Zeta Reticuli addon (DOWNLOAD LINK)

[rthorvald]

Use this one - the typography is much more striking. It looks both simpler and better.

-rthorvald

[eburacum45]

Oh, I like this bit;

The front part (left side of the picture) is a shield generator to protect the ship from the Zeldovich effect (cosmic microwave background turned into x and gamma rays).

Excellent! If the ship is travelling near light speed the CMB will be converted into x-rays, of course. A very good point. In addition the interstellar medium would become so dense at these speeds that it would be like hitting a brick wall; all thiose hydrogen atoms hitting at near-luminal speeds would convert into radiation as well. That had better be a good shield...
another strange effect at these speeds is the Davies-Unruh effect; almost nothing can travel fast enough to catch a ship travelling nearly at light speed, so an event horizon of sorts forms behind the ship, which emits Hawking radiation and might even provide usable energy.
Bizarre.

And, once again your creation is awesome, of course; brilliant stuff.

[Cham]

While I was waiting for a lasagna to cook in the oven, I made this funky "classic" asteroid. I'm now wondering if I should include it in the addon. The sucker is a huge mesh. The CMOD file's size is 12 MB ! Frame rate is pretty good in Celestia.




EDIT : Okay, there is a time when I need to stop adding stuff. So this rock wont be in the addon.

[Cham]

I'm still waiting for the Motherlode guys to make the addon available. I hoped that it could be available for christmas, but apparently it wont.

[Jeam Tag]

I'm still waiting for the Motherlode guys to make the addon available. I hoped that it could be available for christmas, but apparently it wont.

Yes! It is! Hi Cham, even if the release isn't officially announced yet on the board, yu can tell us the direct links to your CML folder, can't you? Il semble que le P??re No?«l soit pass?© ?  l'heure puisque 2 parts de l'addon semblent accessibles, ais-je d?©couvert ce matin Merci beaucoup, je vais explorer cela! Jeam

[Cham]

Great ! The addon is now available on the Motherlode ! Link :

http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catal ... don_id=898

WARNING ! This addon comes in two parts. The first part is a 274 MB zipped file and the second part is a 215 MB zipped file. All planetary textures are 2k and 4k jpg. Don't download if your video card doesn't support large textures with bump and specular maps.

[bdm]

I spent a few hours downloading Part 1 from the Motherlode and there is a problem with the addon that needs correction.

The addon has numerous files specific to Mac OS that cause it to misbehave on Windows systems. These files are ".DS_Store" and other similar files with a leading dot in the filename. Windows doesn't handle these files properly, and when it encounters these files Windows chokes.

I have tried deleting these files using the ZIP file functionality on Windows XP, and also used WinZip on Win 98. Both of them hang when they try to work with these files.

It will probably be necessary to delete all of these OS-specific files from the addon and resubmit to the Motherlode. Until then, users on Wondows systems will need to be careful.

[piellepi]

Hi!
I often find such files inside zip files related to addons, and I always delete then from inside winzip, without any problem.
But if the zip file is veeeeery large, you must wait even a minute, and in the meanwhile you don't know what's happening.
You have to be patient
Ciao
Pierluigi

[bdm]

I was able to solve the issue using Winzip. All I did was extract all the files that did not have a leading dot in the filename. This worked well.

I used WinZip because the Windows XP zip handler cannot do it as efficiently. With the Win XP zip driver, it presents the ZIP as directories, so one must visit each directory. With WinZip, the files are not sorted into directories, so all I had to do was sort the filename list, select the 136 files that were a part of the addon, and extract them all at once.

I also recompressed the files, just to satisfy my curiosity. I found that the OS-specific files take up about 7 Mb.

[Cham]

Despite the fact that the addon is now available on the Motherlode, I'm still working on it for a future update (part3). I just finished today to update the "Colonial Cyl" spaceship. Here's a comparison between the old model (left side), already included in the available version, and the new version (right side). As always, click on the images below to get a larger version. The frame rate is excellent in Celestia (around 28-30 FPS on my system).

[chris]

Despite the fact that the addon is now available on the Motherlode, I'm still working on it for a future update (part3). I just finished today to update the "Colonial Cyl" spaceship. Here's a comparison between the old model (left side), already included in the available version, and the new version (right side). As always, click on the images below to get a larger version. The frame rate is excellent in Celestia (around 28-30 FPS on my system).

Great work Cham! The amount of detail in that model is just amazing . . . I'm curious--how many triangles are there?

--Chris

[Cham]

Great work Cham! The amount of detail in that model is just amazing . . . I'm curious--how many triangles are there?

--Chris

Thanks Chris.

