themaster401

January 26, 2023

Astronomer's Visual Pack - Beyond Ultra v4.20 (Preview)

A reimagining of Astronomer's Visual Pack with raymarched volumetrics support, and the final major update of AVP for KSP1 (for real this time).

Coming Soon^TM*

^{* after i finish elden ring}

January 22, 2023

15 hours ago, Motokid600 said:

When the new EVE is released are there any plans to update AVP to use it?

Yes

September 30, 2022

If anyone is having one of their fairing halves fall off at or slightly after launch, turning off Fairing Auto-struts on the fairing base seems to fix this for me.

September 22, 2022

3 hours ago, One eyed Smile said:

https://imgur.com/x8TSsGo

So it seems there's no longer citylights on the dark side of the kerbin? It's too dark to see anything anymore.

https://imgur.com/aGfoWwX

This is with 100% ambient light boost.

https://imgur.com/NhlQFZ1

You c an see it has no citylights, and its super dark.

I tried removing the citylights.cfg from the AVPs gamedata but it doesn't work. Cna someone help?

If you're using Parallax, I've forced citylights to disable when that mod is detected in order to avoid clipping issues on the surface. It looks like the latest update for Parallax fixes that, though. The Parallax fix will be removed next AVP update, but for now, you can open CityLights.cfg in the AstronomersVisualPack/AVP_Configs/Stock/ folder, remove the ":NEEDS[!Parallax]" on the first line, and save the file.

July 30, 2022

Y'all in career - if you're playing with the difficulty setting that forces you to purchase parts before you can use them, you will have to buy the fairing size upgrades in R&D in order to use sizes larger than 1.5m as the upgrades will not show up in the parts list.

July 17, 2022

Update v4.13

Changelog

Fixed overexposed Jool aurora.
Forced city lights to disable when Parallax is detected (the effects clip into Parallax terrain).
Lowered altitude of Dres surface dust and reduced particle size.
Fixed fine detail and seams in cirrus cloud detail texture.
Adjusted TUFX configs:
- Disabled TUFX antialiasing in favor of scatterer's implementation.
- Reduced bloom softness.
- Tweaked auto exposure to be brighter in most scenes.
- Ambient occlusion is now visible in the IVA only with the default AVP TUFX config.
- Added an alternate TUFX config with ambient occlusion visible in all scenes (albeit still with artifacts when zoomed in to a vessel).

Download by clicking the period at the end of this sentence.
You will have to download the new texture update.

May 15, 2022

On 5/13/2022 at 9:26 AM, Lijazos said:

I have a 1060 6gb, currently running the 4k Cloud textures. For some reason, whenever I am either in the main menu, on the KSC menu, or orbiting in LKO while looking down into the planet, my GPU usage ramps up to 100% and temperatures go as high as 82ºC.

Literally no other game runs so hot on my GPU. Only happens when I have the clouds enabled. What could be the cause for such an impact?

KSP with any decent EVE and scatterer effects will invariably push most GPUs to their max if the framerate isn't limited. The programming behind the 3D rendering of the game simply isn't cut for efficiency in producing these heavy effects. You can either set a framerate limit or stress the CPU with other mods and large part counts to alleviate the stress on the GPU.

March 22, 2022

On 3/16/2022 at 2:34 PM, LHACK4142 said:

I saw a black plume on Minmus. What's that supposed to represent?

Sounds like you encountered a Minmus geyser, though, they shouldn't appear black but blue. I'll have to take a look myself.

March 7, 2022

Hmm...

February 19, 2022

Update v4.12

Changelog

Redone scatterer configs for the latest scatterer version.
Enabled TUFX SMAA (Subpixel Morphological Antialiasing), with less performance impact than the ingame AA. Turn off the ingame antialiasing, it will be redundant.
- For those who don't mind smearing artifacts in the background while time warping, I personally recommend changing the antialiasing mode in TUFX to Temporal Antialiasing (TAA).
- Spoiler
  
  The above is with TAA.
  
  The above is with SMAA.
Added auto exposure and eye adaptation TUFX effects. Now you should be able to see your craft in all its glory under low light.
Enabled TUFX HDR to accommodate higher exposure scenes.
Disabled TUFX ambient occlusion (still bugged).
Decreased lightning on Laythe.
Tuned Neidon and Urlum aurora coloration.
Reduced Thatmo atmosphere and clouds to a more realistic level.
Lessened lightning on Urlum and Tekto.
Adjusted Tekto's ocean to better reflect the composition of the oceans.
New loading screens.
General atmosphere look changes.

