Clouds in stock KSP

[justspace103]

So i am a big fan of Space Engineers, as well as KSP (KSP is better:D).

I just saw the release of planets in space engineers, and i saw how they did the clouds in that game and i thought:

What would those clouds look like in KSP?

I know we have EVE but still, could the developers of KSP make stock clouds using the method Space engineers did?

[Motokid600]

I have no clue how Space Engineers does it. Is SE a Unity game? Can you even land on planets with a seamless transition? I know Squad has experimented with clouds in the past, but they were too demanding on hardware. Now with Unity5 they have a new, more efficient set of tools.

Clouds may very well be a thing in 1.2 or 3. Squad said themselves that they will be going over the games graphical fidelity.

[Kaos]

All the mods I tried with clouds made the game so incredible slow for me, that I oppose clouds as long as this is the result.

[Motokid600]

All the mods I tried with clouds made the game so incredible slow for me, that I oppose clouds as long as this is the result.

Then something is wrong or your pc is under powered.

[MAFman]

All I can suggest is MOAR vram!!!

[HUG]

On ‎12‎.‎11‎.‎2015 at 0:49 AM, Kaos said:

All the mods I tried with clouds made the game so incredible slow for me, that I oppose clouds as long as this is the result.

Same here.

On ‎12‎.‎11‎.‎2015 at 0:58 AM, Motokid600 said:

Then something is wrong or your pc is under powered.

I´ve no idea if my pc is underpowered, all I can say is about 60fps on Kerbin launch pad without EVE and 24fps with EVE installed.

On ‎15‎.‎11‎.‎2015 at 9:41 AM, MAFman said:

All I can suggest is MOAR vram!!!

I don´t think so. It has nothing to do with the texturesize at all. I changed the textures from the 1024x1024; 2048x1024 and 8000anythingx4000anything to 256x256; 512x256; 2048x1024. The result: excrementsty clouds and still 24fps. Even when I deleted all texture files and it shows no clouds, it remains at 24 fps. I tried to gamble around with the shader files, deleted some I thought I might not need. The result: a way more excrementsty graphic with still 24fps. After getting rid of all this useless try out I deleted EVE and hooray back to 60fps. 

[John FX]

There have been hints as to things like clouds once the 64 bit client is available for all platforms and the memory cap is lifted.

On 12/11/2015 at 11:49 PM, Kaos said:

All the mods I tried with clouds made the game so incredible slow for me, that I oppose clouds as long as this is the result.

This why there is the call for them to be stock so that the performance hit can be mitigated when turned off compared to using a plugin which does not have access to the rendering options that a stock feature can take advantage of and would not be coded to maximize framerate when not running. As it is a mod I imagine it assumes you will want it running all the time so when installed there will always be a performance hit even if you do not load the textures. If this was a stock feature then it would be optimized so that there would not be a performance hit if it was turned off. In the same way that, for example, turning off SM3 has no performance hit currently.

So stock clouds would mean no performance hit for you and clouds for those that can run them.

win-win

[sal_vager]

This comes up a lot and I need a decent thread for the common suggestions list, so I'll use this one.

Clouds would be nice, probably not enough on their own though (need wind, storms etc)

As long as they don't affect performance much that is.

[Kaos]

If there were clouds without performance reduction, I would not mind. But I also would not care

[John FX]

On 08/01/2016 at 1:57 PM, sal_vager said:

This comes up a lot and I need a decent thread for the common suggestions list, so I'll use this one.

Clouds would be nice, probably not enough on their own though (need wind, storms etc)

As long as they don't affect performance much that is.

Weather would be nice. Having to miss a launch window due to a storm would be interesting especially combined with Kerbal Construction Time, a life support mod and a need to rescue someone for example...

[Deizelpunk]

I recently downloaded the EVE mod for 1.1 and noticed it casts shadows on the water and the terrain. This made me think that some sort of wind effects would be really cool, and global weather systems for different atmospheres. I'm talking rain, heavy wind maybe even lightning! AT the poles it might snow, or in desert biomes maybe sandstorms. These things are probably possible in 1.1, anyone have any ideas to go along with this? Another thing is proper waves!

[Atlas2342]

This would require a huge overhaul so not any time soon. Baby steps first: clouds

Edited April 17, 2016 by Atlas2342

[AlamoVampire]

Weather? Would be nice, but I'd settle for clouds for now

[pandaman]

Clouds in stock would be a very welcome, and some would say much needed, addition.  Weather effects at some point though would be neat, visuals for rain , snow and lightening aurouras etc would certainly add some flavour, so yes if it can be done I'd like to see it when it's viable for the devs to fit it in.

'Physical' effects like crosswinds etc and electrical interference from lightening etc could add interesting challenges, but that may be way too much work for what little effect it would have overall, or just downright frustrating and random failure like.

