Celestia Forums

Ran III released



Here it is. My monster of a science-fiction Add-On, in its third and final incarnation. I?m afraid it will bring
your computer to its knees with its insane amounts of hi-res detail - it has hundreds of textures, hundreds of
models, hundreds of data files... The SSC documents alone are several megabytes, and that is just text.

The basic download is 422 MB, with an additional 1.3 gigabytes for the Hi-Res folder, should you choose to
install it. Unpacked, it amounts to just below 3 GB. You will need at least a 64 MB video card, though more
is recommended (it runs smoothly on a 256 mb card, but will work with 64). And a gigabyte of RAM.

So, what is new?
For one thing, this is a complete story, not just a series of scenes. Absolutely everything has a discoverable
origin, purpose and fate. No matter what you look at, it will change with time, and it will be connected
to something else, for a reason it is possible to figure out. There is even a mystery in there to solve if you
are into puzzles. There is also a fair share of silly easter-eggs, if you care to look for them. So don?t take
it too seriously - it is designed to be fun and pretty to look at - and big enough to come back to many times.

As for the mystery, i?ll post one clue: there is a traversable wormhole in there. It helps to find it.

What is in it?
Two star systems, totalling 17 planets, a couple of hundred moons and some 1500 asteroids, sharing
about 200 unique texture maps - 41 of these are hi-res Virtual Textures with resolution up to 128k
in spots. These are optimized using Fridger?s "shrinking towards the poles"-trick, and is released
as 512px DDS tiles for MedRes and 1024px PNG tiles for HiRes. There is also a lot of differet asteroid
models, some created by me, some by ElChristou. Additionally, a huge number of spacecraft CMODS,
controlled by 87 different XYZs. Also, animated fauna on several of the worlds, several cities, space
stations, aeroplanes, boats - even a moving railway!

All this is interconnected to form the story of four developing extraterrestrial civilizations as they spread
through their local star system. This story is described through a series of CEL and CELX scripts together
with a detailed encyclopaedia featuring several hundred CelUrls. All in all, the story spans about
four thousand years. The concept is a development of the interactive e-book format i created for JTPS.

Thanks to:
- ElChristou for his model of the Hroenn Valley and several asteroids
- Rassilon for the Mythica / Rootax concept and many textures
- Cham for the Ran chromosphere and contributions to the Rootax Skybox
- fsgregs for the hundreds of CelUrls and all his work on the language of the Encyclopaedia
- Don. Edwards for the Hroenn / Himinglaeva clouds
- Adirondack and Harry for a lot of CELX code
- Chris for putting up with all my nagging about Celestia?s changing behaviour during the development of all this

Some images (click for higher resolution):






... And a 28 second quicktime movie can be viewed here.

Download links and more info can be found here:
http://www.celestialmatters.org/users/r ... index.html
... It will also be up on the Motherlode shortly.

PS:
If you are new to RAN - this is a science-fiction scenario for Celestia 1.5. Nothing in it is real,
but the physics of the worlds and technologies depicted are not too far out - it is "hard" SF.

- rthorvald

Over a gigabyte? So, when are you going to release a compilation of your add-ons on DVD?

Seriously, looks incredible from the screenshots - the movie is a nice teaser. I'll hold off on downloading it for the moment considering I've just upgraded to the latest Ubuntu release, and I don't want to get in trouble over bandwidth usage...

Just for information here...

I have downloaded and installed Runar's package and all I can say is that it is awesome.
I have a few problems with CELX scripts, but you can find almost all of the places, planets and moons by locating the nearby stars and using the Solar System Browser. Very cool.

Can't wait to really explore the whole scenario, but I'm still playing with the VT stuff (mainly a night map) for the Earth.

At any rate, Runar, many thanks for this spectacular add-on. Even if you don't like Science-Fiction stuff, you'll appreciate the artistry of this package.

Looks great
Can't wait to download it

ajtribick wrote:Over a gigabyte? So, when are you going to release a compilation of your add-ons on DVD?

I think i will need Blu-Ray for that

But without the hires it is just 422 mb. I thought about putting up a torrent, but lets?see if there is enough interest first.

- rthorvald

Hi rthorvald!
My best compliments for your great addon! Bravo!
I think I'll need a couple of years to discover all the secrets of Ran!!
And many secrets are hidden in the main ssc file!

The first impact with "Ran" star is unbelievable!
I've never seen such an effect: it remembers me the Sci-fi movie "Solaris" where there was a "thinking water planet". Do you rememeber this movie? I suppose now it could be easy to create it as a new addon for Celestia!

By the way... I found this Easter Egg!!! Very nice!!

I found it by means of the Solar System Navigator: what about all those objects named "." ?

Another world I "discovered" is Hroenn: it's incredibly wonderful!!

Unfortunately my Celestia "sits down" when I try to move around the planet...

