somethings up

General discussion about Celestia that doesn't fit into other forums.
Topic author
felixx

somethings up

Post #1by felixx » 23.07.2002, 23:57

8O Ok, everyone is talking about how they made their own planets. How in the *$#! do I do that?

Thanx,
Alex

Rassilon
Posts: 1887
Joined: 29.01.2002
With us: 22 years 9 months
Location: Altair

Post #2by Rassilon » 24.07.2002, 00:31

Are you bored?
I'm trying to teach the cavemen how to play scrabble, its uphill work. The only word they know is Uhh and they dont know how to spell it!

Malcolm

Post #3by Malcolm » 24.07.2002, 04:54

Hi Alex,
I was waiting for one of the 'experts' to tell us how, but ,,, ! ,,,
Well I was(still am) a newbie a few days ago and this is how
I have done it,
( a quick type so excuse any errors, hope it is clear for you and I hope it works ok, Ill check it all in the cold light of day tomorrow !! ) :-
,,,,,,,

Choose a star ( best to choose one that does not already have
planets assigned to it ( less confusing that way ! ) )
For example Tau Ceti.
make a file in notepad ( or other simple text ed.)
and call it ' taucet.ssc' (the name ****.ssc does not matter, the detail
is inside the file) put it in the 'extras' sub-directory(folder) of celestia.

Place in that file the following text (watch out for the CapitalIsation, I've not sussed that out, sometimes it matters, sometimes not):

----------------------

"b" "Tau Ceti"
{
#Texture""
EllipticalOrbit {
Period 1
SemiMajorAxis 1
}

}

--------------

without the --------------- of course !
The #Texture"" is not needed yet, I'll come to that later ! :)
That is (perhaps) the simplest extraplanet file,,,

Then start up Celestia, navigate to 'Tau Cet'
(Navigation > SelectObject > (enter) Tau Cet >OK , press G, for goto)
Mouse over the 'sun' and right-click > in the drop-down should be planet ' b'
point and click it and then press G to goto
you should now see your brand new planet !

You may need to right-click to orbit it to see it in case you arrive at the
nightside, I've not yet sussed out under what condx this happens !
(Normally I would look for things like 'argument of periapsis',' longitude of
assending node', etc&etc keplerians, but ,,,, :(

It isn't going to be a very exciting planet ! just white on the daylight side and
black on the nightside "
OK so,,,,you guessed,,,, that is where this texture thing comes into play !

Make a small .bmp or .jpg or .png image file of anything
(my daughter, who has a brownie badge in astronomy, was tickled pink to see her fav. rabbit here !! )
but ensure that it is a power of 2 in each dimension (for example 512 x 256
or 1024 x 512 ) (( That gotcha caused me endless sleepless hours! ))
Call it p1.jpg (or something more imaginative !)
put a copy of it in textures/lores and also a copy in textures/medres
( that gotcha also caused me grief ! ) then it does not matter if you have R or r pressed

Edit the 'taucet.ssc' to remove the # (# pronounced "hash" is a fav geekcoder expression for "ignore this" ! a REM if youve done any Basic proging )
and insert your filename

Texture "p1.jpg"

with a bit of luck, and assuming that I've not made any blunders in this quick
note ! you should see a pretty rotating planet of your favourite picture !

hth a bit,
more later if you need and when I sort it !!
Malcolm

Mikotaj
Posts: 5
Joined: 11.07.2002
With us: 22 years 4 months
Location: Moscow Russia

Post #4by Mikotaj » 24.07.2002, 06:31

Gratters, Malcolm! :)


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