Zeta Reticuli addon (DOWNLOAD LINK)

[eburacum45]

That is a wonderful mesh, Cham; it fits in very nicely with the Orion's Arm wormhole concept (which is a sphere of warped space time, like a black hole but with no event horizon or singularity) surrounded by a framework containing negative energy.
My current attempt is here


As you know my own modelling skills are basic, but this image might inspire me to do something a little better.

The main problem with making a model of a wormhole in Celestia is the so-called caustic, which is a gravitational lens effect (supposedly opposite to that produced by a black hole).

[eburacum45]

Incidentally, Zeta Reticuli is a very popular system for science fiction stories; the Alien add-on is located there, and so are many worlds in the OA scenario (based on Anders Sandberg's worlds from Big Ideas Grand Vision);
there are alsol UFO and abduction stories in circulation that use this pair of stars.

For the purposes of a science fiction story I started to write a while ago and have yet to finish, I would be interested to know the apparent magnitude of Zeta I from Zeta II and or vice versa. The two stars are approximately as bright as the Sun, and are 9000 AU apart.

[Cham]

Here's the final version of that machine (laboratory facility, wormhole gate, pulsar dynamo, etc...). It's now incorporated into my Zet addon, as a Zet research facility. The station has 8 km radius.

[bdm]

Zeta Reticuli is a circumpolar star that is visible from the southern hemisphere. I remember observing Zeta Reticuli a number of years ago with the naked eye and a telescope. With the naked eye it can just be made out as a double star with two components of equal brightness.

[Cham]

Two more pictures from the addon. Two Cyl Munchies are working in some asteroid field.

[Malenfant]

Ooo, I like those "munchies"

[ElChristou]

Hey we are now near the movie industrie quality!! Very nice Cham!!

[Cham]

I need a little help for the addon's Readme. I just need to check the English, as it's really not my langage. Here's a link to the TEXT file. Could someone read it and tell me if it needs any correction ?

http://nho.ohn.free.fr/celestia/Cham/Di ... eadme(TEST).txt

Thanks a lot in advance.

[GlobeMaker]

There are four lines that can be improved :


Old


I strongly recommend that you follow closely the "Cyl explorer 1" spaceship
I also suggest that you watch closely the "Colonial Cyls"
Celestia doesn't let the user to define a fixed orientation
I'll be glad to hear any opinion or critics about this addon on the Celestia forum.



New
I strongly recommend that you closely follow the "Cyl explorer 1" spaceship
I also suggest that you closely watch the "Colonial Cyls"
Celestia doesn't let the user define a fixed orientation
I'll be glad to hear any opinions or criticisms about this addon on the Celestia forum.

Also, the text file did not wrap lines around on my screen. Each line was too wide to fit on the screen. So I added ENTER ( linefeed carriage returns) so I could see it all on the width of my monitor.

[Cham]

Thanks, GlobeMaker.

I'll edit the readme.

[Cham]

Here are three other teasers from the addon. I'm on the last stage of polishing all the pack. You should see that freighter with its escort, moving close to TWO planets ! On a large screen with full antialiasing, the scene is pretty impressive, especially close to the freighter, with all its gory details.

[ANDREA]

Hello Cham, it's wonderful!
Waiting for its release.
Bye
Andrea

[fsgregs]

Cham:

What can I say but WOW!!!!

Can't wait to download this. Again, you've taken Celestia a bit higher in the plane of excellence.

A simple suggestion regarding your many ships. If they are to be inhabited by living creatures, I'd suggest adding some lights to them, either as portholes or energy devices of some kind. In addition, just as a test, explore adding a very large glowing atmosphere to the "pulsar" inside your magnificent machine. If you make it large/high enough, it could almost reach the inside border of the frame and look like an enormous force field.



Thanks for this creation. It is awesome.

Frank

[Cham]

Cham:
A simple suggestion regarding your many ships. If they are to be inhabited by living creatures, I'd suggest adding some lights to them, either as portholes or energy devices of some kind. In addition, just as a test, explore adding a very large glowing atmosphere to the "pulsar" inside your magnificent machine. If you make it large/high enough, it could almost reach the inside border of the frame and look like an enormous force field.

Frank

Yes, many space stations do have lights glowing.

Also, I already tried the atmosphere trick to the "pulsar" (plasma blob, whatever) inside the frame, but there's a Celestia bug which doesn't let me use a thicker atmosphere. The current setting looks fine anyway, live in Celestia.

All the planets, moons and asteroids are done. I'm pretty proud of the textures. Everything is in its place. I could release the addon right now, but there's a funny effect occuring to me : I created this addon over a full year, and I was learning 3D creation at the same time. I've progressed enormously, and the oldest model (the "explorer" visiting the planets) isn't satisfying anymore ! So I'm now trying to redesign it completelly. That's the last thing to do before final release.

I hope to release the addon in time for Christmas.

[Tech Sgt. Chen]

You guy's are amazing! I'm totally blown away by your modeling skills!
You make it seem so effortless despite the countless hours it must take to produce these.
Cham, I hope (when you complete this) that you split it into smaller sections of downloadable files. I can't wait for this add-on. Very imaginative stuff!

[Cham]

Cham, I hope (when you complete this) that you split it into smaller sections of downloadable files.

I'm sorry, but this would be very hard. All parts are completelly integrated. Several zip files may lead to an installation mess for the user anyway. I know the zip file will be huge : about 350 MB to 400 MB (the unzipped directory is about 560 MB). But I think it would be well worth the downloading time.

[Cham]

Ok gentlemen, let me present the ultimate in Cyl technology : the Mark VI surfer !



This is the final replacement for the ship shown on the first pictures of this thread (page 1).

This is an ultra-relativist spaceship. About 50 meters radius. The front part (left side of the picture) is a shield generator to protect the ship from the Zeldovich effect (cosmic microwave background turned into x and gamma rays). Rear skating rakes are designed to push on the space-time continuum fabric, using a sophisticated variation of the Casimir effect. Powerfull energy source is visible on the top-middle. Onboard quantum computer and extremelly fast navigation devices. First class exploration vessel.

Now, the addon is finished. Upload to the ML is imminent. I just need one more week to think about it, or else I may find something cool after I've uploaded everything !

Here's a nice view from the addon :

[fsgregs]

UN &*$#* BELIEVABLE!!!!

Can't wait!!!!!!

Frank

[Cham]

Here's the poster for the Zet addon. Click to enlarge.



Or maybe this one (less confusion and more SF like) :



Any opinion ? This should be the final poster for the Motherlode.

[Cham]

I've just placed the last stone. I should upload everything tonight or tomorrow.

Here's a view of "Forbis", as seen from "Cromak"