Black Hole 108 Nebula - new add-on

[fsgregs]

Hi folks:

I have created a new add-on for use in one of my educational activities. It depicts a fictional Black Hole imbedded in the remnants of a supernova explosion. Surrounding the black hole is an x-ray/visible light glow from nebula material still falling into the hole after thousands of years of expansion from the original supernova that created the hole. There is not enough material left to create an accretion ring or set of polar jets.

The add-on is nice because I have used Jestr's wonderful 3D nebula to serve as the supernova remnants, and imbedded the black hole in its middle. As such, you can fly through the nebula on your way to the black hole. Here is a screenshot:




To visit the hole, press the [enter] key, type "HIP 600108". press [enter] again and [G] to go there. To visit the supernova remnant (Black Hole nebula), type "Black Hole nebula" instead.

I have the Black hole 900 ly from Earth. As such, the nebula is just visible in the night sky from Earth. If you want it more obscure, open/edit the dsc file and stc file that comes with the add-on, and change the distance entry from "900" to any larger number you wish.

The add-on is available on the Motherlode in the "Fictional"/planets section.

Enjoy

Frank

[bh]

Nice one Frank...

Regards...bh.

[Bob Hegwood]

Frank,

Absolutely beautiful work, but a bit too much for my under-powered
machine.

A question though... Is there any way I can modify the models to use
JPG textures rather than DDS? Simply can't use the DDS format here.

I have Anim8or and a couple of other modeling programs, but I don't
know BEANS about how to use them to attach textures. Can this be done?

Just curious.

Thanks, Bob

[fsgregs]

Bob:

The slowdown is due to the nebula meshes. My black hole is simply a black sphere with a violet atmosphere and should be using almost no RAM.

I took two of Jestr's three 3D Scorpio nebula add-ons (the blue one and the red one) and loaded them both in the same place, so that one overlaps the other. The result is a multicolored nebula. If you are seeing a slowdown, simply open the Black Hole dsc file and delete one of the two listed nebula. The top one (sigsco.cmod) is red. The bottom one (Rho Oph.cmod) is blue. Take your pick. Be sure to remove or comment out all the lines. If you delete the top one, you have to rename the bottom nebula to "Black Hole Nebula".

Jestr did these nebula add-ons. I doubt that you can change the dds name to a jpg texture instead. However, he released the same nebula in a png version. It is in the Motherlode creaters page. Here is the link.

http://celestiamotherlode.net/creators/jestr/ScorpioNebulae_PNG.zip

There is a neat shortcut way of getting multicolor out of only one of Jestr's nebula. Here's what you do.

Download the png texture add-on above and upzip. Locate the red and the blue png textures in Jestr's add-ons. There will be eight red and eight blue textures, corresponding to the Sigsco.cmod and RhoOph.cmod meshes that he uses. Copy/paste the meshes into the models folder of my Black Hole Nebula add-on. Then, copy the red and the blue png textures from Jestr's two nebula into the medres folder of the Black Hole Nebula add-on.

In the textures file of the Black Hole Nebula add-on, you will find eight blue and eight red dds textures and eight blue and red png textures. To use only one nebula mesh, delete the Rho Oph.cmod nebula entries in my dsc file. That will leave my dsc file loading only one nebula, which uses the sigsco.cmod mesh. That mesh calls up the eight red textures. Now, decide if you want to use dds or png files and change the name of the red1, red3, red5 and red7 textures to red1-s, red3-s, red5-s and red7-s. This will save them under a different name. Then, change the name of the blue1, blue3, blue5 and blue7 textures to red1, red3, red5 and red7.dds or png. Now, when you go to the Black Hole nebula, you will see only the sigsco mesh being displayed, but it will call up 4 red colors and 4 blue colors in it. It will be almost as good as having both nebula meshes displayed, but it will run quicker, since there is only one nebula displayed.

That should do ya!!

Enjoy

Frank

[selden]

Several modern freeware image viewers can load DDS images and save them as JPEG. I happen to use Infranview.

[Bob Hegwood]

The slowdown is due to the nebula meshes. My black hole is simply a black sphere with a violet atmosphere and should be using almost no RAM.

Frank,

I appreciate all the information, but that's not my problem. I can use
the Liight Version of the Black Hole, but - as I mentioned - my system
cannot make use of DDS textures.

I didn't thnk that I could just change the DDS files to JPG files and have
the add-on work correctly. If I use the JPG format, I have to be able to
marry them to the models don't I?

Several modern freeware image viewers can load DDS images and save them as JPEG. I happen to use Infranview.

Again, this is not my problem, Selden. I can also view and convert DDS
textures via Irfanview, but Celestia displays absolutely nothing when I
try to use a DDS texture from within Celestia. Don't know why this is,
but it has always been a problem on my machine. Perhaps the Intel
82815 graphics controller?

At any rate, I can make my own jpg textures from the models in Frank's
packages, but I don't know how to associate them with the 3DS or CMOD
models.

Can anyone tell me how to do this?

Thanks, Bob

[selden]

Bob,

Neither Intel's nor Microsoft's software-only drivers understand DDS format. *grump*

If the author of the model explicitly specified the texture image file type within the model, then you'll have to edit the 3DS and/or CMOD model to change the filetype from DDS to either * or JPG. A * will let you provide files of any of the formats that Celestia supports without editing the model again.

