Newbie questions (now don't run away!)

[Guest]

Just downloaded this wonderful program a couple of days ago...

1)Now then, how do I stick a world around a star (say Beta Comae)? I've tried cut and pasting text of a real world in the extrasolar.ssc file and changing the star name but nothing happens.

2)Once I've done that how do I stick a colourful moon around said creation?

3) A lot of local binaries and trinary systems dont show up on the Hip Catalog, is adding to a system a tricky process and do the orbits show up in the display?

4) How do you stick something pretty in a Lagrange point of an object without learning orbital mechanics (I never liked maths at school!)

5) Has anybody created a Blue Mars texture (i'm sure you know what I'm on about) and any general selection of pretty looking imaginary planets?

Oh, and if you haven't already download the lovely " PlanetGen " program for a quick and easy way to create rough terran type textures

[Darkmiss]

Hello Guest
I can help you out with the Blue mars Texture
as long as you can supply an e-mail address that can handle a 5meg file.

its a 4k DDS texture, or I can convert it to PNG or JPG if you want ?
plus a spec map to go with it.

[revent]

1) If you look at solarsys.ssc, you'll see something like...

"Mercury" "Sol"

Change Sol the the name of the star you want the planet to orbit.

Also, don;t edit extrasolar.ssc. Put your planet in a new file (whatever.ssc) in the extras directory.

2) "Bob's Moon" "whatever planet/whatever star"

3) It's not that tricky (you can add new stars in a text file), but no stars are shown as being is mutual orbit by default. Celestia doesn't model the motion of stars by default at this point. You can put a 'star' in orbit around another star in a ssc file, tho.

4) http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/minor-planets.html#3.2.3

[Guest]

Thanks, I'll give it a go.

Oh, and how do I rename stars that don't appear in the starnames.dat file and make names appear on screen (as in stars that aren't the big celebrity names like Arcturus, Altair and so on)

[Guest]

Thanks Darkmiss if you email a small as file as possible to papalazarou3001@hotmail.com then fingers crossed it might get through!

[Guest]

1) If you look at solarsys.ssc, you'll see something like...

"Mercury" "Sol"

Change Sol the the name of the star you want the planet to orbit.

Also, don;t edit extrasolar.ssc. Put your planet in a new file (whatever.ssc) in the extras directory.

2) "Bob's Moon" "whatever planet/whatever star"

3) It's not that tricky (you can add new stars in a text file), but no stars are shown as being is mutual orbit by default. Celestia doesn't model the motion of stars by default at this point. You can put a 'star' in orbit around another star in a ssc file, tho.

4) http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/minor-planets.html#3.2.3

Well its all working, sort of. After i have first created my system and saved and viewed it in the program when I go back a change something it doesn't work!

Why would this be?

[Darkmiss]

Sorry Mr Guest
but thi file will not be accepted by hotmail
Not unless you have payed them for a larger inbox size ?

[selden]

Another Web page that might help is
http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/addon-intro.html

Although they're an example of how to put bodies in orbit around a sun, by themselves the orbits of particular trojan asteroids probably won't help to explain how to create appropriate orbits. That's a topic in celestial mechanics

[bh]

I've found the 'extrasolar.ssc' a good starting point in trying to edit your own systems...I use this method:

Download rassilon's cluster generator and texture packs and edit 'extrasolar' with (notepad) stuff you might find interesting...extra moons, asteriods...planet rings...stuff like that. Then carry on....there's a lot to learn and Ras has made it very simple...'emessive True' and other such stuff will bring your lifeless systems to...er...life! I'm not kidding here...and it's very addictive...it's a bit like playing God!

Here's an example of my first Extrasolar entry:

"b" "Upsilon And"
{
Texture "gc_gasgt_04.jpg"
BumpMap "gc_gasgt_04-bump.jpg"
BumpHeight 1.2
SpecularTexture "gc_gasgt_04-spec.jpg"
SpecularColor [ 0.8 0.8 0.4 ]
SpecularPower 45.0
Color [ 0.15 0.11 0.44 ]
BlendTexture true
Radius 63166.23
HazeColor [ 0.18 0.20 0.13 ] HazeDensity 0.5
Atmosphere {
Height 631.66
Lower [ 0.18 0.20 0.13 ]
Upper [ 0.13 0.13 0.28 ]
Sky [ 0.20 0.26 0.17 ]
CloudHeight 63.17
CloudSpeed 474.93
CloudMap "gc_gasgt_03-clouds.png"
}
EllipticalOrbit {
Period 0.01264
SemiMajorAxis 0.059
Eccentricity 0.034
Inclination 0.0068
MeanAnomaly 16.22
} RotationPeriod 713.86
Obliquity -21.36
Albedo 0.23
}

