Trouble with screenshots and movie capture in OS X
Posted: 27.10.2004, 02:53
Hello all,
I'm a student working on a short animated piece for a final project, and as it takes place in deep space I needed a way to render starfields. I heard of Celestia from my Astronomy professor, and managed to have version 1.3.1 for OS X installed on a G4 at my college's computer lab. So far, the program appears to be more or less what I was looking for, and I've managed to acquire a few sample shots to toy with and I truly appreciate how Celestia allows me to easily create an accurate depiction of space that I can still fine-tune to what I need in the film. Unfortunately, however, I have been having a little trouble with the controls, specifically those regarding capturing images in the program.
All of the screenshots I have taken so far have been with OS X's Grab utility, all of them full-screen captures. The reason I had to resort to this is because I have not been able to find any export commands under the File or any other menu, where the online documentation claims it should be. Unfortunately, there is no built-in help available for the program, and I cannot find where the technician put the readme files. Likewise, the advertised keyboard shortcuts do not work for me: pressing "F10" results in OS X going into a bizarre "select-window" kind of mode, where the background darkens and windows are covered with a translucent blue tint and a label appropriate to their parent program. I have been able to find no native support for image capture whatsoever.
A few other options in the menus also appear to be greyed out, such as the "Save" option under the File menu, the Star catalog and a few other features that escape my memory at the moment. Is the OS X version of Celestia incomplete, as the lack of help files indicate? Or could it have to do with the lab's version of OS X (I believe it is Panthter)? I would greatly appreciate help with this problem. Thank you.
I'm a student working on a short animated piece for a final project, and as it takes place in deep space I needed a way to render starfields. I heard of Celestia from my Astronomy professor, and managed to have version 1.3.1 for OS X installed on a G4 at my college's computer lab. So far, the program appears to be more or less what I was looking for, and I've managed to acquire a few sample shots to toy with and I truly appreciate how Celestia allows me to easily create an accurate depiction of space that I can still fine-tune to what I need in the film. Unfortunately, however, I have been having a little trouble with the controls, specifically those regarding capturing images in the program.
All of the screenshots I have taken so far have been with OS X's Grab utility, all of them full-screen captures. The reason I had to resort to this is because I have not been able to find any export commands under the File or any other menu, where the online documentation claims it should be. Unfortunately, there is no built-in help available for the program, and I cannot find where the technician put the readme files. Likewise, the advertised keyboard shortcuts do not work for me: pressing "F10" results in OS X going into a bizarre "select-window" kind of mode, where the background darkens and windows are covered with a translucent blue tint and a label appropriate to their parent program. I have been able to find no native support for image capture whatsoever.
A few other options in the menus also appear to be greyed out, such as the "Save" option under the File menu, the Star catalog and a few other features that escape my memory at the moment. Is the OS X version of Celestia incomplete, as the lack of help files indicate? Or could it have to do with the lab's version of OS X (I believe it is Panthter)? I would greatly appreciate help with this problem. Thank you.