Celestia Forums

Hi.

I found some bugs in the educational activities:

1) The .ssc files for the Helios 1 and 2 spacecraft do not have a texture defined. This makes them rather hard to see.

2) The asteroids-educational.ssc file doesn't have the correct mesh for Ida: it points to a .3ds file that doesn't exist instead of the .cmod file that does exist. (This is for Activity 4.)

Besides that, the files seem rather disorganized and the documentation is in places out of sync with reality. I've read some topics that they would be reorganized and updated so that they conform to current "how it should be done" standards. As I understand it, best practice for addon files is that absolutely nothing should ever be put in folders together with existing Celestia files, which isn't the case for the education files: several extra models and textures are placed in the base folders. (Correct me if I'm wrong about how it should be done.) Is this reorganization still going on ?

(I hope I haven't said anything stupid in my first post here.)

Edit: Same problem for Dactyl as for Ida. Kinda annoying when the accompanying document tells you to look for something and you don't see it.

And now that I think about it, there's something else: in activity 4, you're supposed to see Jupiter and Io when clicking the link at the start. But, I don't see them.

Edit 2: Saturn's moons have disappeared. While I could still select and focus on Ida and Dactyl, just not see them, I can't even do that for those poor moons.

Yes, 3e and 4e make Saturn's moons disappear, which is a problem because a fairly large part concerns the Cassini probe and Titan.

Dear Folks:



It sounds like you did not download the General-Addons download which must be used with the Educational Activities. They include revised models and textures for Ida, Dactyl, many of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn that far surpass the default textures that come with the Celestia basic package.

If you did download it, then I suspect it was placed in the wrong place. the General-Addons download must be unzipped directly into the main Celestia folder. Believe me, it does contain the correct files.

Regarding Helios 1 for example, there is no texture. The model itself contains the texture. This is common for some spacecraft models.

You also have to remember to reclick the opening link to start the Activity, if you return to it later.

In any case, all of that is now moot. The Educational Activities have been extensively revised for 2005. They use a customized version of Celestia, they are placed in their own directory (Celestia-ED) and they launch their own add-ons. Just click on an opening link in the Activity document, and Celestia-ED will load a set of custom add-ons just for that Activity. They are no longer combined with the regular version of Celestia. The add-ons are not even combined with each other. Only the add-ons for one particular Activity are loaded.

You must, however, download the General-Educational add-on zip file and install it, after you install the custom version of Celestia.

Look for the new add-ons on the Motherlode educational page in a few days. They have been uploaded and the page needs editing. the folks at Motherlode should get around to it very soon.

Regards,

Frank Gregorio

fsgregs wrote:In any case, all of that is now moot. The Educational Activities have been extensively revised for 2005.

Oh Boy!

They use a customized version of Celestia, they are placed in their own directory (Celestia-ED) and they launch their own add-ons.

Oooooohhhh....

I love this... I loved the first one. My students loved it. I can't wait. Man, can I buy you a beer? Of course, I should probably buy Selden & Fridger a beer too, and Toti, and Don, El, Rass, Cham, Runar, and well heck all of you guys (I'd keep going but...well I'm lazy, it's late, etc). Guess I will have to quit my job and travel the world buying beers for Celestia folk. Of course, that wont last long (and neither would my marriage) Let's see 4129 users x $3 US/beer (good beer mind you) = approx $12400 plus plane fare. Maybe I'll stay home. But, I am raising my glass to you as I type, one handed, really...

fsgregs wrote:Dear Folks:



It sounds like you did not download the General-Addons download which must be used with the Educational Activities. They include revised models and textures for Ida, Dactyl, many of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn that far surpass the default textures that come with the Celestia basic package.

If you did download it, then I suspect it was placed in the wrong place. the General-Addons download must be unzipped directly into the main Celestia folder. Believe me, it does contain the correct files.

Regarding Helios 1 for example, there is no texture. The model itself contains the texture. This is common for some spacecraft models.

You also have to remember to reclick the opening link to start the Activity, if you return to it later.

I did download the addons and installed them and everything. It's possible I unzipped them in the wrong place, but I blame the messy layout of the files. But it doesn't really matter now.

In any case, all of that is now moot. The Educational Activities have been extensively revised for 2005. They use a customized version of Celestia, they are placed in their own directory (Celestia-ED) and they launch their own add-ons. Just click on an opening link in the Activity document, and Celestia-ED will load a set of custom add-ons just for that Activity. They are no longer combined with the regular version of Celestia. The add-ons are not even combined with each other. Only the add-ons for one particular Activity are loaded.

You must, however, download the General-Educational add-on zip file and install it, after you install the custom version of Celestia.

Look for the new add-ons on the Motherlode educational page in a few days. They have been uploaded and the page needs editing. the folks at Motherlode should get around to it very soon.

Regards,

Frank Gregorio

Excellent. I look forward to trying it out and complaining about it if it doesn't work

Note: please don't think I don't like your work. I think it's brilliant for the most part, and I'm only trying to help make it better.

Yes, I am sure I got the GAD and all that jazz, but whatevaz.

I highly enjoyed the the activitie about stars, nebulae and black holes. In fact, I showed it to my grandmother, who didn't know anything about the topic except what she heard in Star Trek. Now I got her to get Celestia and just installed another one of your activities for her, the spacecraft of celestia one.

