Celestia Forums

Hi, guys!
What about making the Celestia screen saver? I think it may be simply to do. Of course, for those who may programming

Though there is no need to use screen savers nowadays on modern monitors I would build one for W32.
I'm not sure whether there is any interest within the community to download it.
What do you (all) think about providing a screen saver?

Adirondack

I think it would be cool. Not sure how long I could run it before my system crashes, but I would be willing to give it a try.

Adirondack wrote:What do you (all) think about providing a screen saver?

It depends on what it will do... If it??s a small stand-alone app that can promote Celestia outside the community, it can be a very good idea. Else we have Celestia already on our computers...

- rthorvald

rthorvald wrote:It depends on what it will do... If it??s a small stand-alone app that can promote Celestia outside the community, it can be a very good idea. Else we have Celestia already on our computers...

Nice idea, a very light app (star field, one or two galaxies, the Sun, Earth/moon, mars, Saturn, Jupiter) with a nice celx, easy to distribute to promote the soft... if it goes in this direction, it would be nice to have a small logo in a corner of the screen...

ElChristou wrote:a very light app (star field, one or two galaxies, the Sun, Earth/moon, mars, Saturn, Jupiter) with a nice celx, easy to distribute to promote the soft... if it goes in this direction, it would be nice to have a small logo in a corner of the screen...

Exactly what i meant. Add the ability to CEL or CELX script it, so that one can create and distribute small modules of different "tours", and one will have a very cool marketing device for Celestia, and also another arena for scripters and artists to use.

This could be a neat little project for programmers and artists to collaborate on: creating, as you say, a basic set of celestial objects, add good but ultra-light textures for the nine planets and major moons, and a few, select, also ultra-light spacecraft models.

The big challenge will be to balance a minimal footprint with a maximum user experience. Can be fun to do and very useful to draw attention to Celestia.


- rthorvald

Yeah, since all screensavers anymore are simply eye candy, why not make it the sweetest candy possible? I'd love to see a Celestia screensaver. As long as things stay relatively low resolution, with simple models, etc., I think there would be a great amount of general interest, and I think it would draw a large amount of awareness towards Celestia over all.

Some "tours" that I can think of as modules for the screensaver:

* A tour of the planets and the major moons (with some of the well known minor bodies thrown in, such as Phoebe, Eros, or Gaspra to name a few).
* Following various spaceprobes, such as the Voyagers or Galileo, with their interplanetary journeis sped up, and then of course slowing down during planetary or moon encounters (in fact, a sort of split screen here would be cool, being able to follow just behind the probe, with a smaller screen tracing its path through the solar system)
* A tour of the known extrasolar worlds.
* A tour of the local galactic neighborhood

And so on....

...John...

Dollan wrote:Some "tours" that I can think of as modules for the screensaver

A bit early for that
Better to focus on the app: give it the ability to do the things you suggested, but providing the tours would be a task for add-on developers later...

Adirondack, can you write this? I??ll help with the graphics, and maybe elchristou could help with the models... And, after that, a small collection of scripts.

If this is feasible, let??s make a list of must-have features...

- rthorvald

Oh, I know those would come later. But I tend to run for the whole cake when I hear about something new and exciting, rather than being happy with the provided slice

...John...

In all case the first challenge is to do a very light app... I suppose this is not so simple...

One possibility would just be a slideshow.

Once concern is that screensavers which use 3D graphics use a lot more power than do simple 2D screensavers like slideshows. Some places forbid the use of 3D screen savers because of this, usually recommending the blank screensaver instead.

Selden has a good idea, actually. I already have several screenshots by Jestr and Runar cycling thorugh my Webshots screensaver on my home computer.

...John...

I've actually used Celestia as a manual screensaver more than once. I've used Harald Schmidt's Random Motion Script to just randomly fly around the galaxy. It's kinda like the Windows Starfield screensaver, except much nicer looking.

