Space Engine

[Mynameislol]

Hello, i've found a really cool program, it's like celestia on steroids, as you can go anywhere you want in the entire visible universe, and you can actually see the surface of planets, suns and lots more! Also, beware that this needs a fairly good computer to run. http://www.facepunch.com/threads/107579 ... -Simulator also, i forgot to mention, but when it comes to making custom systems, it's like creating a system for celestia, but when it comes to making textures, it gets complicated.

[Cham]

Yep, this looks like some serious competition to Celestia. There's no Mac version though, so I can't test this Space Engine. According to all the pictures and videos I saw, it appears to be a great software. May even be better than Celestia !

[bh]

looks very impressive.

[selden]

Suggestion to those who want to try it:

Download the 380MB RAR file from the mirror instead of using the links on the Russian-language site.
The mirror server is much faster and the 0.9 patch has already been applied.

Since this thread is not about Celestia, I'll move it to Petit Bistro.

[NoXion]

This looks gorgeous. Going by the first page of the linked thread it might have a few stability issues, though. Will certainly download it later.

[bh]

Mac version?

[selden]

Going by the first page of the linked thread it might have a few stability issues, though.

I'm sure there are bugs in the program, but the forms of the comments suggest to me that those with problems might not have tried updating their graphics drivers. Most games include many workarounds for bugs in older drivers. As with Celestia, I doubt that the author of Space Engine has the resources to develop similar workarounds.

[selden]

Mac version?

Nope, sorry. As best I can tell, it's Windows only. i.e. You'd need to have an Intel-based Mac and run Parallels or the equivalent.

[Osprey]

I was found 1 year or more space engine project on one Russian game dev forum http://www.gamedev.ru/projects/forum/?id=122716 Author told that he use some code and some design from celestia, also he promise to make it open source /he must because he use code from celestia as I know/. Addons may be compatible, Linux/Mac version may be after it became open code, only opengl used, (not remeber, but he maybe use GL3 and nvidia CG). Some differences from celestia: Eric Bruneton atmosphere model, procedural generation of stuffs for unknown universe, galaxies rendered in skybox or same tech.

[NoXion]

Downloaded the program and checked it out. Bit of a learning curve with the controls (I'm very used to Celestia!), plus there are some minor graphical glitches, but otherwise I can easily see myself whiling away hours on this program. I think the strongest feature is the use of procedural generation, which really sets it apart from Celestia - the only time I've had similar feelings of exploring the unknown has been when perusing the results of a globular cluster + star system generator for Celestia that I am now unable to find again (if anybody happens to have that, by the way, please upload it somewhere if you can!).

[W0RLDBUILDER]

I hate it. Every time I try running Space Engine it crashes. I have no idea why.

[selden]

I hate it. Every time I try running Space Engine it crashes. I have no idea why.

Make sure the computer's graphics drivers are up to date.

[selden]

Another possible cause: lack of available graphics memory. A workaround is to exit from as many other programs as you can before running Space Engine.

Celestia will crash with no warning if no graphics memory is available, so Space Engine probably will too. Windows Photo Viewer is particularly unfriendly in that regard. It'll often occupy a large fraction of the available graphics memory, preventing some 3D programs from starting.

FWIW, I've been using the free GpuCapsViewer (from Ozone3D) to monitor the status of my graphics hardware.

[Mynameislol]

Great news! I got a mail from the creator of this simulator, and he sent back a link to make cylindrical textures into usable format on space engine!
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cubemap/files/

[sanctus]

Looks impressive but soon i run out of memory especially when im at the center of the milky way or in other galaxies , i have to close the program and reopen it again to run with smooth fps

[PlutonianEmpire]

Space Engine is great! I've been using it for almost 2 years now. It's definitely come a long way since this thread was first posted! :)

And yes I've converted some of my own Celestia addons to it except the textures. I'll take pretty mountains any day over flat planets. And because cubemap is a pain to use, especially for Gimp users like me with limited file save options.

[John Van Vliet]

i use the hugin perl panotools in cpan ( there is also a python version in pip )
to move from simple cylinder to cube map and back

[Alexell]

PlutonianEmpire, Space Engine surely beautiful, but not realistic. It becomes a game, and scientific data in it less and less.

[bh]

Yes... shame not for mac.

[FarGetaNik]

It's definitely beautiful, but has a completely different focus than Celestia. Celestia is more accurate and easier to manipulate, so I'll stick to it for now