should take to slew the camera.



follow

Description:
Follow the currently selected object. This causes the camera to stay in the
same place relative to the center of an object.



synchronous

Description:
Sync orbit the currently selected object. This causes the camera to stay
in the same position and orientation relative to a location on the
object's surface.



cancel

Description:
Stop a currently running goto command . . . like pressing the ESC key.



print

Parameters:
string text = ""

Description:
Show a line of text on the screen



time

Parameters:
float jd = 2451545.0

Description:
Set the time to the specified Julian day.



timerate

Parameters:
float rate = 1.0

Description:
Set the rate at which simulation time advances relative to real time. A
negative value for rate will cause time to go backwards (but only in the
simulation.)



changedistance

Parameters:
float rate = 0.0
float duration = 1.0

Description:
Exponentially change the distance between the camera and the selected object
over some duration. A negative rate will move closer to the object,
a positive rate moves farther out.



orbit

Parameters:
float rate = 0.0
float duration = 1.0
vector axis = [ 0 0 0 ]

Description:
Orbit the selected object around a given axis. The rate is in units of
degrees per second. (Still need to specify which coordinate system the axis
is defined in.)



move

Parameters:
float duration = 0.0
vector velocity = [ 0 0 0 ]

Description:
Move at a constant velocity for an amount of time. The velocity is given in
units of kilometeres per second.



renderflags

Parameters:
string set = ""
string clear = ""

Description:
Change rendering options. Possible options include: orbits, cloudmaps,
constellations, galaxies, planets, stars, nightmaps. Multiple options can
be enabled in a single command by listing several names separated by the
| character.

Examples:
This will turn on orbits and constellations:
{ renderflags set "orbits|constellations" }

This will turn off cloud maps and night maps, so that you can enjoy
clear, dark skies for stargazing.
{ renderflags clear "cloudmaps|nightmaps" }



labels

Parameters:
string set = ""
string clear = ""

Description:
Change labeling options. This command works in a manner similar to
renderflags. Options are: planets, moons, spacecraft, asteroids,
constellations, stars, galaxies. The moons, spacecraft, and asteroids options
are only available in Celestia 1.2.4+



setvisibilitylimit

Parameters:
float magnitude = 6.0

Description:
Display only stars brighter than the specified magnitude.



setambientlight

Parameters:
float brightness = 0.0

Description:
Set the amount of additional light used when rendering planets. For realism,
this should be set to 0.0. Setting it to 1.0 will cause the side of a planet
facing away from the sun to appear as bright as the lit side. Only available
in Celestia 1.2.4+

hank wrote:I've been working on a Cocoa-based front-end for Celestia (to replace the current one that uses GLUT), but I've had no success building the Celestia source code on MacOSX. Can anyone assist?

- Hank

Bob Ippolito has just finished porting 1.2.2 to Mac OS X . . . I'll be integrating his changes today for the 1.2.4 release. This will make working on a Cocoa interface much simpler.

--Chris

hey thx chris!
Though I already figured out most of the calls, this is definetivly a time-saver. A call to set/clear the showFPS would be nice too since I use this very often to check performance.

If you need any help building a html-documentation let me know, I already made my own half-help with the fragments that were given in the 1.2.0-OSX-port.