My OperaTouring Pan Galactic: SpaceEngine
Sunday, August 7, 2011 4:27:56 PM
Given that our generation was shockingly lied to by the previous generation's over-eager futurists (see: Retro-Futurism) it's more than likely that yours truly, the little boy who loved to gaze at the stars, will never set foot in space within his lifetime, As for leaving the solar system, visiting other stars and planets? Well, not even those wacky futurists were willing to go that far. But what about leaving the galaxy altogether? Pure Science fiction.
And so it was until I discovereda magical blue box, bigger on the inside a piece of software that lets you do just that. It's called SpaceEngine. I rather like it. I think you'll like it. But rather than me waffle on making pictures with my powerful word-gluing-together skills, how about I take you on a little pictorial tour, hmm?
Buckle up. The Pan-Galactic Express is ready to depart!
We start our journey having leapt 1 km straight up from Earth's surface. It's mid-afternoon, the sun is shining and the skies are blue, if a touch cloudy. SpaceEngine does better terrain than this but not on Earth, for some reason. Still, it's rendering land, sea, clouds and marvellous atmospheric lighting so I won't be too harsh on the old girl right out of the gate. Let's move on, shall we? Press F3, type 'Moon', click GOTO, and after a short smoothly-rendered trip out into space...
La Luna! The Moon: Earth's perfect partner. Beautiful, isn't she? One of the first things you might notice is the lack of stars. Well, SpaceEngine cleverly has an autofilter setting that attempts to mirror the way your eyes focus on the brightest thing in the sky. Fill your vision with, say, a planet crazy with reflected light from the nearby star and all that other deep-field stellar photon-screaming dies down until you are left with only a few pinpricks, most likely the closest and/or brightest. Filtering like this isn't always a boon – it's biggest drawback is that is robs you of the ability to click on any star, and I do mean ANY star to travel to. To bring that back you have to arrange your view so that there's nothing big and luminous on screen, not always easy when you've got several galactic temptresses begging lustily for your Take Screenshot key (F11). Or you can turn it off in the settings. I prefer it this way – looks more realistic. Anyhoo. Let's move a little closer.
Moving around in SpaceEngine is surprisingly intuitive. It uses the WASD keys, Q and E to rotate, and the mouse scroll-wheel to set your velocity up or down. It can be quite difficult to judge how fast you actually want to be going, depending on the size of and distance from your target, but a bit of trial and error gets you there soon enough. Or you let the program take you there, as described above. I'm finding the moon a bit boring. Not least because it's totally grey like Aberdeen. And it's still in Earth's backyard - Next!
Mars! Or should I say Mars and Friends! Deimos in the foreground, Phobos as a little dot in the lower left. I've never been as fascinated with Mars as most people like to be. Life? That was proved years ago by that little animated chap who likes to say DiscombobuLAY-TOR. Face on Mars? Whatever. And it always struck me as weird to worship a planet that uses rust like shake-and-vac. Let's drop down to the surface and see if we can locate poor old Beagle 2, eh?
See? Told you SpaceEngine did better terrain. Hmm. Getting bored of this tooling around the solar system. You want the Grand Tour, go see that nice Prof' Cox. You and I have a date in another galaxy! But first, let's complete our chocolatey theme by having a look at where we live, the Milky Way, from the outside!
I don't know why these things are called 'spirals' when 'Spider in a whirlpool' is more descriptive, and also works to deter nefarious types.
If you scroll the mouse wheel like your life depended on on it for about ten seconds your velocity counter goes up to something approaching the infamous Ludicrous Speed. Then when you move, you see stars whizzing past like they do in Star Trek. A few more scrolls, and you begin to sense that you're actually moving through the structure of the Milky Way itself. It's quite the thing to see. I recommend having a fiddle once I'm done talking at you. We, however, are going to cheat a bit and let the software take us to the Andromeda Galaxy! Make it so! Engage! (Oh, let me play...wheeeee)
This is your brain on SpaceEngine, looking at Andromeda. No, not the cheesy Kevin Sorbo-fest that appalled as much as it made you nauseus. The actual, honest-to-gosh real galaxy. See that little orange one down corner right? M111. Cute. Soon to be invaded and made part of my empire. Let's scoot around Andromeda a bit (said Kevin Sorbo, gripping his Force-Lance).
