Celestia Forums

Even Steve Albers didn??t create new textures for saturnian moons.There had been several months and almost NONE real addon have been created.Is it lazyness?Not only this.For the first time,no world about Celestia 1.4.2 pre something.I think Celestia is almost dead.Tons of fictious addons are not good enough.The only addons created in the last months was for Earth and Mars and only a few.And Earth BMNG is a piece of crap,because when you get near,the texture become high pixalated and the coastal lines are very rough,appearing to be done by hand.What is happening with this program?Don??t we have enough data?

danielj wrote:Even Steve Albers didn??t create new textures for saturnian moons.There had been several months and almost NONE real addon have been created.Is it lazyness?Not only this.For the first time,no world about Celestia 1.4.2 pre something.I think Celestia is almost dead.Tons of fictious addons are not good enough.The only addons created in the last months was for Earth and Mars and only a few.And Earth BMNG is a piece of crap,because when you get near,the texture become high pixalated and the coastal lines are very rough,appearing to be done by hand.What is happening with this program?Don??t we have enough data?

Danielj, why don't you start to show us "YOUR" addons?
Seen your complaints, I think it's time to show us that you don't grumble only on Celestia, don't you agree?
Bye, friendly

Andrea

WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?YOU HAVE TONS OF MONEY.Why don??t you give some to me.You have an Athlon 64 FX-57,4 GB OF RAM AND A 7900 GTX.It is YOU that have to made addons.I only have an Athlon 64 3000,1 GB of RAM and a humble 6600 GT.It??s not a good system to do this and I don??t have the artistic habilities to made one.I am only making an alert.Celestia is going too slow,almost stopping.3 MONTHS OF ALMOST NO NEWS IS TOO MUCH!And don??t you know that Open GL is going to die.So we have to accelerate the progress of addons and textures,before it??s too late...

ANDREA wrote:

danielj wrote:Even Steve Albers didn??t create new textures for saturnian moons.There had been several months and almost NONE real addon have been created.Is it lazyness?Not only this.For the first time,no world about Celestia 1.4.2 pre something.I think Celestia is almost dead.Tons of fictious addons are not good enough.The only addons created in the last months was for Earth and Mars and only a few.And Earth BMNG is a piece of crap,because when you get near,the texture become high pixalated and the coastal lines are very rough,appearing to be done by hand.What is happening with this program?Don??t we have enough data?

Danielj, why don't you start to show us "YOUR" addons?
Seen your complaints, I think it's time to show us that you don't grumble only on Celestia, don't you agree?
Bye, friendly

Andrea

danielj wrote:WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?YOU HAVE TONS OF MONEY.Why don??t you give some to me...

danielj wrote:...And don??t you know that Open GL is going to die...

danielj wrote:WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?YOU HAVE TONS OF MONEY.Why don??t you give some to me.You have an Athlon 64 FX-57,4 GB OF RAM AND A 7900 GTX.It is YOU that have to made addons.I only have an Athlon 64 3000,1 GB of RAM and a humble 6600 GT.It??s not a good system to do this and I don??t have the artistic habilities to made one.I am only making an alert.Celestia is going too slow,almost stopping.3 MONTHS OF ALMOST NO NEWS IS TOO MUCH!And don??t you know that Open GL is going to die.So we have to accelerate the progress of addons and textures,before it??s too late...

DanielJ,

It doesn't take lots of money or a powerful machine to create addons for celestia.
I have a 1.3Ghz laptop with 256Mb memory and integrated graphics (ie. no dedicated graphics hardware).
I have created several addons and videos, only one of which is Science Fiction (all on this machine)
Have a look at a couple of my projects: http://www.geocities.com/traitorsclaw/projects.html
http://www.geocities.com/traitorsclaw/p ... world.html

It doesn't require artistic talent, just the ability to edit text files and images. Your machine is certainly better than mine. Some 3D modelling and maths or astronomy knowledge is also helpful.
But more important is willingness to give it a go.

Try basing your first effort on an existing addon by someone else. It's the easiest way of learning.
Rungworld was created in 1 evenings work while watching TV because it was an adaptation of someone elses (Marc Griffiths Ringworld) addon.

Experiment ...

Try editing an SSC file to see what effect your changes have.
Try substituting your own images for those in the addon/textures/medres directory and see what happens.

This way you can slowly understand how things work, and be on your way to creating your own addons.

Last but not least: RTFM

Daniel,

As Andrea implied, the only way you are going to get the Addons that you want is if you create them yourself. That's how they're all started. An artist or author doesn't create things just because other people want them.

Start small, with something easy. Maybe a picture of an astronomical object on a flat billboard. Learn how to scale and rotate pictures. If you keep telling yourself you can't do it, of course you won't be able to. You can do it.