Actually, I don't know how many triangles there are. A lot ! But I'm very pleased that the Frame Rate is pretty high with this thing. It's also amazing to look at the model in WireFrame mode ! LOL

EDIT : Just for the fun of it, here's a crude schematic of that model :

[ElChristou]

...Great work Cham! The amount of detail in that model is just amazing . . . I'm curious--how many triangles are there?

Knowing Cham, this must be a 2O Billions triangles models!!
More seriously this is a very nice model!

[Cham]

Knowing Cham, this must be a 2O Billions triangles models!!
More seriously this is a very nice model!

Well, the triangles number may be "astronomical", but not that much. Care have been taken to optimise the model. Here's the same view as before in WireFrame mode :

[Cham]

I'm curious--how many triangles are there?

--Chris

I managed to find the polygons information in my modeler.

There are exactly 563202 triangles in this model. I guess it's pretty far from the 20 Billions triangles estimated by ElChristou !

[Cham]

Here's an update of some of the Zet cruisers from the addon. The one shown at left is the original model included in the addon. The one shown at right is the new version that should be included in a future update (with the new Cyls models, and some new asteroids). However, because of the complete absence of any interest and feedback whatsoever in this thread, I'll probably kill the project. Too bad.

[Jeam Tag]

However, because of the complete absence of any interest and feedback whatsoever in this thread, I'll probably kill the project. Too bad.

Heuh... (Well...) How to say... Keep cool!: As I told to Linuxman about his StarWarSaga for Celestia, (the second opus is on the way) even if there was no useful returns (Bugs, Problems..) about the first opus that can help to perform and continue on better way for the following (sigh)... don't care: there are most useful works to do for the program to perform it, and fictitious addons aren't the first to comment for the moment, right?... So, go on guy...
In French, sorry all:
Ooops: je n'ai pas le temps ni les moyens de tout explorer pour l'instant,(probl??mes d'ecran en ce moment, c'est pourquoi je ne fais pas de mises ?  jour illustr?©es dans mes pages, vraiment d?©sol?© ...) mais au premier abord c'est remarquable: le seul petit truc serait d'avoir, comme le fait Runar, des points de rep??res cel/url pour aider au d?©placement spatial/temporel, non? En tous cas, continue, Martin...

Jeam

[selden]

People are always interested in pretty pictures, but very few people comment.

Also, it could be that some people are reluctant to download such large files without really knowing what's in them. I suspect you won't like the idea, but I think you should consider creating a "light-weight" version, as Runar has done for his addons. When people see what's available, then they probably would be more likely to download the full version.

[fsgregs]

Cham:

I'm surprised at you. Don't you know by now that your work is so highly regarded that it is considered by most of us as "Spectacular"? Your add-on is an unbelievable addition to the world of fictional alien societies. For folks with great graphics cards, it is amazing (I just got a new computer and graphics card myself, for Xmas ).

For folks with less than optimal systems (my older computer, for example), your add-on is still spectacular but a bit daunting. It clearly slows down older graphics systems. I would agree with Selden that a lighter version would be ever more well received. That said, you are one of the contributors to Celestia whose demand for quality in all your work has elevated the quality of our collective Celestia experience immensely. I'm sorry if that has not been said by us to you more often, but I for one, enthusiastically compliment your work whenever I see it.

Please do not stop working on improvements to the add-on. Everything you do makes a visit to your Zet system ever more unbelievable.

Regards and thanks

Frank

[CurlSnout]

Greetings from Planet 10. I've been doing the Celestia activity for some time, and watching these forums from the sidelines. I registered just now specifically so that I could add a comment in this thread:

Please do not kill this project. Sincerely.

Here's the thing: I am primarily interested in Celestia as a 3D platform in which to model the "REAL" universe (whatever that means), with the stars, planets, systems, and spacecraft with which we are familiar. Despite the fact that I am a science fiction fan, when it comes to Celestia I have little or no interest in Imperial Death Stars, Klingon Battle Cruisers, etc. I simply stay away from the fictional side of things, Celestia-wise.

BUT: I am absolutely blown away by your creation. I have set up a separate Celestia install dedicated EXCLUSIVELY to the Zeta Reticuli addon. It is absolutely OUTSTANDING; I have no idea where you came up with all of the creative ideas and no grasp of how you managed to realize what you imagined. But I'm glad you did, and I hope that you will endeavor to persevere despite the apparent lack of feedback.

I imagine that there are many like me, who are enjoying your creation and simply have not chimed in. Be assured that there ARE people who appreciate what you have created and the spirit of generosity in which you have shared it with the rest of the Celestia community.

Simply put: You made a real good one. Keep jamming, brother.

Peace,

CS

EDIT: I believe that the updated Zet cruisers appear far superior, compared to the originals (and the originals are pretty sweet). Please keep us posted on your progress, and let us know when they (any and all updates) are available.