Gaia Sky 3.6.3

Features

• add on-demand loading of JSON datasets to particle groups, which enables having thousands of extrasolar systems to explore.
• add script to translate a NASA exoplanet archive VOTable to the Gaia Sky JSON format.
• replace CPU-based procedural generation with GPU-based implementation, which is orders of magnitude faster.
• improve layout of procedural generation window.
• improve cloud color and atmospheric fog density randomizers.
• use normal map when elevation type is ‘None’ in procedural generation.
• add initial amplitude to noise parametrization in procedural generation.
• surface generation presets (Earth-like, gas giant, rocky planet, etc.), and hide noise parameters in collapsible pane.
• add procedurally generated texture resolution to configuration and preferences window.
• add procedural generation button to camera info interface.
• move ‘save textures’ of procedural generation to a parallel thread.
• divide procedural generation in 4 consecutive frames. Add emission generation as an extra (optional) channel.
• add ‘systems’ component type, to contain all extrasolar planetary systems.
• automatic DPI scaling to support multi-DPI configurations.
• add new graphical presets (low, medium, high) to settings dialog. These presets are sets of settings that are applied all at once.
• change antialiasing settings from only type to type and quality in the configuration file.
• add tooltip with hotkeys to cinematic camera checkbox.
• improve camera velocity display units in camera info pane.
• new splash image based on NASA exoplanets.
• enable multiple lights (and also point lights) for cloud shader. This is necessary for the NASA exoplanets.
• add ‘refreshRate’ to orbit objects to control how often they are updated (if needed), add button to camera info interface to refresh the orbit of the selected object.

Bug Fixes

• relativistic shaders define their own helper functions.
• broken anchor in readme file.
• error computing next focus and closest body positions.
• restore elevation-aware planet traversal.
• artifacts in atmosphere shader when SSR is active.
• adjust maximum reach of point lights.
• improve single star selection code, especially when close to stars.
• regression where orientation lock stopped working altogether.
• adjust frequency and lacunarity randomizers so that more strucutre is always present.
• crash during initialization when model is set to randomize.
• tooltip background width incorrectly computed.
• remove call to pack() in constructor.

Performance Improvements

• enable fast-math usage by default, and remove old, unused trigo scaffolding classes.
• improve performance of recursive grid shader, which was very slow due to the background fill (with interpolation), and the animation. Animation is now removed.

Build System

• upgrade bundled JRE to 21, minimum language version to 17.