I think this addon is the best I've ever seen!
Thanks and again bravo!!!!
Ciao!
Pierluigi

piellepi wrote:I've never seen such an effect: it remembers me the Sci-fi movie "Solaris"

Cham is responsible for the "alive" chromosphere on the Ran star, not me! I made the texture, but he made the effect.

piellepi wrote:Another world I "discovered" is Hroenn
Unfortunately my Celestia "sits down" when I try to move around the planet

That is probably a memory issue - there are hundreds of asteroids moving about there. You can disable or remove the th_02_ran_extras document, and see if that helps (this will not remove anything from the scenario, just thousands of nameless rocks).

piellepi wrote:I found this Easter Egg

That was fast! Was it not you that also found the little green man in Ran II?

As for the "." objects - it denotes about 1500 nameless asteroids (all the tagged asteroids are named after dwarves in the Edda, but there was not enough dwarves. Besides, it felt unnecessary to name every rock).

- rthorvald

i cant run the grand tour for some reason

This is absolutely beautiful!

zhar2 wrote:i cant run the grand tour for some reason

I have been testing this spectacular add-on and I'm also having trouble with the scripts. For whatever reason, if I actually start the CELX script supplied with the package, my time stops completely. There is absolutely nothing I can do to re-start the time. Remember too, that I'm using the older 1.5.1 Final package, so that may have something to do with it too.

However, there are still great ways to view this entire add-on and all of its worlds, places and moons. I simply placed a bookmark at each of the Suns I found, then used them to explore the systems without the need for the script at all. Once you get to one of the stars, you can then use your Solar System Browser under Celestia's Navigation Menu in order to explore. I kinda like doing this anyway. I keep running into some neat surprises. (Will keep quiet about these though.)

Enjoy...

zhar2 wrote:i cant run the grand tour for some reason

The Grand Tour is not a script, it is the name of the probe. Just do what the instructions say - exit the start script (ESC), go back in time until the probe moves, and lock onto the moving probe like you would any other Celestia object.

The purpose of the probe is only to familiarize users with how to handle objects in Celestia, and how to move through time, since that is an important part of the scenario. There is nothing to "run".

- rthorvald

BobHegwood wrote:There is absolutely nothing I can do to re-start the time.

Time is paused for the Start Screen. Just resume time from Celestia?s Time Menu, like you usually would! There is nothing wrong here, just Celestia at work as usual

(Time > Real Time). Or Command-backslash...

- rthorvald

I apologise, i gathered the impresion that there might be a tour from the mpeg movie on site plus the name of the probe.

zhar2 wrote:I apologise, i gathered the impresion that there might be a tour from the mpeg movie on site plus the name of the probe.

No need to apologize! There are several scripted Tours. But you must go to the Museum to access them.

- rthorvald

rthorvald wrote:

BobHegwood wrote:There is absolutely nothing I can do to re-start the time.

Time is paused for the Start Screen. Just resume time from Celestia?s Time Menu, like you usually would! There is nothing wrong here, just Celestia at work as usual

(Time > Real Time). Or Command-backslash...

- rthorvald

Tried all of that Runar, with no joy...
Mayhap I screwed the installation up somehow.
Don't know how, but you know how us Brain-Dead types are.

Will look again later after I get finished with about 400 other things I need to do here
and on the CM. You guys are killing me with this stuff, and I ain't even any part of it.

WEW had trouble getting MOTW Extras to down load took 3 tries !!!

Nasty

hi rthorvald!

That is probably a memory issue - there are hundreds of asteroids moving about there. You can disable or remove the th_02_ran_extras document, and see if that helps

When I'll be back home I'll try it: but my new PC has 4GByte RAM,so I suppose the culprit is my Intel graphic card, only capable of OpenGL 1.4, and perhaps with insufficient memory (BTW it's part of the main memory...)
Oh yes! I remember I discovered a green man in Ran II !
I'll also try the comand to restart time: I had the same problem but I was not able to restart time.
Thanks again
Compliments to Cham! Bravo!

Ciao
Pierluigi

Nastytang wrote:WEW had trouble getting MOTW Extras to down load took 3 tries !!!

Nasty

Don't know if it helps or not, but you can now download these packages from the MotherLode HERE.

Runar? Thanks once again...

piellepi,

Unless you are using XP or Vista 64 bit, that last gig of memory is just sitting there doing nothing, not even getting used. Even if you have Vista 32bit with sp1 its still not using all your RAM. Its simply a limitation of the 32bit OS. Of course OS X users don't have this problem.

Don. Edwards

BobHegwood wrote:Don't know if it helps or not, but you can now download these packages from the MotherLode

That won?t help - it is the same server.

But since ibiblio is pretty reliable, i guess he just had a bad connection.

- rthorvald

PS: i noticed you created some nice screenshots!