It may be more practical for the game to 'roleplay' (for want of a better word) the effects by, say, giving weather forecasts and pop up windows informing that the launch is cancelled due to bad weather (in sync with the visuals of course) and/or (for a bit more complexity) stating that there is a +/-% chance of lightening strike or strong winds causing issues on launch or landing then the player can chose whether to proceed, with a simple random chance of something going badly wrong.  This could avoid the need to model in the wind etc but still add some of the flavour.

All options should come with on/off toggles of course.

[Azimech]

I'd like wind. I already have people requesting real sails for my mod.

[Deizelpunk]

12 hours ago, Atlas2342 said:

This would require a huge overhaul so not any time soon. Baby steps first: clouds

Yes, im talking very far down the line, like 9 or ten updates away. I agree with just adding clouds for now but dynamic weather effects would be really cool later!

 

10 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

Weather? Would be nice, but I'd settle for clouds for now

Yeah, i meant further down the line for the weather. Definitely clouds for now!

 

5 hours ago, pandaman said:

Clouds in stock would be a very welcome, and some would say much needed, addition.  Weather effects at some point though would be neat, visuals for rain , snow and lightening aurouras etc would certainly add some flavour, so yes if it can be done I'd like to see it when it's viable for the devs to fit it in.

'Physical' effects like crosswinds etc and electrical interference from lightening etc could add interesting challenges, but that may be way too much work for what little effect it would have overall, or just downright frustrating and random failure like.

It may be more practical for the game to 'roleplay' (for want of a better word) the effects by, say, giving weather forecasts and pop up windows informing that the launch is cancelled due to bad weather (in sync with the visuals of course) and/or (for a bit more complexity) stating that there is a +/-% chance of lightening strike or strong winds causing issues on launch or landing then the player can chose whether to proceed, with a simple random chance of something going badly wrong.  This could avoid the need to model in the wind etc but still add some of the flavour.

All options should come with on/off toggles of course.

This brings up some neat ideas- i like the idea of % chance of rain and weather forecasts for the area your ship is in. Id like to see weather on for example duna as well, and all the planets with their own tailored characteristics!

[wasml]

Silverfox8124 is working on this - from the dev thread it sounds like it might be getting close.

Kerbal Weather Systems

 

[Waxing_Kibbous]

I think weather on Kerbin would be an acquired taste, I'm not sure I'd want to time accelerate for days to launch a rocket, it seems pointless. Perhaps some areas, like the poles or mountains could have weather, but obviously the site for KSC was picked for it's optimal launch conditions

Weather on other planets, now that seems like it would add to the adventure of exploration!

Edited April 18, 2016 by Waxing_Kibbous

[pandaman]

Clouds, even just as a visual thing, add a noticeable extra level of realism and difficulty to gameplay.  Apart from just looking good, they make it harder to select landing sites as you can't see what you are going to land on so easily. 

With EVE installed the difference on Kerbin is obvious, but particularly when exploring other bodies it adds so much more to the experience.

 On designing probes for Laythe, for example, I had to ensure that they could fly reasonable distances to guarantee just finding dry land.  I couldn't just drop from orbit with my trajectory on an island as I couldn't see clearly where the islands were.  Landing on  dry land on Eve will be even more tricky now.  Awesome. 

[Deizelpunk]

10 hours ago, pandaman said:

Clouds, even just as a visual thing, add a noticeable extra level of realism and difficulty to gameplay.  Apart from just looking good, they make it harder to select landing sites as you can't see what you are going to land on so easily. 

With EVE installed the difference on Kerbin is obvious, but particularly when exploring other bodies it adds so much more to the experience.

 On designing probes for Laythe, for example, I had to ensure that they could fly reasonable distances to guarantee just finding dry land.  I couldn't just drop from orbit with my trajectory on an island as I couldn't see clearly where the islands were.  Landing on  dry land on Eve will be even more tricky now.  Awesome. 

Yeah! I really hope SQUAD considers this!

[pandaman]

7 minutes ago, Deizelpunk said:

Yeah! I really hope SQUAD considers this!

I would expect that they will at some point, now that 1.1 is out and 64bit is a thing and memory limits are not the issue they were these things become more feasible.

[Deizelpunk]

10 minutes ago, pandaman said:

I would expect that they will at some point, now that 1.1 is out and 64bit is a thing and memory limits are not the issue they were these things become more feasible.

My thoughts exactly!

[Yakuzi]

On ‎17‎-‎4‎-‎2016 at 7:24 PM, Waxing_Kibbous said:

I think weather on Kerbin would be an acquired taste, I'm not sure I'd want to time accelerate for days to launch a rocket, it seems pointless.

Who says you cant launch rockets in bad weather?

[Wjolcz]

I'd definitely like to see wind added to the game. Might be a fun challenge landing against strong gusts, or figuring out what the best approach would be (a second nourth-south runway would be needed for this).

[Deizelpunk]

1 hour ago, Veeltch said:

I'd definitely like to see wind added to the game. Might be a fun challenge landing against strong gusts, or figuring out what the best approach would be (a second nourth-south runway would be needed for this).

Yes! I wanna try landing in gusting wind going against the runway grain so you would have to land sideways! Maybe have it as a difficulty setting- several options for wind!