'Space Opera' script

[AuReality]

I have written my first Celestia script, a small 'Space Opera'.
You can find it at my website (sorry, I do not have custom Celestia pages yet)

The script will take you from outside the Milky Way to the solar system.
In the solar sytem the nine planets are visited.
The script ends with zooming out the solar system and leaving the Milky Way at the opposite side.

With 25 minutes it is a rather lengthy script. Therefore I have also cut it in three parts that can be run separately.
All scripts are available as versions with and without informative text.

I have tried to build in many variations.
For example, for Jupiter there is a 'moonhopping' script, at Mercury you will see a double sunrise, and for Earth there are three scenario's.

The scripts have been developed in version 1.3.1 but are also tested for 1.3.1. pre 11. For ealier versions I can not guarantee compatibility.

All feedback is welcome.

Paul
(p.a.m.swennenhuis@eccoo.rug.nl)

[Harry]

I have written my first Celestia script, a small 'Space Opera'.

Wow It's great! You must have done an amazing amount of tweaking to get that worked out... Really nice

A minor remark (I have to write something, right?):
- the phase before going to pluto is a bit rough (orbits switched off and on again) and has no explanation. Could you add some text there?

Oh, and could you reset the timescale at the end? I'm not sure if all users know how to reset it to 1

Thanks a lot for your script!

Harald

[AuReality]

Wow It's great! You must have done an amazing amount of tweaking to get that worked out... Really nice

Thanks Harald.
And yes, it was a lot of tweaking. And time-consuming since you have to play the script over and over again when you make changes
But I learned a lot about the commands while working on it.

A minor remark (I have to write something, right?):
- the phase before going to pluto is a bit rough (orbits switched off and on again) and has no explanation. Could you add some text there?

You are right Harald. This part must have remained there as result of splitting the file in 3 parts. I will correct it.

Oh, and could you reset the timescale at the end? I'm not sure if all users know how to reset it to 1

Also a good point. Of course more settings are changed in the script.
Too bad you can't store the current settings when starting the script and then reset them when it is finished...
Anyway, I will add the timerate reset.

Thanks for your comments.

Paul

[Harry]

Also a good point. Of course more settings are changed in the script.
Too bad you can't store the current settings when starting the script and then reset them when it is finished...

Time for a little advertisement: Lua-scripting can do this partially already, and will hopefully be able to do it reliable for all settings soon.

Harald

[AuReality]

Time for a little advertisement: Lua-scripting can do this partially already, and will hopefully be able to do it reliable for all settings soon.

Harald

I do intend to change over to Lua.
However, until recently Lua was neither very reliable nor complete, and I was already well on my way with the Space Opera script when the Celestia version with Lua support was released.

Paul

[Matt]

Greetings,
I'm planning on using the Space Opera script in a planetarium show for some home schoolers.. but I'd like to narrate instead of the text.. is there anyway to make the scripts play .wav or .mp3 files? or do I just need to narrate the text into a large .wav and play it in the background?

[AuReality]

Greetings,
I'm planning on using the Space Opera script in a planetarium show for some home schoolers..

Well thanks Matt, I feel honoured..

but I'd like to narrate instead of the text.. is there anyway to make the scripts play .wav or .mp3 files? or do I just need to narrate the text into a large .wav and play it in the background?

Unfortunately the script language does not allow execution of external programs, so yes, you will have to play the audio in the background. To ensure better synchronization you could consider a batch file that opens the CEL script and then starts playing the WAV file, or vice versa.

Paul

[Harry]

Unfortunately the script language does not allow execution of external programs

I consider this a good thing. While I agree this would offer some nice possibilites, I would be very worried if any script could execute external programs. Same goes for file Input/Output.

Adding commands for execution of external programs would be a trivial one-line change for Lua-scripting, see the chapter "5.7 Operating System Facilities" in the Lua reference manual - but I am not sure if this includes asynchronous execution.

Harald

[don]

... I would be very worried if any script could execute external programs. Same goes for file Input/Output.

I agree, wholeheartedly!

Does the text "Your disk drive has now been erased ..." come to mind?

It's called a virus <frown>.

[Matt]

hehe.. I didn't say launch a program just play a wav file =)

anywhoo..

Does anyone know why when I add rings to Jupiter it now seems that the 'tour' of jupiter is not working correctly? The moons seem to be off center and sometimes are hardly able to be seen. If I recall the first time I ran this thing the moons basically covered the screen.

[Bob Hegwood]

Matt,

I already replied to your e-mail, but your message here makes it sound as though maybe your Field of View settings are different from the settings that my JupiterTour sets.

I set mine up so that the scripts work on an 800 x 600 display. Are you using a different (maybe larger) display? This may account for why your moons are no longer visible. If this is the case, simpy change your FOV settings either in the script, or while in Celestia itself.

If you want to see if this is the problem, simply run your script (The one that doesn't display the moons properly) and press the . (period) button to see if this helps. The period will widen your field of view, and the , (comma) will narrow it.

Take care, Bob

[Matt]

Hrmm... I'm also running at 800x600...

what I did notice.. however.. is that in the beginning the SM and the LM galaxies seem to be smacked togethor more then they used to be... only thing I've done is ALT-ENTER to run in full screen...
could this cause a problem?

[Matt]

Does your script setup the FOV at the beginning? because now that you meantion it it does sound like I have a field of view issue different then what was intended...

[don]

hehe.. I didn't say launch a program just play a wav file =)

Well, the easiest (and least code) would be to launch the default player for the selected file type. In order to play various formats (WAV, MP3, etc.) would require a whole new library of code be added to Celestia. The tough part might be finding a cross-platform library to do this. Then again, folks here love to prove me wrong, so maybe Chris will just whip one up tonight.

Cheers,

-Don G.

[Bob Hegwood]

Does your script setup the FOV at the beginning? because now that you meantion it it does sound like I have a field of view issue different then what was intended...

Yes, it does Matt...

Simply use Notepad to have a look at the script and you'll see the following:

# Set Field of View (Celestia 1.3.1 dflt = 25)...
set { name "FOV" value 35.0}

If you don't like this setting, you can easily change it to whatever you want. Just change the value from 35.0 to whatever works best for you.

If you like, you can also add/change your FOV value in Celestia's start.cel so that your display is always setup where you want it.

Hope that helps.

Take care, Bob