Suggested Demo script improvements

[Malenfant]

I think the demo script could use a bit of fixing. I'm using no extras here, but I am using a compiled 1.5.0 windows executable with the 1.4.1 demo.cel script.

1) I ran it today and for starters, the first part (where it goes to Earth and rotates around it) zooms in too close to the planet, so that the poles are cut off in the field of view. I think the camera should be further away, or have a wider field of view to see the whole planet.

2) Same problem when it goes to the moon and rotates around it, but it's not quite as bad there. But it's kinda hard to note the sun and the earth in the background when the moon takes up most of the view.

3) rotating around the sun is fine

4) going out to view the inner solar system doesn't work well at all - the camera needs to go out further, all I can see is Mercury and Venus and a bit of Earth's orbit (the FOV is 26 deg 6' 21.0" (1.00x) in all this).

5) Saturn is OK, but again the rings are clipped by the FOV.

6) When going to Mimas to show Herschel, it'd help if Herschel was actually visible on the lit hemisphere...

7) Sometimes when I go to Saturn in the demo I end up with Mimas in eclipse, which means I can't see anything on its surface and I can't see the sun to see how faint it is at this distance. Basically, the script needs to be changed so that the things that it is showing are visible - if that means deliberately setting the times to different ones then that's what has to be done.

8 ) When looking at the Big Dipper, it would be useful to turn on the constellation lines then, rather than when we then go to the Little Dipper.

9) It would be useful to set the stars to be fuzzy points or scaled discs within the script to make them more visible. When they're set to Points, you can't really see any obvious patterns without the lines.

10) the rotation around the sky to see the milky way is too long and too dizzying. Also, if you have galaxy rendering on already, the script doesn't turn it off before we get to this stage, so you can already see the milky way before it says that it'll turn it on. This part should just focus on a bit of sky (Cygnus?) and then turn the galaxies on to show the milky way, and maybe follow it along the sky for a bit.

11) When we go to Antares, we aren't "10 times further from it than the Earth is to the sun", the distance to the star shows 22 AU when we stop.

12) The orbit around the milky way doesn't really show it off very well, I think the camera should orbit perpendicular to the galactic disk so we can see the structure more clearly. As it is, it's a bit inclined above the disk, but not by much.

[hank]

I think the demo script could use a bit of fixing...

Perhaps we should hold a contest for a new (or improved) demo script. You, and others, could modify the existing script to improve it (or write a new one from scratch) and then post the results here. Celestia community members could vote on which one they like best. Then Chris and the developer team would make the final selection for inclusion in the next release.

- Hank

[Malenfant]

Might be an idea... though I don't have time to actually program it myself (got my hands full with other projects). Would it be worth writing it in celx format instead of cel?

[ElChristou]

...Would it be worth writing it in celx format instead of cel?

Yes of course, but unfortunatly not so much people are able to script in celx...

[chris]

Yes, we need a new demo script. I like Hank's idea for a contest . . .

--Chris

[Vincent]

Yes, we need a new demo script. I like Hank's idea for a contest . . .

--Chris

OK,

Then, could you please give us the requested criteria :
- minimum/maximum duration of the script ?
- cel/celx script ?
- objects that have to be visited ?
- ... ?

[Cham]

Personaly, I think we should remove the "D" keyboard shortcut for the demo. The demo script should be selectable from a script menu (a bit like the favorites menu). We need the "D" key for more important things (reference grids !?).

And I agree that the zoom in on Earth is too strong.

[ElChristou]

The actual one is no so bad but could be better as pointed by Mal; IMHO a celx would be better for the smooth transition of the camera direction...

[hank]

Personaly, I think we should remove the "D" keyboard shortcut for the demo. The demo script should be selectable from a script menu (a bit like the favorites menu). We need the "D" key for more important things (reference grids !?).

On Mac OS X, the demo is available on the Celestia menu. (Perhaps it should be on the Help menu.)

- Hank

[Cham]

I suggest to add a "scripts" menu to the right, just before the help menu. The first item should be the demo (and a separator after that). Then a list of all scripts files names included in a "scripts" folder located inside the CelestiaRessources folder.

I'm not a programmer, but I suspect this should be easy, ... or is it ?

[ElChristou]

I suggest to add a "scripts" menu to the right, just before the help menu. The first item should be the demo (and a separator after that). Then a list of all scripts files names included in a "scripts" folder located inside the CelestiaRessources folder.

Cham, the script folder do not appear in all platform...
Concerning adding a script menu, I fear there is no room for this on a 1024...

[Cham]

Cham, the script folder do not appear in all platform...
Concerning adding a script menu, I fear there is no room for this on a 1024...

Huh !? There's a textures folder, a models folder, a data folder, and so on. So why not a scripts folder too ?

And on a 1024 pixels wide screen, you're sure there isn't any room left for another menu ? I'll check this monday on the portable I'm using at work.

[Malenfant]

As usual I agree with Cham - there's no reason why there can't be a scripts folder in Celestia if there isn't one already - I think it makes sense to have a separate folder for them myself.

A nice interface in Celestia to access them wouldn't go amiss either. Maybe that could bring up a separate window (like the Star or Eclipse Finder) that lists the scripts that can be run, along with a brief one line summary (taken from a specific comment line in the script?) saying what the script does.

[hank]

I'm not a programmer, but I suspect this should be easy, ... or is it ?

SMOP.

- Hank

[Malenfant]

I have some time to kill and thought I'd just see if I could make minor tweaks to the demo and it's a right nightmare (distances are measured in radii? bwuh?) ! I'll see if I can at least tweak the first few points anyway...

and what's a SMOP?

[Cham]

Iand what's a SMOP?

According to these pages :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMOP

and

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/S/SMOP.html

it's a kind of irony.

[hank]

and what's a SMOP?

Simple Matter of Programming. "Used ironically by the intended victim when a suggestion for a program is made which seems easy to the suggester, but is obviously (to the victim) a lot of work." (from The Jargon File)

There's no shortage of good ideas here, just a shortage of programmers. This suggestion wouldn't actually be difficult, just tedious. And it would have to be done for each platform, since the Celestia GUI is platform-dependent. The problem is finding a programmer with the time and interest to do it.

- Hank

[Chuft-Captain]

...distances are measured in radii...

There's a very good reason for this. It makes script writing easier. (Have another think about it).

[Malenfant]

Actually I think I fixed most of the points I had issues with - download my modified version from here into your Celestia folder (rename your existing demo.cel script to demo.old though if you want to restore it afterwards, because this will overwrite it!):

http://www.evildrganymede.net/art/celestia/demo.cel

This version is also quite a bit shorter, the waits and durations have been cut down a bit so you don't die of old age or boredom halfway through.

I turned the equatorial grid on when we're looking at Polaris, just to show it's the north star, ideally it might be nice to rotate around this but I couldn't figure out how to do that.

I also tried to get the "spin around the sky" to follow the milky way... I got close but not quite there. Anyone know what angle you have to go to get more aligned with the milky way? (Crux is smack bang in the middle of it, so it's a good place to start from, all we need to do is get the angle right...).

What do you think?

[Malenfant]

...distances are measured in radii...

There's a very good reason for this. It makes script writing easier. (Have another think about it).

I don't think it does, if you write in km then at least that's the same for all bodies... if you use radii then you never know quite how far you're going to be from the object in km.

I guess it just depends on what you're doing...