Any news of...

[ElChristou]

...Chris?

[t00fri]

...Chris?

Both Toti and I had the last email contact with him > 3 weeks ago, exactly on July 26. I am loosing hope that he will effectively get back to Celestia in the forseeable future. We could not make out any signs of progress from his side as to integrating the various new code pieces, coding elliptical galaxies etc, beyond what is in CVS since quite some time.

So during the last weeks, there seems NO sign whatsoever for a pending new 1.4.0pre version!

Toti's and my work is also partly stuck, since nothing happens from Chris' side. I had asked him ~ on July 20 for a patch of his present galaxy code including Toti's octree template class, but NOTHING came, except for the statement that he was looking forward for my code!

In the meantime, I have completed quite a bit of galaxy related code, concerning the relative magnitude assignments (according to the catalog values), some much improved coloration and improved template galaxies. I have also found and eliminated some nasty errors in Chris' (old!) elliptical code presently in CVS.

A somewhat tricky task was to correct for the extreme brightening when the galaxies were viewed ~ EDGE-ON! Clearly a realistic apparent magnitude relation among different galaxies would become impossible while this effect remained uncorrected. In my new code all galaxy types (including elliptics!) now have /exactly/ the same effective brightness no matter at which angle they are looked at! Also I have implemented a neat printout of the apparent magnitude for galaxies (depending on their distance) in the top left corner of the screen. When travelling towards a galaxy from Earth, say, this value changes from the apparent (earthbound) magnitude in the catalog to the /absolute/ magnitude 10 parsecs before the boundary of the galaxy is reached. At the same time, of course, the visual galaxy brightness increases during the trip to the galaxy. Just as it should be.


Finally, I have recoded and /vastly accuracy-improved/ much of my 'deepsky.dsc' galaxy file. Virtually all 900 galaxies in the new catalog file involve now a "precision" distance determination!

Toti and I have decided to echange our codes as of now and go on, irrespective of Chris.

It's sad but I got tired of writing those "reminding" letters to Chris, each time waiting a week or more for a new 'promise'...

Bye Fridger

[Guckytos]

I must say that i am a very patient person.

But what Chris is doing here is beyond everything. This letting people make their rounds in limbo while nothing happens and not even mails or pms are returned is very bad style.
If he doesn't want to develope Celestia anymore or if he does not have time for the next few months: then he should tell us so!!
So someone could perhaps be found that would be willing to go to the task of integrating the new code and going to release a new pre-version of Celestia.
I am a windooze user and will stay that for the time coming, like a lot of Celestia-users. The last prerelease happend way more than half year ago.
Well before the response like, you can always go and build yourself a new version from CVS, comes, here 2 points:
a) i don't know anything about coding
b) fat chance to build a new windows prerelease from CVS when Chris doesn't update it

So what i am saying is:

Hell and damnation, Chris tell us what you plan for the future of Celestia.
Tell us if you are able/willing to do something in the future or not. I hate that limbo and it is not good for the programm and community either, i think.

Regards, (a still steaming)

Guckytos

[dirkpitt]

In the meantime, I have completed quite a bit of galaxy related code, concerning the relative magnitude assignments (according to the catalog values), some much improved coloration and improved template galaxies. I have also found and eliminated some nasty errors in Chris' (old!) elliptical code presently in CVS.

A somewhat tricky task was to correct for the extreme brightening when the galaxies were viewed ~ EDGE-ON! Clearly a realistic apparent magnitude relation among different galaxies would become impossible while this effect remained uncorrected. In my new code all galaxy types (including elliptics!) now have /exactly/ the same effective brightness no matter at which angle they are looked at! Also I have implemented a neat printout of the apparent magnitude for galaxies (depending on their distance) in the top left corner of the screen. When travelling towards a galaxy from Earth, say, this value changes from the apparent (earthbound) magnitude in the catalog to the /absolute/ magnitude 10 parsecs before the boundary of the galaxy is reached. At the same time, of course, the visual galaxy brightness increases during the trip to the galaxy. Just as it should be.


Finally, I have recoded and /vastly accuracy-improved/ much of my 'deepsky.dsc' galaxy file. Virtually all 900 galaxies in the new catalog file involve now a "precision" distance determination!

Toti and I have decided to echange our codes as of now and go on, irrespective of Chris.

This sounds great. Could you make a patch file available so that it may be incorporated in the ongoing series of unofficial Mac builds?

[Brendan]

Don't be afraid of not getting new Celestia executables. One was made available in a new thread in the developer's forum about adding new keyboard shortcuts for toggling orbits by object type. It's based on the cvs code. Now that Fridger showed me how to make patches, I also plan on making a patch for each feature of BCelestia and I should provide a plain cvs executable as well as a BCelestia executable with all of the patches.

[ElChristou]

...Toti's and my work is also partly stuck, since nothing happens from Chris' side. I had asked him ~ on July 20 for a patch of his present galaxy code including Toti's octree template class, but NOTHING came, except for the statement that he was looking forward for my code!

Perhaps this code is too complex, and Chris need much time...

More seriously, definitively I cannot understand the attitude...

In the meantime, I have completed quite a bit of galaxy related code, concerning the relative magnitude assignments (according to the catalog values), some much improved coloration and improved template galaxies. I have also found and eliminated some nasty errors in Chris' (old!) elliptical code presently in CVS...

...Toti and I have decided to echange our codes as of now and go on, irrespective of Chris.

Tx to both for the hard work, this is really great.

[ElChristou]

...Well before the response like, you can always go and build yourself a new version from CVS, comes, here 2 points:
a) i don't know anything about coding
b) fat chance to build a new windows prerelease from CVS when Chris doesn't update it...

Why don't you talk with Phoenix for example... seems he has the abilities for building under Windows...

I'm sure some more other windows users can do this, so guys a little compation for those who cannot build !!!!

EDIT: Crossed post with Brendan... there is some hopes!!
What is exactly BCelestia?

[maxim]

BrendanCelestia supposably.

maxim

[ElChristou]

BrendanCelestia supposably.

maxim

Hmmm, yes, but what is the difference with Celestia?

[t00fri]

...Toti's and my work is also partly stuck, since nothing happens from Chris' side. I had asked him ~ on July 20 for a patch of his present galaxy code including Toti's octree template class, but NOTHING came, except for the statement that he was looking forward for my code!

Perhaps this code is too complex, and Chris need much time...
...

Certainly NOT. Chris is a most powerful and experienced programmer. If he only would spend /half a day/ on our stuff, he could finish it all! I have seen him often working "full time" on something. It's amazing how much then can come out of it...

Bye Fridger

[ElChristou]

Fridger... ...was just a tentative to find an excuse for Chris silence...

[t00fri]

This sounds great. Could you make a patch file available so that it may be incorporated in the ongoing series of unofficial Mac builds?

Yes, I shall do that ASAP.

Bye Fridger

[Brendan]

BrendanCelestia supposably.

maxim

Hmmm, yes, but what is the difference with Celestia?

Here is my page about it. http://www.rit.edu/~bjr5096/celestia/BCelestia.html

The zip file includes a windows executable from some months ago. I'll be updating it hopefully this month, or even tonight. There are diff files because before I didn't know how to make patch files.

[bh]

I think Chris is a very busy man...Hang loose guys! Hehe.

regards...bh.

[Brendan]

Good news, Chris updated galaxy.cpp in cvs 10 hours ago.
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/celestia/celestia/src/celengine/galaxy.cpp?rev=1.15&view=log