You don't need fancy expensive computers and software to make Addons. I've used only free software in all of the things that I've done. I don't use complicated software, either. I find Gimp just too confusing, for example.

And I was thinking it's coming back to life.

For a long time no new software releases and then 1.4.1 is released!

Rocketman,

Some people have different time scales than others

ElChristou,

Supposedly Windows Vista makes it harder to use OpenGL.
*shrug*

Daniel,

My first inclination was to give you a hard time and put you in your place. However, years of dealing with 10-17 year old students has taught me a great deal of patience. So I will attempt to do this like an adult and teacher (which you will probably hate).

First off, I would guess that 90% (probably more) of the people who do anything with Celestia are working 40-70 hours per week in our jobs, and spend less than half of that time with our families. So, the few hours per week that we have to dedicate to Celestia development is hard to come by in the first place. It is our spare time and it is a labor of love. We are doing something we care about.

Secondly, Celestia is a not for profit venture. Programs take tens of thousands of man hours to complete. For instance, a game manufacturers routinely spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce one game, thats why they cost $50. If you pay for one programmer, eight hours a day, 340 days a year (assume he can take some time off) you won't have a program for three or four years. You pay a team of four to do the same and you might see results within a year. THAT IS 8*340*4=10880 hours! Celestia is an amazing program (look at the source code sometime) that a group of individuals have pretty much put together in their spare time, an hour here, an hour there. None of us sits down for 40 hours a week to do this. Frankly, my wife would leave me if I did that.

Third, you are in no place to criticize the hard work that has gone into this program. You contributed harsh criticism, childish tantrums, and basic misunderstanding of what goes into making something for you to use for free. If you really want to get something from this program, go check a programming book out of the library and learn some code, then you can do your own work (and see how hard it is). I am self taught on all of my work. I have been using computers in one way or another since the mid 1970's and I still don't even have the background to program for Celestia. By working with 3d and graphics programs I have LEARNED how to create addons. It took months and I am still not satisfied with much of my work.

Fourth, your blanket statement to Andrea was childish. Did you earn the money that bought your computer? I did, and it took me a long time, a little aside each week from my salary and a bunch of convincing my wife that it was time to construct a new one.

Learn some patience, take a break from Celestia and check back with us in a few months. It may not be everything you want, but then as you must know, you can't always get what you want. Especially not for free, in dollars or time.

danielj wrote:Even Steve Albers didn??t create new textures for saturnian moons.There had been several months and almost NONE real addon have been created.Is it lazyness?Not only this.For the first time,no world about Celestia 1.4.2 pre something.I think Celestia is almost dead.Tons of fictious addons are not good enough.The only addons created in the last months was for Earth and Mars and only a few.And Earth BMNG is a piece of crap,because when you get near,the texture become high pixalated and the coastal lines are very rough,appearing to be done by hand.What is happening with this program?Don??t we have enough data?

Daniel,

it's not correct that Celestia development is almost dead. It's just that various habits have changed quite a bit. There is way less feedback of what is going on into this forum and also via the dev list. Much goes via regular (private) email these days...

OK Chris just left for most of June to Bolivia to climb three 5500 - 6100 m peaks in the Andes.

But he has various interesting projects in the making. So have I in collaboration with other people. Christophe, Hank, Pat and Dirkpitt also are working on various things. Chris was even considering making a new pre version before leaving, but time would have been too short for wrapping up all the various project results.

In the forum, there are some possibly interesting ongoing discussions e.g. about a real-time interface (tec,...) and possibly about introducing GUID's for a better administration of Celestia objects (Paolo,...).

I am afraid due to various recent developments in the forum, my former motivation of reporting here regularly about on-going dev activities was substantially affected...I can't help it. It's just a fact. Some users will know the reasons...

As you know the dev team is basically unrelated to making add-ons. People like you should really learn to make some. Your above argument that your computer is not good enough is of course ABSOLUTELY NONSENSE.

Why don't you start trying a very simple one. Succeedng with this will provide you with a lot of fun, and you might also become more courageous to attempt a more demanding add-on.


Bye Fridger

danielj wrote:Even Steve Albers didn??t create new textures for saturnian moons.There had been several months and almost NONE real addon have been created.Is it lazyness?Not only this.For the first time,no world about Celestia 1.4.2 pre something.I think Celestia is almost dead.Tons of fictious addons are not good enough.The only addons created in the last months was for Earth and Mars and only a few.And Earth BMNG is a piece of crap,because when you get near,the texture become high pixalated and the coastal lines are very rough,appearing to be done by hand.What is happening with this program?Don??t we have enough data?

Actually, all of the above has been done. We just elected not to tell *you*....

In all seriousness, why don't you just sit back and be patient. If you're unwilling to attempt your own add-ons, then you have nothing to complain about. People are not here to satisfy *you*. Keep your whining to a minimum, and I guarantee people will be more willing to help you.

