New Tour of Mercury is now available.

[Bob Hegwood]

Finally got it finished, and you can get it from my web site now. Whew!

This is starting to be a lot like work!

At any rate, I've also uploaded both a minimal and an enhanced version of
the tour to the Motherlode, but I think Harry is taking a vacation so it might
be a while before you can get it there.

Many thanks to Terrier and Jens (Jim) Meyer for allowing me to use their
fantastic work in this package.

Take care, Bob

[trenner]

Outstanding, Bob ! I just love these scripts

Terry

[Bob Hegwood]

Outstanding, Bob ! I just love these scripts

Thanks, Terry... I appreciate the feedback. However, did you manage to
understand the installation instructions okay?

I simply just could NOT think of a better way to describe how to install
everything that needed to be installed for this add-on.

Racked my brain, but you know how it is with us Brain-Dead's.

Take care, Bob

[Guest]

I had "almost " no problem. I have about 8 versions of Celestia in the Program Files, and I accidently loaded your addon into a version 1.3.2, where it totally hung up. When I transferred to a 1.4 pre6, it ran beautifully.
In fact it seemed to have a bit more "smoothness" than the previous scripts.

Terry

[Adirondack]

... I've also uploaded both a minimal and an enhanced version of the tour to the Motherlode, but I think Harry is taking a vacation so it might be a while before you can get it there ...

Bob,
Harry will be away until 3rd of February.
I'm going to provide your new tour at the Celestia Motherlode, but not before the night from saturday to sunday. Unfortunately I've got no time to make it right now or tomorrow. Sorry.

I can't wait to take a look at your tour ... but I have to wait until sunday!

Adirondack

[Bob Hegwood]

I'm going to provide your new tour at the Celestia Motherlode, but not before the night from saturday to sunday. Unfortunately I've got no time to make it right now or tomorrow. Sorry.

Ulrich,
Like I told Joe, there is no overriding reason to even worry about getting
it on the Motherlode. You can always get everything I have on the ML from
my web site too, so don't kill yourself trying to be in a hurry.

Take care, Bob

[Adirondack]

Bob and everybody else,

the Mercury Tour is available now on Celestia Motherlode (Scripts).

And now I'm going to download it ...

@ Bob:
Now you should upload screenshots (hee, hee)

Adirondack

[Bob Hegwood]

@ Bob:
Now you should upload screenshots (hee, hee)

HA!

I already have them made, so there... Hee, hee yerself!

Will upload them momentarily.

Take care, Bob

[Adirondack]

Bob,

the screenshots are online.

You don't have to upload screenshots via upload form!

Just click the magnifying glass of the listed add-on to open the information page. Above the "Rating/Vote" you find the link "Upload new screenshot". Click it and upload your screenshot.
That's a much easier way for you to upload and for the admins to publish screenshots fast.

As ever, you made a fine job with your outstanding tour!

Adirondack

[Bob Hegwood]

You don't have to upload screenshots via upload form! Just click the magnifying glass of the listed add-on to open the information page. Above the "Rating/Vote" you find the link "Upload new screenshot". Click it and upload your screenshot.

Oops!

Sorry Ulrich... Just didn't know how to upload screenshots. Will
remember next time.

As always, thanks very much for your comments and your help.

Take care, Bob

[TERRIER]

Nice tour again Bob, I didn't realise that the Sun was slowly stripping away
Mercury's surface.

I was wondering if this is thought to be the main reason why Mercury has such a large inner core relative to the size of the planet ? (when compared to the other rocky planets. )

[Bob Hegwood]

Nice tour again Bob, I didn't realise that the Sun was slowly stripping away Mercury's surface.

Yes, a really fascinating world...

I was wondering if this is thought to be the main reason why Mercury has such a large inner core relative to the size of the planet ? (when compared to the other rocky planets. )

Have a look at some of my resources for this tour. One good explanation,
or a few good hypotheses, can be found HERE.

By the way, thanks again for your permission to use the Mariner
10 model.

Take care, Bob

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

I downloaded it and started to take a look at it... will have a full look later.

Looks pretty good so far, but I have a few comments/questions for now, bear in mind I've never really looked at scripts before now:

First, my turn to be brain-dead about something - can you fast-forward scripts at all? Or is it possible for you to tell us somewhere in the readme file how long the script takes to run to completion? Or is that there already and I'm just being blind?

