KSP Loading... Preview: The Duna Texture Revamp

[klgraham1013]

Hopefully all the planets will get this treatment in time.  KSP has had a history of artistic geology.  The last thing we need is more of it.  Looking good so far.  Keep it up.

[DMagic]

1 hour ago, Majorjim! said:

I ask as the mod that increases surface textures has a quite noticeable performance hit. And if there is no real difference in performance why not make the new texture the default one?

High resolution textures are generally an either/or thing in terms of performance. Either your video card has enough vRAM to handle them and it makes little difference to performance, or it doesn't have enough vRAM and performance falls off a cliff.

 

Edited August 14, 2019 by DMagic

[nestor]

4 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

Likely minimal / unnoticeable on any hardware that has sufficient VRAM to hold the larger textures.  Sampling from a larger texture isn't much more expensive than smaller textures; it is all fill-rate at that point.

It's not only bigger textures, the high quality version is also doing extra calculations in the shader so you should expect some difference in performance but as always it depends on your specific hardware. That's why we are giving players the option to choose what works better for them. 

[steve_v]

6 hours ago, St4rdust said:

get the rovers ready! 

New planet textures, awesome!

Now, about the wheels on those rovers....

And about my joysticks and controllers still not working....

Input support is going to be fixed for the next patch, right?

[Guest]

6 hours ago, nestor said:

Same geometry but improved textures and UVs.  

Yes but will there be clouds?

[klgraham1013]

As my predilection for predictions knows no bounds...

24 minutes ago, steve_v said:

Input support is going to be fixed for the next patch, right?

Nope.

19 minutes ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

Yes but will there be clouds?

...and nope.

[Kerbal Kommander]

I haven't posted here in a long time, and I haven't played in a long time despite keeping up with the updates. This update is quite exciting and the game has come a long way from pre 1.0. My time to return to the Kerbol system is long overdue.

[StrandedonEarth]

Looks nice. I wonder how the nVidia 630m in my laptop will like it. It managed EVE, if I kept  the part counts (and temperature!) down...

[Xavier513]

Awsome! Now the Duna polar area are not covered by icing sugar anymore

[Xurkitree]

now if you actually improved duna's scaled space textures...

[KerbMav]

12 minutes ago, Xurkitree said:

now if you actually improved duna's scaled space textures...

What does that mean?

Asking for a friend ...

[RealKerbal3x]

Wow! Duna looks much more like a Mars analogue now. I already can’t wait to get my hands on the update!

I’m only worried about these new high-quality textures causing my old Intel integrated graphics to run away screaming 

[Poodmund]

6 hours ago, nestor said:

It's not only bigger textures, the high quality version is also doing extra calculations in the shader so you should expect some difference in performance but as always it depends on your specific hardware.

Are we possibly getting an engine upgrade (2018+) to allow for Unity to handle GPU side instancing which would then make stuff like this a relative breeze to run?

I know you can't answer that but we can only but hope.

[Tw1]

Looks good, but might be a little dark? Don't forget, people are going to walk around on it.

[klgraham1013]

17 minutes ago, Tw1 said:

Looks good, but might be a little dark? Don't forget, people are going to walk around on it.

I'm confused.  Is it more difficult to walk on darker surfaces?  Is my carpet the wrong color?  Have I been unintentionally slowing my walking speed for all these years!? 

[Yakuzi]

One comment:

1. Awesome!

 

And a couple of questions:

1. Is there going be kicked up dust from walking and driving? My rockets and planes kick up dust, so why not let Kerbals and rovers do the same.

2. Are there going to be footprints and vehicle trails?

3. Are the planet heightmaps finally getting an update as well? The geography and planetary features of most planets and moons are still very bland...

4. Are there plans to include a wheel size that fits between the fairly small TR-2L and the huge XL3 wheels?

 

 

Edited August 15, 2019 by Yakuzi
added image

[Tw1]

34 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

I'm confused.  Is it more difficult to walk on darker surfaces?  Is my carpet the wrong color?  Have I been unintentionally slowing my walking speed for all these years!? 

Sorry,  that was very poorly put. People are going to go there, land on the surface,  do stuff. Don't make it too dark and depressing. 
The old one is clearly too bright,  but the limited amount we see here makes the new one look a little too dark.

Also, yes, your carpet is the wrong colour.

