Need help, would like to make different Galactic Models...

[Mystic]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering where I might find the location of those awesome Galaxy models. I looked in the models folder, and couldn’t find them in 3ds format. I am talking about the beautiful models like M33 and such.

I would love to import new galactic model types, and give them some color with a new texture. But am unsure where to find them. Am I overlooking the obvious? It would be nice to have more than one galaxy type!

Thanks for any help,

Mystic

[selden]

Unfortunately, none have been published yet. I suspect, as much as anything, the people creating them have looked at the final result and said "Eewww. I wouldn't want anyone to see *that*". It's really hard to make a surface rendering look right. Celestia doesn't do volumetric rendering yet.

In the meantime, you can post "billboards". Flat pictures look quite good from a viewpoint within the solar system, at least.

http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/billboard.html

[Calculus]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering where I might find the location of those awesome Galaxy models. I looked in the models folder, and couldn’t find them in 3ds format. I am talking about the beautiful models like M33 and such.

I would love to import new galactic model types, and give them some color with a new texture. But am unsure where to find them. Am I overlooking the obvious? It would be nice to have more than one galaxy type!

Thanks for any help,

Mystic

I made one you can see in my gallery, but like Selden says, I'm not satisfied with it. And I don't have enough time to work on it right now. I may resume my work in acouple month only. Sorry.

[the guardian]

I am currently working on a galactic model using the software rendered galaxies and stars plotted using Rassilon's Cluster Generator. I have no place to post screen shots currently, nor do I have a way yet to make available my work until I find a rather cheap method of doing so. As soon as I can and it is completed I will show what I believe in my humble opinion, a galaxy should look like.<It will be fantasy, so dont expect something cataloged. It will also be placed within the star rendering boundry that has been imposed by Celestia, so it will also be rather scaled down.>

[Mystic]

Thanks for responding to this post, I really appreciate it

But I think I was misunderstood... I mean, I am a modeler, and texture artist, and wish to develop Galactic neighborhoods, but am unsure how to import my custom models and textures into the Celestia program engine.

I was wondering if someone could point me in the right direction toward a scripting and engine building tutorial for Celestia.

the guardian, a fantasy galaxy sounds great! I too have been creating a fantasy setting:

http://www.mysticnexus.com

Thanks again everyone...

[Mystic]

BTW Calculus,

I think the M31, M32, M110 screen shot looks pretty good compared to the default selection thus far. Hope you find time to get back into it

http://www.shatters.net/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=Calculus&id=M31_M32_M110

[selden]

Mystic,

Right now the way to design a galaxy is to create a 3ds model with appropriate surfaces on it and declare it in a DSC file as a Nebula. Celestia does not yet do volumetric rendering of externally defined shapes. The grey blobs that it generates to represent galaxies are "hard coded" into the program.

For one crude example, take a look at the thread http://63.224.48.65/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2351

I hope this helps.

[the guardian]

Mystic
Yes my plan is to create a galaxy using the methods available thus far. It will be filled with nebulae and stars and such. And trying to create the dark matter has failed, unfortunately the black colored nebulae appears invisible even with a reasonably lightened alpha channel. I believe the engine for transparent rendering should allow solidity at a alpha RGB of 255,255,255. This would allow for the dark matter to obscure the central mass of stars at the galactic core. I think however that a bit of expansion on the current volumetric rendering thus applied to galaxies could also be in order. Those so called blobs of matter could be colored in the dsc files themselves. Also a sort of sprite definition table could be set up for other types of volumetric blobs. The realm of possibilities of course is endless.