1.2.5 prerelease 3

[chris]

Another prerelease . . .

http://www.shatters.net/celestia/files/celestia-win32-1.2.5pre3.exe or for executable only, http://www.shatters.net/celestia/files/celestia-win32-1.2.5pre3exe.zip

New asteroid texture (thanks Darkmiss!), locations menu fix, filtering of stars by distance (the much requested "only render stars closer than 50ly" feature), options for toggling comet tails, ring shadows, Tycho catalog numbers for Rigel's 800,000 star database.

I'm working on the UNIX version now . . . once that's done, a few more comet changes are ready, and some fullscreen bugs corrected, it will be time for a final 1.2.5 release.

--Chris

[jrobert]

Chris,

Don't mean to bug about a bug, but there's a bug about the menus (still) in Pre3. There's blank menus in fullscreen mode on my WinXP machine, P4 1.6, 512MB, Geforce2 GTS 32MB

[Darkmiss]

yay, thanks Chris.

going to have play with the new version.

[Darkmiss]

Wow this is almost ready to go Chris

Tha only thing I can find wrong is changing from fullscreen
Or, changing to fullscreen, still makes the menu's go blank

other than that it is the best so far.
And working perfect with Detonator 40.82 now

But what is Constell. borders, in the view options menu
under Comet tails

[chris]

Wow this is almost ready to go Chris

Tha only thing I can find wrong is changing from fullscreen
Or, changing to fullscreen, still makes the menu's go blank

other than that it is the best so far.
And working perfect with Detonator 40.82 now

But what is Constell. borders, in the view options menu
under Comet tails

Contellation borders . . . doesn't it work? Actually, it probably won't work unless you've installed the whole distribution instead of just updating the exe. Try putting this file:

http://www.shatters.net/celestia/files/boundaries.dat

. . . into Celestia's data directory.

--Chris

[Rassilon]

Yeah chris even with all the files inc boundries.dat...still no menu items on fullscreen...

[t00fri]

Chris:
I just checked, in the pre3 Windows version, the FOV reset|recall function via the mouse-wheel middle button is still broken. Works fine under Linux;-)

Bye Fridger

[Darkmiss]

Contellation borders . . . doesn't it work? Actually, it probably won't work unless you've installed the whole distribution instead of just updating the exe. Try putting this file:

http://www.shatters.net/celestia/files/boundaries.dat

Not even sure what it is, let alone if it works...

Scratch that, I see what it is now, i have the file, and works fine

And Toofri:

im useing the windows version, and the FOV is working ine for me here
I just move to a plenet change the FOV, the hit the midle mouse to pop it back to 45

[t00fri]

And Toofri:

im useing the windows version, and the FOV is working ine for me here
I just move to a plenet change the FOV, the hit the midle mouse to pop it back to 45

This is strange, indeed.
After all, I coded the stuff in Celestia, so I should somehow know how to operate it correctly;-)...Still, I am using a Logitech wheel mouse. Do you also use a wheel with a middle button or a normal 3 button mouse?

It works fine in the CVS Linux version, though. I have no Windows compiler, so I am sure I did not modify the EXE whatsoever....

The exercise is to move the mouse with SHIFT Left Button pushed, such as to change the FOV. Then press the middle (wheel) button and the FOV should reset to 45deg. Pressing it again should restore the previous FOV.

And you really say that all of this works under Windows?...

Bye Fridger

[chris]

I made one small change about a week ago to make the middle mouse button work under Windows. I have an MS Intellimouse Explorer, and the mouse wheel acts as the middle button. When I get home, I'll check and make sure I didn't do anything to screw up the FOV toggle on Windows in the last couple of days. Darkmiss, is it working for you in prerelease 3 or do you have an earlier version?

--Chris

[Darkmiss]

I am useing a Microsoft Intellimouse 5 button opticalmouse, with a wheel as mouse button 3.

as for the exe's
I have 1.2.4 full, 1.2.5b2, and 1.2.5b3.

the FOV works in both 1.2.5 beta versions, but not in 1.2.4, for me.

