Problem with my addon

[fungun]

I am working on a huge Star Trek addon and I ran into a problem. It has to with drawing(or depicting) an area of space called the Briar Patch. Below is the info I have on it. Any tips on how to accomplish this would be great.

Thanx
Tim

The planet Ba'ku is an M-class planet located in the Briar Patch.
The Briar Patch, or Klach D'Kel Brakt, which is its original Klingon name, is a region in Sector 441 containing dangerous space matter including the remains of supernovae, false vacuum fluctuations, metaphasic radiation and at least two habitable planets, one of which is a Ba'ku settlement.
The area known as the Briar Patch contains the stars SNC 461206 and UFC 8177.

Here is a pic-http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:BriarPatch2375.jpg

[selden]

After they've exploded, supernovas are neutron stars or pulsars. Older ones are surrounded by expanding shockwaves of gas, usually shaped like a sphere, more or less distorted depending on the irregularities in the densities of the local dust and gas clouds (search for "vela supernova"). New ones may look like the Crab Nebula (M1). They're often embedded in large clouds of dust and gas where they were born as very hot stars.

The other things described are imaginary. You'll have to find some descriptions on a Trek site. Maybe they look like regular gas and dust nebulae but with strange colors.

[fungun]

To rephrase, how could you draw this in Celestia? If I'm guessing right, I can't use a 3D model or your Billboard model, because I wouldn't be able to put a star or planet inside it. Would I? If I included the star and planet in a 3D model, then I loose the orbit and rotation factors. I thought about the Accretion models that were posted, but they're not dense enough.

Thanx
Tim

[selden]

To rephrase, how could you draw this in Celestia? If I'm guessing right, I can't use a 3D model or your Billboard model, because I wouldn't be able to put a star or planet inside it. Would I?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "inside". You can't define them using the same catalog file(*), but you can place objects at the same locations so that stars are drawn inside nebulas:

Place a DSC Nebula at an appropriate location in space, then place a STC Star and/or barycenter at that same location. It'll be centered within the Nebula. (Bear in mind that STC catalogs require RA to be specified in degrees, while DSC catalogs require RA to be specified in hours.) If the Nebula is larger than the star, then the Nebula will be drawn around the Star. There may be some visual anomalies from particular viewing directions due to the current lack of depth sorting of Nebula objects, but they usually aren't too objectionable.

An example of this is Rassilon's NGC 2237 (Rosetta Nebula) + his NGC 2244 cluster of stars and planets. They're the examples in sections 4 & 5 in my Addon Intro at http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celest ... tro.html#4

____
* -- Well, actually you can, although a nebulosity defined in an SSC catalog can't be seen if you're more than 1LY away. That's actually how Rassilon created the first nebula objects before Celestia had such a thing in a DSC catalog.

[fungun]

Thanks seldon. I tried the nebula addon you pointed me to. It was close to what I wanted, but not quite. When I rotate the star I still want to be inside the nebula. Alas I did find something that will work but it is a 3ds model that spins and alternates between it's texture and transparent. It is at the Motherload under Star Trek-StarTrek Universe. The model is called Borg Shield.3ds. Hence I have no way to manipulate it, I will try something else.


Thanks
Tim
http://www.geocities.com/fungun/BorgShield.zip

[selden]

Tim,

Almost all 3D modelling software packages understand .3DS models. You have to use their "Import" and "Export" menus, though, not the Open and Save menus.

[fungun]

Yes. I found what I wanted
I downloaded the NGC3132_EightBurstNebula_3D addon by JLL from the Motherload. Placed a star inside it and it works great.
But, (yea I'm a prob child) It is alittle too transparent. By Seldon's advice I downloaded Anim8or, tried to get the 3ds model in to see if I could change that aspect. Anim8or will load the mesh but errors out on the texture, says it cannot load it (it is a png 1024x1024). I read about Anim8or, but can not figure out why, or if I can change the transparency without loading the texture in Anim8or.
If anyone can be of assistance, I would be very greatfull.
Thanks
Tim

[selden]

Transparency is controlled in the material editor menu.

Anim8or doesn't understand png format.
You'll need to convert the image into jpeg format while working on the model in Anim8or.

s.

[fungun]

Nope still won't work. I removed the png file from the folder and put in a jpg file. Anim8or still tries to load the png file. So all I get in anim8or is a wireframe or a white box, depending on which I pick to view.

Thanks
Tim

[selden]

You probably need to edit the material properties, too.

Anim8or does not show a wireframe unless you've selected wireframe mode (ctrl-W or the wireframe button). In wireframe mode it does not show surface textures.

Type a ctrl-S (or select one of the two non-wireframe buttons) to see solid surfaces with surface texture images.

Also, Anim8or requires the materials' surface texture image files to be in the same directory with the model.

I'd suggest you work through some of the Anim8or tutorials before you jump into modifying existing models and their surface textures.

Alternatively, you might want to consider a modelling program that has more features than Anim8or, like Blender. Again, however, you'll need to read its documentation and work through several tutorials before you'll be ready to start editing pre-built models.

[fungun]

That's one good thing about me. I learn fast. Figured it out. Here are the results.

Thanks
Tim
http://www.geocities.com/fungun/Baku.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/fungun/briarpatch.jpg

[jll]

Hi,

I use wings3d http://www.wings3d.com/ to build all my models.

May be this can solve your problem.

JLL