Too beautiful for words, right? I know, they should have sent a poet. Instead, all you've got is me, Fuckity McBrain-Damage.
Let's go for an explore inside Andromeda (Said Kevin [OH JUST GET ON WITH IT- Editor]...
This shot exists entirely to convince you I'm not making this shit up. As we move into the galactic cloud,it resolves into....shitloads of shiny fusion globes! Those big black objects are SpaceEngine struggling with stellar clusters. Tightly packed formations of stars that, by rights, should probably be gleaming orbs from a distance like this but show up black in SE. Never mind. Move into those clusters, by the way, and you will be bloody surrounded by the buggers. The simulation at work here is so mighty I may even refer to it as almighty (that'll be the deity - ho ho!). Oh, and unless you want to cripple your PC DON'T – whatever you do – head into the galactic core! A screaming PC is not a happy sound.
I parked us near a star that was passing by and bingo! It harboured a life-bearing world! Pressing F2 when clicked upon a star brings up a little table of all stellar and planetary grade objects in the system. Right-click again you can even see how many moons a world has. Thats how I found this little world, Planet RS random-credit-card number, Cool Terra with life. Mine for the conquering!
Here we are in orbit. It's very Indigo. I like that. Indigo is a space colour. A word about lens flare. In SE currently it's very...exuberant. As in, JJ Abrahms would think twice about using this much lens flare. Like most things in SE it can be turned off. Results vary, depending on locale.
Within the atmosphere of RS random-credit-card-number! Here we are, an unimaginable distance from home, and not a Stargate - or Starbucks - to be seen. Make joyful noise, friend! This planet appears to be wholly composed of the stuff you get from your tap, so no dinosaurs with laser-beam eyes to be seen. I did look for space whales but the developer hasn't quite implemented sub-sea environments yet, or any actual signs of life. These are planned, though. I'll just let those last two sentences sink in...
That's right. SpaceEngine is only jobbing as a galactic tour guide until the developer codes in more of a game. Brilliantly, he's looking to emulate one of the finest pieces of space software ever made, Noctis, a game about exploring the universe that was made in the early days of Dos on PC, back when processors were made from twigs and dry leaves, and graphics cards were made of actual cardboard. This, for me, is like a Christian being told that Jesus has just phoned to say he's actually on his way for this second coming we've all been waiting for. I'd sell body parts for this. Not mine, but I'd still sell them. Now, let's blow this pop-stand. Let's see if we can get out of the Universe.
Hmm. Not quite, but this, Ladies and Gentlemen, is a 3-Dimensional representation of the games' universe .I'm not sure exactly how realistic this is but is IS Fully spinney-rotatey and each and every single point of light you see there represents an entire galaxy full of stars, planets, moons, and bloggers, that you can click on and visit in your magical WhateverMachineShipThing. Quite takes your breath away, doesn't it? No? Please yourselves.
Oh, and before you ask. I did check around for a little Truman-style hatch into the Universe next door but didn't find anything, although the searchable surface area does extend for several quintillion googols, by my reckoning, so don't hold your breath.
Sigh. Let's go home.
And there she is. Earth. Big Blue Marble. Third Rock from the Sun. Work Camp Gorrock-Hz13. We're looking at the arse-end of Africa, I believe, tipped clockwise from its default orientation (Hmm, I wonder what Kevin Sorbo's default orientation is...). It's good to be home again, isn't it, folks? Nice to get away and all but home is, after all, where you keep all your stuff. Thanks for tavelling with Pan-Galactic Express, and we do hope you've enjoyed your complimentary Gargleblasters. Those life-forms that still have higher functions are invited to fill out our Feedback form. We wish you a safe journey and pleasant onward travel to your eventual destination. Thanks for flying Pan-Galactic.
