Celestia 1.7.0 Development Thread

[onetwothree]

Check your preferences. Now it looks like you have fading orbits and moons off.

[Dimmi72]

Hi onetwothree,

I did fix the problem with the orbit lines. I pressed reset to default in the change config menu and it worked. There is no setting available for fading orbit lines.

The moons are set. I add pictures to show the settings I used.

[Markerz]

fading is set here in celestia.cfg

Added after 4 hours 24 minutes:
Also, since you are running macOS Catalina, so you should be able to test the Catalyst version of Celestia as well, here is a link of Catalyst version of Celestia https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tk9wmqQE5CBat0_vi-LlJx8D3XfzQlAS/view?usp=sharing

IF you are running 10.15.4+, you should be able to use the same shortcut as the tradition Celestia, by default there is a toolbar, but it can be hidden from the menubar.

[Dimmi72]

Hi Markerz,

I just tried the Catalyst version. Runs great so far and starts quicker than the MacOS version (even if I miss the splash screen at the beginning) ;-)
I like the customisable toolbar.

Will there be mouse zoom as well? It is far more complicated to zoom in with buttons, I like the mouse zoom in the MacOS Version far better and quicker.

I tried the AddOns in the Catalyst Version. Virtual textures seem to run poorly. I used the same texture on earth in MacOS and Catalyst. The FPS drop to as low as 5.5 at some point in Catalyst. On MacOS the same plus a virtual texture for the clouds run as smooth as butter. For that reason I would prefer the MacOS version when the moons and smaller objects would be visible as in the Catalyst version.

[Markerz]

Will there be mouse zoom as well? It is far more complicated to zoom in with buttons, I like the mouse zoom in the MacOS Version far better and quicker.

Mouse zoom should already have been supported if you are running 10.15.4+, trackpad (pinch) zoom is also supported meanwhile trackpad support is not supported on macOS version.

[Dimmi72]

Hi Markerz,

I'm running 10.15.5, I can zoom via trackpad (pinch), but not with the mouse (scroll-wheel), which works in the MacOS version. I can use the mouse to turn and navigate, but not for zoom.
It would be a little bit more convenient to zoom with the mouse when navigating. And not everyone has a trackpad (iMac, MacPro).

[Markerz]

I'm running 10.15.5, I can zoom via trackpad (pinch), but not with the mouse (scroll-wheel), which works in the MacOS version. I can use the mouse to turn and navigate, but not for zoom.
It would be a little bit more convenient to zoom with the mouse when navigating. And not everyone has a trackpad (iMac, MacPro).

weird, I tested using the same build and my mouse works fine with scrolling.

Added after 7 minutes 11 seconds:
what mouse are you using?

[Dimmi72]

i am using the Magic Mouse 2.

[Markerz]

OK, I only added support for tradtional mice.

[Dimmi72]

I think most Mac users will use a Magic Mouse.

[Anthony_B_Russo10]

The only Apple mice I know of that have a traditional scroll wheel are the Mighty Mice, plus Magic Mice only have one button by default. They have to be configured to behave more like the Mighty Mice. Apple Pro Mice and earlier are useless for Celestia due to only being single button mice.

[Markerz]

I think most Mac users will use a Magic Mouse.

support will be added for Magic Mouse, also trackpad zoom with scroll

Added after 7 hours 9 minutes:
@Dimmi72 can you update the localization for de.po, there are a few strings since you provided translation last time, thanks! we should be making a release soon

https://github.com/levinli303/Celestia/tree/master/po3

[Dimmi72]

Hi Markerz,

here is the translation of the expanded de.po.

I have a question. Is it necessary for the IOS/Android version to have the eclipse time string including hours, minutes, and seconds? I think it makes input more complicated. In my opinion it's enough to have YYYY/mm/dd. And in German speaking countries the date/time format is TT/MM/JJJJ (DD/MM/YYYY). I don't know if you plan to add different time string options.

And will there be a MacOS version with visible moons? The Catalyst version performs kind of poorly - it might be that the higher resolution on MacBooks and Macs is to much to handle for the Catalyst version. It runs great on my iPhone with sometimes more than 46 FPS. On my Mac it barely reaches 20 FPS, sometimes dropping to under 5 FPS.

[Markerz]

thanks for the help!

So for hour, minute, second, I'm putting it here just to reuse existing code in time setting. I wanted to use a datepicker, but iOS date picker is just too bad, and the range and accuracy of the time would be limited greatly so I decided to go with typing. anyway, one should be able to just fill in 00:00:00 as the trailing. for localization, I haven't found a way to retrieve a date format string based on user's locale, so before I find a way, there has to be a fixed string which is year month day hour minute second for now.

any video demonstrating that? ideally I would keep a native macOS version since I ran the catalyst version on an old Mac and it had some issues.

Added after 30 minutes:
actually I did find Android and iOS/Mac provided API for retrieving date format based on locale. The Germany locale gives me "dd.MM.yyyy, HH:mm:ss" is it correct that in Germany that it is preferred that dot is used instead, and comma is used between date and time?

[Dimmi72]

Hi Markerz,

I shot the same video on the Catalyst and MacOS version. In the Catalyst version you can see the moons as white circles, while in the MacOS version you can not. Only the names are shown. The preferences are set to show moons in MacOS version.

Sorry for the poor quality at the beginning of each video, I converted them to mp4 for a smaller size.

[Markerz]

well might just be another renderer stuff I have no clue about. The catalyst version uses OpenGLES-Metal translator but the native Mac version uses OpenGL.

BTW not too much to expect from OpenGLES Metal translator, because Apple implemented OpenGL on top of Metal on newer Macs, so although the native Mac version does not use Metal explicitly, it still is rendered with Metal. Apple does not allow Catalyst to use OpenGL or OpenGLES, that is why we have to go with the software translator to use Metal explicitly. And the difference between the two can contribute to the difference in what gets rendered.

[Dimmi72]

Hi Markerz,

okay, i see. But shouldn't it be more likely that the OpenGL does a better render job than the OpenGLES/Metal that sits on top OpenGL?

[Markerz]

I can't really be sure. I didn't really test the change when I introduced OpenGLES/Metal translation layer on iOS.


But here just to explain why there won't be huge improvement or change for switching from OpenGLES to OpenGLES/Metal.

For OpenGL(ES) program, Apple translates the OpenGL(ES) instruction to Metal internally in their framework.

For OpenGLES/Metal program (uses Google's ANGLE), the app itself translates OpenGLES calls to Metal, and executed the Metal instructions.

Since they are both translated to Metal, there should not be a very noticeable difference.

But probably there is some improvement I can get by modifying part of the translation layer's code like disabling OpenGL call validation.... not sure yet

[Dimmi72]

Okay. :-) They work differently. So the problem might be that the Metal framework can not translate the OpenGL(ES) properly for the MacOS version and that's why the moon are not to be seen?

[Markerz]

probably, I think you remember that earlier iPhone version does not show stars, that was one without OpenGLES/Metal

something probably went wrong in our code, but I see these are working fine on Android, either moon/star rendering. I tried the build on June 5th, before the commit of final GLES transition is made, moons are not rendering as well. The build in April works well.