"c" "Upsilon And"
{
Texture "gc_gasgt_02.jpg"
BumpMap "gc_gasgt_02-bump.jpg"
BumpHeight 1.2
SpecularTexture "gc_gasgt_02-spec.jpg"
SpecularColor [ 0.8 0.8 0.4 ]
SpecularPower 45.0
Color [ 0.20 0.62 0.74 ]
BlendTexture true
Radius 59210.60 HazeColor [ 0.22 0.61 0.60 ] HazeDensity 0.5
Atmosphere {
Height 592.11
Lower [ 0.22 0.61 0.60 ]
Upper [ 0.36 0.10 0.52 ]
Sky [ 0.26 0.21 0.52 ]
CloudHeight 59.21
CloudSpeed 445.19
CloudMap "gc_gasgt_03-clouds.png"
}
EllipticalOrbit {
Period 0.6604
SemiMajorAxis 0.83
Eccentricity 0.18
Inclination 0.0001
MeanAnomaly 21.04
}
Rings {
Inner 114854.02
Outer 77731.38
Texture "gc_rings_03.png"
Color [ 0.32 0.44 0.47 ]
} RotationPeriod 242.87
Obliquity 11.80
Albedo 0.52
}

"moon 1 of c" "Upsilon And/c"
{
Texture "gc_moons_04.jpg"
BumpMap "gc_moons_01-bump.jpg"
BumpHeight 1.2
BlendTexture true
Radius 2510.90
HazeColor [ 0.34 0.32 0.50 ]
HazeDensity 0.5
Atmosphere {
Height 25.11
Lower [ 0.34 0.32 0.50 ]
Upper [ 0.44 0.55 0.54 ]
Sky [ 0.27 0.40 0.57 ]
}
EllipticalOrbit {
Period 22.4683
SemiMajorAxis 112341.7012
Eccentricity 0.0027
Inclination 0.0139
MeanAnomaly 176.38
}
RotationPeriod 26.81
Obliquity -29.32
Albedo 0.48
}

"moon 2 of c" "Upsilon And/c"
{
Texture "gc_moons_02.jpg"
BumpMap "gc_moons_02-bump.jpg"
BumpHeight 1.2
BlendTexture true
Radius 3098.69
HazeColor [ 0.30 0.19 0.33 ]
HazeDensity 0.5
Atmosphere {
Height 30.99
Lower [ 0.30 0.19 0.33 ]
Upper [ 0.25 0.24 0.26 ]
Sky [ 0.20 0.15 0.20 ]
CloudHeight 3.10
CloudSpeed 23.30
CloudMap "gc_moons_02-clouds.png"
}
EllipticalOrbit {
Period 63.4289
SemiMajorAxis 317144.3267
Eccentricity 0.0033
Inclination 0.0353
MeanAnomaly 244.11
}
RotationPeriod 16.72
Obliquity 78.07
Albedo 0.31
}

"moon 3 of c" "Upsilon And/c"
{
Texture "gc_moons_03.jpg"
BumpMap "gc_moons_03-bump.jpg"
BumpHeight 1.2
BlendTexture true
Radius 1766.26
EllipticalOrbit {
Period 135.4394
SemiMajorAxis 677196.9176
Eccentricity 0.0036
Inclination 0.0020
MeanAnomaly 304.10
}
RotationPeriod 13.35
Obliquity 39.55
Albedo 0.59
}

"moon 4 of c" "Upsilon And/c"
{
Mesh "asteroid.cms"
Class "asteroid"
Texture "gc_moons_01.jpg"
Color [ 0.65 0.61 0.67 ]
BlendTexture true
Radius 396.46
EllipticalOrbit {
Period 346.5940
SemiMajorAxis 1732970.0510
Eccentricity 0.0002
Inclination 0.0231
MeanAnomaly 290.84
}
RotationPeriod 2.76
Obliquity -12.57
Albedo 0.51
}

"moon 5 of c" "Upsilon And/c"
{
Texture "gc_froze_03.jpg"
BumpMap "gc_froze_03-bump.jpg"
BumpHeight 1.2
BlendTexture true
Radius 2448.94
HazeColor [ 0.28 0.47 0.59 ]
HazeDensity 0.5
Atmosphere {
Height 24.49
Lower [ 0.28 0.47 0.59 ]
Upper [ 0.52 0.23 0.41 ]
Sky [ 0.41 0.14 0.57 ]
CloudHeight 2.45
CloudSpeed 4000
CloudMap "gc_froze_03-clouds.png"
}
EllipticalOrbit {
Period 436.6136
SemiMajorAxis 2183068.1823
Eccentricity 0.0006
Inclination 0.0405
MeanAnomaly 206.06
}
RotationPeriod 21.95
Obliquity -29.02
Albedo 0.53
}

