Picky, picky!
How's
this, then?
This time, the movie's in real time.
Here's the recipe:
First, modify your solarsys.ssc file. It's in the data folder. Add something like this:
Code: Select all
"Orbit" "Sol/Mars"
{
Radius 0.000001
EllipticalOrbit
{
Period 0.003 # 300 orbits per Martian day
SemiMajorAxis 3744 # Distance from Center of Mars
}
}This will add an invisible object called
Orbit about 350km above Mars.
In Celestia,
Go To Orbit and point the camera at the horizon of Mars. Now,
Following the Orbit won't do. Since the camera's position relative to Mars is not fixed, the planet will just scroll off the bottom of the screen. What you need to use is
Phase Lock.
What I did for the movie was pause the simulation (space bar) and get the horizon centered in the screen. Then, with "Follow Orbit" still in the bottom right, select Mars. Then press ":". It should then say "Lock Orbit - Mars" in the bottom right. This will maintain the camera's position relative to a line between the centers of both Mars and the invisible Orbit.
I agree, this effect is much nicer than just following the planet. It's pretty neat to watch the Martian sunrise.
It should be trivial to modify the files to add dummy orbits to any celestial body. There are other parameters to EllipticalOrbit that I didn't mess with. I found I got acceptable results with just these two.
Let me know if this will work for you.
-abiogenesis-
