Mobile Celestia for iOS

[Anthony_B_Russo10]

Added after 1 minute 30 seconds:
Anthony_B_Russo10 wrote:
Markers, is there a way you can add this to the Archive repository?
https://github.com/Anthony-B-Russo10/Celestia-Archive

the binary would hardly be useful, one can only install iOS apps from AppStore/Testflight on normal iOS devices.

I mean just for archival purposes so they are there for the future.


The same can be done with the future Android version, though that one will be easier to archive and use in the future.

[Markerz]

I mean just for archival purposes so they are there for the future.

The same can be done with the future Android version, though that one will be easier to archive and use in the future.

The generated archive is too bloated, 450MB. I would be keeping tag/releases in the GitHub repo, when it goes open source, anyone should be able to see it.

[Anthony_B_Russo10]

Ah, ok but Android will be easier to archive.

[SVision]

WOW

Unexpectedly and pleasantly.

Markerz you're good !
If you or anyone else can port Celestia to Android.
Oh
That would be great.

[Lafuente_Astronomy]

WOW

Unexpectedly and pleasantly.

Markerz you're good !
If you or anyone else can port Celestia to Android.
Oh
That would be great.

Truly that is great indeed. The problem for me, is how many addons can we add to that version before it starts to lag.

[Markerz]

I was trying to make a start for Android, but unluckily I do no have any Android device to test on for now.

[Lafuente_Astronomy]

I was trying to make a start for Android, but unluckily I do no have any Android device to test on for now.

I don't know if it would work but have you tried downloading an Android emulator like BlueStacks? It could be a good testbed for Android. If that would not work, I would recommend a Samsung phone. I honestly think Samsung phones to be the best android phones.

[Markerz]

I don't know if it would work but have you tried downloading an Android emulator like BlueStacks? It could be a good testbed for Android. If that would not work, I would recommend a Samsung phone. I honestly think Samsung phones to be the best android phones.

emulator does not work for me, it could have been configuration. I might go and buy a cheap phone, but it depends....

Added after 7 minutes 6 seconds:
I released a few updates, now Mobile Celestia is capable of most of what exists on other platforms too.

[Lafuente_Astronomy]

emulator does not work for me, it could have been configuration. I might go and buy a cheap phone, but it depends....

Ahhhhhh. Well, that's merely a small setback.

[Anthony_B_Russo10]

Indeed it is.

[onetwothree]

@Markerz, what do you think about SDL library. Will it be useful to use it for mobile frontends?

[Markerz]

@Markerz, what do you think about SDL library. Will it be useful to use it for mobile frontends?

I checked the status of SDL online, it seems if you use SDL, then there would not be any native UI control possible. while the desktop version has keyboard that covers a lot of the use case, the mobile platform would need native UI controls and using SDL might be a bad idea.

For the iOS build here it is using everything native (iOS's GLKit to provide a view for OpenGL ES to draw), an Objective-C++ wrapper (modified from existing Mac OS X frontend code from 1.6.1) around celestiacore to interact with. Most of the UI code is done using Swift which is an ease to use and has good coop with Objective-C.
For other mobile platforms, well apparently there is only Android for now. I would suggest doing the same natively, a Java/Kotlin wrapper around celestiacore, and use Java/Kotlin to build the UI. There are other options for UI, like React Native, Flutter, both are crossplat but personally I'd prefer Java/Kotlin since iOS port is already working.

[onetwothree]

Clear. I just found that it works both on desktop and mobile OS ans decided that it might help to keep differences between mobile ports as small as possible. But taking into account you have written it really won't help us.

[Markerz]

Clear. I just found that it works both on desktop and mobile OS ans decided that it might help to keep differences between mobile ports as small as possible. But taking into account you have written it's really won't help us.

I have set up an Android Studio project which can be used for Android port. It will compile all celestia files. I managed to build with dependency libs set up. But now there is no UI, I just wrote some Java wrapper functions around celestiacore.

Since I am not an experienced Android developer, I'll just open source it now, and any progress will just be public.
https://github.com/eyvallah/AndroidCelestia

[Lafuente_Astronomy]

I have set up an Android Studio project which can be used for Android port. It will compile all celestia files. I managed to build with dependency libs set up. But now there is no UI, I just wrote some Java wrapper functions around celestiacore.

Since I am not an experienced Android developer, I'll just open source it now, and any progress will just be public.

So, with those developments, it can then also be used for Android emulators like BlueStacks?

[Markerz]

So, with those developments, it can then also be used for Android emulators like BlueStacks?

nope, emulator still does not work. I will have a phone arriving tomorrow, so I might check on it.

[Lafuente_Astronomy]

nope, emulator still does not work. I will have a phone arriving tomorrow, so I might check on it.

Ahhhh. Good luck out there. And just for reference, could you share with us the phone's specs? Thanks in advance

[Markerz]

Ahhhh. Good luck out there. And just for reference, could you share with us the phone's specs? Thanks in advance

Android 9, snapdragon 660, 3g ram, 2340 x 1080 screen resolution

on real device, I got to go a bit further... as you can see in the video.

it also uses gl4es as a shim, some shader compilation error were thrown...

Code: Select all

2020-03-16 19:10:07.321 29908-29963/space.celestia.MobileCelestia I/Adreno: ERROR: 0:46: 'eyePosition' : Only consts can be used in a global initializer
    ERROR: 0:46: '_gl4es_Vertex' : Only consts can be used in a global initializer
    ERROR: 0:47: '_gl4es_Normal' : Only consts can be used in a global initializer
    ERROR: 0:47: 'eyeDir' : Only consts can be used in a global initializer
    ERROR: 4 compilation errors.  No code generated.
2020-03-16 19:10:07.323 29908-29963/space.celestia.MobileCelestia I/Adreno: ERROR: 0:21: 'ambientColor' : Only consts can be used in a global initializer
    ERROR: 0:21: 'opacity' : Only consts can be used in a global initializer
    ERROR: 2 compilation errors.  No code generated.
2020-03-16 19:10:07.329 29908-29963/space.celestia.MobileCelestia I/Adreno: ERROR: 0:43: 'eyePosition' : Only consts can be used in a global initializer
    ERROR: 0:43: '_gl4es_Vertex' : Only consts can be used in a global initializer
    ERROR: 0:44: '_gl4es_Normal' : Only consts can be used in a global initializer
    ERROR: 0:44: 'eyeDir' : Only consts can be used in a global initializer
    ERROR: 4 compilation errors.  No code generated.
2020-03-16 19:10:07.741 29908-29963/space.celestia.MobileCelestia I/Adreno: ERROR: 0:40: 'eyePosition' : Only consts can be used in a global initializer
    ERROR: 0:40: '_gl4es_Vertex' : Only consts can be used in a global initializer
    ERROR: 0:41: '_gl4es_Normal' : Only consts can be used in a global initializer
    ERROR: 0:41: 'eyeDir' : Only consts can be used in a global initializer
    ERROR: 4 compilation errors.  No code generated.


[MrSpace43]

There is this bug for planets with any rings where if you turn on ring shadows, the planet's surface texture disappears and the planet turns red.

[Markerz]

There is this bug for planets with any rings where if you turn on ring shadows, the planet's surface texture disappears and the planet turns red.

image0bug.jpg

It might be because that I was hardcoding OpenGL abilities, what is the device that you ran Celestia on?