Celestia 1.3.2 for MacOS X

[HankR]

I've uploaded to SourceForge a disk image (16.4MB) containing an initial version of Celestia 1.3.2 for MacOS X. It is being made available on an "as is" basis (i.e. no guarantees), but you may want to download it and give it a try. It works for me (pretty much), but needs a lot more testing. If you encounter bugs (guaranteed), you can report them here (be sure to describe your system), though I can't promise when they'll be fixed.

- Hank

[rthorvald]

... containing an initial version of Celestia 1.3.2 for MacOS X. It is being made available on an "as is" basis (i.e. no guarantees), but you may want to download it and give it a try

Hank, thank you for your work! I?m going to get it right away

-rthorvald

[HankR]

Hank, thank you for your work!

I appreciate your kind words, but everyone's thanks for Celestia 1.3.2 should go to Chris and the other contributors to the Celestia core code common to all platforms. My contribution (building a version on MacOS X) was really very minimal.

- Hank

[chris]

Hank,

Thank you! I've received a lot of email inquiries about version 1.3.2 for the Mac.

Did you actually build 1.3.2 or just top of the CVS tree? I'm wondering if the additions for multiple star systems made it into your build. It's no trouble if they did . . . I'm just curious whether or not the most recent code builds ok on the Mac.

--Chris

[HankR]

Did you actually build 1.3.2 or just top of the CVS tree? I'm wondering if the additions for multiple star systems made it into your build. It's no trouble if they did . . . I'm just curious whether or not the most recent code builds ok on the Mac.

--Chris

Chris,

The Mac OS X version I just released was built from the 1.3.2 source, so it doesn't include the new additions for multiple star systems. I haven't tried bulding the current code recently, but I'll let you know how it goes when I get to it.

- Hank

[rthorvald]

Well, i have been using it for some hours now, and the initial impression i good... It seems to be a little more responsive than 1.3.1, expecially when it?s busy; for example, accessing menus in 1.3.1 while the program was chewing on very hi-res files was exstremely slow; it seems to flow better here.

A few things i have noticed:
- when getting very close to a 3ds model, a transparency problem shows up: the model is either clipped or partly transparent - like the normals are off. But looking at the same scene in 1.3.1 shows the model to be Ok.

- CelUrls saved in 1.3.1 does not work in 1.3.2, but i expected that, i gather Chris?distance bugfix causes this

- In Preferences, the Atmosphere checkbox does not remember what is on and what is off (not the setting itself, just the checkmark)

... That?s all.

- rthorvald

[folks]

Initial Test of Celectia 1.3.2 Mac OS X

Thank you Hank. Your contribution fulfills an otherwise missing link.

I have run 3.2 with the default resources and a set of custom addOns
with no more problems than existed in the previous version.

In particular Preferences: display modes:
Basic and Multi-texture both work
NV C + ARB VP selects but displays only a single slice of light on a planet
DOT3 + ARB VP selects but displays highly over saturated colors.
NV Combiners selects but crashes Celestia
The other options do not select on my machine.

Typically running 15 - 20 fps perhaps slightly better than the
previous version.

For instance: cel://Follow/Sol:Mars/2004-08-21T21:41:20.75371?x=oBB14ExBhaOkDA&y=q3bmBirifcc&z=FMjaf9sRYvP3/////////w&ow=0.878401&ox=-0.145196&oy=-0.414278&oz=0.188953&select=Sol:Mars&fov=0.746906&ts=-100.000000<d=0&rf=19351&lm=0

With RedMars VT with level4 runs at 20.55 fps

Will continue testing.

- Scott
Mac OS X 10.3.5 :: Nvdia GForce4 MX 32 MB :: Dual 867MHz G4 :: Celestia 1.3.2

[dirkpitt]

I too can confirm that Celestia 1.3.2 (v0.1) is faster than 1.3.1. Great! Framerates are now usually >20 fps, when before they were below 15.

I've also tried Celestia 1.3.2 on the latest OS X 10.3.6 development seed. Now ring shadows seem to work! Well, I'm not entirely sure so here's an image of Saturn:



I don't know if those dark bands on the bottom hemisphere are supposed to be there or not.

The bad news is normal maps still do not work properly (Moon, Mars appear rainbow-colored). Also the moon shadowing issue still exists. GLSL is not in the 10.3.6 seed. However, Apple does seem to be on the ball. Once someone else can confirm what Saturn really is supposed to look like with ring shadows, then I'll send my bug reports to Apple.

[Cham]

Will continue testing.

- Scott
Mac OS X 10.3.5 :: Nvdia GForce4 MX 32 MB :: Dual 867MHz G4 :: Celestia 1.3.2

Cool, you have the same machine as me !

I'll test Celestia 1.3.2 soon.

[chris]

I don't know if those dark bands on the bottom hemisphere are supposed to be there or not.

They're supposed to be there, though they won't look quite right unless ambient light is off. It's a bug in Celestia, thought the GLSL render path now handles the interaction between shadows and ambient light correctly.

The bad news is normal maps still do not work properly (Moon, Mars appear rainbow-colored). Also the moon shadowing issue still exists. GLSL is not in the 10.3.6 seed. However, Apple does seem to be on the ball. Once someone else can confirm what Saturn really is supposed to look like with ring shadows, then I'll send my bug reports to Apple.

Could you post a screen shot of the normal map bug? I'm nearly certain it's not a problem with Celestia, but I'm curious anyhow.

