Celestia Forums

Posted: **06.05.2004, 19:28**

Not much space travel in the 19th century... Until now!
This add-on is a scenario from Jules Verne?s Off on a Comet - a journey through planetary space:

The maps, places and orbits are as true to Verne as we could make it; if you?ve read the book, you should have no problem finding the grave of St.Louis, Gourbi Island, Madalena, the Island of Gibraltar, or the winter colony in the Volcano (look for the lights at night)... Or lock on to Comet Gallia, and have a great tour of the inner solar system. Here?s some screenshots:

More info and links on my website - comments / criticism are welcome.

-rthorvald

Posted: **06.05.2004, 20:22**

This is absolutely gorgous...The ship is definately cool...sort of reminds me of doctor who episode: enlightenment...I love classical space :mrgreen:

Posted: **06.05.2004, 20:23**

Posted: **07.05.2004, 01:31**

This is FANTASTIC!!

It's great to see Celestia being used for more wacky projects. More! How about Tintin on the Moon?!!

Posted: **07.05.2004, 12:55**

Nice Work!!!

Posted: **08.05.2004, 08:16**

The Singing Badger wrote:How about Tintin on the Moon?!!

There's a model of the Tintin Rocket for Orbiter on the Vinka's Site http://users.swing.be/vinka/Someone could dowload it and convert it for Celestia, or try to make directly .3s file (see the Tutorial page) Jeam

Posted: **08.05.2004, 11:43**

Jeam Tag wrote:
The Singing Badger wrote:How about Tintin on the Moon?!!
There's a model of the Tintin Rocket for Orbiter on the Vinka's Site http://users.swing.be/vinka/Someone could dowload it and convert it for Celestia, or try to make directly .3s file (see the Tutorial page) Jeam

... Don?t forget to put in the footprints of Dupond and Dupont on the moon (in circles) ... :-)

-rthorvald

Posted: **08.05.2004, 17:18**

rthorvald wrote:
Jeam Tag wrote:There's a model of the Tintin Rocket for Orbiter on the Vinka's Site http://users.swing.be/vinka/Someone could dowload it and convert it for Celestia, or try to make directly .3s file (see the Tutorial page) Jeam
... Don?t forget to put in the footprints of Dupond and Dupont on the moon (in circles) ...
-rthorvald

Yes, this a funny sequence. Herg?'s books about Moon Conquest are very interestings (Yes, they have some little errors, like the Earth drawn without clouds or too harshly rocks on the Moon, but it is another great part of the Space Dream... Later, Herg? was sollicited to draw somes pages (4) about the Apollo XI mission: it's an interesting document)!
So, Runar, I've added your 'Hector Servadac/On off a Comet' superb add-on my SF catalog pages: sorry for the too simple picts, but I've added a line to encourage people to take a look to the beautiful images you hosted on your site. Next time, I try to add picts of Your Great Venus, later your exosystem... Thanks for this nice addons, Jeam

Posted: **09.05.2004, 02:44**

Howdy Runar,

Well done add-on!

Here are a couple screenshots I took (click for full-size versions)...

Venusset on Gallia...

Encounter with Jupiter and Sun...

Close to Mars...

Servadacs Balloon...

Venus from Gallia...

Near Mercury...

Encounter with Jupiter 2...

Posted: **09.05.2004, 03:01**

Posted: **09.05.2004, 10:19**

Nice pictures Don, and Cel://URLs is a good Idea. I have just some little questions:

don wrote:The Beginning - Orbital course:

Seems to me that 'Comet Tail' is desabled ?

First Earth Encounter:

In the second one, i can't see Earth. And, seeing the first one, I have in Mind that the Asteroid is not captured yet, at this moment, yes? In this case, maybe 'Beginning/Ending' lines whould be necessary?

Return to Earth:

Clouds on Gallia seem desabled in the First one.

Servadacs Baloon:

1 & 2: I can't see Baloons And at least, a Brain Dead Question; in a lot of scenes Time is stopped: How can unlock it it possible to unlock this? I ask these silly questions to be able to see all the links working well for me: I would wish, with your permission, to add them on my page devoted to this addon - or to link a web page where you host them, or a link with this tread, i don't know. What do you think about that? Many Regards,Jeam

Posted: **09.05.2004, 12:51**

Jeam Tag wrote:Earth. And, seeing the first one, I have in Mind that the Asteroid is not captured yet, at this moment, yes? In this case, maybe 'Beginning/Ending' lines whould be necessary?

You are right; i actually forgot about that.
There?ll be a small update to Gallia later on, and i will fix the Nerina dates (and some other details) then. It will be a week or two, i think.

don wrote:...
... and some Cel:// URLs too ...

Thank you for those! With your permission, i?d like to add them to the readme file for the above mentioned update?

(Nice to see Mercury; we didn?t plan for a Mercury encounter... Watching the orbit, i did not think it would come close enough to be that prominent, so i didn?t include it in the sights list).

-rthorvald

Posted: **09.05.2004, 14:07**

rthorvald wrote:There?ll be a small update to Gallia later on, and i will fix the Nerina dates (and some other details) then. It will be a week or two, i think.

Nice, I will wait this release before the update of my page: I hope add 1 or 2 little samples of your great pictures, and 1 or 2 by Don, if you and he authorize me to do that: This will make a complete page about this 'On the Comet' add-on in my Catalog.

(Nice to see Mercury)

I agree...Seems that your add-on is really an original and poetic way to have a tour in the System. Jeam

Posted: **09.05.2004, 17:02**

Hi Jeam,

Thank you for looking.

You can change things like Comet Tail, Clouds, Atmosphere, etc. by loading the Cel URL, making your changes, and then capturing a new Cel URL to save for your own use (Ctrl+Ins in Windows). I set things up the way they looked best (to me) for each picture.

