KSP Loading... Preview: The Mun Texture Revamp

[Loskene]

1 minute ago, Redneck said:

minimal as you are subtracting from the terrain not adding to it. reducing polys/triangles on the mesh

The way the cratering systems work on most other destructible voxel terrains I've seen exponentially increased the tri count as larger flat polys are subdivided into smaller shaped areas. A single flat quad of 1km square has to be subdivided to add a hole and a many-poly sphere section added to the mesh to remove terrain and procedurally add walls to a hole in the ground. Subnautica had to remove the terrain sculpting system from the game during their development because it was a runaway resource hog with no easy solution. Subdividing a cube into a bunch of really tiny cubes, removing some and smoothing their edges into a curve isn't any better either.

[Redneck]

6 minutes ago, Loskene said:

The way the cratering systems work on most other destructible voxel terrains I've seen exponentially increased the tri count as larger flat polys are subdivided into smaller shaped areas. A single flat quad of 1km square has to be subdivided to add a hole and a many-poly sphere section added to the mesh to remove terrain and procedurally add walls to a hole in the ground. Subnautica had to remove the terrain sculpting system from the game during their development because it was a runaway resource hog with no easy solution. Subdividing a cube into a bunch of really tiny cubes, removing some and smoothing their edges into a curve isn't any better either.

all im asking is that the devs at least try it! Or at least open up the code on the pqs system so that modders could tinker with it

[Loskene]

Just now, Redneck said:

all im asking is that the devs at least try it! Or at least open up the code on the pqs system so that modders could tinker with it

I mean I don't wish to come across like I'm opposed to the idea, I'd love to see a KSP where a rocket crash would leave an appropriately sized dint in the soil for the mass and speed of the "impactor" (which may or may not have a last name beginning with K). It's just the only way I've seen the devs that went through with voxel terrain systems accomplished it was by dedicating a sizeable degree of labour just to designing, refining and optimising their terrain engine and garbage collection systems to perform that kind of task with as few leaks as possible. Just to make it playable. They'd have to do a separate test branch with a dedicated team for the task to assess its feasibility and prototype Procedural KSP. If you ask one of the producers you'll probably get an "absolutely not" or "we'll think about it and get back to you"

[Redneck]

1 minute ago, Loskene said:

I mean I don't wish to come across like I'm opposed to the idea, I'd love to see a KSP where a rocket crash would leave an appropriately sized dint in the soil for the mass and speed of the "impactor" (which may or may not have a last name beginning with K). It's just the only way I've seen the devs that went through with voxel terrain systems accomplished it was by dedicating a sizeable degree of labour just to designing, refining and optimising their terrain engine and garbage collection systems to perform that kind of task with as few leaks as possible. Just to make it playable. They'd have to do a separate test branch with a dedicated team for the task to assess its feasibility and prototype Procedural KSP. If you ask one of the producers you'll probably get an "absolutely not" or "we'll think about it and get back to you"

you are probably right on all those points. But with interest in KSP dwindling it could breathe new life into the game if successful. KSP 2.0 "Prospecting Edition" has a nice ring to it dont it? But yeah just do revamps until KSP dies i guess :shrug:

[Loskene]

1 minute ago, Redneck said:

you are probably right on all those points. But with interest in KSP dwindling it could breathe new life into the game if successful. KSP 2.0 "Prospecting Edition" has a nice ring to it dont it? But yeah just do revamps until KSP dies i guess :shrug:

This would be the kind of innovation I would expect as standard if they went with something as bold as a standalone KSP sequel (I know you're talking about another update but the numbering made me think of it, and there's few other things that would really justify ditching KSP1). Might even be easier to build it into the core functionality from scratch rather than reshape all of KSP's existing near-decade-old codebase to solve the problem, who knows.

[Redneck]

35 minutes ago, Loskene said:

This would be the kind of innovation I would expect as standard if they went with something as bold as a standalone KSP sequel (I know you're talking about another update but the numbering made me think of it, and there's few other things that would really justify ditching KSP1). Might even be easier to build it into the core functionality from scratch rather than reshape all of KSP's existing near-decade-old codebase to solve the problem, who knows.

well maybe one of the devs will think about it and decide "oh what the hell, lets try it" All im asking is one day! One day! Throw that unity voxel system in the video into a test build of the game and get some kind of result. Thats it! I will even buy it for them off the unity asset store on one condition. That they have to show me their progress so i know i didnt waste my money. (i wont share anything with the public including PM's ,screenshots etc.... sign whatever NDA they want me to) Dev's (not modders) PM me if you are interested. Im not playing, i am totally serious. https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/terrain/ultimate-terrains-voxel-terrain-engine-31100 or even this one by same author https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/terrain/digger-pro-149753

Edited August 10, 2019 by Redneck

[Loskene]

7 minutes ago, Redneck said:

well maybe one of the devs will think about it and decide "oh what the hell, lets try it" All im asking is one day! One day! Throw that unity voxel system in the video into a test build of the game and get some kind of result. Thats it! I will even buy it for them off the unity asset store on one condition. That they have to show me their progress so i know i didnt waste my money. (i wont share anything with the public including PM's ,screenshots etc.... sign whatever NDA they want me to) Dev's PM me if you are interested 

hahaha, I don't think you'll have to go to such extremes, but I wouldn't expect an answer on this conundrum any time soon either. If someone with clout is reading these and goes "hmm..." it will take a lot of sweet talking and arm twisting in the office just to greenlight telling us "we'll look into it guys, stay tuned"

Fingers crossed!

