Celestia Forums

Forgive me if this has been mentioned by someone else (and I'm quite sure it has), but I figured I should tell anyway:

I just came across an interesting planet-surface generator, called the "Infinite Universe Engine" (IUE), made by German programmer Jochen Winzen.
Although hardly "infinite", it is able to render 3D-planetary terrains in real-time on many of the worlds in the Sol system (like Venus, Mars, Phobos and Deimos, and of course, Earth), so you can travel from space to topographic terra firma without any loading time in between, and it also features minor noise-elements such as trees and plants on Earth for the minor details.

Anyway, I thought this might be of interest to the future of Celestia - just think if you could find a way to combine these two products, for example, or use the approunch of one in the other (actually, the creator of the IUE mentions Celestia in his papers as well).

The engine is free, and can be downloaded from here:
http://www.vterrain.org/Packages/IUE/index.html

Although he says the minimum requirement for the program is about 1 GHz, it runs fine on my 733 MHz (and I also heard of one which got it to run stable on a 500 MHz!), with just minor loading lags when I close in on a planet from space.

Most importantly: Have fun!

wow! That was awsome! Especially mercury and the rings of saturn - the way the texure faded into 3D.
I also liked the property that you can go underwater on earth. I too wish that Celestia would have those features in the future, but it seems like that's the bottom prioroty of the programmers. After all, it's a massive load of work.

This program was reviewed by chris (and perhaps fridger) a few months ago, and he found it a bit too 'amateur' for his taste. Anyway, I think chris is more interested in enhancing the 'space' approach of Celestia.

ArneB wrote:wow! That was awsome! Especially mercury and the rings of saturn - the way the texure faded into 3D.
I also liked the property that you can go underwater on earth. I too wish that Celestia would have those features in the future, but it seems like that's the bottom prioroty of the programmers. After all, it's a massive load of work.

I am looking into this just as soon as I get the feel for the code...unless Chris beats me to it...And you are correct it is a massive amount of work...

I have just begun to realise what amount of time and effort has gone into this project...It takes me days just to add additional classes of stars...so I could only imagine how long it would take Chris to add the above features...And hes more familiar with it all than me...And with all the additional features that have not yet been added into Celestia...it is no easy task to add features like what we see in Infinate Universe...I am willing to bet the author of the above software took quite some time in coding just those features...

I can promise you even if its by next year that you will have landscapes on planets even if it bloody kills me!!!

I can promise you even if its by next year that you will have landscapes on planets even if it bloody kills me!!!

I certainly hope it doesn't! Didn't you mysterically disappear from the forum some while ago? Anyways, glad you've returned!

I did foolishly...


Question...Has anyone tried compiling this engine in Visual Studio? It seems to require the Qt libraries? Arent those for linux? or is this another lib im not aware of?

nm found them for windows...

Well I think I may have found something I will use with my addons...Ive emailed the author making sure its ok with him to release my modifications as a project with credits...He hasnt responded yet...

But overall this engine is VERY moddable and with a few sourcecode enhancements such as spectural lighting and haze around planets would look better and better...So far I was able to improve the look of the Earth...



I think with some modification this could well be the answer Ive been looking for in the meantime allowing me to continue my work here AND giving a glimpse of what I envision my worlds to be on the surface...Prepare for a journey of a lifetime !

The overall filesize will increase maybe 2 megs per addon...But with my current standing of 50 megs or more whats the difference??

Nice indeed! I'm looking forward to see the results of your work.
If you assingn the "ring texture to 3D" thing to the cloudmap, and change the stone debris with semitransparent impostors, you might even have 3 dimensional clouds! One thing with both Celestia and this program is that the "blending area" between the dark and the bright side of planets seem to be a little too big. Is it possible to fix, or isn't it inaccurate at all?

There are alot of bugs in the program that are being fixed as I progress...I might have a release available by monday or so on sourceforge with a small system I am working on currently...Ive done some minor fixes so far but really nothing significant...

One thing Im sore many are not aware of...This program supports binary star systems and allows multiple light sources...In fact as many as I give it...currently there are 8!

But the downside is the atmosphere only recognises one light source...Another fix for the future...Ill post some screenshots tonight...but since this isnt Celestia related it will be at my site http://www.celestialvisions.net In the forums under Infinate Universe And Doctor Who...as the project progresses to my own program Im sure it will change...

This is exciting!!!

Does anyone know how to compile the Infinite Universe Engine?

I tried to contact Rassilon, but haven't gotten an answer. Also his website seems be down. He mentioned here he found some windows files and I'm trying to look for them too, but cant find them. If anyone know knows anything please let me know.