I've recently started playing with an interactive 3D astronomy program called Celestia and it's fun. It also gives a pretty good idea of what it's like to travel through space even at FTL speeds in somewhat normal space mode--the kicker being that it blessedly looks nothing like TNG style warp speed. Actually it looks a lot like TOS style normal space at warp: stars are passing by you, but not streaking or blurred. And you have to be going freakin' fast like a few hunded times light to see anything noticeable. Strange yet kinda cool. It really emphasises just how big interstellar space really is. When I look at this I immediately thought that TOS' f/x guys must have just lucked out in approximating their warp space f/x (since there were no cgi animation programs to refer to back then) or just maybe somehow talked to an astronomer and perhaps asked their considered opinion on what ftl could look like in normal space. Whatever, it's neat. When it's simulating motion at multipes of light I half expect the TOS Enterprise to come whipping out of the distance.
Warped9, I have heard of programs that show starfields under Special and General Relativity. I have written on that shows a static viewscreen for different sublight speeds.
I've been trying to find a program that simulates relativistic spaceflight but no luck yet although I've seen static pictures. Relativistic speeds significantly under .99c look like you're not even moving.
Warped9, mine has static shots just because of the lack of perceptable motion over short periods of time.
My add on to TNG style was inside the warp bubble not only stars stretch, but planets, nebulea, etc. (a riff off of New Voyages, and a pic someone made for a model kit site). I alway assumed that the TOS moving stars was the ship in warp, so I was not phased off when TNG came out. I thought, "what's the problem!?" It turns out TOS was right after all! :nash teeth, bite steel, grind boulders, and smash mountains down: :thumbsup:
Warped9, can you talk a little more about this program. How much is it? Is there a trial? How easy to use? Could you walk the rest of us through replicating your results? I think this is a very interesting topic. In astronomy class we never looked at anything warp related. I have had some teaching on relativity and would be interested in seeing your results. Can you post some screencaps or do you have a link to a video?
Celestial is a free program as are its add-ons. Very true. As I said in my initial post when shown in normal space travel through the galaxy has to be extreme such as multiples of light years per second for there to be any real noticeable effect. In Warp Speed values you have to be going hundreds of multiples of light to see any noticeable effect. To show a spacecraft moving very fast in interstellar space you pretty well have to cheat a little and enhance the "passing stars" effect somewhat to convey any real sense of speed. For my own little project--of which you can see in the Arts forum--I do want to simulate something along the lines of relativistic space at .9999c albeit with some measure of artistic licence to liven it up some.