Motherlode Peer Group Review

[BobHegwood]

It's true that such massive rendering of asteroids is very taxing for Celestia, at least with current machines. It may be dissappointing for beginers, also.

This said, if the data are correct, shouldn't it be left there, with a GOOD warning? Now, checking that for correctness...

Guillermo

Yes, I have no problem with that Guillermo, and thanks very much for
your input here. My main objection to these add-ons was the
apparent errors which were cited in the comments though. Does
anyone else have any comments? I'll be waiting a while, and I'll see
if I can play with the files a bit to insure accuracy, but so far the
comments look very much to be correct in their criticisms.

Thanks, Brain-Dead

EDIT: Arlene has given her okay to
delete these add-ons, so they are now GONE. Just FYI.

[BobHegwood]

Another potential deletion lies HERE.
This is Jack's 1994 XM1 asteroid add-on. No installation instructions,
and NO 3DS file which is referred to by the main add-on coding.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Never mind this one. I was able to add corrections to
the file so that it does now work as long as the instructions found
on the add-on's detail page are followed.

Thanks, Bob

[BobHegwood]

See my EDITS in the previous posts for deleted and saved add-ons.

Thanks, Brain-Dead Bob

[BobHegwood]

Find myself in need of some help here...

If anyone is interested, please view the Extra-Solar Galaxies
category on the ML HERE,
and let me know what you think about these add-ons. With the
release of Celestia 1.4.1, it seems that almost ALL of these Galaxy
Billboard add-ons, are not worth keeping. Now, I could be very wrong
here, so let us know what you think. It's just that in my opinion,
Celestia's representation of these galaxies is vastly superior to any
two-dimensional billboard, although some detail is lost.

More comments and or thoughts please?

EDIT: For your further information here, some of these add-ons
will combine to create very interesting Galaxy displays, hence my
hesitation to delete anything here. Have a look at NGC 4414
(Version 2) from Jestr. When combined with Celestia's rendering,
makes for a very interesting display of the galaxy.

Thanks, Brain-Dead

[MKruer]

Late to the party,

I would not just delete them outright. True that they are very simple 2d bitmaps, and there are now better ways of showing them now, but the new way to render galaxies and nebulae are still not as high quality as one would like. I don't know if this is possible, or even worth trying, but when it comes to deep sky object, it would be good to have the 2d images shown when viewing from afar, and then once you approach the galaxies or nebulae, it would fade out the 2d bit map and start to render the 3d object. Something like this has been done for a long time in most first person shooters.

Edit:
It might be worthwhile to compile all of them into a single addon.

[BobHegwood]

Late to the party,

I would not just delete them outright. True that they are very simple 2d bitmaps, and there are now better ways of showing them now, but the new way to render galaxies and nebulae are still not as high quality as one would like. I don't know if this is possible, or even worth trying, but when it comes to deep sky object, it would be good to have the 2d images shown when viewing from afar, and then once you approach the galaxies or nebulae, it would fade out the 2d bit map and start to render the 3d object. Something like this has been done for a long time in most first person shooters.

Edit:
It might be worthwhile to compile all of them into a single addon.

All you have written above is okay with me, but obviously, I have
no power to implement any of what you suggest here.

I can either DELETE those add-ons I find to be worthless, or I
can modify the links and/or descriptions so that additional
information can be provided concerning the add-ons themselves.

How about anyone else here? No one else cares if I simply DELETE
all of the billboards?

Comments? Any? Help?

[BobHegwood]

For what it's worth here, I have attempted to use a number of the
Galaxies in the ExtraSolar: Galaxies category on the ML, and have
been thus far unable to use ANY of these in both 1.4.1 AND 1.5 Pre5.

Some of the galaxies work in 1.4.1, but NONE of these work in both
versions.

So, I'm still waiting for opinions here. Do we DELETE all of these from
the ML?

Thanks, Brain-Dead

[cartrite]

For what it's worth here, I have attempted to use a number of the
Galaxies in the ExtraSolar: Galaxies category on the ML, and have
been thus far unable to use ANY of these in both 1.4.1 AND 1.5 Pre5.

Some of the galaxies work in 1.4.1, but NONE of these work in both
versions.

So, I'm still waiting for opinions here. Do we DELETE all of these from
the ML?

