The Feature Requests Collecting Thread

[Tosv]

Request for SETI@home-support in Celestia.
http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5829

[Slalomsk8er]

Feature Request: Increase/Decrease topography keys/slide http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5842

[Guckytos]

Feature request: Local x,y,z-coordinates around a star http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5879

[Guest]

request for lots more virtual texture close-ups

[Aphex_Twin]

I noticed some add-ons include additional higher-resolution texture patches for certain objects. It's nice to see the quality of the picture remain as one aproaches a planet. Still, this doesn't look particularly great. The borders of the texture are evidend when viewing the planet from a wrong angle and the texture flips instantaneously once you are closer than a certain distance.

Would it be difficult to implement an algorithm that "blurs" out the edges of the texture patch and also creates intermediant texture of increasing detail (to make a better transition) - it's a sort of mip-mapping.


When zooming in too close to a space craft (like the space elevator or a large spaceship in the Billow Maiden universe), the polygons get "shakey" and "dirty". Is it because of my graphics card (a GeForce4 at 32 Mb)?

Also, the engine renders stars in the main sequence relatively well, but what about red giants, carbon stars, pulsars or black holes (ones with visible accretion rings and sorts) ?

Finally, is it perceiveable in the near future that a version of Celestia will contain fractal textures and a better zoom-in engine for viewing planetary surfaces?

[Slalomsk8er]

Request for to do it like this, post a request and link to the discussion http://shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6237.

Thanks, Dominik

[Ryan McReynolds]

Request for realistic star glow/flare.jpg colors as described here:

http://www.vendian.org/mncharity/dir3/starcolor/

And incidentally, I like having the actual textures all white since that's probably what the eye would see, but having different textures for different classes (to account for e.g. large sunspots on M dwarfs) would be great.

[Matt McIrvin]

Request for more flexible star label display:
http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=46260

[Eric Abbott]

Request for adaptive orbit display:
http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6332

[Matt McIrvin]

Request for upright or altazimuth view mode:

http://shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6361

(That was me, in case you were wondering. Forgot to log in.)

[Don. Edwards]

Well I would like one visual effect tweaked a little more. I wish we could get comets to look more realistic. I hate the fact that the tail ends up way behind the cometary body and that there is no comma. I have been playing with adding comets to my HD 28185 add-on and needless to say I am not happy. One other thing would be nice. I would really like the ability to skin the comets tail so it looks more like we really see versus the blue mist we are presently getting.
I feel that this should be a priority for authenticity.
Well that’s my opinion anyway.
Here is a screenshot of my idea.


Comets as they apear now .______________________Comets with color corection. __________________________Comets with proposed Skinning Effect.


Don. Edwards

[Bob Hegwood]

Don,

I like the idea of using color correction, but how does
the skinning effect add to realism?

Maybe I just don't understand this concept, but the image
above doesn't look like any comet I've ever seen. Can you
elaborate?

Thanks, Bob

[Angry Space Goat]

I've have a few features I'd like to see that would maximize the usability of the program.

• A "Recent Scripts" menu under the file menu. When working on a script or something, it would be a lot easier to simply refer to the Recent Scripts menu rather than having to open and locate it each time.
• A solar/lunar eclipse browser for extrasolar systems. It would also be quite nice if it had support for dual-eclipses in the case of gas giants and so on.
• A collision browser, to see if any body will eventually impact another. To void being detected by the collision browser, a small variable could be added to the SSC file such as NoCollision (for any body) or NoCollison "Jupiter" (so that if the object hits Jupiter, it would not be detected).
• A "Reload Files" option that would reload all SSC files/textures. This would make working on orbits and textures much easier, rather than having to open Celestia and then type in the host star/planet name each time.

And that's my two cents.

[Pedro]

Hi there, I simply love the program, and one of the most cool features is to really travel between celestial bodies, and feeling the speed , but I think it's missing one important feature:
there is no "travel mode" when we select a favourite , why not?
By clicking on some favorites, instead of the sensation of having the Cosmos in our desktop, waiting to be visited, we get 'there' instantaneously, like if Celestia was a simpler program, that would load imediatly the objects/views from a database.

Bottomline: less interactivity, no dinamic, no travelling sensation one of the features that distinguish Celestia from any other software

This is useful to someone that has plenty of favourites, either Solar System or extra-SS, real or imaginary.

I am surprised that anyone didn't com up with this before (at least I didn't find anything)... I wonder if that option IS available, hiden somewere...

[Bowie]

How about a red-only view for night-time observation?

[Bowie]

A red-only view, and..... Include (at least!) the full Messier catalog. Celestia is bald without it.

[Galerant]

An option to set the go-to distance of a barycenter would be nice, for people using them to position bodies in space without primaries. With it hardcoded at 1 AU, smaller objects set to be at the barycenter are essentially impossible to see after a single go-to. True, you can just select it, then select the object itself, but this would add a bit of convienance.

[PlutonianEmpire]

Lightning effects that you can see from space.

http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6397

[Guest]

Well I have one suggestion it may be mroe than one I dont know, you see I find Celestia to be the best galaxy view program, and its free! I congratulate you on your most excellent work. Anyway My request is,
I'm working on a story for a novel, and I'm trying to draw up areas of travel , so absically I would like to be able to make lines between stars that i select, and save them as a pattern say. This way i could figure out from say a distant planet that i select as a homeworld, where the other stars i have selected are in relation to it. I believe it could be handy for anyone wanting to make their own constellations too. Anyway thanks much for putting all this hard time into a great free project. Keep up the good work!

Duriel.

[maxim]

You can already define your own constellations and save them in a constellation file. And there are already several alternate constellation files for celestia floating around. You may just search the forums.

maxim