Custom Biomes Update Thread

[Trueborn]

CustomBiomes beta build 1 is now available for download!

Download CustomBiomes 1.0 here.

Download elevation maps.

Download basic biome pack.

CustomBiomes introduces biomes to the rest of the celestial bodies in the Kerbin system. The new biomes load upon entry to the flight scene, and should persist until KSP is closed. The biomes are stored as two pieces in the \GameData\CustomBiomes\PluginData\CustomBiomes folder. The first part is the map. This is a 1024x512 PNG file. It is treated as a simple lookup table, with each pixel mapping to a latitude/longitude pair. The result of that mapping is an RGBA color, which is assigned to a biome. The biomes themselves are defined in the .att files. These list all the biomes for a given celestial body. The format is:

Biome Name (string)
Alpha value (0-255 int or 0-1 float)
Red value (0-255 int or 0-1 float)
Green value (0-255 int or 0-1 float)
Blue value (0-255 int or 0-1 float)
(next biome)

This mod is dependent on blizzy's toolbar, and it is included in the download (v1.4.2). It also uses Majiir's compatibility checker (v2), to disable the plugin for unsupported versions of KSP. All Science experiments should work in the new biomes, but they will not display biome specific results. SCANsat will correctly display the biome maps once scanned.

As configured in the download, there is no GUI displayed. If you are encountering errors, you can enable the simple GUI by changing the DisableGUI value to 0 in config.xml. The GUI allows you to look at each planet's biome, and view the map. The map does not show any vessel location information, but the main window will display the ship's current biome.

CustomBiomes is liscend under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Trueborn
Version 1.0 release.

[Trueborn]

[u]Beta Release 1[/u]
Biome replacement now occurs automatically on startup.
Users can now cycle through all biomes' information.
Majiir's version checker included in release.  CustomBiomes will [b]disable[/b] itself when new versions of KSP are released, in anticipation of changes to the Science system.
Window positions and states are now saved to config file.

[u]Alpha Release[/u]
Proof of concept release.

Edited January 14, 2014 by Trueborn
Added version information

[stupid_chris]

Without any download or content to give people to play with, this is for the addon development forum. Feel free to make a new thread in addon showcase when the mod is ready.

Thread moved to addon development.

[Trueborn]

Sorry, must have clicked on the wrong forum. Thanks. And to justify this post, here are before and after shots for my proof of concept biome replacement:

Before:

After:

[theSpeare]

This is very exciting - please please keep going with it and don't give it up. I'm desperately hoping for more biomes. I almost wished 0.24 to JUST contain a biome update for ALL the bodies.

[likke_A_boss]

This idea and mod is absolutely amazing. I will be watching this intently.

[landeTLS]

Yes this is absolutly the plugin to watch this month

[Superfluous J]

This pleases me greatly. I wonder if you could easily hook this on to the Community Science mod so crowdsource for descriptions for all of these new biomes.

And we need to think about scaling back the science you get in certain places. One problem with adding biomes is you add tons of science to the game. You can already get pretty far in the tree without ever leaving Kerbin's SOI. With a proper coding of Duna with Biomes you could probably max out on science once you've visited it.

[Trueborn]

If the new biomes were standardized, then yes, Community Science would be able to make use of it.

One of the potential benefits of this will be that people can use biomes with fewer zones than stock, if they want to make things morning re challenging. Also, there is currently an entire channel being unused in the biomes. It may be able to use it to make some areas be worth less Science than others.

Glad to see the encouragement, but I would like to reiterate my request for some crowdsourced maps.

[Superfluous J]

Glad to see the encouragement, but I would like to reiterate my request for some crowdsourced maps.

what orientation do the maps need to be in? Should they (or could they) be made to exactly overlay the maps people make for UniverseReplacer?

I think I could pretty easily whip up a Duna map and a Laythe map. The other planets don't have quite so obvious features except maybe Eve.

[Deathsoul097]

The only advice I would give about laythe is that most of the islands should be their own biomes, along with a large Biome for the massive ocean on one side of the planet, and separate biomes for other parts of the ocean, simply because of the scale, shape and land-masses of the planet.