...John...

danielj wrote:WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?YOU HAVE TONS OF MONEY.Why don??t you give some to me.You have an Athlon 64 FX-57,4 GB OF RAM AND A 7900 GTX.It is YOU that have to made addons.I only have an Athlon 64 3000,1 GB of RAM and a humble 6600 GT.It??s not a good system to do this and I don??t have the artistic habilities to made one.I am only making an alert.Celestia is going too slow,almost stopping.3 MONTHS OF ALMOST NO NEWS IS TOO MUCH!And don??t you know that Open GL is going to die.So we have to accelerate the progress of addons and textures,before it??s too late...

Danielj, you are making a big mistake, it's not the car that wins the World Championship, it's the man.
Even if I could afford a Craig-2 Supercomputer, I could not produce addons worth of this name, because I've no knowledge of 3D modelling, just a little of image processing, and absolutely no experience of programming, and I'm too old and tired to start now learning all this stuff.
But after 34 years of hard work (I'm 62) I can efford to buy the best PC available on the market for my possibilities, and I use it to show the Universe in the best possible way, to a lot of students or adults, using the scripts that many Celestians and myself have produced for all of us.
So I try to give my little help, and I do it without compelling anyone to make what I would like to have available for my projects but, instead, I try to suggest some possible improvements, and many times someone gave me a help or suggestion to obtain it, or the reason why it could not be done.
Why don't you try to do the same?
Give a look in deep to Celestia, check what you think is missing/wrong/to be implemented, if found study it, decide how it could be done, check if something of that kind had already been submitted in the forum, and then, but only them, decide if it's worth or not to be issued in the Forum.
Or, if you prefer it, take one texture, and using one of the amny free graphic softwares available, try to modify, implement, improve, learning how to do it, reading the help, making mistakes and learning from them, and trying, trying, and trying again.
Following Bugg's behaviour, I'm saying you this friendly, without wickedness:
please, please, stop shrieking because noone makes what you want (BTW, what do you want exactly? I think many people including me have not yet understood it).
Bye

Andrea

Daniel,

I just want to say you I have created the 64K and 128K BMNG on my only laptop computer (Centrino 1,7, 1go Ram, Ati X700 mobility) not in a powerful computer and these addons work fine in Celestia in my laptop.
I think you will be able to create an specificaly addons without to get the last-powerful-huge-fast computer, won't you ?

danielj wrote:It is YOU that have to made addons.

Why don??t YOU try to contribute something? If you don??t feel up to creating an Add-On project yourself, you could contribute to someone else??s. If, for example, you helped out with some research here: http://celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9573, you will have a great new Pioneer model much sooner than if you don??t care to help! No artistic abilities or fantastic computer setup needed: just a web browser and some free time.

- rthorvald

selden wrote:Supposedly Windows Vista makes it harder to use OpenGL.
*shrug*

Doesn't suprise me--MS trying to force out an open standard.

Yet just another way for MS to make me dislike their products even more.

rthorvald wrote:

danielj wrote:It is YOU that have to made addons.

Why don??t YOU try to contribute something? If you don??t feel up to creating an Add-On project yourself, you could contribute to someone else??s. If, for example, you helped out with some research here: http://celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9573, you will have a great new Pioneer model much sooner than if you don??t care to help! No artistic abilities or fantastic computer setup needed: just a web browser and some free time.

- rthorvald

Yep, and if you really want to see more stuff quickly, you can start browsing for all available close-up for Voyager... next, for Gemini, next... for Apollo... next for...

RocketMan@JSC wrote:

selden wrote:Supposedly Windows Vista makes it harder to use OpenGL.
*shrug*

Doesn't suprise me--MS trying to force out an open standard.

Yet just another way for MS to make me dislike their products even more.

Indeed those M$ guys make me sick...

ElChristou wrote:Yep, and if you really want to see more stuff quickly, you can start browsing for all available close-up for Voyager... next, for Gemini, next... for Apollo... next for...

Chris,

I don't know if these will come in handy for Apollo when you need them. I took these when I was at Kennedy Space Center in March. I have higher resolution if you need them. There aren't many, but every little bit counts...

http://www.clanmoran.net/celestia/Apollo/

Regards,
Buggs

buggs_moran wrote:

ElChristou wrote:Yep, and if you really want to see more stuff quickly, you can start browsing for all available close-up for Voyager... next, for Gemini, next... for Apollo... next for...

Chris,

I don't know if these will come in handy for Apollo when you need them. I took these when I was at Kennedy Space Center in March. I have higher resolution if you need them. There aren't many, but every little bit counts...

http://www.clanmoran.net/celestia/Apollo/

Regards,
Buggs

Wow...

I want the big blue one (IMG 2776.jpg) , except that it doesn't fit quite into my backyard

Bye Fridger