Celestia Forums

Hello all,

I don't know why, but Celestia cannot display my addons since I switched to linux, a few years ago. I don't have been very involved into Celestia, so since now it wasn't an issue lately. But I can reproduce this annoying behavior from Celestia 1.41 to 1.5.

Celestia do display textures (no problem for what I see for planets addons), but it doesn't seem able to manage addons like black holes, nebulas, spaceships, etc. I suspect it is related to a wrong personal parameter, since I haven't read any issue comparable.

This "bug" prevents any kind of addons to be displayed: instead of showing the addon, which is still know into the celestia's database (it can be accessed by the "enter" way), nothing is displayed.

I'm running Ubuntu 7.10 (gnome), with latest Nvidia drivers (169.09), and currently last build from release 1.5.

Any idea?

Problems with add-ons are often caused by add-on makers working on Windows that are not aware of the fact that on other operating systems file names are case sensitive.
Have a look at the console log output (using the '~' key in Celestia) to find out about errors when loading textures or models.

steffens

Thanks for your concern, Steffens.

I already have tried to debug using the console log, but haven't be able to find the tilde on my keyboard. Well, I exactly know where the tilde is, but the keys which are meant to do the tilde don't have the effect expected. I even tried to switch to US layout (from a swiss french layout), with no luck.

I also have already checked the case into config, ssc, stc, dsc files; everything seems correct.

Here is an example of a plugin actually showing something (which is not the case for many of them):

The plugin giving this result:
http://www.ikiru.ch/celestia/tmp/black_hole_108_nebula.zip

I suspect the cmod could be the culprit; but I don't know how to open cmods on linux, to check if my idea is correct.

I just had a very brief look at that add-on, which indeed fails because of inconsistent file names.
If you open the .cmod files in any editor that will allow you to open binary files, you will find lots of references to textures like "BLUE4.DDS", while the actual files in the textures directory all have lower case filenames.
I guess it will be easier to rename the texture files to be all uppercase than to edit the binary .cmod files. I can't guarantee that all textures are all uppercase throughout the models though. That's a sad story

On the other hand I'm asking myself what tool was used to create thes binary .cmod files and why this tool did not insert the proper file name....


steffens

Thanks Steffens, it did the trick.

I'm going to have a very bad time, renaming so many files. I can automate the process using some handful tools (pe krename), but it would be easier to modify the cmod itself; if you know such software running on linux, please let me know. I'm not at ease with modifying the cmod with a hexadecimal software, but it looks like it is the only way.

Anyway, thanks a lot for you help!

Pardon the interruption from the Brain-Dead, but there is a MUCH
easier way to repair these CMODS...

Simply run the CMOD converter utility to FIX the binaries. Select the
original binary model and change the name to output as an ASCII
file. Piece of cake.

Tell the cmod converter (version 3.1) to fix, the model using all of the
options to repair and/or smooth vertices, etc. then output as a new
ASCII model.

You DO have the converter don't you? If you can't figure this out,
just send me a PM. I'd be happy to email you the ASCII files.

EDIT: When finished, you can then simply use your favorite Notepad
equivalent to find/replace any of the filenames which are in error.

There's a tool called "cmodfix" in the Celestia source repository. Maybe it could be extended to fix broken texture file names?

As these kinds of problems frequently happen with 3ds files, maybe the 3dstocmod utility could be extended as well?

And as the ultimative fallback, Celestia could try to find case insensitive file matches if no exact match is available. I understand that texture file lookup would be much slower this way, but it would at least work.

Maybe a warning message should be logged in case of filename mismatches even on Windows, to make add-on creators aware of the problem.

steffens

Psykotik,

Sent you an e-mail with the first CMOD converted to ASCII. This was
a very LARGE e-mail though, so I didn't e-mail all of the other things
we talked about.

You can find the cmod converter HERE.

Hope that helps.

Also, as steffens suggested, it should be possible to correct the
conversion utility to avoid these kinds of errors, but methinks it might
be VERY much work to do because of how and where individual
3ds models are located on different machines, etc...

EDIT: Sorry, I'm using the Windows GUI version
of Sean McGhee's CMOD converter. This can be found at the
Motherlode HERE.

Thanks, Brain-Dead

Psykotik wrote:I already have tried to debug using the console log, but haven't be able to find the tilde on my keyboard. Well, I exactly know where the tilde is, but the keys which are meant to do the tilde don't have the effect expected. I even tried to switch to US layout (from a swiss french layout), with no luck.