I use Emacs to edit binary model files. You can use a hex editor if you want. Celestia is generous enough that you can change the length of the filespec within the model and it'll still work. 3D modelling software won't accept those models again, though.

Does this help?

[fsgregs]

Bob, as mentioned in my prior post, Jestr has released the add-on as in a PNG file version. You can use this just fine. It has to be PNg because it contains some transparency to it.

See the above link.

Frank

[Bob Hegwood]

Neither Intel's nor Microsoft's software-only drivers understand DDS format. *grump*

Yes, I figured that much out already.

You can use a hex editor if you want...
Does this help?

Yes. Thanks once again, Selden. Did not realize that I could simply
change a pointer in the model. Great stuff.

Take care, Bob

[Bob Hegwood]

Bob, as mentioned in my prior post, Jestr has released the add-on as in a PNG file version.

Thanks very much, Frank. Have already been there.
Thanks also for the patient explanation of what to do with the thing. I
appreciate it.

Take care, Bob

[jromer]

I installed this add-on (the "light" configuration) in both the WinXP version and the Linux version (newest driver 1.0.6629). In Windows the addon displays great but the linux version shows the nebula as a white geometric shape. Any suggestions from anyone using Linux?

Also I don't know how to attach an image to these posts.


[img]file:/home/jon/Desktop/Black_Hole_Nebula.png[/img]

[maxim]

jromer,

you can't include images from your local disk. You have to store them on a Webserver or Webspace first. They are reloaded from there for every call of your post.

maxim

[piellepi]

Hi Celestians!
I have a strange problem: instead of a black hole I witness a completely new object, a white hole
Could you please provide a url so that I am sure I don't do anything wrong: all the other add-ons rarely give me problems so I can't understand what's happening now.
If you want, I'll send a picture from my system at home (now I'm at work...).
I have a ATI 9600 graphic card.
Cheers

Pierluigi

[piellepi]

Hi again!
Here is what I obtain if I travel to the Black Hole



The disk is rapidly spinning but is white!

What do you think about?
It doesn't seem to be a graphic card problem, because what I see is a texture : in fact there are spots on it.

Ciao
Pierluigi

[Jeam Tag]

Here is what I obtain if I travel to the Black Hole
The disk is rapidly spinning but is white!

Hello, I just want to say that I've seen the same thing, some days ago... with Celestia v140pre5: but now I have re-installed v132final, and it seems to work fine. Jeam

[fsgregs]

Hi folks:

I have not installed 1.4.0 on my system. I am afraid to. The new version seems to be full of changes and bugs. I hope Chris is reading some of these problems. Please repost this latest bug also in the Bugs forum. Chris needs to know this is happening.

The Black hole is simply a "planet" colored with a pure black texture (black-hole-black.jpg) that is centered on a fictional star (HIP 600108), with a diameter just slightly larger than the star, and with a semi-major axis of zero. In other word, it overlays the star.

I have NO idea why it would not display properly in 1.4.0, or what may have changed in the code of the new version that would make it happen. Planet textures are a fundamental part of Celestia. Perhaps Chris could explain it. Certainly, it needs to be fixed.

One thing you can try is to back away from the star a bit. Perhaps the black hole texture is "behind" you now, due to some change in 1.4.0. See if viewing the star from a further distance restores the black hole.

Sorry I cannot be more help. I suggest you uninstall 1.4.0 and reinstall 1.3.2, until all of these new bugs can be removed.

Regards,

Frank

[dirkpitt]

A fix that works for me is to edit black_hole_108.stc, and change the SpectralType to "X" (from "Q"). It should work in 1.4.0, but I don't know if it works in 1.3.2. I must admit I was a little puzzled by why the black hole was specified as a neutron star (Q-type) and not the black hole X-type.

[fsgregs]

Spectral type X does not work in 1.3.2. If you type it in and launch Celestia, you wind up millions of light years away in what looks like the center of dark matter.

Spectral type "Q" is the closest thing to it.

I did not know that 1.4.0 provides for a new "X" class. Does it just draw a black sphere?

Frank

[selden]

Frank and Dirk,

Don't forget that you can have more than one version of Celestia on your system at the same time. You just need to have them in different directories.

Rename the directory that contains the "old" version of Celestia to be something different, e.g. Celestia140p6, and then install the "new" version into the directory named Celestia. This causes Cel:// URLs and desktop icons to always point to whatever version is in the directory named Celestia. Just rename the directories again to make the URLs invoke a different version of the program.

[selden]

Unfortunately I don't know if Chris will be able to fix the black hole problem, assuming that it's a problem in Celestia and not a bug in the model description.

Please remember that Chris does not have and does not know where to find most of the Addons. If you have a problem with one of them, you have to provide a very simple but complete example of how to install the failing Addon and how to make it do the wrong thing.

When I report a problem, I usually create a zip file that contains the necessary models, etc, as well as an HTML file that contains Cel:// URLs to take you to the failing viewpoints. This makes it easy to recreate the failure: drag to extras, open HTML file, click on URL.

(Hmm. Since many people don't have convenient access to a Web server where bug zip files can be uploaded, it seems to me that it might be appropriate for the Motherlode to provide such a place I'll suggest that. It might not happen, though.)