Second, more a style comment - the bit where you talk about the atmosphere is interesting, but nothing else is really happening at all - there's no motion, Mercury's just sitting there. Is that standard practise in scripts? Would there be any way to spruce things up a bit and keep things moving on the screen? (I dunno... show arrows (which would have to be 3D objects I supposed) indicating the solar wind hitting the surface, or indicating the ice at the poles? As it stands it kinda breaks the momentum a bit.

Third, is the Mariner 10 antenna pointing toward Earth? If it's supposed to be realistic (I dunno if your "ride" sequence is the real xyz trajectory of the flyby) then it probably should be pointing earthwards...

I dunno if you show this later on, but do you go down to the surface and show a "double sunrise"? That would be a rather cool thing to show...

These are minor niggles really... it's a pretty good demonstration of scripting though, and I'm impressed with what one can do with scripting in Celestia. I should try and figure out my own scripts at some point, when I get some time...

[Bob Hegwood]

First, my turn to be brain-dead about something - can you fast-forward scripts at all? Or is it possible for you to tell us somewhere in the readme file how long the script takes to run to completion? Or is that there already and I'm just being blind?

Could tell you in the readme.txt file, but I just didn't do it. Is this an
important consideration considering that I spent a month and a
half researching and creating the thing?

Second, more a style comment - the bit where you talk about the atmosphere is interesting, but nothing else is really happening at all - there's no motion, Mercury's just sitting there. Is that standard practise in scripts?

You are wrong Good Doctor. There is motion going on... This
motion (albeit slow) was the result of hours of experimentation in
order to have the terminator of the Solar light end up exactly
where I wanted it to be when viewing the first feature on Mercury. I did
indeed try to rotate the planet faster, but it detracted from the - to ME -
interesting explanation of Mercury's atmospheric conditions. Couldn't
concentrate on the explanation of the features without being extremely
distracted by the passage of the Sun behind Mercury. Sue me...

Third, is the Mariner 10 antenna pointing toward Earth? If it's supposed to be realistic (I dunno if your "ride" sequence is the real xyz trajectory of the flyby) then it probably should be pointing earthwards...

I didn't even use an XYZ file... This is a simple SSC file provided
by Terrier, and it served the only purpose I wanted from the
Mariner 10 spacecraft. That is, I wanted it to take the user to Mercury in
a semi-realistic fashion. Sue me again.

Seems to me that you are extremely talented with criticisms of other
people's attempts to create something for Celestia. What have you
contributed? I mean, besides, all your criticism of everyone ELSE's work?

You already know that I'm just a Brain-Dead forklift driver, so what the
hell do you want from me. Sheesh!

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

What the hell is it with people here, that they take every comment and criticism about their work so bloody personally?

I wasn't even remotely belittling the amount of work you put into it. The thought couldn't have been further from my mind. It's a good script from what I've seen so far, and I even said that in my post. This is the first proper script I've had a look at, and I was just commenting about a few things.

First - the time of the script: I just figured it would be a courtesy to provide a timing of how long the script takes so people may know if it takes a minute, 10 minutes, 30 minutes or longer.

Second - the atmosphere info. I didn't notice Mercury moving. Then again, I later realised I hadn't got the right texture installed, so maybe that was why any change wasn't visible. I did notice the clock speed zooming past quite quickly and wondered why that was happening. But all I was wondering about was whether or not anything else could be done with the background scene - the explanation does go on for a while.

Third - the Mariner path. Fair enough. I assumed the intent was to demonstrate the Mariner flyby path.

Fourth - it seems clear to me that people here need to learn to take constructive criticism in the spirit that it was intended. I'm a scientist - the whole point of what I do is to ask questions and pass comments on what I see, and have a critical mind. All I'm trying to do is to make these things better than they are - that presumably is why you present them here - for people to discuss and comment on. If all everyone got was unquestioning praise for their work then nothing would get better.

In short, stop taking things so damn personally. I'm not trying to make out that you're stupid and I'm not belittling the work and effort you put into it - I'm just offering constructive criticism about what you've done, and for the life of me I can't figure out why you'd be so offended by it. Unless it's just the fact that it's coming from me, and you'd have accepted it if it was from anyone else. But I will continue to constructively criticise and disagree with people if I think that there is room for improvements or if I think they are wrong about something, because to do otherwise would be negligent. And I'd expect the same treatment from other people on anything I produced too.