[Superfluous J]

The only advice I would give about laythe is that most of the islands should be their own biomes, along with a large Biome for the massive ocean on one side of the planet, and separate biomes for other parts of the ocean, simply because of the scale, shape and land-masses of the planet.

Funny, I was thinking the opposite. Maybe have "Equatorial Island", "Temperate Island", and "Arctic Island" biomes and then one for the ocean. Like has been mentioned, every biome adds less reason to visit different biomes.

[Trueborn]

Go ahead and make them however you want. At the moment, I'm leaning away from a "standard" set, and more towards "use whatever you want." But, to answer your question, they need to be 1024x512. It is essentially at latitude/longitude lookup table containing 4 values, RGBA. In other words, a cylindrical projection. I'll be posting the first alpha build for testing in a few minutes, and then work on making it more usable.

Alpha test build is up on the first page.

Edited January 14, 2014 by Trueborn
Alpha announcement.

[Trueborn]

Quick turnaround, folks. Beta 1 is now released for public consumption.

Download it here.

Biomes are now replaced automatically at startup, and the GUI now allows you to cycle through all biomes, so you don't have to visit Eeloo to see if the biome is in place. See the first post for more details.

[Superfluous J]

Quick turnaround, folks. Beta 1 is now released for public consumption.

Maybe it's because I'm not wearing my glasses (Just got up, going back to sleep soon ) but I had to search the first post for the word "download" to find the link. May I suggest something like:

Download Version x.xx of Custom Biomes Here

Download it here.

Or I could have read this post. But I jumped to the first one for the "more details" promised.

See the first post for more details.

See! Not my fault!

Anyway, I'm downloading it now and will fiddle and see how it works.

[DennyTX]

AWESOME!

any way to automatically create a small own biome around each anomaly?

[Trueborn]

The biomes won't be automatic, they'll be manually created. I'm in the process of getting the SCANsat terrain maps from everywhere in the standard game, when we can develop biomes off of that. It would be possible to make anomalies have their own biomes, if you know which pixel to change.

And thanks horseman, I've made a larger link.

[theSpeare]

Please don't go scaling down science everywhere else. The total amount of science in the entire system shouldn't be roughly equal to the max amount of science you need. Every body should be ripe with science to the point where no one is forced to explore EVERY body to unlock everything, but instead encourage or enhance exploration of personal favorite planets.

[Trueborn]

Honestly, I'm not even sure that's exactly how the "Value" field works. That's why its still in beta I wouldn't be surprised if someone decided they wanted, say, less science from Kerbin and Mun/Minmus biomes for the extra challenge. But no, whatever "stock" pack I release eventually probably won't change the 3 extant biomes.

[theSpeare]

If someone can upload an equivalent size terrain map image file I can get to work on the biomes; scanSAT messes with my Kerbal.

[Trueborn]

I'm currently scanning my way through the Kerbin system. When I'm done, I'll upload the SCANsat templates. I've already done full biomes for Moho and Ike, and confirmed that SCANsat displays the imported biome information.

Expect the terrain maps tomorrow, and a "stock" set of biomes Thursday, along with version 1.0

[bird19]

how many biomes may be on each celestical body? are there any limitation?

Edited January 15, 2014 by bird19

[Trueborn]

There's no practical limit, though for balance reasons it should probably be limited to about the same number as the three stock biomes.

The real answer is 524,288 but that would be a separate biome for every pixel on the map.

Also, there is a .zip with three biomes (Moho, Duna, Ike) and their terrain maps, you can download it here.

[theSpeare]

What are the att files for?

Also, who will be responsible for all the cfg files containing the scienceDefinitions for each biome?

[Trueborn]

The .att files define what each biomes is called, and which color represents it. Right now it should grab the default message from the scienceDefinitions. For more detailed messages, they will have to be compiled by the biome author. I haven't worked on that part yet though. Probably today after I get the rest of the terrain maps.

Atribute File Format:

Biome Name (string)

Alpha value (float, 0-1)

Red Value (float, 0-1)

Green Value (float, 0-1)

Blue Value (float, 0-1)

(next biome)