Celestia Forums

Anybody willing to begin such a project? It would take up like 20GB

And who would download it? Even with a cable modem it would take weeks.

20GB @ 1.5Mbps (typical cable modem router throughput) = 3.7 hours. This is more than acceptable for an overnight download. Dial-up users routinely wait this long for downloads.

On the other hand, the ISPs on both ends of this transaction might have a more negative opinion.

Tim Crews

Ahhhhh! these Virtual textures are getting Silly now

Anyone remember that Celsestia is suposed to be a solar system simulator ?

timcrews wrote:20GB @ 1.5Mbps (typical cable modem router throughput) = 3.7 hours. This is more than acceptable for an overnight download. Dial-up users routinely wait this long for downloads.

On the other hand, the ISPs on both ends of this transaction might have a more negative opinion.

Tim Crews

That would be 1.5 Megabits per second. You'd have to multiply that 3.7 by 8, giving you more than a day. And it would be hard to manage that kind of download. Admittedly, you could simplify somewhat by replacing most generic ocean with.. ocean.

Oops, you're right, I was off by 8.

Tim

A 512k texture is a nice thought, but I reckon the best way to go here is to release small areas in high detail every so often. In the meantime I agree with Paul ;

Anyone remember that Celsestia is suposed to be a solar system simulator ?

Let's concentrate on some other planet/ moon textures. Jens has given us Mercury and Praesepe has/ is doing the moon but that leaves quite a few others. Mars for a start (drool!!!), Venus, Io, Callisto, Ganymede, Europa, Triton.... etc etc, maybe even an alien world VT?

regards
TERRIER

Darkmiss wrote:Anyone remember that Celsestia is suposed to be a solar system simulator ?

Solar system? NOT! But that seems to be what Celestia is right now.

Anyone recall what the Celestia home page says? ...

Celestia home page wrote:Celestia is a free real-time space simulation that lets you experience our universe in three dimensions.

The words "space" and "universe" are used, but not "solar system". Personally, I would sure like to see more of both -- space and universe -- in Celestia and in 3-D, even if only guesstimated. Somehow, looking at an add-on spiral galaxy that is only a few pixels thick (edge-on) just doesn't seem right.

-Don G.

Well actually i meant Universe (it was late)

But we have way more information about our solar system, than we do the universe.
Thats why things are mainly concentrated here.

I'm sure that Chris and many others are trying there hardest to complete what we know about the Universe, but that knowledge is limited.

From what I understand about Chris and the other developers,
They are not much into Guestimating.
they seem to want hard information, or none at all.
This is why Limit of knowledge textures have come up big just latley.

I undestand that Chris wants to make as realistic a Universe Simulator as possible. and I totally agree on that.

Well, if you have limit of knowledge textures, you could also have a toggle to activate on the fly "invented" stars...

Buzz,

There are technical reasons, not just esthetic ones, why there are no stars beyond 16K LY. One is that the Z (depth) buffers in current graphics cards do not have adequate resolution.

Hopefully that will be fixed in not-too-many years.
Then you'll be able to create an add-on with stars wherever you want and still be able to see them. By that time handling all those stars won't be so painful, either, since CPU and graphics performance will have improved quite a lot, too.

Selden, isn't the current 16K LY limit a view limit set "from Earth"? If yes, then couldn't it be set "from the camera"? In other words, as you move away from Earth and into the Milky Way or deep space, objects beyond the "from Earth" limit would become visible. Basically, drawing an imaginary sphere around the camera, with a 16K LY boundary. Forgive me if this is a stupid question, as I know nothing about 3-D graphics cards.

Paul, when I wrote guesstimate I meant for the add-on creators when making a 3-D object out of a 2-D photograph (deep space objects). We know quite a bit about these objects as they have been scanned in just about every EM wavelength. We know their composition, size, distance from us, location, colors (long exposure film, and other EM wavelengths), etc., etc. Since we cannot "map" them via satellite (yet), there needs to be some artistic extension of what they would look like from view angles other than from Earth. This is where the "guesstimate" comes in, just like with several of the planets in our own solar system.

I am not asking Chris to turn Celestia into an imaginary universe simulator. I am merely asking for a way to better display the many KNOWN, colorful, deep space objects in our universe that we already have lots of information on. To me, this is reality, not fantasy.

-Don G.

Don,

The 16K LY limit is discussed in FAQ12/A12. In particular, Chris discussed the tradeoffs in detail in a posting on the second page of the thread at http://63.224.48.65/forum/viewtopic.php?t=822

He's mentioned a couple of times that he'd like to make it possible to have other reference points for the 16K LY limit, but there are lots of other things on his wish list, too.

don wrote:I am not asking Chris to turn Celestia into an imaginary universe simulator. I am merely asking for a way to better display the many KNOWN, colorful, deep space objects in our universe that we already have lots of information on. To me, this is reality, not fantasy.

-Don G.

Im all for that Don, although the develpoers want things real, not evryone does.
So the ability to add a bit of creative colour here and there would be nice.

I asked for a way to colour the MilkyWay with a slight blue tint a while back.

selden wrote:Don,

The 16K LY limit is discussed in FAQ12/A12. In particular, Chris discussed the tradeoffs in detail in a posting on the second page of the thread at http://63.224.48.65/forum/viewtopic.php?t=822

He's mentioned a couple of times that he'd like to make it possible to have other reference points for the 16K LY limit, but there are lots of other things on his wish list, too.

Hi Selden,

F12/A12 in the FAQ doesn't say much. As to what Chris wrote in 822: "The performance problems could be offset by increasing the special-handling range as the camera's distance from the Sun increased." This is increasing the 16K LY range and is not what I suggested ...

"If yes, then couldn't it be set 'from the camera'? ... Basically, drawing an imaginary sphere around the camera, with a 16K LY boundary." This is adding and removing stars from the display as the camera moves, keeping the existing 16K LY range intact.

I did not ask for multiple reference points. And yes, I know Chris has a lot of other things on his lists. That doesn't mean I can't ask about new things, or that we can't discuss them, does it?

-Don G.

don wrote:To me, this is reality, not fantasy.

Maybe I should have wrote "extended reality" (but still nowhere near fantasy or imaginary), since we are able to "see" these objects in glorious color after they are captured on film (during long exposures). I mean, at least they are true colors, instead of being imaginary colors created from x-ray, gamma ray, etc. data.

Darkmiss wrote:I asked for a way to colour the MilkyWay with a slight blue tint a while back.

Yes, I remember. However, I thought our galaxy has been conceptualized to be white to yellow-orange, due to its predominant class of suns, no?

-Don G.