Hi I am new & have a question about planets/textures

[ottomancer]

Hi there,

I have just downloaded and installed Celestia, and think it is a seriously cool piece of software.

I am a sci-fi RPG writer, and am currently researching a hard sci-fi setting I intend writing, and wondered if Celestia would let me create star systems around local stars, and then add textures to those planets?

I can't see anything in the standard interface which will allow me to do this. If I want to create star systems of my own will I have to learn a scripting language (I have seen posts about writing scripts)? Although I know some php, I am in no way a proficient programmer, and am hoping there is some kind of plugin which can help me? *fingers crossed*

Thanks

[selden]

ottomancer,

Celestia uses plain-text catalog files to define planets and stars. You can create your own catalogs to define the planets and stars that you want.

You might take a look at
http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celest ... intro.html
and
http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/textures.html

They try to describe how to define stars with planetary systems and their surface textures. Please let me know how they could be improved.

The Celestia MotherLode includes some Addons that you might find useful.