Jeam Tag wrote:First Earth Encounter: In the second one, i can't see Earth. And, seeing the first one, I have in Mind that the Asteroid is not captured yet, at this moment, yes?

I see Earth in both of them. The "encounter" is with Gallia, and not the asteroid, which is why the asteroid is not there.

Jeam Tag wrote:Servadacs Baloon: 1 & 2: I can't see Baloons

Oops, sorry. I removed those two <sigh>.

Jeam Tag wrote:in a lot of scenes Time is stopped: How can unlock it it possible to unlock this?

Use the spacebar to pause and resume time in Celestia.

Jeam Tag wrote:I would wish, with your permission, to add them on my page devoted to this addon

Thank you Jeam. You may copy and use the pictures and Cel URLs in whatever way you like.

Posted: **09.05.2004, 17:15**

Howdy rthorvald,

rthorvald wrote:Thank you for those! With your permission, i?d like to add them to the readme file for the above mentioned update?

You are welcome. Cel:// URLs make it very easy to visit times and places instantly.

Sure you can use them in your readme, but they would actually be better in an html document, where the user can open it in their browser and then just "click" to visit. Otherwise, from a text document, they would have to copy and paste the URLs.

It would be great to have Cel:// URLs of some of your very cool screenshots too. Use Ctrl+Ins (in Windows) then paste the text into an href tag in a html document. I didn't download the hires package as I'm short on disk space right now, so I didn't get any URLs of your extra objects.

rthorvald wrote:(Nice to see Mercury; we didn?t plan for a Mercury encounter... Watching the orbit, i did not think it would come close enough to be that prominent, so i didn?t include it in the sights list).

Well, I cheated a bit by using a "telescope" FOV setting (via the "," and "." keys). I'm sure they had some kind of scope to look through while on their journey. :wink:

Thanks again, for your beautiful add-on!

Posted: **09.05.2004, 19:43**

don wrote:they would actually be better in an html document

Yes. I?ll make a section for it on Gallia?s InfoUrl document instead, and just point to it in the readme. That is what i made the InfoUrl for, anyway; to have a place for notes in the future.

don wrote:It would be great to have Cel:// URLs of some of your very cool screenshots too

Ok, i will get some of my own up there too. But it will be some days before i get to it; i have a couple of deadlines to meet at my job now before i can get back to Gallia.

Jeam Tag wrote:I hope add 1 or 2 little samples of your great pictures, and 1 or 2 by Don, if you and he authorize me to do that

Of course! Use whatever you want.

-rthorvald

Posted: **23.05.2004, 20:08**

Gallia update:
There?s a new update: v1.2 is now available.
Changes from 1.1 to 1.2 are:
- fixed the transparency problem on Dobryna?s sails
- added correct beginning and ending dates to the asteroid Nerina

More:
Marc Griffith has made 8k specular and bumpmaps for Gallia. They are now posted on my site, as a separate download (and thanks again, Marc!)

New gallery:
I have started a gallery, and for the moment it contains 22 Gallia images, with screenshots and CelUrls.
Half of the URLs so far are mine, half are from Don G?s very nice list. Here?s an example - Saturn in the sky, while the schooner are passing Gibraltar...

Go to my site, and click the "Gallery" link in the menu for more screenshots.

-rthorvald

Posted: **24.05.2004, 04:35**

Wow, those are some spectacular screen-shots! You are also very creative in setting up scenes.

Well done rthorvald :!:

Posted: **29.05.2004, 15:31**

Trying to get the Gallia addon to work and take a look onto it, I have several questions:

1. Why has Gallia a radius of 10000 km and thus is nearly four times as big as the earth?
2. Why is Gallia going THROUGHT the earth on his journey?
3. Why does Gallia do those stop&go movements on his track?
4. Why are those asteroids, ballons, etc. about -9000 km INSIDE Gallia?
5. Why does the specular map misses several details, including most of the islands and gives such a hight reflectivity to snow?
6. Why does the bumpmap misses several islands, and has those very steep cliffs along all snow/ice boundaries?

I'm really curious.

maxim

Posted: **29.05.2004, 18:52**

Hello, Maxim
I?ll answer as best i can, but it seems to me there?s something wrong with your setup, or maybe your ssc file might be corrupted.

maxim wrote:1. Why has Gallia a radius of 10000 km and thus is nearly four times as big as the earth?

It is not. The radius is 362,1 kilometers, less than 1/16 of Earth. See this screenshot, with Gallia in front of Earth: http://runar.thorvaldsen.net/celestia/temp/earth_gallia.jpg

maxim wrote:2. Why is Gallia going THROUGHT the earth on his journey?

It does that in the novel: on the first flyby, Gallia impacts the Earth, goes right through the Mediterranean, and captures half of the sea and a few pieces of land. The orbit Jestr made follows the description in the book exactly on this event.

maxim wrote:3. Why does Gallia do those stop&go movements on his track?

I don?t know how this was done, but the orbit follows Jules Verne?s description as much as was practical (we discovered that his orbit is very unrealistic, but chose to follow it anyway, to match the story).

maxim wrote:4. Why are those asteroids, ballons, etc. about -9000 km INSIDE Gallia?

They aren?t. Se Q1.

maxim wrote:5. Why does the specular map misses several details, including most of the islands and gives such a hight reflectivity to snow?
6. Why does the bumpmap misses several islands, and has those very steep cliffs along all snow/ice boundaries?

Same answer to both questions: Marc made the spec and bumpmap from a modified version of the Galliamap, where i removed the small islands (the bump and spec are not really made for this add-on, but for a planetmap for Mostly Harmless).

As for the steep cliffs, this is a feature in the novel.
Should not the snow be reflective?

-rthorvald

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