Speaking about Star Trek, I just watched the 8th activity, and I couldn't help noticing some rather odd things. For instance, I'm pretty sure the Borg don't draw scary faces on their home planet. As far as I know, they don't even have a home planet to begin with. Some more iffy stuff:
-I doubt Spock's actual name was "Mr. Spock", I'm sure just "Spock" is enough.
-The Trek universe has artificial gravity, so their space stations don't need to rotate.
-Picard's first name is Jean-Luc, not Jon Luke.

For 2001, the last crew member didn't die. Dave Bowman was transported to somewhere else, had lots of stuff done to him, and was finally returned to our solar system as something more than human. Well, maybe this does mean that the man Bowman did indeed die. Whatever.

Star Wars: Han Solo, not Hans Solo. Chewie (short for Chewbacce), not Chewy. B-Wings are ships used by the rebellion, not the Empire. Dagobah, not Degobah. Endor is a moon, not a planet. Plus the planets in the last part of this are all in different solar systems, but I agree that putting them in the same one is easier. I'm not trying to nitpick, honest.

Finally, while I only watched a few episodes of Babylon 5, I have the distinct impression that B5 is a station, not a spaceship, and as such it's not cruising the galaxy.

I agree that since it's all fictional, it's not really important that it's 100% correct. But for people (like me) who are at times better informed about SF than about reality, it does cast a little bit of doubt on the accuracy of the actual science. (I'm sure it's all correct, it just gives the wrong impression.)

Dear Uxs:

I am duly impressed with your ability to find inaccuracies in the fictional worlds of Activity 8. In the future, however, it might be a bit nicer to send me a private message about what you feel are things needing correction

FYI, I did not want to consider Deep Space 4 to be a StarTrek space station. Rather, it was to be simply a space station of the future ... rotating as it would really do (artificial gravity is not probable).

Thanks for correcting Jean Luc's name. As for Mr. Spock, I'll leave it as is.

I've made some of the other corrections you suggested.

Regards

Frank

Hi uxs,just to correct a detail in the Star Wars addons,Endor is actually a gas giant planet,all the action takes place on 'a forest moon of Endor'.Not sure if we actually get to see what Endor looks like though,cheers Jestr

fsgregs wrote:stuff

Ok.

I said it before though: don't think I don't like them. Hell, the fact alone that I went through all 8 activities should tell you enough.

Just curious what ever happened with your Mac OS issues with the educational activites?

Cheers

P.S. I like Heinekein when Buggs gets to L.A.

Steven:

The guy that promised to work on the MAc issue for me has not had a chance to get to it. I have, therefore, sent a PM to Chris Laurel, asking his advice. We'll see if he gets back to me.

I am sunk without that command line option in both MAC and Linux.
PS

The new Activities are now all up and running on my personal site, located at: http://www.gregs-educational.info. Unfortunately, the customized MAC and Linux versions are not yet functional. The Activities require the command line option.

Motherlode has all the Activities and is updating the education page. As soon as they are done, I will be making a forum announcement.

I'll keep you informed about the MAC thing.

Frank

You know... not sure still EXACTLY what you need, but as far as I can tell, you need a Celestia to launch with a particular .cfg file? And/or add-ons in the proper folder so they load?

As far as I know, I think you can specify which add-ons folder to use in the .cfg file - but your difficulty getting this to work on OS X is that you cannot instruct Celestia to use the different .cfg files you have created.

But how about this...

Instead of double-clicking on the .cfg file... double-click on an Applescript. The Applescript can be programmed to "swap out" the proper .cfg file into the default location that Celestia loads - which in turn can load your proper add-ons. And you can have one Applescript for each activity. Does that help?

Any Applescript writers out there?

Steve:

That would work fine ... but I have NOOOOOO Idea what an Applescript is, how to write one or how to get one to swap out cfg files. If anyone can write applescripts, please PM me and I'll explain what I need it to do. Thanks

If one could be written to instruct Celestia to load a particular cfg file, a user still has to launch that script. I would like to do that via an MS Word file link. In other words, a user opens the MS Word document, begins reading ... gets to a sentence that reads, "To launch Celestia, click HERE". When they click on the word, "HERE", the applescript launches, swaps one cfg file for another and Celestia launches with the customized cfg file.

Can any of that be done??? HELP!

Frank

Is your site down?

Yep ... my site went down yesterday. The friend who is hosting it for me is working on it. Check back in a day or two.

Sorry about that.

Frank

I'll check with me sources and let you know...

fsgregs wrote:Steve:

That would work fine ... but I have NOOOOOO Idea what an Applescript is, how to write one or how to get one to swap out cfg files. If anyone can write applescripts, please PM me and I'll explain what I need it to do. Thanks

If one could be written to instruct Celestia to load a particular cfg file, a user still has to launch that script. I would like to do that via an MS Word file link. In other words, a user opens the MS Word document, begins reading ... gets to a sentence that reads, "To launch Celestia, click HERE". When they click on the word, "HERE", the applescript launches, swaps one cfg file for another and Celestia launches with the customized cfg file.

Can any of that be done??? HELP!

Frank

Hey Frank,

Just wanted to thank you for all the work you've done with the educational activities, I'm enjoying them very much. Just downloaded Activity 9 and went through that with eyes-a-poppin'

Unfortunately for me I'm still on a dial-up service with no high speed connections of any kind in my near future. It took 6 days to download Activity 9 (well worth it I might add) with Getright. Looking forward to Activity 10 now Keep up the great work!

Oniisan:

Great! Thanks for the compliment.

Frank

Hey, the download site is pretty slow, is there anyway to get some mirrors for maybe just the main file?

I wish there was a good Teacher's Astronomy forum...