Any simple way to get custom sunflares?

[panzer1b]

Well as the topic says, im looking at replacing the terrible stock sun flare with something more akin to sci-fi movies/games, but i cant seem to do that in a lightweight way.  I know in the past you could replace the sunflare.tex file found in sharedassets9.assets, but it seems that they altered the shaders recently  (or something i dont quite understand) so that you cant actually do that anymore without creating something like this:

The following image is a side by side comparison of what i pulled out of the sharedassets9.assets from 1.1.3, and an old mod that happened to feature a custom sunflare for the game (which was done by overriding the stock game's files).

Obviosuly the newer version of KSP uses some sort of altered shader that reads from each one of the layers (A, R, G, B) and interprets that into the crap we know as the sun glow effect in stock KSP.  Ideally id like to be able to alter that image to give me my own custom effect (lets face it, the stock one is neither realistic, nor what i want: sci-fi), as itd let me have my new sunflare with 0 resource requirements as its nothing more then a texture change.  If anyone knows how to do that then id apreciate the help.  Also, an option i am considering (if there isnt any performance issues) is replacing the shaders with older ones (i have backups of older games, just need to know what file to pull and place into teh new game).

Also, before anyone mentions it, im perfectly aware that scatterer has its own special shader and easy way to create your own sunflare effects, but id much rather not have to install a bulky (and FPS tanking) mod just for one minor feature.  If there is no other option i will pull the source code and remove everything from that mod but the sunflare shaders/effect, but im wondering if there is a better solution (preferably without increasing lag as its bad enough 100% stock with 0 mods when you decide to spawn a 1500 part ship and actually dock to it)...

So, any ideas as to what i can do about this?

[Galileo]

Just read you don't want scatterer.  My bad. 

I know you can do it with kopernicus,  but I'm not sure how as I have never attempted it

Edited September 11, 2016 by Galileo

[panzer1b]

19 minutes ago, Galileo said:

Just read you don't want scatterer.  My bad. 

I know you can do it with kopernicus,  but I'm not sure how as I have never attempted it

Doesnt kopernicus rely on scatterer though?  Ill go check it though...

Anyways, its not that i dont want scatterer, hell, i use it for almost all cinematic purposes, but its just that when i disable it for regular gameplay i really miss that one particular effect it had (made the sunflare actually decent looking and you could customize it).  Scatterer (and EVE for that matter) and 2 mods i really really like to have, but are just too laggy when combined with any sort of large scale vessels (1000+ parts).  Slow game down way too much for me to keep them enabled 24/7, but i just really want the sunflare and nothing else for non-cinematic purposes.

Only other effect i use when out of cinematic mode is killing the unbearable ambient lighting.  Yeah it makes the game "easier", but there is nothing realistic about the sheer amount of light the stock game has at night, way too bright (and darkness makes lights actually matter to a degree).  Luckily ambientlightadjust does this and from my experience doesnt use any resources (all it does is alter a in-game variable to change light level)...

Edited September 11, 2016 by panzer1b

[panzer1b]

I think ive found my problem, all of the tools i have (assets editors) seem to have issues with current version of unity...

Both UAE: unity assets explorer, and UAV: unity assets viewer seem unable to properly work with KSP's unity version.  Bloody annoying...

Does anyone know of a tool that allows me to open the KSP_Data files (sharedassets9.assets in particular) and edit the textures and then save it properly so the game loads it correctly?  UAE cant export properly (the 1.1.3 pic of exported sun flares shows what i mean), and UAV lets me export as it outta, but when i try to replace the image with a new one it gives me white squares instead of proper sun flares

 

 

Any tools that can extract and most importantly insert images to override the default ones in the assets files?

 

[Synapsensalat]

A few months late but maybe it's still useful to someone, I use it to edit the sun flare https://github.com/DerPopo/UABE

Edited January 2, 2017 by Synapsensalat

[The-Doctor]

On 9/11/2016 at 11:58 AM, Galileo said:

Just read you don't want scatterer.  My bad. 

I know you can do it with kopernicus,  but I'm not sure how as I have never attempted it

anyway to get a sunflare like this one https://www.google.dm/search?q=KSP+RVE+Sunflare&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwispMmwkYPUAhWIQCYKHYuEDiQQ_AUICigB&biw=1366&bih=589#imgdii=8sFxeESzZPei_M:&imgrc=6dJt9xDRTm7bmM:   I'm really trying for a new experience, if you could make it or know one like it I can use, that would mean a lot, yes I have scatter installed