I just move the FOV: to a funky view and hit the mouse wheel to set it instantly back to 45,
then if I hit mouse 3 again, it puts it back to the previouse FOV: view

[LostInSpace]

If you only downloaded the 1.2.5 exe file, & constellation boundaries don't show after you download boundaries.dat, you just need to add this line to your celestia.cfg -

BoundariesFile "data/boundaries.dat"

On another note, 1.2.5 won't let me use vertex shaders , so my specular lighting has gone ( worked on 1.2.4 ) - Win 98, gf4 mx440.

[chris]

If you only downloaded the 1.2.5 exe file, & constellation boundaries don't show after you download boundaries.dat, you just need to add this line to your celestia.cfg -

BoundariesFile "data/boundaries.dat"

On another note, 1.2.5 won't let me use vertex shaders , so my specular lighting has gone ( worked on 1.2.4 ) - Win 98, gf4 mx440.

You probably need this file in Celestia's shaders directory:

http://www.celestiaproject.net/celestia/files/ ... _texoff.vp

--Chris

[t00fri]

I am useing a Microsoft Intellimouse 5 button opticalmouse, with a wheel as mouse button 3.

as for the exe's
I have 1.2.4 full, 1.2.5b2, and 1.2.5b3.

the FOV works in both 1.2.5 beta versions, but not in 1.2.4, for me.

I just move the FOV: to a funky view and hit the mouse wheel to set it instantly back to 45,
then if I hit mouse 3 again, it puts it back to the previouse FOV: view

This issue is solved now. I have upgraded to the latest Logitech optical mouse driver and assigned "middle button" to the middle button in the config menue. Most other assignments for the middle button will not work for Celestia...

Bye Fridger

[LostInSpace]

Yep, you're right , I needed " diffuse_texoff.vp " in my shaders box to get vertex shaders going, thanks Chris.

[marshead]

Chris,

As always, wonderful improvements.

I did notice looking at the new comet tails that the tail originates ON the nucleus of the comet, with the nucleus at one end. In reality, the nucleus is buried inside the head (or coma) and the coma is blown back into the tail by the solar wind.

Ideally, you would want the nucleus to be "inside" the comet tail. Maybe this is something that can easily be implemented before the full 1.2.5 comes out.

Spectacular stuff. Keep it up!

Marshead

[Buzz]

The comet tails are great, but still a remark: I noticed that they are at their brightest when looking at them perpendicularly, and that they fade when you look at them from somewhere near the line sun - comet. Is this intentional? Forgive me for being picky!

[erostosthenes]

chris: what is the new code you implemented to allow celestia to use specular maps as a separate image? i'm trying to terraform mars and i don't know how to add specularity to a texture image, but if 1.2.5 uses separates textures for specularity, it makes things much easier.

also, i noticed a star 'Regor' is listed with a radius of about 524 Rsun and spectral class W8. is this a typo? a star with ~500 Rsun would have ~100million solar masses!!! and this would make the star smaller than the schwartzschild radius for that mass. so, i'm guessing this was a mistake but i don't have any star tables so i can't really say what it should be.

[High Dark Templar]

There are varius super red giants of that kind of size 100-500 Rs like Antares, Betelgeuse... but its density is extrematly low more or less 0.00000001 g/cm3 so they never can have such as mass. The most massive stars allowed is 100 Ms, more mass and the star is unstable; so 100 Ms is the upper limit (eta Carinae is one of the most massives stars)

But you are right, Regor radius is mistaken:

Gamma Velorum: "Regor"
Mabs = 1.78 Spectra = WC8+O7.5e Radius = 17 Rs

[erostosthenes]

i was using my estimation of the mass of such a star based on the spectral class. super red giants can certainly have that size, but not W8 stars. unfortunately, i have no idea how to edit the stars.dat file (notepad gives garbage) to reflect the true size.

interesting side note about Betelgeuse: when that super red giant goes supernova, we're likely to lose our upper atmosphere.