Notes: Download the software here. WARNING: needs a muscular PC!
Lastly, if you've read this far - well done, true believer! Have a video for your trouble!
And so it was until I discovered
Buckle up. The Pan-Galactic Express is ready to depart!
We start our journey having leapt 1 km straight up from Earth's surface. It's mid-afternoon, the sun is shining and the skies are blue, if a touch cloudy. SpaceEngine does better terrain than this but not on Earth, for some reason. Still, it's rendering land, sea, clouds and marvellous atmospheric lighting so I won't be too harsh on the old girl right out of the gate. Let's move on, shall we? Press F3, type 'Moon', click GOTO, and after a short smoothly-rendered trip out into space...
La Luna! The Moon: Earth's perfect partner. Beautiful, isn't she? One of the first things you might notice is the lack of stars. Well, SpaceEngine cleverly has an autofilter setting that attempts to mirror the way your eyes focus on the brightest thing in the sky. Fill your vision with, say, a planet crazy with reflected light from the nearby star and all that other deep-field stellar photon-screaming dies down until you are left with only a few pinpricks, most likely the closest and/or brightest. Filtering like this isn't always a boon – it's biggest drawback is that is robs you of the ability to click on any star, and I do mean ANY star to travel to. To bring that back you have to arrange your view so that there's nothing big and luminous on screen, not always easy when you've got several galactic temptresses begging lustily for your Take Screenshot key (F11). Or you can turn it off in the settings. I prefer it this way – looks more realistic. Anyhoo. Let's move a little closer.
Moving around in SpaceEngine is surprisingly intuitive. It uses the WASD keys, Q and E to rotate, and the mouse scroll-wheel to set your velocity up or down. It can be quite difficult to judge how fast you actually want to be going, depending on the size of and distance from your target, but a bit of trial and error gets you there soon enough. Or you let the program take you there, as described above. I'm finding the moon a bit boring. Not least because it's totally grey like Aberdeen. And it's still in Earth's backyard - Next!
Mars! Or should I say Mars and Friends! Deimos in the foreground, Phobos as a little dot in the lower left. I've never been as fascinated with Mars as most people like to be. Life? That was proved years ago by that little animated chap who likes to say DiscombobuLAY-TOR. Face on Mars? Whatever. And it always struck me as weird to worship a planet that uses rust like shake-and-vac. Let's drop down to the surface and see if we can locate poor old Beagle 2, eh?
See? Told you SpaceEngine did better terrain. Hmm. Getting bored of this tooling around the solar system. You want the Grand Tour, go see that nice Prof' Cox. You and I have a date in another galaxy! But first, let's complete our chocolatey theme by having a look at where we live, the Milky Way, from the outside!
I don't know why these things are called 'spirals' when 'Spider in a whirlpool' is more descriptive, and also works to deter nefarious types.
If you scroll the mouse wheel like your life depended on on it for about ten seconds your velocity counter goes up to something approaching the infamous Ludicrous Speed. Then when you move, you see stars whizzing past like they do in Star Trek. A few more scrolls, and you begin to sense that you're actually moving through the structure of the Milky Way itself. It's quite the thing to see. I recommend having a fiddle once I'm done talking at you. We, however, are going to cheat a bit and let the software take us to the Andromeda Galaxy! Make it so! Engage! (Oh, let me play...wheeeee)
This is your brain on SpaceEngine, looking at Andromeda. No, not the cheesy Kevin Sorbo-fest that appalled as much as it made you nauseus. The actual, honest-to-gosh real galaxy. See that little orange one down corner right? M111. Cute. Soon to be invaded and made part of my empire. Let's scoot around Andromeda a bit (said Kevin Sorbo, gripping his Force-Lance).
Too beautiful for words, right? I know, they should have sent a poet. Instead, all you've got is me, Fuckity McBrain-Damage.