Edited August 15, 2019 by Tw1

[klgraham1013]

7 minutes ago, Tw1 said:

Sorry that was very poorly put. People are going to go there, land on the surface,  do stuff. Don't make it too dark and depressing. 
The old one is clearly too bright,  but the limited amount we see here makes the new one look a little too dark.

I figured that's what you meant.  In my opinion it's fine to have varied emotional atmosphere among the different planets.  Duna may be dark and brooding.  Laythe may end up bright and cheerful.  I'm not completely confident Squad is thinking in this manner, but one can always hope, despite former evidence, that developers are thinking things through with more than just a cursory effort.

12 minutes ago, Tw1 said:

Also, yes, your carpet is the wrong colour.

Failure!

[RJVB09]

imagine what it would look like with some visual mods!!
 

great job Squad!!!

 

(oh and I have one question, are there also going to be stock clouds?)

 

Edited August 15, 2019 by RJVB09

[Guest]

8 hours ago, KerbMav said:

What does that mean?

Asking for a friend ...

ScaledSpace is the flat texture when you're far away from a planet. As you get closer this fades away and the actual terrain relief appears.

 

4 hours ago, Yakuzi said:

4. Are there plans to include a wheel size that fits between the fairly small TR-2L and the huge XL3 wheels?

This has been needed in stock since forever. The Jumbo wheels from Wheels Collection are the closest thing I've been able to find. The wheels themselves are the same size as the XL3 but the suspension assembly is compact like the TR-2L.

 

Edited August 15, 2019 by Guest

[Xurkitree]

There isn't any hope for a terrain pass, due to the simple reason that people will be liquided when they realise their favorite Duna/Mun/Laythe Base is now hovering in the air/sunken in ground.

 

One thing that really stands out from the video is the sudden sharpness of the texture fades. I hope this is improved upon before release.

I'm totally hyped that there's finally 1.8 news. Good luck!

[Tw1]

7 hours ago, klgraham1013 said:

I figured that's what you meant.  In my opinion it's fine to have varied emotional atmosphere among the different planets.  Duna may be dark and brooding.  Laythe may end up bright and cheerful.  I'm not completely confident Squad is thinking in this manner, but one can always hope, despite former evidence, that developers are thinking things through with more than just a cursory effort.

Personally, I think Dres ought to be the dark and brooding one. If it was my call, I'd make Duna a more epic sort of mood -it's the first other planet many players will take kerbals too,  or build a base on. I do hope they're thinking it though, and not just straight copying from reality. 
I came back after not playing for some time, and found the rocket tanks now all look the same. Now it's harder to spot which is which in the VAB, which seems a poor design choice, but a few of the new parts were done really well, so I find this sort of stuff very hit and miss.

I was wondering how it might compare to the very old Duna, and found some of my oldest screenshots. 

The texture might be copied from the mun, but that rich color was far better than the version they're about to replace.   Invigorating, almost. 

Also, your comment earlier got me interested - there's a lot of research about colour psychology in the built environment - and I looked it up and  it turns out in at least one study in laboratory conditions, people did walk a little slower in lower light. Aren't human brains weird?

Edited August 15, 2019 by Tw1

[Xurkitree]

I would love a return to pre-0.21 Duna, as demonstrated by Duna Restoration Project.

But we all know this isn't possible, but combining the new textures with the old terrain would be amazing.

[DMagic]

11 hours ago, Poodmund said:

Are we possibly getting an engine upgrade (2018+) to allow for Unity to handle GPU side instancing which would then make stuff like this a relative breeze to run?

I know you can't answer that but we can only but hope.

I think GPU Instancing is a DX11 thing, not really a Unity version thing. Of course, Unity 2018 drops support for DX9, which would force DX11, so it's sort of a semantic difference. Even so, it might take some effort to make the terrain work with GPU Instancing, as it isn't nearly as straightforward as simple duplicate-mesh-GPU instancing. 

In any event, GPU Instancing would really have a CPU-side effect, as it reduces draw calls (which would be great, as KSP's terrain generates a huge number of draw calls). Shader complexity would have a GPU-side impact.

Edited August 15, 2019 by DMagic

[Tw1]

18 minutes ago, Xurkitree said:

I would love a return to pre-0.21 Duna, as demonstrated by Duna Restoration Project.

I wish. Slightly redder new textures plus the original design would be the perfect Duna. Most of the planets are pretty good for the most part, maybe need a touch up here and there (except the perfection that is Minmus), but Duna did get done badly. 

Edited August 15, 2019 by Tw1