I've also put a tiny moon in orbit around the (fictional) Death Star, which orbits it's moon, which orbits it's planet, obiting the star. I then float above the surface of my tiny moon and use the sync-orbit function to watch everything float by. It looks very cool

selden wrote:One possibility would just be a slideshow.

Once concern is that screensavers which use 3D graphics use a lot more power than do simple 2D screensavers like slideshows. Some places forbid the use of 3D screen savers because of this, usually recommending the blank screensaver instead.

That wil lose my interest: one can download free slideshow software from anywhere and run whatever images one wants in it - Celestia screenshots included.

No, i would very much like to contribute to something that showcases Celestia: a mini-version that actually does what Celestia does in a limited way, with scripting possibilities so that one can provide different screensaver experiences by distributing small text files.

- rthorvald

I don't think trying to produce a "stripped down" version of Celestia's code would be very productive. It would be a lot of work for little gain: Celestia's binary is only about 1.5MB. The objects and textures that it displays are what make the package so big.

I would expect the additional code needed for it to have the hooks to act as a screensaver under Windows would be rather small, too.

This suggests that a small demo package would consist of Celestia plus a selection of a very small number of textures and models.

rthorvald wrote:That wil lose my interest: one can download free slideshow software from anywhere and run whatever images one wants in it - Celestia screenshots included.

No, i would very much like to contribute to something that showcases Celestia: a mini-version that actually does what Celestia does in a limited way, with scripting possibilities so that one can provide different screensaver experiences by distributing small text files.

I agree a dynamic app would be much more spectacular for a promotion purpose...

selden wrote:I don't think trying to produce a "stripped down" version of Celestia's code would be very productive. It would be a lot of work for little gain: Celestia's binary is only about 1.5MB. The objects and textures that it displays are what make the package so big.

I'm not sure presenting models is a good idea because we need an app very small so a model in this case won't be very interesting...
Now we can imagine the word "Celestia" in 3D, then the celx could visit it a moment (1 or 2 orbits) between two planets...

It would ne nice to make and extralight version with 20k/40k stars around the sun, the MW, LMC/SMC and M31/M110 for galaxies and a pack of planets with a few moons to see the size of such package...

Well, if I have understood Void correctly, he asked for a simple screen saver.

A simple screen saver in my opinion is a simple slide show, that starts when the
PC is in "nothing to do-mode" after a while. I didn't think about a stand alone
app. I do agree with Selden in this point.

I'm talking about a .scr file with the nine planets, e.g. ISS, HST, Cassini orbiter
and some nice NGCs or stuff like this (more suggestions and pics are welcome) with
a resolution that meets the properties of 17" monitors (1024x768) at least.

The screen saver should not be bigger than 1 MB in size, so it is easy to download
and easy to use and should run on almost every weak computer.

Do we actually need a 3D-promotion software of Celestia?
All your suggestions sound great. But I do not have the time to make this.
If you (Runar, ElChristou, John) want to provide a script version, go ahead.
I don't know how you will implement this to a real screen saver.

All I can offer is a slide show of screenshots in a .scr file for W32.


Adirondack

I know no one has posted here in a while.. but...

I've often wanted to use Celestia as a screensaver myself.. not for promotional purposes.. tho people that have visited me while using the app have always asked about it...

Is there not a way to make a .scr that can start the app, and with that start a specified 'demo' file to have it go wherever the user wished to set it?

The Sol solar system has been mentioned several times.. but personally, our solar system bores me.. lol I'd actually like to set up something with several of the fictional files that have been uploaded.

But to each their own...

Would it be possible to set up something that can use the main application as a screensaver?

Here are two Web sites that describe how to make a screen saver for Windows. It isn't as easy as you'd like.

http://www.cityintherain.com/howtoscr.html

http://www.wischik.com/scr/howtoscr.html

A freeware 3D screensaver showing the solar system is available at http://www.3dsolarsystem.com/

The author has kind words to say about Celestia