Celestia Forums

I've built a Celestia 1.4.1 package for Windows. Hopefully, there are no major new bugs and this prerelease will become 1.4.1 final. Download it from here:

http://www.celestiaproject.net/~claurel/celest ... .1pre1.exe

1.4.1 is primarily a bug fix release, though there are a few new features. One thing to watch out for: the solar system locations files are now part of the standard package. If you had installed these in your extras directory, you will need to remove them if you don't want to end up with duplicate location labels everywhere.

Here are the changes, sorted by platform:

All platforms:

- Changed maximum number of eclipse shadows in OpenGL 2.0 path from two to three; if max is exceeded, clamp to three rather than not rendering the shadows at all.
- Corrected a bad calculation in ring shadow shaders that caused ring shadows to be drawn in the wrong place.
- Added a correct InfoURL for the Moon
- Added splash screen with progress indicator
- Corrected a local flashing of the Milky Way brightness.
- Now the distance to the galaxy center is displayed, if the observer is located inside the galaxy (Milky Way...).
- Eliminated various incorrect Hubble type acronyms in deepsky.dsc that had penetrated the PERL filter.
- Add the corrected PERL script deepsky.pl.
- Added Phoebe textures in medres and lores directories from recent published Cyclops cylindrical maps
- Updated Titan and Iapetus textures in lores directory
- Removed the GeForce FX render path; GLSL path is preferred
- Added lunar elevation map, using Clementine laser altimeter data, merged in the polar regions, with topographic data from Clementine 750 nm oblique and nadir images.
- Updated/added Tethys textures in lores, medres and hires directories.
- Added locations on Phoebe in saturnmoon_locs.ssc, as extracted from USGS/IAU official data.
- Added Mesh for Phoebe texture.
- Updated Iapetus texture.
- Moved locations files from extras into data directory for inclusion in standard package.
- Fixed bug where displayed time scale differed from actual time scale after clicking a cel URL.

Windows:

- Added time zone selection to set time dialog
- Fixed hard to read text in set time dialog (bug was only present for certain Windows shell appearance settings.)
- Fixed the minimum feature size slider in the locations dialog so it updates in response to all the standard controls.
- Save and restore the last used GL render path

Linux

- fixed some AMD64 bugs
- KDE: Reverted mouse wheel action to be compatible with the other interfaces.
- KDE: New configurable splash screen (http://celestia.teyssier.org/splash_spec.html)
- GTK: Added configure options to enable or disable Cairo support for splash

Mac:

- Universal binary - runs natively on Intel and PPC
- OpenGL 2.0 render path should now work on many configurations (requires OS X 10.4.3 or later)
- Offer option to disable vertex programs automatically when ATI Radeon 9200 renderer is detected (avoids hard crash)
- Progress message and version number displayed on splash screen
- Couple of French translation fixes
- Changed wording of "Subtract Light Travel Delay" menu item "Add/Subtract Light Travel Delay" to more accurately reflect its function
- More sensible default values for preferences
- Bug fixes to favorites, InfoURL handling
- Full screen mode pauses when various panels are shown
- Fixed crash when LANG or LC environment variables are set
- Added bona fide English and French help menu
- Cleaned up README in general

Hi Chris, I looked at the Moon on the new Celestia. I did not notice anything
special about it that resulted from the " Added lunar elevation map,
using Clementine laser altimeter data, merged in the polar regions,
with topographic data from Clementine 750 nm oblique and nadir images. "

Please answer some questions about the New Improved Moon.

1
Is the Clementine data from the 1996 publication?

2
Is there new topo data from Clementine from 2005-2006?

3
Where can I get any new 2005-2006 published topo data from Clementine?

4 What should I see on the New Improved Moon that is better than the
old Moon?

5
Is it the bump jpg that is improved?

I want to make a .3ds model of the Moon with topo data that is better
than the 1996 Clementine publication. That model would be donated
to Celestia, no strings attached.

