KSP Loading... Preview: The Duna Texture Revamp

[Shadowmage]

3 hours ago, DMagic said:

Of course, Unity 2018 drops support for DX9, which would force DX11

I've been waiting for that update for... years now.  Not particularly holding much hope for it to ever happen, but still dreaming of the day when DX9 can be a fading memory.

I have a strong suspicion that is the main reason they stopped the engine upgrade cycle with the 2017.x Unity version currently in use -- any later, and they would be forced to drop DX9.

[ExtremeSquared]

16 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.

Not to mention a lot of the most serious long-term bugs in the bug tracker are blamed on Unity. I'm hoping DLCs sell well enough to support engine upgrades until those bugs are resolved.

[pincushionman]

On 8/14/2019 at 1:19 PM, nestor said:

Same geometry but improved textures and UVs.  

*coughpersistentinteractivescatterscough*

Edited August 16, 2019 by pincushionman

[Star-Eagle]

@Yakuzi I don't want to jump the "there's a mod for that" band wagon as I do think Squad should provide a basic but comprehensive selection of parts in the vanilla game, but you might want to take a look at shadowmage's Kerbal Foundries mod. It has nothing but wheels, track, landing gear and other ground movement parts.

Edited August 16, 2019 by Star-Eagle

[Yakuzi]

19 minutes ago, Star-Eagle said:

@Yakuzi I don't want to jump the "there's a mod for that" band wagon as I do think Squad should provide a basic but comprehensive selection of parts in the vanilla game, but you might want to take a look at shadowmage's Kerbal Foundries mod. It has nothing but wheels, track, landing gear and other ground movement parts.

Hey thanks! I didn't want want to jump on the "this should've been stock since release" band wagon either, but here we are.

16 hours ago, Xurkitree said:

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.

While I understand the frustration associated with save-breaking updates, this should never withhold any developer from improving their product. There's been multiple KSP versions in the past that messed up existing saves in varying degrees, yet the devs pushed their updates, and the game is getting better and better... Planets are still as boring as watching paint dry in a non-vacuum environment, might as well rip off that band aid quickly since they're overhauling them anyway.

[Loskene]

5 hours ago, Yakuzi said:

While I understand the frustration associated with save-breaking updates, this should never withhold any developer from improving their product. There's been multiple KSP versions in the past that messed up existing saves in varying degrees, yet the devs pushed their updates, and the game is getting better and better... Planets are still as boring as watching paint dry in a non-vacuum environment, might as well rip off that band aid quickly since they're overhauling them anyway.

I feel the same re save breaking updates. It happens, devs will try to minimise where it's not essential for an upgrade but everyone should expect one from time to time, and the solution is readily available in keeping old versions until you're ready to start fresh. If, once in a blue moon, I have to start a fresh save and transfer some craft files to it in order to reap a much wanted overhaul of something that's been left behind for a long time, I'm okay with it.

Edited August 16, 2019 by Loskene

[RealKerbal3x]

From the videos that they’ve posted, the newly textured terrain looks like it has the same geometry - it only looks like the textures have been redone. So I’m quietly hopeful that the update to 1.8 won’t eat my landed craft.

We can’t be sure though, so it’ll probably be a good idea to back up your saves before updating.

[Streetwind]

I really, really like the new textures shown off so far, both Mun and Duna. Especially in the way they scale smoothly from orbit. Modders have given us great retextures over the years, but this kind of smooth zoom has never before been possible. All of my thumbs up.

Edited August 16, 2019 by Streetwind

[panzer1b]

Im very happy with what i see, textures are actually like sand dunes (pretty much the way ive always envisioned the planet from various sci-fi movies and even some real life footage of mars), there is no obvious tiling issues that i can see, and there seem to be legit normal maps on the ground which reflect light more plausibly (no idea if that is a shader or a texture thing, but it looks good either way).  Also, especially happy with the snowy caps fix which makes it more of a natural transition between sandy dunes and icy caps, not the absolutely unrealistic snow we have now.

Cant wait for release, and being able to give my currently WIP duna colony some truly amazing visuals (the buildings imo look pretty good, but the landscape is just missing those amazing textures

Id still love to see a overhaul of the physical terrain (even if it meant save file breakeage for landed things), mostly since the terrain on duna lacks any real features besides some large scale valleys and hills (which every planet has to some extent anyway).  Wish that there was more micro scale features, but since it appears we are stuck with what is already here, at least the textures give it the appearance of feature rich terrain from far away.

Now if we can get minmus the most common planets will be done, since a large quantity of players stick to mun/minmus as it doesnt require quite as much engineering or time commitment to reach.  Kerbin is arguably one of the better current planets (at least if they could fix the jagged icewall BS on the north pole ice thing), but even that should be overhauled early since it is also a very common destination (and there are people who are more into planes that dont even leave it either).

Finally @SQUAD, plz dont forget about normal part revamps, i know its not as crazy demanded anymore (since most of the truly nasty parts are now fixed), but it really makes the game look and feel better when parts have better models and also more texture choices.  I know there are mods like restock, but it changes colliders and otherwise messes some ships up with not 100% compatibility, please continue revamping default parts, engines, heck, maybee even give the structural and aircraft parts a touchup with new textures and possibly models...  At the least, id love to see some dark/grey themed stuff since planes right now are 100% white, (which just forces you to add structural panels/dlc/empty fuel tanks that have been revamped to break up the monotone).

[Kerbinchaser]

I play on a medium-end computer, what is the performance difference between using this texture and legacy?

[GoldForest]

On 8/19/2019 at 2:56 PM, Lo Var Lachland said:

I play on a medium-end computer, what is the performance difference between using this texture and legacy?

We don't know, 1.8 isn't  out yet. 

[Kerbinchaser]

5 hours ago, GoldForest said:

We don't know, 1.8 isn't  out yet. 

I wasn't asking you. I was looking for a developer answer. 

[GoldForest]

4 hours ago, Lo Var Lachland said:

I wasn't asking you. I was looking for a developer answer. 

Devs wont answer, not yet.

Edited August 26, 2019 by GoldForest

[Guest]

Actually, they did: 

On 8/15/2019 at 2:16 AM, 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. That's why we are giving players the option to choose what works better for them. 

As good an answer as you're gonna get from anyone, pre or post release. And, guess what, it's only one page back...

[KerbMav]

18 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

Actually, they did: 

As good an answer as you're gonna get from anyone, pre or post release. And, guess what, it's only one page back...

Sometimes it is a pity we cannot speak from our heart here - but it really is for the best in the end ...

[airtrafficcontroller]

Ok, sorry if someone already asked this.

Devs, can we expect the scatterers to have collision in this new terrain?

I know, they say that its just texture changes but we can dream.

Thanks.

[Jognt]

On 8/27/2019 at 9:05 PM, airtrafficcontroller said:

Ok, sorry if someone already asked this.

Devs, can we expect the scatterers to have collision in this new terrain?

I know, they say that its just texture changes but we can dream.

Thanks.

Look, I love new stuff as much as the next guy, but honestly I’d rather take a break from new stuff for another polish phase. 

1.8 looks like (the start of?) such a phase, so let’s cheer the devs on  

gooo devs!

[nwillard]

On 8/15/2019 at 3:16 PM, Shadowmage said:

I've been waiting for that update for... years now.  Not particularly holding much hope for it to ever happen, but still dreaming of the day when DX9 can be a fading memory.

I have a strong suspicion that is the main reason they stopped the engine upgrade cycle with the 2017.x Unity version currently in use -- any later, and they would be forced to drop DX9.

Hah!