Download by clicking below.

November 16, 2021

An update to support the new scatterer version is in the works.

June 29, 2021

On 6/25/2021 at 9:34 PM, Kerbal Productions said:

Is AVP ready for 1.12 or not? Just asking.

It's good to go. Knock yourselves out!

June 4, 2021

22 hours ago, Kerdel said:

Well I also just saw it again, this time I have a screenshot haha

Oke I thought i was the only one with the issue

https://imgur.com/a/sNVGW4v

On 5/30/2021 at 12:57 AM, Kill3rCat said:

I have no seam.

Edit: Yes I do, especially on the aurorae

Reveal hidden contents

This is an inevitable anomaly when the square detail textures are tessellated over a spherical body. It's unfortunately much more prominent with the auroras as their detail texture is scaled much larger than that of any cloud layer.

May 21, 2021

Update v4.11

Changelog

Removed KS3P support.
Disabled TUFX antialiasing.
Removed custom scatterer settings, use scatterer presets instead.

Changing scatterer presets from 'very high' can yield up to a 25% performance increase in some situations with only a slight visual difference. You can do this by clicking on the blue globe button in the toolbar while in the Space Center.

May 21, 2021

5 hours ago, Loick said:

So, TUFX works fine on the 1.11.2 version, no bugs ?

Aside from the aforementioned ambient occlusion bug that happens regardless of version, yep.

May 20, 2021

2 minutes ago, Spaceman.Spiff said:

Interesting thing, that...

I got TUFX recently, and the AVP profile causes weird shadows when near a celestial body. Other profiles work fine.

AVP's profile has ambient occlusion enabled, a TUFX feature which is slightly bugged causing odd interference pattern shadows to appear when the camera is close to an object. I left the feature enabled as the way it adds depth to scenes is pretty incredible...

...anticipating that the developer would eventually fix this issue, but I guess it's been unfixed long enough that others have outright disabled the feature in their profiles.

Interestingly, the same feature in TUFX's predecessor, KS3P, does not exhibit this bug.

May 20, 2021

17 hours ago, lifesuckslmao said:

i had paralax i just did not like it so i chose this is 8k the best?

Parallax and AVP are totally different. You can run them both in the same install if you please. Parallax will overhaul planetary surfaces and terrain while AVP spruces up the atmosphere alongside some other effects.

8k textures are currently the top-of-the-line for AVP.

4 hours ago, Loick said:

Hello,

I'd like to install TUFX also, cause I saw some pictures and the result looks beautifull.
Unfortunately, I saw that TUFX is only for 1.9.1 version, BUT i'd like the last version of AVP, which is for 1.11.

Do AVP needs TUFX to have the best graphics ever ? Or, howx can I manage it ?
I'm afraid that if I'm downgrading to KSP 1.9.1 (for TUFX) and installing AVP (via CKAN), i wouldn't have its last version.

Thanks in advance

TUFX will work fine (well, as functional as it would be on 1.9.1) on the latest version of KSP. I highly recommend using AVP's TUFX profile to achieve the visuals seen in the images, but you are free to use your own profiles as well.

May 12, 2021

On 5/10/2021 at 12:44 AM, dresoccer4 said:

For anyone else confused with the incorrect installation instructions, I think I got it to work. For step 1, use this link instead: https://github.com/themaster402/AstronomersVisualPack/archive/refs/heads/master.zip

That'll give you the necessary parts!

Looks like uploading the 43k clouds unintentionally made the texture release the latest release lol. I have rectified this, apologies for the inconvenience.

On 5/11/2021 at 2:09 AM, rudemario said:

Does anyone know if it's possible to somehow reduce the cloud layer from space, and not change anything else like what a planet looks like from the ground or while flying into it? The one problem I have is I can't see where to land on Laythe!

What looks like land isn't land, and I've had to look up the biome map and find a little piece of land way at the bottom and use that to extrapolate potentially where the piece of land I want to land is on.

Anyone know how to turn down the cloud layer from space and make the ground more visible without severely altering the sunrise/sunset/cloud characteristics down below?

Thanks!