Thank you, Alan Folmsbee

Chris , I can't seem to able to view the new Phoebe -moon,
maybe something is missing in the installation-pack.
Iapetus does work however and is very nice;
anyone having the same problem or is it me ??

By the way , the spash-screen is very beautyfull !!!

Ren?©

Apparently it was accidentally omitted.
A new kit may be available late tonight, but in the meantime you can download it from
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/c ... ia/models/

the Phoebe model was included but somehow didn't show up ,
replacing the model with the CMOD type, which was also a lot
smaller in size, works great , thanks.

By the way , I like the spash screen so much , it is
a pity that it is gone so soon, Celestia loads to quick
would be nice it it was viewable in the about screen


Ren?©

I think you should update this page:

http://www.celestiaproject.net/celestia/download.html

Fs,

I'm sure the download page will be updated when the official release of v1.4.1 becomes available for Windows, MacOS and Linux. This version of Celestia (v1.4.1pre1) is strictly for testing under Windows, so you can help find any serious problems (e.g. the missing phoebe.cmod).

GlobeMaker wrote:Hi Chris, I looked at the Moon on the new Celestia. I did not notice anything
special about it that resulted from the " Added lunar elevation map,
using Clementine laser altimeter data, merged in the polar regions,
with topographic data from Clementine 750 nm oblique and nadir images. "

Please answer some questions about the New Improved Moon.

1
Is the Clementine data from the 1996 publication?

2
Is there new topo data from Clementine from 2005-2006?

3
Where can I get any new 2005-2006 published topo data from Clementine?

4 What should I see on the New Improved Moon that is better than the
old Moon?

5
Is it the bump jpg that is improved?

I want to make a .3ds model of the Moon with topo data that is better
than the 1996 Clementine publication. That model would be donated
to Celestia, no strings attached.

Thank you, Alan Folmsbee

Chris was not involved here...

I did that. Just returned from Paris and am too tired tonight to answer your questions. If you had read the README you'd know who did what and where the new data are from...That's the purpose of README's, actually...and of course, altimeter data are used for bump maps. The bumpmap before the present one was FAKE, i.e. NOT based at all on elevation measurements. Of course with a 1k bumpmap/main texture one can almost not make out anything sensible . Did'nt you see my extended threads about these new bumpmap data with lots of shots where you DO see a difference?

Like this one:

http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8727

or that one (notably towards the end of the thread...)

http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8561

Bye Fridger

No complaints from 'ol Brain-Dead...

Just wanted to say Thank you very much! for your continuing efforts
with this fantastic software. Chris? Dr. Schrempp? and of course all other
contributors?

Thanks again for this remarkable piece of work.

Chris:

So far, so good with 1.4.1. It's great!!! However ...

Following installation, the default program launch renders virtually nothing on the opening program. It opens for the first time with only atmosphere, stars and planets rendered. The remaining render options which everyone uses, such as night lights, clouds, ring shadows and galaxies (including the Milky Way), are not part of the default launch. In addition, automag is not enabled, star magnitudes are set low at under 7.0 so that very few stars appear, and antialiasing is off.

The result is mostly a black sky with a model of Earth and a few dots in the sky. No night sky full of stars ... no Milky Way ... no galaxies in the distance ... not even clouds are present on Earth. The awesome power of Celestia to depict space is NOT represented by the default opening options. Frankly, it looks bad!

To see what Celestia can really do, a user has to read the Render options section in the main users manual, then adjust the settings in Celestia. THAT is frankly ... wrong!!! Even the read-me file says nothing about rendering options. We should not be demanding a first time user to have to read through the extensive Users Manual to set up this magnificent program in a reasonable fashion.

I strongly urge you to set 1.4.1 to open for the first time with the following options pre-enabled:

atmosphere
clouds
comet tails
eclipse shadows
galaxies
nightside lights
planets
ring shadows
stars

Set automag to "On" with magnitudes set to about 8.0 This truly controls all of the great new automag features for galaxies and stars, and does not overtax computers that I can see.
Set antialiasing "on" by default

Add a few paragraphs to the "Read-Me' file that explains what "Rendering Options" are. Currently, there is no such section.