Psykotik,

as far as I know, the ~ is a dead key on Swiss keyboards. To receive a tilde symbol alone, you'd have to press [Alt Gr]+[^] (together) and then the [Space] bar.
Hope this helps.

Bye
Andy

Thanks all for your help. Thanks Bob for your converted file.

I'll run these softwares using Wine, this should not to be an issue.

Anoter question: have I to revert back the ASCII file to a binary file to use the cmod with Celestia?

BTW, I don't think (re)coding the way Celestia manages the case of files would be a nice idea. It would certainly slow A LOT the start, since it already slow A LOT only having addons. Maybe a better way to handle this issue would be to create a little shell script to rename all the files to lower case. Don't know if it is feasible, but it would be (IMHO) more acceptable.

Edit: both tools run flawlessly using Wine. Thanks again.

Andy74 wrote:as far as I know, the ~ is a dead key on Swiss keyboards. To receive a tilde symbol alone, you'd have to press [Alt Gr]+[^] (together) and then the [Space] bar.

I remember when using WinXP, it actually worked: [Alt Gr]+[^] then [Space] showed the many awaited informations. But... not with linux. I've tried so many combinations my keyboard changed its color. It seems like it is not possible, using a swiss french keyboard, to produce this command.

Thanks anyway!

Psykotik wrote:Thanks all for your help. Thanks Bob for your converted file.

You are very much welcome, my friend.

Psykotik wrote:Anoter question: have I to revert back the ASCII file to a binary file to use the cmod with Celestia?

You can use whichever format you prefer Jean-Claude... I personally
very much like to use the ASCII versions so that I can modify them
at any time. That's just me though. In other words, you do
NOT have to convert them back to binary.

Psykotik wrote:BTW, I don't think (re)coding the way Celestia manages the case of files would be a nice idea. It would certainly slow A LOT the start, since it already slow A LOT only having addons. Maybe a better way to handle this issue would be to create a little shell script to rename all the files to lower case. Don't know if it is feasible, but it would be (IMHO) more acceptable.

Note that this would only be slow if no exact match would be found (because Celestia would have to get directory contents and compare found files with the requested one). So there should be no speed difference for normal startup. Only in case of broken add-ons, the difference would be that textures are found slowly instead of not at all.

steffens

steffens wrote:Note that this would only be slow if no exact match would be found (because Celestia would have to get directory contents and compare found files with the requested one). So there should be no speed difference for normal startup. Only in case of broken add-ons, the difference would be that textures are found slowly instead of not at all.

It sounds better... but since I'm not a developer, it will only be a wish!

BTW, I've been able to run the tilde, using the US keyboard layout; I can confirm there is a bug it the swiss french one.

The case conversion utility becomes completely unnecessary as soon
as add-on creators can create their stuff so that it follows Celestia's
rules. Seems to me that you need to ask the add-on creators to
repair/replace their own add-ons here. Just a thought.

This is part of what we're currently doing on the Motherlode, but
obviously we haven't gotten around to ALL of the files yet. Sigh...

BobHegwood wrote:The case conversion utility becomes completely unnecessary as soon
as add-on creators can create their stuff so that it follows Celestia's
rules. Seems to me that you need to ask the add-on creators to
repair/replace their own add-ons here. Just a thought.

This is part of what we're currently doing on the Motherlode, but
obviously we haven't gotten around to ALL of the files yet. Sigh...

We face the same issue: too many addons to convert, and not enough time (and will?) to convert them. We are talking about hundreds of addons... and for many of them, the creators are no more in Celestia scene. Do you remember the very talented Rassilion, and the gorgeous addons he used to create?

Psykotik wrote:
We face the same issue: too many addons to convert, and not enough time (and will?) to convert them. We are talking about hundreds of addons... and for many of them, the creators are no more in Celestia scene. Do you remember the very talented Rassilion, and the gorgeous addons he used to create?

Yes, I completely understand what you're talking about... I was just
trying to make the point about add-ons for my own sake. I'm getting
awfully tired of reviewing some of the JUNK which can still be found
on the Motherlode, and I was simply trying to make potential add-on
creators aware of what should go into an add-on.

BobHegwood wrote:... This is part of what we're currently doing on the Motherlode, but obviously we haven't gotten around to ALL of the files yet. Sigh...

Bob, seems like we do need a linux user to check all the files too since we Windows users will not note such mistakes in the add-ons (except we would examine the cmods and so on).

Adirondack