Celestia Forums

Hi. New user with very basic question.
I've searched, but it seems my issue may be too simple.
I've made a Habitat following the design of Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy. I would like it to be in orbit around a gas giant, following a very simple set of rules.

It's a long cylindrical shape with a definite difference between it's 'top' and 'bottom'.

It has to orbit as if it's "standing on it's rear", rolling along it's orbital path. It needen't roll in any exact way or rate, I just need it to be oriented correctly (along the axis I made for it in Max would be very nice) and rolling on it's axis.

Can anyone point out how this is done?

Thanks heaps.

Clamps.

ps. if anyone's interested, I'll post a pic of my Habitat model up here.

Please do post a picture of your Addon.
Note that you have to put it on a Web site and put its URL in your message. The Forum doesn't provide space for uploading images directly to the server.

Unfortunately, I don't think Celestia can do what you want, although I may be misunderstanding.

I think you're saying that the habitat is rotating rapidly around one axis (the one that provides artificial gravity) and slowly around another axis to stay perpendicular to the planet's surface.

At the moment, Celestia only lets you specify rotation about a single axis, although you might be able to get something like what you want by specifying an appropriate PrecessionRate (degrees/Earth day).

If you supply no rotational information at all, Celestia will automatically rotate a body so it always keeps one face toward the object it's orbiting around. That might be good enough.

yes, it may. thanks. i'll try cutting data out until it works.
i've seen several ssc files with very little rotational data at all. i think they just say "ElipticalOrbit" or something. i'll try that.

i'm still refining the model. i'll post something when it's done.

thanks for the hints.