Celestia Forums

just wondering, I remember reading about this years ago.

cheers

Osmium

Overwriting a previous version usually causes problems.

However, you can rename the directory where you currently have Celestia installed (e.g.
\Program Files\Celesta to be \Program Files\Celestia132 )
and then install the new version into \Program Files\Celestia
and then move Addons at your convenience.

Oh dear!

Firstly apologies for wasting any persons time with this(..thanks for your reply Selden), your answer actually revealed more issues than I thought that I would have to deal with, The end result was that I just downloaded the new version and it seemed to just all update itself (including my own add-ons & shortcut link on desktop).Hope this is what should now usually happen.

Thanks Again.

Osmium

I've been overwriting it with new installations forever, and I don't seem to be having any problems, unless the problems are waaaaay in the background?

Many people have edited some of the files that come with Celestia. For example, people often change the cloud texture map for the Earth in solarsys.ssc or change the number of points used to draw an orbital path in celestia.cfg.

When you install Celestia into the same directory, it will replace all of the existing files with the new versions that come with Celestia. It won't touch files that aren't included with Celestia, however.

As a result, though, you'll lose any edits you've made to Celestia's files and Celestia will revert to the default values.

I know that from experience, so I already compensated for that long ago by creating a separate .txt file and copying my default edits to that .txt file so I don't have to spend eternities redoing my edits all over again.

Thank you both for your responses,

Unfortunatley due to time constraints, and possibly lack of available hardware I have not been able to delve so deeply into the wonderful Celestia as I would like to... for myself, I update the latest version & a long time ago updated a file that had all known satelites/manmade objects, this is the only "Addition" to Celestia and seems to 'carry over' into each new upgrade. I certainly haven't got to a point where I tweak or modify files(existing or otherwise)...as with any great journey, i guess this would be the next step... I guess I will go back & start with the "not so brief guide to addons" I still have the 3rd edition...

Thank you both again

Osmium

There haven't been any substantive changes since I created v3. I've improved the wording in a few places, but that's all.

Hi Selden,

you mention in your response modifying could textures for earth.

Might you have a link that explains how to do this?

Thanks again

Osmium

Sorry "Cloud Textures".



Osmium

Thanks I'll use 3rd addition again then

Cheers

Osmium

Don Edwards is the expert on cloud creation. A search of the Forum would be your best bet.

A very brief description is at
http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celest ... s.html#3.4
It doesn't mention where to get images or how to create them, or things like that, just the bare bones of what Celestia needs.

Thanks again, I will look into this further.

cheers

Osmium.

Being using Celestia 1.3.2 for a yer and a couple of months, I was quite curious to try the new 1.4.1 version. Renamed my 1.3.2 installation folder, and proceeded on installing 1.4.1. Improvements looked so inviting, I decided to try to move from 1.3.2 to 1.4.1 along with Gregorio's educational activities, edited educational-solarsys.scc (edited link in celestia.cfg to point to it), textures folders with several VTs, educational-extras folder with other VTs and spacecrafts models, models folder, couple of settings in celestia.cfg, to keep the earth-cities file with thousands of cities. Renamed my educational-extras folder to extras, hoping it would fit in Celestia 1.4.1 just fine.

At first start I received an error message about celestia.cfg.
I deleted the modifications I made to the catalog pointing to earth-cities.ssc and earth-features.ssc, and subsequently to educational-solarsys.ssc (renamed to solarsys.ssc) hoping it could be enough.

It didn't show the celestia.cfg reading error again, but this time it stopped with an error when tryng to actually show the celestia window. It draws the frame with the menus, but then, before it even shows the black space field, it shows the error window.

Any suggestion on what may be the cause, and, given the informations I provided what may be the cause of these problems?
When I tested 1.4.1 standard installation, it worked perfeclty fast and smooth with OpenGL 2.0 setting (I have an ATI powered 9550 256MB card on an athlon XP 1800+ on an ECS K7S6a motherboard with 256MB DDR).

Thanks for your attention.


Edit:
So far I tryed to solve the problems I encountered in the old fashion. Try a bit at a time .
Texture folder is ok, everything moved to Celestia 1.4.1
The same goes with models folder (there were some different models for certain minor moons of Jupiter and Saturn for instance).
I moved some VTs for Earth, Venus, and some other add-ons (alien unvierse, event horizon shpis, nebulae models and textures) I had in extras folder. They work.
I changed the default solarsys.ssc with my modified copy.

There are still some folders to move in the new extras folder. Some of them are from Frank Gregorio's Educational Activities.
And then I have to understand where I can really put my heands in the celestia.cfg, and if thee are rules about special charachters to use or avoid in the strings.

Edit2:
Apparently it starts to work this way. Basically there are just few spacecrafts still to move. Solved a couple of conflicts by deleting the lower resolution models in default spacrafts.scc and models folder. Those that weren't listed there just fit nice in the new 1.4.1 version.

Anyway apart from the apparent incompatibility between OpenGL2.0 path and the overlay maps, that leaves my Earth without the most precious Don Edwards' cloud shadow map, this new rendering path produces way better reflections and shadings. Also ring shadows and shadows on rings are smoother.
Frankly I wasn't hoping for this much considering Celestia is taylored on nVidia GeForce FX and+ cards specifications, and my PC hosts an ATI 9550 with a rather outdated driver pack (5.2 catalyst for Win98se).
It also feels faster