[1.8] EnvironmentalVisualEnhancements [1.8.0-2]

[Galileo]

32 minutes ago, Errol said:

Is there an easy way to implement something similar in my own game? I do not know how to make EVE .configs, I can barely add a cloud layer to be honest...

If you are using SVE,

Open the boulderCo cfgs, look at the main cloud layer for Kerbin, Locate:

_UVNoiseScale = X
_UVNoiseStrength = X
_UVNoiseAnimation = X

Copy and past the values to the Kerbin-MainClouds parameters in SVE and that will give you the uvnoise like default EVE

Disregard. After looking at the default EVE cfgs, they lack these parameters. Im actually unsure how its accomplished with the EVE. SVE has subtle UV noise now and actually uses and you can edit them

_UVNoiseScale = X
_UVNoiseStrength = X
_UVNoiseAnimation = X

The higher the strength the more noticeable the effect. The scale is how big you want the waviness to be, and i think the animation controls how fast the waviness happens. Just play around with it until you get the desired effect

Edited June 2, 2017 by Galileo

[Errol]

I noticed that there are two values seperated by a comma for _UVNoiseAnimation...any info on that?

[Galileo]

Its directional X,Y values

[Errol]

Interesting, very, very interesting..

[Galileo]

Just now, Errol said:

Interesting, very, very interesting..

1 hour ago, Galileo said:

and i think the animation controls how fast the waviness happens.

Funny how I claimed to not know what the animation does exactly, then you ask a specific question and it came to me... Im tired

 

[Waz]

In terms of implementation, UVnoise takes the lowest "bits" of the UV co-ordinates and uses them as an index into the UVnoise texture, the red and green values of which are then added to the actual whole UV co-ordinates. The effect of this is that at the finest detail when very zoomed in, instead of the fine values of the UV just giving you ever more clearly defined square pixels of the maintexture, you get warped pixels (that then don't like squares at all).

Actually, Galileo probably explains it better.

[ModerndayLink]

How come you need a PQS config for you to add clouds to gas giants? 

Also what does the deactivate distance mean in the pqs config 

Edited June 2, 2017 by ModerndayLink64

[daniel l.]

KSP Old-Timer here, how do I get this new EVE, to use the old-style texture maps? like the one's used in Kopernicus. I greatly dislike the new skybox-style system that is over-complicated beyond belief!

[HafCoJoe]

Hey Waz, can I ask what program it is that you're using to convert textures? Is it CubeTheSphere or something more advanced?

Edited June 4, 2017 by Avera9eJoe

[HafCoJoe]

Sorry to post twice in a row but I did a bit of sloothing I think some of you might find useful:

I was actually able to create a cubemap texture from the usual 8k equirectangular textures that KSP/EVE usually uses. For anyone else that wants to make some, here is the channel set up for each texture:

X = Red

Y = Green

Z = Blue

 

texP = X positive, Y negative, Z positive

texN = X negative, Y positive, Z negative

 

AKA:

Oddly enough the Y planes are swapped in the two images but that's the only confusing portion with it. RGB converts straight to XYZ which is quite handy. Nicely done @Waz

 

Result:

 

My next step is to learn UVNoise, or how it relates to the six separate face textures inside "BoulderCo/Textures"?

EDIT: It looks like the six separate face textures are basically four 8k cube maps distributed into six 2k images? The red channel in all six seems to be city lights. The strange part with those six textures is that they also have alpha... and also some black mixed in alongside the usual RGB channels. I don't have a clue how Waz did that

Edited June 4, 2017 by Avera9eJoe

[Errol]

What is the difference between speed and detailSpeed in the .cfg files?

[Galileo]

13 minutes ago, Errol said:

What is the difference between speed and detailSpeed in the .cfg files?

Speed controls the speed of the main textures around the body. Detail speed is the speed of the small detail textures within the main texture

[Errol]

So I've been playing around with different values, and so far I think I've figured out that it is two of the numbers are for x and y speed, and I think the other one rotates those axis or something....is that right?

EDIT: I saw in the OP that the updated documentation is pending. Is there old documentation available somewhere? I'm sure it has some of this stuff in it for me to marinate on. 

Edited June 4, 2017 by Errol

[Galileo]

8 minutes ago, Errol said:

So I've been playing around with different values, and so far I think I've figured out that it is two of the numbers are for x and y speed, and I think the other one rotates those axis or something....is that right?

EDIT: I saw in the OP that the updated documentation is pending. Is there old documentation available somewhere? I'm sure it has some of this stuff in it for me to marinate on. 

If you hover your mouse over the parameter name, it tells you what it does

[Errol]

NEAT! 

(I only just discovered that I can apply changes in flight with the cfg tool....)
 

I still don't fully understand how speed works. How does something that only moves in 2 dimensions have a Z component to it's rotation? I have been sitting here watching kerbin in high time warp trying to discern what my settings have done. I've managed to find a pleasant combination, but I'm not sure why. I currently have my main cloud layer in SVE set to speed = 50,20,50 and it seems like to randomly changes directions more then anything I can figure out. 

