Celestia Forums

Hi guys,

yeah first of all the usual "This is a great programm and i love it stuff" And well i even mean it!! It's cool to play god and go create a sun and some planets or to just travel around.
But just recently i started to create my own Solarsystems, based on some data from a german SciFi-Series. And there i ran into some trouble, well not really trouble, more like an annoyance. This system (Arkon), which can be found on my website btw. (sorry only german language at the moment), has a lot of planets and moons. I should have probably started with something smaller, but done is done.
So i had to create all the necessary data, with the help of the solar system generator and copy and paste from our solarsystem this was okay to do.
But what i am missing at the moment is some more or less small programm that is able to show the ssc file in 3D-Space, like Celestia. If you aren't able to create a picture of 10 moons orbiting a planet in your mind, with all the elements correct, it is a lot of work to really finetune a system.
Because you have to start Celestia, take a look at the system, find what's wrong (in your idea) end Celestia, manipulate the ssc-file. Start Celestia again and see if the change had the desired effect. If not repeat procedure!!

Now my idea, take the engine from Celestia, add a open save dialog for ssc-files and a refresh memory button. No texture loading or other stuff, just plain orbits (shown) and round objects for planets/moons. And an onscreen orbit editing mode. Right click on object (or whatever method) select parameter (i.e. eccentricity), change with slidebar or input and see instant result on monitor.
If you like what you see, save it to disk. (and make automated backup of original)

Okay, this is just an expression of hope that someone would find enough time to do it. Since i don't know much about programming i don't have a clue how difficult this is. But i really think this could be very usefull for everyone.

Ah! I already wondered how long it will take until the first pieces of the Perry Rhodan Universe will find their way into Celestia

maxim

maxim wrote:Ah! I already wondered how long it will take until the first pieces of the Perry Rhodan Universe will find their way into Celestia

maxim

Incredible, how long does this "man" live? I think those "Perry Rodan"-Heftchen could be bought already >40 years ago at news stands, for example!

Bye Fridger

t00fri wrote:Incredible, how long does this "man" live?

Especially if you take into account that some of the starting crew editors died already in real life.

maxim

Guckytos wrote:Hi guys,

yeah first of all the usual "This is a great programm and i love it stuff" And well i even mean it!! It's cool to play god and go create a sun and some planets or to just travel around.
But just recently i started to create my own Solarsystems, based on some data from a german SciFi-Series. And there i ran into some trouble, well not really trouble, more like an annoyance. This system (Arkon), which can be found on my website btw. (sorry only german language at the moment), has a lot of planets and moons. I should have probably started with something smaller, but done is done.
So i had to create all the necessary data, with the help of the solar system generator and copy and paste from our solarsystem this was okay to do.
But what i am missing at the moment is some more or less small programm that is able to show the ssc file in 3D-Space, like Celestia. If you aren't able to create a picture of 10 moons orbiting a planet in your mind, with all the elements correct, it is a lot of work to really finetune a system.
Because you have to start Celestia, take a look at the system, find what's wrong (in your idea) end Celestia, manipulate the ssc-file. Start Celestia again and see if the change had the desired effect. If not repeat procedure!!

Now my idea, take the engine from Celestia, add a open save dialog for ssc-files and a refresh memory button. No texture loading or other stuff, just plain orbits (shown) and round objects for planets/moons. And an onscreen orbit editing mode. Right click on object (or whatever method) select parameter (i.e. eccentricity), change with slidebar or input and see instant result on monitor.
If you like what you see, save it to disk. (and make automated backup of original)

Okay, this is just an expression of hope that someone would find enough time to do it. Since i don't know much about programming i don't have a clue how difficult this is. But i really think this could be very usefull for everyone.

I have actually considered doing this more or less as a learning experience for me and OpenGL...I am currently working on a random SSC generator that only outputs text files...I hope to expand this further into a planet viewer...I plan to however implement not only all Celestia's gl extentions but a few more not yet used...but will find thier way in eventually I am sure...maybe before I even start

This of course will lead into further avenues of a stand alone solar system explorer that will feature full landscape capabilities and the ability to not only generate random ssc values but random textures as well...

I agree, the ability to edit an SSC and then see the change in Celestia while it's running would be quite useful... (I think that's what you're basically asking for, isn't it?)

@Evil Dr:

yep that's what i am asking for basically. It would be really cool if Celestia itself had that ability built in, but i think a stand alone program like rassilon is thinking about would be more than enough for just designing a system.

@fridger:
Well, Perry Rhodan has this device "cell activator" which makes him relatively immortal. And somewhere in the beginning of the series he is told that there is a 20,000 years time limit on it. At the moment around 4,000 years of that limit have passed. So there could be another 160 years of writing

@maxim:
Hmmm, when i read about borg kubes and StarWars stuff i just couldn't hold back

Guckytos wrote:@maxim:
Hmmm, when i read about borg kubes and StarWars stuff i just couldn't hold back

That's ok I think. After all, Perry Rhodan was the first SciFi-Serial ever (even if 'only' written) that had these big fan crowds, Con-Meetings and all those stuff that's nowadays typicall for Star Treck, Star Wars, ...

maxim

Guckytos,

Here is a thread that you may find interesting:
http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4985&sid=eef30e8df0c3c325e4d583256abcd498

Bye