--Chris

[dirkpitt]

This is the default Mars. I have vertex programs on, high textures, all options (atmosphere, etc) on:

http://swiki.osxdev.org/osxdev/uploads/155/mars.jpg

The sun is illuminating the front-right side. This is the moon:

http://swiki.osxdev.org/osxdev/uploads/155/moon.jpg

My system:
17" 1.33Ghz PB, Mobility Radeon 9700 (64M), 768M ram, OS X 10.3.6 seed, Celestia 1.3.2 (v0.1).

[Rich]

The effect is that of the shadow (of the ring in this case) passing thru to the other side of the object (saturn)... for this I leave ring shadows off; but this will also happen with eclipse shadows:
I have a few cel:URLs of eclipses with Jupiter's moons, and if you watch them from the right angle at the right time, you'll see the "mirror image" eclipes shadows travelling on the planet's surface, on the opposite side, and converging with the actual shadow at the planet's edge.
-Rich

PS: one thing I notice with 1.3.2 is that the planet labels disappear at times, and I'm still having bump/normalmap conflicts with night lights; the nightlights are on 100% of the time if I have a planet with a bump or normalmap.

[julesstoop]

This is the default Mars. I have vertex programs on, high textures, all options (atmosphere, etc) on:

http://swiki.osxdev.org/osxdev/uploads/155/mars.jpg

The sun is illuminating the front-right side. This is the moon:

http://swiki.osxdev.org/osxdev/uploads/155/moon.jpg

My system:
17" 1.33Ghz PB, Mobility Radeon 9700 (64M), 768M ram, OS X 10.3.6 seed, Celestia 1.3.2 (v0.1).

I have this as well with large (4k or larger) .jpg/.png textures. Switching to .dds solves it for me.
(10.3.6.?)

[julesstoop]

- In Preferences, the Atmosphere checkbox does not remember what is on and what is off (not the setting itself, just the checkmark)

- rthorvald

Having this problem since the inception of the cocoa front-end version of Celestia. And it's not just atmospheres (stars as dots, texture resolution and at least one other as well)
In my system it doesn't just 'forget' them, it doesn't display them either. My brother works at the largest Mac-shop of Amsterdam-city, and this has been the only thing keeping us from putting Celestia as a demo-app on the machines over there.

[Cham]

- In Preferences, the Atmosphere checkbox does not remember what is on and what is off (not the setting itself, just the checkmark)

- rthorvald

Having this problem since the inception of the cocoa front-end version of Celestia. And it's not just atmospheres (stars as dots, texture resolution and at least one other as well)
In my system it doesn't just 'forget' them, it doesn't display them either. My brother works at the largest Mac-shop of Amsterdam-city, and this has been the only thing keeping us from putting Celestia as a demo-app on the machines over there.

I'm experiencing the same annoying problems in Celestia 1.3.1 and 1.3.2 (test version). The preferences are always forgetting most of the options I choosed. Each time I start Celestia, I need to go again in the preferences box to set up my texture quality, stars style, and many other settings. This is really annoying.

[dirkpitt]

I have this as well with large (4k or larger) .jpg/.png textures. Switching to .dds solves it for me.
(10.3.6.?)

I just tried moving the existing marsbump.jpg files out of the textures folder and using a Mars dds as both a NormalMap and a BumpMap (editing solarsys.ssc) and Mars does look fine if the dds is used as a BumpMap but same rainbow coloring as a NormalMap. In fact, I'm not sure at all that even as a BumpMap the dds is actually working at all (I'd wager it isn't). But you say it works for you... do you have an NVIDIA video card by any chance?

[Cham]

I don't like the new small fonts variations in 1.3.2. I think it was better in 1.3.1. Is it possible to change the fonts used in Celestia ?

Also, I don't like the new "Celestia" word showing on startup. It was cleaner in 1.3.1.

Also, check out the Celestia icon, on the desktop. Like 1.3.1, it may shows with a black square around the jupiter icon if you have "small" icon selected in the Finder. Just a small feedback.

But most importantly, the preferences are still forgeting the settings each time I restart Celestia.

[rthorvald]

I have just discovered a big bug: CelUrls does not work properly.

- i can save them in the favorites list, but it is not possible to copy them out of the program and into a text editor.

- they work as normal if i try to do it with objects in the Solar System or with nearby stars. But if i try with my fictional one, Ran, they will not work at all. (In 1.3.1, it works for Ran, too).

Also, the favorites.cel file does not exist on OSX. Is the URL info saved in the plist file instead?

- rthorvald

[HankR]

rthorvald,

In the MacoS X version, favorites are currently stored in '~/Library/Preferences/Celestia.plist' (and do not use CelUrls). You should be able to copy CelUrls to the pasteboard using the "Copy" item in the "File" menu (or the "command-c" key combination) and then paste them into a text editor. At least this seems to work for me. I'm not sure what the poblem might be with your fictional add-on. Are you sure you've properly installed it? Also, is the problem only with CelUrls previously created in 1.3.1 or also with ones newly created in 1.3.2?

- Hank

[HankR]

Cham,

You can edit the font selections in 'celestia.cfg'.

The texture file 'logo.png' which contains the "Celestia" word shown at startup has not changed.

The small icon must be missing a mask.

Are all your preferences settings being forgotten, or only some of them? This behavior shouldn't have changed from 1.3.1.

- Hank