"moon 6 of c" "Upsilon And/c"
{
Texture "gc_moons_04.jpg"
BumpMap "gc_moons_04-bump.jpg"
BumpHeight 1.2
BlendTexture true
Radius 3131.34
HazeColor [ 0.42 0.25 0.24 ]
HazeDensity 0.5
Atmosphere {
Height 31.31
Lower [ 0.42 0.25 0.24 ]
Upper [ 0.27 0.32 0.43 ]
Sky [ 0.17 0.25 0.20 ]
}
EllipticalOrbit {
Period 754.4082
SemiMajorAxis 3772040.8586
Eccentricity 0.0001
Inclination 0.0196
MeanAnomaly 259.19
}
RotationPeriod 35.43
Obliquity -5.58
Albedo 0.50
}

"moon 7 of c" "Upsilon And/c"
{
Texture "gc_rocky_04.jpg"
BumpMap "gc_rocky_04-bump.jpg"
BumpHeight 1.2
BlendTexture true
Radius 1791.01
HazeColor [ 0.56 0.62 0.48 ]
HazeDensity 0.5
Atmosphere {
Height 17.91
Lower [ 0.56 0.62 0.48 ]
Upper [ 0.47 0.44 0.13 ]
Sky [ 0.66 0.51 0.41 ]
}
EllipticalOrbit {
Period 651.3870
SemiMajorAxis 3256934.8110
Eccentricity 0.0019
Inclination 0.0261
MeanAnomaly 6.84
}
RotationPeriod 11.88
Obliquity -29.86
Albedo 0.57
}

Have a lot of fun here!!

Regards...bh.

Welcome to Celestia!!

[selden]

One set of "Blue Mars" surface textures is available on the Web site of the Evil Dr Ganymede at http://members.shaw.ca/evildrganymede/art/planets/bluemars.htm

Unfortunately, his surface texture image files weren't designed to work with Celestia and can't be used as-is. They have to be scaled down (or up) so they're a power of two on a side. Now if only he could be persuaded to revise them appropriately... (hint, hint).

A set of maps (originally by Frans Blok) of Kim Robinson's Red, Green and Blue Mars that are intended for use with Celestia can be found at http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/blok/

[selden]

After i have first created my system and saved and viewed it in the program when I go back a change something it doesn't work!

Why would this be?

You'll have to be much more explicit about exactly what you did for anyone to be able to help. There are far too many things that might have gone wrong for us to guess.

Reduce your addon to the smallest possible example that fails so that it's easy to cut-and-paste it into a message posted here.

Also, please register on the Forum so someone answering will be able to hold a meaningful conversation. Additional comments by some other anonymous guests would confuse things badly.

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

One set of "Blue Mars" surface textures is available on the Web site of the Evil Dr Ganymede at http://members.shaw.ca/evildrganymede/art/planets/bluemars.htm

Unfortunately, his surface texture image files weren't designed to work with Celestia and can't be used as-is. They have to be scaled down (or up) so they're a power of two on a side. Now if only he could be persuaded to revise them appropriately... (hint, hint).

Well, I doubt you'd be able to use the files that are split into cloud/ocean/land etc... but what's wrong with the combined map? Does that not work in Celestia? (I must admit I've not tried. I put those maps together for POVray) I thought it would just get scaled to fit the sphere, that's what POVray does.

[selden]

Oh, Evil One,

mars-land.png and mars-seas.png, the ones included in the zip file that I downloaded this evening, are both 1440x720.

Celestia does no rescaling. It requires all texture images to be a power of two on a side: 1024x512 (a 1K texture) or 2048x1024 (a 2K texture) would be two possibilities.

It'd be fairly straight forward to convert mars-seas.png into a specular reflection texture (scale, greyscale, invert and threshold)

Both maps have 0 of longitude at their edges, so that'd have to be fixed, too, since Celestia requires that 0 be in the center.

earth-clouds.png and cloud-bump.png are both 2048x1024.

The cloud map could be converted easily by using earth-clouds.png as the transparency channel for an all-white texture. Unfortunately, Celestia cannot yet make use of cloud bumpmaps.

[Beeblebrox ate my hamster]

Thanks for the help everyone, I'm sure I'll have more questions in the future