Thanks, Brain-Dead

Bob,
I only used a few of these and never with 1.5pre5. But putting that requirement (working in both) on any addon should not be done, in my opinion. 1,5pre, by definition is subject to change and is not final. Maybe after 1.5 is released a decision could be made if they still don't work but as long as they work in at least 1.4.1 then that requirement should not be considered. Now if they are bad, that's another story.
Just my 2 cents.
cartrite

[BobHegwood]

Bob,
I only used a few of these and never with 1.5pre5. But putting that requirement (working in both) on any addon should not be done, in my opinion. 1,5pre, by definition is subject to change and is not final. Maybe after 1.5 is released a decision could be made if they still don't work but as long as they work in at least 1.4.1 then that requirement should not be considered. Now if they are bad, that's another story.
Just my 2 cents.
cartrite

Very much appreciate the feedback my friend. I'm glad that SOMEBODY
cares enough to give an opinion here. Sheesh!

By the way, most of the add-ons don't work correctly in 1.4.1 either.
It's just that a relative FEW of them, do manage to add
something to the renderings.

Thanks a lot for your help, Bob

[cartrite]

Hey Bob,
No problem.
Some of these addons may have been created for 1.3.2. That goes back a ways. Maybe a decision should be made as to where to draw the line.
cartrite

[fsgregs]

Bob:

Sorry I haven't been more active here in providing you feedback. I've had other things to work on, including some preview editing of a very large add-on that one of the developers has asked me to review.

Anyway, I agree with Cartrite that an add-on should not be deleted because it doesn't work in 1.5.0pre5, provided it does work in 1.4.1. It is very possible the add-on could be slightly modified to work fine in 1.5.0. It might be just a minor correction to the ssc file. I would simply make a note in the add-on info that it does not work on 1.5.0 (yet).

I haven't used the galaxy billboards personally as add-ons in the educational activities because in a school, my students like to drag things around and look at celestial objects from all sides. As soon as they discover that the object is just a flat billboard picture plopped into space, they compare it to the sophisticated graphics of the video games they play, and ridicule the billboard.

That said, I would suggest keeping any of them that do work in 1.4.1

Frank

[BobHegwood]

Bob:

Sorry I haven't been more active here in providing you feedback. I've had other things to work on, including some preview editing of a very large add-on that one of the developers has asked me to review.

Anyway, I agree with Cartrite that an add-on should not be deleted because it doesn't work in 1.5.0pre5, provided it does work in 1.4.1. It is very possible the add-on could be slightly modified to work fine in 1.5.0. It might be just a minor correction to the ssc file. I would simply make a note in the add-on info that it does not work on 1.5.0 (yet).

I haven't used the galaxy billboards personally as add-ons in the educational activities because in a school, my students like to drag things around and look at celestial objects from all sides. As soon as they discover that the object is just a flat billboard picture plopped into space, they compare it to the sophisticated graphics of the video games they play, and ridicule the billboard.

That said, I would suggest keeping any of them that do work in 1.4.1

Frank

Again, I appreciate the feedback, but the problem is that most
of these cannot be used in either version of Celestia. I have
tried to convert a few of them, and have come up against the
following problems.

Even with the correct DSC data and some adjustments, none of
the 3DS files will render as they should in 1.4.1 or in 1.5. In fact,
the ONLY add-on in this category I have found that WILL work is
Jestr's NGC 4414 V2 add-on. This is a CMOD and does actually
render the galaxy quite nicely (along with Celestia 1.4.1's
internal renderings.) However, even this add-on does not work at
all in 1.5.

So, to make a long story short, must I prove this problem for
every galactic add-on? I can, but I just don't understand why
I should waste time on something that is already being taken care
of within Celestia itself.

More comments?

[selden]

Bob,

Exactly what do you mean by "does not render as it should"?

Did you remember to enable Nebula rendering?

I just checked Dave Mc's 3DS model of NGC 4314, downloaded just now from the MotherLode.

It works fine for me with all of the Celestia v1.5.0 prereleases, and with a recent CVS build.

s.

[Nastytang]

Hey Bob hi there i`m new here so not sure how to go about this,..(broken Link) but on Motherlode in the Messier Nebulae Section


M51 & NGC 5195 - Whirlpool Galaxy made by Jim

2K DDS 1.8M
1K PNG 728K


This seem to be a broken link !!!

Thanks

Nasty

[BobHegwood]

Bob,

Exactly what do you mean by "does not render as it should"?

Did you remember to enable Nebula rendering?

I just checked Dave Mc's 3DS model of NGC 4314, downloaded just now from the MotherLode.

It works fine for me with all of the Celestia v1.5.0 prereleases, and with a recent CVS build.

s.