[Redneck]

Just now, Loskene said:

hahaha, I don't think you'll have to go to such extremes, but I wouldn't expect an answer on this conundrum any time soon either. If someone with clout is reading these and goes "hmm..." it will take a lot of sweet talking and arm twisting in the office just to greenlight telling us "we'll look into it guys, stay tuned"

Fingers crossed!

lol send me your positive vibes and think about the "but if it does work" part of it. These forums will once again blow up with activity and hopefully some money in the ol KSP coffers again

[Srpadget]

Hmm, is this strictly a texture-map revamp?  The height maps stay exactly as they are now? 

Asking for those of us with permanent surface-based infrastructure and ongoing career saves.  I restarted a new save -- AGAIN -- with the release of Breaking Ground in order to play with the deployable surface science.  I'd like to keep this save going past the 1.8 update in the hopes that someday I will get out to Jool in a career game, but if the height maps change it'd probably end up destroying all my surface-based infrastructure.

[Zero266]

yes yes yessssssss, but dont feel rushed please take your time and give us the best!

[RJVB09]

Finally an update related to the planets/moons!!!

 

[airtrafficcontroller]

Now that's an impressive work.

I'm eager to see the Jool's "loading preview".

[Redneck]

On 8/11/2019 at 10:23 PM, Srpadget said:

Hmm, is this strictly a texture-map revamp?  The height maps stay exactly as they are now? 

Asking for those of us with permanent surface-based infrastructure and ongoing career saves.  I restarted a new save -- AGAIN -- with the release of Breaking Ground in order to play with the deployable surface science.  I'd like to keep this save going past the 1.8 update in the hopes that someday I will get out to Jool in a career game, but if the height maps change it'd probably end up destroying all my surface-based infrastructure.

no i dont think the heights will change just the textures/rendering on the planets. The noise (which i think is what they use to give it the heights) should not be affected

[Guest]

On 8/10/2019 at 7:44 PM, fourfa said:

So weird to for a company to have their own highly organized forum, with ~35 subforums, at their own branded .com domain, and the announcements on that forum just link to external twitter and reddit discussions

I've noted this behaviour from other companies, but someone had a good answer for me as to why this is done.

On these social media places you can 'reblog', or whatever branded name they have for it on each site, which shares the thing with all the reblogger's friends like going "hey look this is cool". Thus posting news on social media instead of their own channels gives companies more exposure via a sort of digital word of mouth.

And I say "instead of their own channels" because hosting an own site has costs. KSP kinda needs to have a site and forum at this point, but minimising the traffic here is, strictly speaking, in Squad's financial interest.

Edited August 14, 2019 by Guest

[GeneCash]

Silly question... does this make it easier to judge level/flat areas on the Mun?  That's the hardest part of landing for me... I end up tipping over afterwards on a crater edge a LOT.

[KingKerb]

Is the heightmap also getting revamped?

[Kerbart]

5 hours ago, Rocket Witch said:

I've noted this behaviour from other companies, but someone had a good answer for me as to why this is done.

On these social media places you can 'reblog', or whatever branded name they have for it on each site, which shares the thing with all the reblogger's friends like going "hey look this is cool". Thus posting news on social media instead of their own channels gives companies more exposure via a sort of digital word of mouth.

And I say "instead of their own channels" because hosting an own site has costs. KSP kinda needs to have a site and forum at this point, but minimising the traffic here is, strictly speaking, in Squad's financial interest.

It might be less of a traffic/cost issue and more a traffic/exposure issue. Lots of traffic on social sites will generate leads and mote traffic. A pageview on FB might generate a “like” and exposure to a dozen viewers unfamiliar with the game. This forum? Not so much.

I bet it’s less about saving money and more about exposing to a wider audience.

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

It might be less of a traffic/cost issue and more a traffic/exposure issue. Lots of traffic on social sites will generate leads and mote traffic. A pageview on FB might generate a “like” and exposure to a dozen viewers unfamiliar with the game. This forum? Not so much.

I bet it’s less about saving money and more about exposing to a wider audience.

Indeed. My comment on cost was an afterthought.

[Waxing_Kibbous]

I'm curious if some SSS/reflective effects could be added to icy parts/Minmus, there are some nice real time techniques but the scales in this game may be too big- some LOD trickery would solve that though. I feel as though this would be pretty fun stuff for the artists to play with, back when I was doing 3D the texturing/rendering part was very satisfying and interesting.

[SkyKaptn]

On 8/14/2019 at 11:10 PM, KingKerb said:

s the heightmap also getting revamped?

I would also like to know this @SQUAD Will previously built bases and such survive the ground revamp transition? Considering to start a new career but this question makes me uncertain.

[JPLRepo]

7 minutes ago, SkyKaptn said:

I would also like to know this @SQUAD Will previously built bases and such survive the ground revamp transition? Considering to start a new career but this question makes me uncertain.

This has already been answered.

But let’s make it crystal. It is only a visual revamp. It does not change the terrain heights.

[klgraham1013]

14 minutes ago, JPLRepo said:

This has already been answered.

But let’s make it crystal. It is only a visual revamp. It does not change the terrain heights.

In before the inevitable "Yes, but what about the terrain width?"

...

...

In case anyone's seriously wondering that...the terrain width is the same.