[Question] What kind of shader is used in the stock helmet visor?

[Enceos]

I thought the shader was some kind of Alpha Translucent or Alpha Translucent Specular, but my props lose their translucent objects if seen through these Alpha shaders.

However, the stock helmet behaves normally in all situations, and even has a little specular glare.

Edited December 18, 2016 by Enceos

[Shadowmage]

I've ran into quite a few shaders that appear to be internal to KSP and not included in part tools (one of them being 'KSP/ScreenSpaceMask' shader, used on part icons).

As a large majority of the Kerbal-model related stuff exists only as code, chances are that the shader used there is not included in part-tools in any usable manner.

I would dig into it using some custom plugin code -- write up a script that dumps to log all active game objects, renderers, materials, and their shaders -- should at least give you the name of the shader in use for those meshes.

[InsaneDruid]

The problem is quite common when two alpha blended surfaces are overlapping. You can try to use a shader that uses additive lighting (like ksp/particles/additive) or otherwise tries to circumvent the problem (is about draw order using zbuffer - have to confess i never dug into the depths of this) by using deferred rendering. KSP/Particles/alpha blended maybe? Actually: just try everything available.

[Enceos]

@InsaneDruid that's exactly what I had to do in the end. Problem is that particle shaders are emissive, don't have a specular glare and don't cast or receive shadows, which is not very appealing...

@Shadowmage That would be interesting, however just a shader name won't do, we as well may need the properties to reverse engineer it and make a usable .shader file.

[Enceos]

@JPLRepo @RoverDude You're probably the only guys who can answer this question... Does the helmet visor on Kerbals use a shader, which is not present in PartTools?

[JPLRepo]

1 hour ago, Enceos said:

@JPLRepo @RoverDude You're probably the only guys who can answer this question... Does the helmet visor on Kerbals use a shader, which is not present in PartTools?

The shader is not in parttools. I am unable to divulge further details. Sorry.

[Enceos]

@JPLRepo Thanks for taking a look at it. Would be nice to have this kind of shader available to modders. It has specular and additive lighting simultaneously, so it doesn't cancel out the simple translucent shader. We would be very grateful if you could bring this humble request to Mu.

[JPLRepo]

3 minutes ago, Enceos said:

@JPLRepo Thanks for taking a look at it. Would be nice to have this kind of shader available to modders. It has specular and additive lighting simultaneously, so it doesn't cancel out the simple translucent shader. We would be very grateful if you could bring this humble request to Mu.

You can raise a request on the bug tracker (feedback).
You do know Mu (Mike) does not work for Squad any more?

[Enceos]

4 minutes ago, JPLRepo said:

You can raise a request on the bug tracker (feedback).
You do know Mu (Mike) does not work for Squad any more?

I didn't know that. Never saw his farewell message on the forums, I thought he was the one who took the main developer's seat after Harv left.

Bugtracker is too flooded with reports, there's no upvote option for the folks to bring up the stuff we feel is important. Simple to fix stuff like a "forgotten default blender cube in the asteroid model" sits there for 10 months already. I doubt I'll be here when this shader gets added... 

[Enceos]

@JPLRepo I still have a glimpse of hope: http://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/13555

And you know me, I love everything you do )

Edited January 8, 2017 by Enceos