Just my thoughts, but I've already found myself "apologizing" to someone who dowloaded and installed Celestia for the first time, and came back to me saying ... "so what's the big deal ... its just a blue blob with a few dots in the sky". After I told him how to adjust rendering options, then ... he understood how great it is. He told me ... "why don't they just set the program up this way from the beginning?"

As to the argument that some computers will slow down with all options set, I can agree but I did not recommend "all" options. The ones I recommended are the minimum ones that every computer should be able to run (in my humble opinion).

Regards,

Frank

The result is mostly a black sky with a model of Earth and a few dots in the sky. No night sky full of stars ... no Milky Way ... no galaxies in the distance ... not even clouds are present on Earth. The awesome power of Celestia to depict space is NOT represented by the default opening options. Frankly, it looks bad!

I dunno actually. Wouldn't it be better to start off with a lot of things deactivated so that someone downloading it and running it on a slow machine will see a smoother Celestia rather than a chuggy-1fps Celestia as it tries to render all the bells and whistles?

Better to turn on options to get it up to something that your computer can cope with than to have to turn them off to slow it down to something that you can handle, I think.

fsgregs wrote:Chris:

So far, so good with 1.4.1. It's great!!! However ...

Following installation, the default program launch renders virtually nothing on the opening program. It opens for the first time with only atmosphere, stars and planets rendered. The remaining render options which everyone uses, such as night lights, clouds, ring shadows and galaxies (including the Milky Way), are not part of the default launch. In addition, automag is not enabled, star magnitudes are set low at under 7.0 so that very few stars appear, and antialiasing is off.

I fixed this problem in 1.4.1. When Celestia is installed on a fresh Windows system, it will enable whatever options are set in celestia.cfg. Are you sure that you didn't install it on a system where Celestia had been installed previously?

--Chris

Hey Chris, et al

The new version looks great! I haven't put up a new version since 1.4.0pre6, so I haven't had a chance to play with the Galaxies until now. Well done, Fridger! Looking forward to playing with it some more.

...John...

Hello Developer Team, thank you for the wonderful Celestia. A new thread
about the Moon is being started in the Textures Forum, entitled

Moon Bumps 1.4.1

In conclusion, this is fun. The stars flow with dreamy fluidity. Congrats...

Chris:

I did install 1.4.1 on my personal computer but prior to doing so, I uninstalled 1.4.0 and deleted the entire Celestia folder. I just did it again, uninstalling Celestia and deleting the Celestia folder, then installing 1.4.1.

In addition, I had 1.4.0 set at full render options (everything checked except constellations and grid), so if 1.4.1 had somehow read my prior options, it would have set things higher than just the 3 options I saw.

On my friend's system, he had not previously installed Celestia and he too got just those 3 options rendered.

Here is a screenshot of the fresh install, when Celestia comes up the first time.


[img][img]http://img304.imageshack.us/img304/7774/141test6an.th.jpg[/img][/img]

I opened celestia.cfg that was resident in 1.4.1's windows install and it does not have any specific rendering options selected. All it references is start.cel. I opened start.cel, and all of the rendering set options are # commented out. In short, I don't see any rendering options selected anywhere in either file.



Frank

I have a couple of old computers in the basement ( one is a 486, believe it or not) with the original versions of Celestia.
My, things have come a long ways!!!

Humbly
Terry Renner

the ring shadows work awesome! Much thanks Chris!!

trenner wrote:I have a couple of old computers in the basement ( one is a 486, believe it or not) with the original versions of Celestia.
My, things have come a long ways!!!

Hu hu. Recently, I have a look to Open Universe, to verify my old archives. the day after, Chris offered the 141 prerelease of Celestia . Wow! Jeam -who loved OE and the first Celestia I've discovered

American Heritage dictionary-
"Celestial...3. Supremly good; sublime: celestial happiness."

Someone said that the Celestia 1.4.1 pre 2 is out.But I didn??t find it in any topic.Where is it?