Dev?

[ajtribick]

Perhaps this is the reason for development slowdown? Everyone getting far too defensive far too quickly?

Surely the best response to questions about the rendering technique would be to say "already considered it - this is how I've done it" and some well-commented code.

Rather than taking every question as an attack on one's expertise (which appears to have happened on both sides of the globular discussion)?

[t00fri]

You know...
I absolutely love both of you gentlemen, but wouldn't we all be better served if these heady discussions were done via PM's?
I only understand about 1/10th of what you are saying here, but I am certainly not immune to the notes of discord and lack of harmony prevailing here.

Come on guys, you are staining my Universe.
Let's have a bit of cheer and start over somewhere else, eh? Hell, send me your addresses via PM's, and I'll personally buy you BOTH a bottle of your favorite
noxious drinking liquid. Remember that we ALL love Celestia. Do we not?

I'll shut up now, but please keep in mind my offer. Hell, take a vacation for a while.

Hey Bob,

you sure are a GREAT soul! Thanks for the offer ...I might even accept it after 6.5 years of Celestia!

Cheers,
Fridger

[t00fri]

Perhaps this is the reason for development slowdown? Everyone getting far too defensive far too quickly?

Andrew, after contemplating recently about the coincident dismissal of practically all "old" developers , I tend to agree with you!

Fridger

[chris]

Chris,

please, don't forget about the planetographic grid. Currently, it's uncomplete, as we already discussed by email, some weeks ago.

I added it to the tracker:
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.p ... tid=371302

--Chris

[chris]

I don't think it is odd at all. As I said, I've seen similar issues crop up before--it's a potential problem any time you are potentially rendering a bunch of sprites in one place. The specifics of the King parameters don't even matter: somehow you have to deal with the case when lots sprites pile up on the same pixel.

You somehow seem to be forgetting that I am fumbling with Celestia's code just half a year less than you do...(although you have been doing so much more than me ). I sure know about the pixel pile up problem and soon or later there will be the proper improvements found. But --my God-- this is NOT the type of corrections to address as a first comment in a preview!

My first comment was actually:

Definitely! This work looks very promising indeed. The distribution of stars looks quite convincing.

I meant my response to be positive. By word count, my post was weighted toward a discussion of further developments; but adding an equal number of words saying 'nice job' would have been redundant.

It was not meant to be insulting. Sorry if it was. Yet, you were certainly prepared concerning your OWN argument, but it was ALSO obvious that you were unaware about the crucial point related to King's cluster modelling: The statistical star sprite generation needs to be done in 3d according to the 3d King distribution, while your type of matching refers to the 2d skyplane. Hence the matching requires to project the generated 3d distribution (depending on King's standard parameters) to 2d via a nasty integral. I have never read a word from you about this issue... So...

One idea:
The projection of the globular clusters is radially symmetric, so the problem reduces to one variable: r. Then we can solve the integral numerically at whatever values of r are required. Since the overbrightness problem is mainly an issue at small apparent sizes, we should be able to get a decent approximation to the projected distribution by linearly interpolating between a small set of sample points. Instead of a single 'cloud sprite', we could render concentric rings of Gouraud shaded quads. For each globular rendered, the number of times the 3D King distribution function would be evaulated is (# of samples in r) * (# of integration steps); perhaps as few as 5*10 would be adequate?

Or . . . something else. If you've got another technique that works well, then great!

But if you've got a globular cluster rendering working and the clusters look good at all sizes and distances, then just share the code patch already. Actually, even if the rendering isn't perfect, you should still share the code. Or if you're unwilling to participate in the development of globular clusters, then say so, and we'll get the task assigned to others.

That's not quite the right tone I would say...Under such premises you are certainly free to assign the development of globular clusters to others, if you prefer... Then this was it, I suppose.

That's not what I'd prefer--you've obviously invested a good deal of time and expertise in your code, and I'd much rather see it in Celestia where everyone can enjoy it. But you and everyone else (and I'm including myself) must be prepared to accept suggestions and constructive criticism about code they contribute to the project.

--Chris

[ajtribick]

Regarding the general state of Celestia development and communications in the devteam, this article has a few things we might want to consider to help get the development process back on track.

[cpaullrun]

Hello, All -

I have used Celestia for several years and it is by far my favorite program, bar none. I have installed Celestia on both Linux and Windows, and overall it works flawlessly on both platforms. While I do not contribute to the development effort, I do read the forums avidly.

On occasion, the discussion gets heated between Toofri and (it seems) everyone else, but all have made Celestia very useful and quite stunning to look at besides. I remember more than once thinking this Toofri guy is very mean, but after rereading his posts, I mostly accept his response that he is being misunderstood/mistranslated. As an end user, I do find it frustrating that Toofri announces major coding achievements and then "freezes" them. I am thinking of his dismissal of the Motherlode and refusal to post addons there, as well as his latest Globular Clusters project. While I mostly understand his reasons for doing so, it seems a bit petty to discuss and announce improvements and then withhold them out of personal pique. Of course, I am not a physicist or a programmer - if I was BOTH I might get testy, too. Thank you, Toofri for your outstanding work.

It is clear that Toofri is very skilled, and he is certainly appreciated every time I load Celestia, but so is Chris and every other developer on Celestia. Without all of you I would be using one of the many (and to my mind) inferior apps out there to visualize the universe. I do not mind waiting a few extra months if that's what it takes for an open-source project to get it right.

It would be nice to know when the next version will come out, but I'd rather wait until it's done than have it rushed out, a la Vista, without being truly ready. I know how to check the forums and the download page for updates, so I can be patient.

So, to all who work on this program - I thank you all with all my heart. After haunting the forums for two years, I hope we can talk Toofri into committing that Globular Cluster code.

And a special Thank You to Chris Laurel for starting such a wonderful, fantastic program.

Thanks to Selden and Bob Hedgewood as well. I have found both of your work very helpful.

Chanse Paull

[BobHegwood]

Thanks to Selden and Bob Hedgewood as well. I have found both of your work very helpful.

The name is HEGWOOD, not Hedgewood.
Have a look at your private mail too, my friend. Apparently, you do not have your profile set up to let you know that you HAVE a PM waiting.