EDIT: Just figured it out; X and Z are at 90 degrees to each other through kerbin's equator, and Y is the one that spins on the same axis as kerbin. 

Edited June 4, 2017 by Errol

[SoggyPickle]

This may have a simple answer, but what is the default speed if it isn't stated in the config?

[HafCoJoe]

Hm, I've got a bug to report which I don't know has been mentioned yet. I'm seeing a grid appear in a cube map cloud texture:

You can open it in a new tab and zoom for the full size image. There's a grid that flashes faintly as the clouds move forwards or as the camera moves (probably Z fighting). It's also easy to see from low orbit... I don't know if other people have seen and reported this or if I'm the first. Note also that I'm playing in 2560x1440, a possible cause to why I can see it so clearly?

Edited June 4, 2017 by Avera9eJoe

[Galileo]

9 minutes ago, Avera9eJoe said:

Hm, I've got a bug to report which I don't know has been mentioned yet. I'm seeing a grid appear in a cube map cloud texture:

You can open it in a new tab and zoom for the full size image. There's a grid that flashes faintly as the clouds move forwards or as the camera moves (probably Z fighting). It's also easy to see from low orbit... I don't know if other people have seen and reported this or if I'm the first. Note also that I'm playing in 2560x1440, a possible cause to why I can see it so clearly?

Offset the texture in photoshop and look for seams 

[Waz]

On 6/3/2017 at 3:45 PM, daniel l. said:

KSP Old-Timer here, how do I get this new EVE, to use the old-style texture maps? like the one's used in Kopernicus. I greatly dislike the new skybox-style system that is over-complicated beyond belief!

I certainly haven't changed anything about how textures are mapped. Are you sure anything has changed - how long ago did you use it? I do know that there are multiple texture mapping techniques available, so probably one of them is whatever you are used to from the past, the others are just in addition to that.

[HafCoJoe]

4 minutes ago, Galileo said:

Offset the texture in photoshop and look for seams 

I know for certain it's not the texture I'm using if that's what you mean by looking for seams. It's in every single cube map texture in default EVE - it's also reflected in cloud shadows, quick comparison of Duna

I'll do a quick recording of it to show

Edited June 4, 2017 by Avera9eJoe

[Waz]

15 minutes ago, Avera9eJoe said:

I know for certain it's not the texture I'm using if that's what you mean by looking for seams. It's in every single cube map texture in default EVE - it's also reflected in cloud shadows, quick comparison of Duna

Does it go away if you set UVnoise strength to 0? If so, try a value that is a simpler fraction, especially one that is a negative power of two.

[HafCoJoe]

17 minutes ago, Waz said:

Does it go away if you set UVnoise strength to 0? If so, try a value that is a simpler fraction, especially one that is a negative power of two.

Hm, Kerbin doesn't have the "_UVNoiseStrength" line. I'll add it, set it to zero and see what happens.

 

EDIT: Yes... it goes away if I set UVnoise strength to 0. Now we know the culprit

Edited June 5, 2017 by Avera9eJoe

[ModerndayLink]

So when trying to add clouds to OPM bodies the clouds would not show up on the gas giants only on the solid bodies. But the game was not spamming null reference.

i realized it was because they were gasgiants that used the jool template. And I noticed there is a pqs config that has a deactivate distance of 175000. I copied and added them for OPM. And the clouds worked. So my question is what does this config do and why do you need it for clouds to work on gasgiants,

[daniel l.]

3 hours ago, Waz said:

I certainly haven't changed anything about how textures are mapped. Are you sure anything has changed - how long ago did you use it? I do know that there are multiple texture mapping techniques available, so probably one of them is whatever you are used to from the past, the others are just in addition to that.

The change I dislike was made by Rbray himself, the old EVE back in the day, used cylindrical projection maps instead of cubemaps. How do I configure it to do it old-style?

[HafCoJoe]

26 minutes ago, daniel l. said:

The change I dislike was made by Rbray himself, the old EVE back in the day, used cylindrical projection maps instead of cubemaps. How do I configure it to do it old-style?

If you want to use normal textures then you just don't set up a cube map config - if you open up Better Atmospheres you can use his configs as an example? You just drop the textures somewhere in GameData and then in the cloud config you link the maintex to the image location, I.E.'BoulderCo/Atmosphere/Textures/cirrus' would be the filepath for a texture called 'cirrus', that is located in 'BoulderCo/Atmosphere/Textures'. CubeMaps have an extra config step involved that you just skip if you want to do plain equirectangular projections. The advantage however with cubemaps is that you can compress an 8k texture into two 2k textures, effectively taking up one quarter of the space that a standard 8k texture would take . In addition they also don't have nearly as bad artifacting around the north/south poles since the cubemaps are joined across edges, not warped across a single point at the poles.

- As a note to my progress, I think I've pretty much got the basics on how CubeMaps work, and within the week I'm hoping to integrate them inside Spectra. When Scatterer updates it's going to be state of the art 

Edited June 5, 2017 by Avera9eJoe