You can open the EVE GUI in the tracking station, navigate to CloudsManager > AstronomersVisualPack/AVP_Configs/clouds > Laythe, select either cloud layer, change the last value in RGBA (alpha, or transparency) to a lower value, and hit Apply and Save if the cloud density is a hassle.

May 9, 2021

For those of you willing to sacrifice your relationship with your GPU and RAM, here's the 43k Kerbin cloud enhancement.

May 8, 2021

On 5/5/2021 at 11:35 AM, wozza said:

For some reason my clouds are low res, any fix for this?

Depending on your texture resolution, the clouds may look blurry from certain altitudes. Try out a higher texture resolution.

On 5/4/2021 at 4:14 PM, Vovical said:

I can't find these, can anyone link? Sorry if I'm being stupid, and it's obvious, but I've searched for like 20 minutes and can't find lol

It just occurred to me I forgot to reupload these with the latest update. Sorry about that, they'll be available later today.

April 19, 2021

7 hours ago, John007qwe said:

Does TUFX or KS3P have any performance impact on the cpu side? I have plenty of gpu to spare, but I don't wanna take any cpu hit, since that's my bottleneck currently. Also which one is the recommended one to use?

Both have negligible impact to the CPU. TUFX allows for the AVP profile to be easily swapped and tweaked in-game, but currently has an issue with ambient occlusion, creating the 'shadow banding' seen when zoomed close to a craft. KS3P does not have this issue, but you lose out on some ease-of-use and newer effects.

April 18, 2021

On 4/16/2021 at 9:31 AM, Weak Player said:

is there a way to make scatterer light to the gpu, like via settings?

If you mean reducing the hit to the GPU with the mod, you can try turning off some of the features either in the main menu GUI or in the scatterer/config/config.cfg file.

April 17, 2021

2 hours ago, Shecter said:

Hi All,

When I installed AVP it initially worked for a while but slowly various parts of the pack weren't being loaded until I didn't have any clouds or auras. I took a look at the configs and its trying to call files that aren't there anymore (see image). I don' think its related to CKAN, I removed and then manually installed to test that and I still got the same issue seen in the image.

Looks like you got the latest textures, but not the latest config set.

April 12, 2021

Update v4.1 (Beyond - Phase 2)

Changelog

Massive performance improvements. The following measurements were recorded using AVP with 8k textures at 1080p on an i7-7700k @ 4.5GHz, GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition, and 32GB DDR4-2400 memory. All suggested mods are enabled. OPM is installed.
- 30-40% decreased RAM usage in most situations.
- 20-30 fps increase in most situations (note that a GPU bottleneck occurs here; stronger GPUs should be able to benefit even more.)
- 20% decrease in uncompressed mod filesize.
Higher resolution textures.
- Cumulus cloud particle has been upgraded from 256x to 1024x.
- Cirrus cloud detail texture has been upgraded from 1024x to 4096x.
Removed snow.
- This visual effect is not feasible with the current performance impact of EVE particles, though may be revisited if new developments arise here.
Disabled terrain shadows.
- This visual effect is not feasible with the current performance impact of the feature, though may be revisited if new developments arise here.
Adjusted Kerbin's terminator.
Optimized Duna's atmosphere.
Optimized Laythe's atmosphere
Adjusted Sarnus's atmosphere.
Adjusted Neidon's atmosphere.
Adjusted Tekto's atmosphere.
Adjusted Tekto's lightning.
Adjusted Thatmo's atmosphere.
Adjusted Duna's auroras.
Increased city lights scaling.
Removed Vall glow.
Reduced scatterer ocean fourier grid size to 64.
Added caustics to and adjusted Tekto's oceans.
New loading screen logo.
New loading screens.
Removed old loading screens.

Thank you all for your patience.

January 31, 2021

2 hours ago, Spaceman.Spiff said:

Hey @themaster401

Is there any chance you will update this soon?

Even just marking this for 1.11 would be really nice for CKAN support.

Im not entirely sure how you list dependencies, but it would be cool if you changed from old EVE to the Redux version.

I'm currently waiting on a minor update to EVE to deploy a major update in the works

As for the rest of you folk, apologies for any unresponsiveness on my part. It's been a stressful many months. Hopefully the upcoming update to AVP will rectify the last of our issues to become the greatest, most performant update yet.

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