Let's go for an explore inside Andromeda (Said Kevin [OH JUST GET ON WITH IT- Editor]... This shot exists entirely to convince you I'm not making this shit up. As we move into the galactic cloud,it resolves into....shitloads of shiny fusion globes! Those big black objects are SpaceEngine struggling with stellar clusters. Tightly packed formations of stars that, by rights, should probably be gleaming orbs from a distance like this but show up black in SE. Never mind. Move into those clusters, by the way, and you will be bloody surrounded by the buggers. The simulation at work here is so mighty I may even refer to it as almighty (that'll be the deity - ho ho!). Oh, and unless you want to cripple your PC DON'T – whatever you do – head into the galactic core! A screaming PC is not a happy sound.
I parked us near a star that was passing by and bingo! It harboured a life-bearing world! Pressing F2 when clicked upon a star brings up a little table of all stellar and planetary grade objects in the system. Right-click again you can even see how many moons a world has. Thats how I found this little world, Planet RS random-credit-card number, Cool Terra with life. Mine for the conquering!
Here we are in orbit. It's very Indigo. I like that. Indigo is a space colour. A word about lens flare. In SE currently it's very...exuberant. As in, JJ Abrahms would think twice about using this much lens flare. Like most things in SE it can be turned off. Results vary, depending on locale.
Within the atmosphere of RS random-credit-card-number! Here we are, an unimaginable distance from home, and not a Stargate - or Starbucks - to be seen. Make joyful noise, friend! This planet appears to be wholly composed of the stuff you get from your tap, so no dinosaurs with laser-beam eyes to be seen. I did look for space whales but the developer hasn't quite implemented sub-sea environments yet, or any actual signs of life. These are planned, though. I'll just let those last two sentences sink in...
That's right. SpaceEngine is only jobbing as a galactic tour guide until the developer codes in more of a game. Brilliantly, he's looking to emulate one of the finest pieces of space software ever made, Noctis, a game about exploring the universe that was made in the early days of Dos on PC, back when processors were made from twigs and dry leaves, and graphics cards were made of actual cardboard. This, for me, is like a Christian being told that Jesus has just phoned to say he's actually on his way for this second coming we've all been waiting for. I'd sell body parts for this. Not mine, but I'd still sell them. Now, let's blow this pop-stand. Let's see if we can get out of the Universe.
Hmm. Not quite, but this, Ladies and Gentlemen, is a 3-Dimensional representation of the games' universe .I'm not sure exactly how realistic this is but is IS Fully spinney-rotatey and each and every single point of light you see there represents an entire galaxy full of stars, planets, moons, and bloggers, that you can click on and visit in your magical WhateverMachineShipThing. Quite takes your breath away, doesn't it? No? Please yourselves.
Oh, and before you ask. I did check around for a little Truman-style hatch into the Universe next door but didn't find anything, although the searchable surface area does extend for several quintillion googols, by my reckoning, so don't hold your breath.
Sigh. Let's go home.
And there she is. Earth. Big Blue Marble. Third Rock from the Sun. Work Camp Gorrock-Hz13. We're looking at the arse-end of Africa, I believe, tipped clockwise from its default orientation (Hmm, I wonder what Kevin Sorbo's default orientation is...). It's good to be home again, isn't it, folks? Nice to get away and all but home is, after all, where you keep all your stuff. Thanks for tavelling with Pan-Galactic Express, and we do hope you've enjoyed your complimentary Gargleblasters. Those life-forms that still have higher functions are invited to fill out our Feedback form. We wish you a safe journey and pleasant onward travel to your eventual destination. Thanks for flying Pan-Galactic.
Notes: Download the software here. WARNING: needs a muscular PC!
Lastly, if you've read this far - well done, true believer! Have a video for your trouble!
Unregistered user # Monday, January 2, 2012 4:26:56 PM
GrantTLC # Monday, January 2, 2012 5:11:30 PM