As to what I've contributed here... quite a bit when it comes to answering questions on the Physics and Astronomy board, actually. I've helped find a few bugs and made a few sscs. Sure, I'm not a texture factory or anything like that, but so what? I probably know more about planetary science that most of the people here and I'm prepared to offer help if people want to get things right or know anything about it. But either way, I think it is incredibly small-minded for anyone here to judge anyone else by the amount of tangible contributions to the program.

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

I was wondering if this is thought to be the main reason why Mercury has such a large inner core relative to the size of the planet ? (when compared to the other rocky planets. )

I think the currently held theory is that Mercury suffered a giant impact in the past that stripped most of the outer layers off (and made the core bigger, probably). I don't think the solar erosion rate is high enough to remove a significant thickness of crust over 4.6 billion years. Or it could just have accreted more iron because of its close distance to the sun when it formed.

See these links for more info.

http://www.nineplanets.org/mercury.html
http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/planets/mercury.htm
http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/B ... yBack.html

[Bob Hegwood]

What the hell is it with people here, that they take every comment and criticism about their work so bloody personally?

Sorry, I didn't mean to take it that way, but since you know nothing
about scripting, you were criticizing me for doing things that I had valid
reasons for doing.

First - the time of the script: I just figured it would be a courtesy to provide a timing of how long the script takes so people may know if it takes a minute, 10 minutes, 30 minutes or longer.

Go look at all of the scripts on the Motherlode and tell me which -
if any of them give you a running time. This is the first time
anyone has ever even mentioned the idea, so I'd be happy to
start incorporating this feature if it will make you happy.

Second - the atmosphere info. I didn't notice Mercury moving. Then again, I later realised I hadn't got the right texture installed, so maybe that was why any change wasn't visible. I did notice the clock speed zooming past quite quickly and wondered why that was happening. But all I was wondering about was whether or not anything else could be done with the background scene - the explanation does go on for a while.

Yes it does... This was done primarily to educate the user about a
feature that I was certainly unaware of when I started the script,
and so I wanted to explain it as well as I could. Being the great scientist
that you are, however, you should know as well as anyone that Mercury
doesn't rotate on its axis very quickly. As I said, I tried to make
the presentation more interesting by really speeding up the time rate.
However, when I did this, two things happened that detracted from the
presentation...

First, it was very difficult to concentrate on the atmospheric
explanation as Mercury revolved around the Sun.
Second, for users who have sophisticated graphics cards, Mercury will
simply disappear when it rotates around to the night side of the planet.
Thus, I kept the daylight side of the planet in view as a courtesy to
those of you who have trouble viewing the surface on the night side.
If you watch the entire script, you'll notice that I also made an adjustment
close to the end of the script so that the Caloris Basin's antipodal area
was displayed in daylight. This was again done as a courtesy for those
people who have trouble seeing things on the night side of planets due
to the various graphics cards in use.

Also, if you had bothered to read the README.TXT file, you'd have
realized that I included Jens Meyer's Mercury texture in the full package
for a very good reason. You simply cannot see some of these features
using the default Celestia Mercury texture.

Third - the Mariner path. Fair enough. I assumed the intent was to demonstrate the Mariner flyby path.

As far as I know, there is currently no way to show the actual Mariner 10
flyby paths with the accuracy which you seem to require. There were
three different flyby's you know? Which one would you prefer?

Fourth - it seems clear to me that people here need to learn to take constructive criticism in the spirit that it was intended.

I thought I did take it in the spirit in which it was intended. You
just wished to show this Old Brain-Dead Jar-head how much more
intelligent you are than I am.

In short, stop taking things so damn personally. I'm not trying to make out that you're stupid and I'm not belittling the work and effort you put into it

Could have fooled me... However, I'm willing to admit that maybe I just
don't understand how to read your comments. If I offended, I am very
sorry. I am NOT looking for compliments, but I don't like having my hard
work savaged just because it's not up to your MIT standards.

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Sorry, I didn't mean to take it that way, but since you know nothing about scripting, you were criticizing me for doing things that I had valid reasons for doing.