Yes, Selden, I have Nebulae rendering enabled, but what happens is
that I get either absolutely nothing shown, or I get a 2d galaxy
shown out of position within the galaxy rendering created by
Celestia itself. I suppose I could set up a screen shot for you, but
I'm getting frustrated here. Will show you what I mean as soon
as I get the time. Also, I can get the billboards shown far, far
away from the galaxy rendered by Celestia, but if I try to
modify the DSC code to match Celestia's code (From Fridger's
Perl script I assume) I get nothing again. Really frustrating, and
I just don't see why we even need this stuff now. <shrug>

Note: By the way, the ONLY add-ons I'm talking about here are
the GALAXY add-ons. I haven't even looked at the Nebulae yet,
so let's just make certain that we're talking about the same
add-ons here.

[BobHegwood]

Hey Bob hi there i`m new here so not sure how to go about this,..(broken Link) but on Motherlode in the Messier Nebulae Section


M51 & NGC 5195 - Whirlpool Galaxy made by Jim

2K DDS 1.8M
1K PNG 728K


This seem to be a broken link !!!

Thanks

Nasty

Thank YOU my friend. I'll let Ulrich know about it, but we may just
have to delete the links. I have found a number of cases where
we simply just did not have the files any more.

Thanks again, Bob

EDIT: Removed this listing since it was hosted on Shatters.net anyway.

[selden]

Bob,

Exactly what do you mean by "does not render as it should"?

Did you remember to enable Nebula rendering?

I just checked Dave Mc's 3DS model of NGC 4314, downloaded just now from the MotherLode.

It works fine for me with all of the Celestia v1.5.0 prereleases, and with a recent CVS build.

s.

Yes, Selden, I have Nebulae rendering enabled, but what happens is
that I get either absolutely nothing shown, or I get a 2d galaxy
shown out of position within the galaxy rendering created by
Celestia itself.

Most of the galaxy Addons provided as Nebula objects *are* 2D objects. They're colorful astronomical pictures projected onto a flat "billboard". This is also the case for most of the Nebula Addons. I suspect it'd be reasonable to include some indication that that's what they are, but I don't think it's reason for deleting them.

The example I picked happens to be one of the few 3D models. It's drawn somewhat strangely due to a design deficiency that's present in all versions of Celestia: Nebula Mesh models are not depth sorted.

I suppose I could set up a screen shot for you, but
I'm getting frustrated here. Will show you what I mean as soon
as I get the time. Also, I can get the billboards shown far, far
away from the galaxy rendered by Celestia, but if I try to
modify the DSC code to match Celestia's code (From Fridger's
Perl script I assume) I get nothing again. Really frustrating, and
I just don't see why we even need this stuff now. <shrug>

Remember that the galaxy objects generated by Celestia are generic: they can't show the specific details of each of the individual galaxies. These Addons do show those details.

[BobHegwood]

Selden,

Dave Mc's add-on is a perfect example of the troubles here...

In 1.4.1, the add-on displays correctly, but looks like crap because it
contains a great big gap in the middle of the galaxy. It does look
somewhat 3D though.

In 1.5.5 the galaxy renders far, FAR away from Celestia's internal
rendering, and is completely separate from Celestia's internal
representation. Now these things can probably be cured, but my
question again is "Is this worth the trouble here?" We also have
the problem of naming conventions i.e. - "M83" vs "M 83."

And too, this is only one of two of these add-ons I have seen
that even come close to being correct.

Thanks, Bob

[selden]

Bob,

The position differences between the Addon and deepsky.dsc are miniscule. I think you're forgetting how they're determined. A very tiny difference between measurements made of an extra-galactic object's position as seen from the Earth translates into a very large difference in Light Years at the distance where the object is drawn. Distances in particular have extremely large error bars.

I think it would be reasonable to reject a DSO Addon because it doesn't provide references for the sources of the catalog information and of the images that it uses, but not because its subject is drawn at a different position from other images of the same object.

I agree that some naming convention is needed so one can select individual Addons separately from the objects provided by Celestia. Being able to compare objects is important. However, no such convention currently exists, so it seems unfair to me to reject Addons because they don't comply. Maybe the ML could provide one?

Artistic quality is in the eye of the beholder I'll leave it to you to make that decision. Do remember, however, that 3D models are hard to make, especially when one has to compensate for Celestia's defects in rendering Nebula objects.

Perhaps it would be appropriate for DSOs in particular to have separate pages for old low quality and newer high quality Addons.

[BobHegwood]

Okay Selden,

You've made your case.

Thanks, Bob