Hi all:
Well, after over 40 hours of work over Xmas holidays, I am pleased to announce the release of a new add-on that showcases the beauty and ability of Celestia to take you into space, and into the future. The add-on will execute an approximate 10-minute animated script in two parts, meticulously choreographed to music played internally from within Celestia, that will take you on a wonderful journey to the 23rd century. High in orbit above Earth, you will witness and hear final preparations and then departure of the USS Enterprise commanded by Captain James T. Kirk, as it leaves space dock and heads into space at warp speed to encounter an alien presence of enormous power. The preparation and departure sequences are loosely based upon scenes from the movie, Star Trek, the Motion Picture.
I promise that this add-on will be an exciting experience for you all. Choreographing complex celestial movements to music with Celestia scripts is a new opportunity to experience the cosmos even more dramatically than before.
This 165 MB add-on incorporates Star Trek models and textures assembled primarily by Fungun and Reiko. I thank them for their great assistance in making this add-on come to life. The add-on is sophisticated and employs 14 xyz custom orbit files, 16 separate spacecraft models, 102 textures, 3 ssc files, four scripts, three wav music/sound clip files and a customized version of Celestia known as Celestia151-ED.exe, which contains code to play sound/music files. Although the add-on will play on most computers, your system should have at least 512 MB of RAM, sound, a video card with at least 64 MB of Video RAM (128 MB or higher preferred) and a CPU of at least 1 GHz processing speed.
The add-on requires that you have Celestia version 1.5.1, Celestia151-ED or 1.6.0 installed on your system. If you do, it will add some files to your main directory. Nothing in that directory will be overwritten, so it is safe to install.
If you already have Celestia151-ED installed on your computer, install this add-on into that folder/directory. The enclosed copy of Celestia151-ED.exe, and its dll files can overwrite your existing files (they are the same files).
The add-on contains a fully functional copy of Celestia151-ED.exe, a custom version of Celestia 151, coded by Vincent as a service to the educational community, to enable Celestia to control and play sound and music. Celestia151-ED.exe must be unzipped into your main Celestia 151, 151-ED or 1.6.0 folder and will reside in that folder next to your regular copy of Celestia.exe. To use this add-on, you MUST launch Celestia151-ED.exe first, by clicking on its icon. I repeat ... your MUST launch Celestia151-ED.exe first. Once it is launched, pull down the "file" menu, select "scripts", and open one of the three scripts that accompany this add-on. They should be present in the "scripts" folder inside your Celestia 151 main directory.
The main script is titled, "StarTrek-Sound-combined.cel". When launched, it will play the entire 10 minute add-on to music. I recommend you launch this script. The other scripts are subparts of this main script.
When you first launch any of the scripts, Celestia151-ED will attempt to draw and load the many models and textures employed in the add-on. Depending upon the power of your computer system, the first time it does so, there will probably be a lot of pauses, stutters and stops, as one large texture loads after another. Because of this, your initial viewing of this add-on may be disjointed and it may not sound well timed to the music. I strongly recommend that you launch and play the script through fully once, so that all textures and music files load. When it is done, press the [Esc] key to end the script, then RELAUNCH IT without closing Celestia151-ED. It will now play much smoother. The 2nd viewing will give you the full benefit of the script's timed choreography to music.
The add-on takes place high above Earth. I recommend you use your high-resolution textures for Earth, to enjoy maximum visual beauty. To load them, launch Celestia 151-ED, then press the [Shift+R] keys to set rendering to "high res textures".
For maximum enjoyment of the add-on, turn off your screen labeling by pressing the [V] key until no text is visible. Set ambient light to about 0.1, by pressing the { } bracket keys. Set star magnitudes at about 9.0, using the [ ] bracket keys.
Before you run this add-on, make sure you read the read-me file accompanying it. It gives tips on how to best get the music to play.
The add-on has been placed on my website. Here is the download link to it: http://fsgregs.startlogic.com/Public_Files/Enterprise_spacedock.zip.
Here is a screenshot from it.
EDITED: I have also now put a high res video of the add-on onto my site. Click here to view it. http://fsgregs.startlogic.com/Public_Files/Enterprise1.wmv
Enjoy. I welcome your comments.
Frank
There's no way I could run this on my system (I really need to get a new compter) I may have to get my son to put it on his system.
