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Rocket lens flares?


Nightside

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In theory it wouldn't be that 'hard' to add lens-flares to engines, at least in a naive/basic fashion.  I'm not currently aware of any mods that do this however.

First, create a lens-flare asset in Unity Editor.  Export the .flare + textures to an asset bundle.  Load this asset bundle into KSP through custom plugin code.  Create a new PartModule to manage your lens-flare for specific parts; patch this module onto engines.  In the new module, add the lens-flare component to the engines primary transform, and use the plugin to manipulate the flares 'contribution'/visibility based on the engines' current thrust setting/thrust output.

Obv. it would need to be quite a bit more complex than the simple implementation I outlined in order to handle edge-cases and add some optimizations (e.g. you don't want 27 lens flares showing for a 'cluster' of engines, but only one), but I think that in theory it is entirely doable.

 

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@Shadowmage, I had this question after messing around in SSTU trying to make a Delta IV heavy (inspired by this week's launch) and wondering if I could use Real Plume to make the fireball that occurs at the launch of that rocket.

@Mecripp, interesting, I just peaked at the Cryogenic Engines configs and it has an outdated config for the Engine Light mod (module name changed). I'm going to try to swap the module names and see what @Nertea came up with.

It looks like CryoEngines has an outdated config for Engine Light that actually prevents the mod from loading properly. I went ahead and submitted a fix for Cryo Engines over on github.

https://github.com/ChrisAdderley/CryoEngines/issues/46

 

Edited by Nightside
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Well it seems like the capability to have awesome flares is mostly exists already with a combination of RealPlume/smokescreen and EngineLight. However Realplume configs just haven't been totally awesomized for massive flares. 
I actually tried to use one of @JadeOfMaar's sun flares with RealPlume, but the that requires a .mu, while the sun flares for scatterer are textures.

 

Anyway, I messed with the configs (Bigger and Brighter obviously) and got some pretty good looking stuff. 

screenshot16Waiting until dark to launch

 

screenshot17Ignition...

 

screenshot18

Liftoff!

 

screenshot24

Into the void

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17 hours ago, Nightside said:

Well it seems like the capability to have awesome flares is mostly exists already with a combination of RealPlume/smokescreen and EngineLight. However Realplume configs just haven't been totally awesomized for massive flares. 
I actually tried to use one of @JadeOfMaar's sun flares with RealPlume, but the that requires a .mu, while the sun flares for scatterer are textures.

 

Anyway, I messed with the configs (Bigger and Brighter obviously) and got some pretty good looking stuff. 

screenshot16Waiting until dark to launch

 

screenshot17Ignition...

 

screenshot18

Liftoff!

 

screenshot24

Into the void

Looks like you got you got the old cryo engines FX to work just looks bigger now

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