I didn't criticise YOU at all. I didn't even particularly criticise your work. In fact, I went out of my way to make it clear that I thought it was generally good. But apparently you want to froth at me and take things personally instead of actually listen - that's your problem, not mine.

Go look at all of the scripts on the Motherlode and tell me which - if any of them give you a running time. This is the first time
anyone has ever even mentioned the idea, so I'd be happy to
start incorporating this feature if it will make you happy.

Well, heaven forbid that anyone - let alone me - should suggest something new that might just be a useful addition.

As I said, I tried to make the presentation more interesting by really speeding up the time rate. However, when I did this, two things happened that detracted from the presentation...

Why exactly did you not just damn well say this in the first place, instead of getting hyperdefensive and paranoid on me? I told you, I don't know scripting well. I don't know its limitations or capabilities. Had you just explained why you did what you it without going mental on me I would have happily accepted that.

Also, if you had bothered to read the README.TXT file, you'd have
realized that I included Jens Meyer's Mercury texture in the full package
for a very good reason. You simply cannot see some of these features
using the default Celestia Mercury texture.

I know. I just missed that the texture wasn't installed in the right folder automatically, because it looked like it was going to the right place from the zip file. As it was, I didn't comment on that because I realised what was going on.

As far as I know, there is currently no way to show the actual Mariner 10 flyby paths with the accuracy which you seem to require. There were three different flyby's you know? Which one would you prefer?

And again, had you said that in the first place, I would have understood. How the hell am I supposed to know that there aren't any xyz paths for the Mariners?

I thought I did take it in the spirit in which it was intended. You just wished to show this Old Brain-Dead Jar-head how much more
intelligent you are than I am.

Now you really are just being bloody paranoid. First, YOU don't get to tell me what the intent was behind something I said - only I get to do that. And I'm telling you that you have completely taken my comments in about as wrong a way as it is possible to take them - and that is entirely YOUR fault and your mistake, not mine.

I don't believe I've ever suggested that the work you do is substandard or inferior. I also don't believe I've ever treated you as if you were as "braindead" that you seem to make out that you are (when you're clearly not). And I certainly haven't done so here, and the only one who thinks I was trying to show you up for being "less intelligent" is you.

Could have fooled me... However, I'm willing to admit that maybe I just don't understand how to read your comments. If I offended, I am very sorry.

I thought they were pretty clear. I made it clear that I thought it was good work, commented on a few things, and then you jumped down my throat with your paranoid assumptions about my motives for no apparent reason. I didn't insult you, or attack you, or criticise you. But still, you chose to lash out because apparently you think I've got something against you.

I am NOT looking for compliments, but I don't like having my hard
work savaged just because it's not up to your MIT standards.

I hardly "savaged" it. Again, you're taking it too personally because you seem to have a persecution complex about your intelligence. Sure you may not know a few things but you haven't ever struck me as being "brain dead". In fact, the only one who ever keeps belittling your intelligence on these boards is you. And yet again, I didn't even particularly criticise your work so I have no clue why you're frothing at me and claiming that I "savaged it because it wasn't up to up to my MIT standards".

Are you even interested in improving your work at all? The whole point of constructive criticism is to point out areas that could be improved without slagging off the product or idea as a whole. If you're not interested in that, then there's not much point in anyone commenting or offering constructive criticism for your work.

[Guest]

Go look at all of the scripts on the Motherlode and tell me which -
if any of them give you a running time.

Take a look at Adirondack's scripts. For example the Huygens mission. In the header of the cel-script he indicates the duration of the tour.

[Michael Kilderry]

I'm not very interested in scripting myself, so I don't visit this forum very often, but I feel I should say something, firstly, both of you calm down before this blows up into a big argument.

Evil Dr Ganymede,

You do have the right to offer constructive criticism for other people's work, but sometimes you are a bit too blunt about it, and that's where people can get offended. You should be careful with your comments in the future.

Bob Hegwood,

Try to have a bit more tolerance with criticism of your work, there are going to be comments that annoy you at times, but that's life. Just try to solve it in a calm manner, instead of getting in a bad mood about it. I agree with the Evil Dr. when he says that you are NOT braindead. What you do with your scripting abilities sounds quite clever. I find your Mercury tour quite interesting and I'm going to download it.

---
Michael Kilderry