Urgante

The mod itself can be found here --> http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/68619-Plugin-WIP-KittopiaTech-Ingame-Terraforming-Tools-V0-125 The texture and the file that changes it's color in-game is added by better atmospheres. Here are those two files only so you don't have to download it all and search them, just combine the two folders https://mega.co.nz/#!VFJEVAYb!A2jeWjhDfb2rsojPWmq7F1ufSonltVuxZt0cSAfSvo4 I will try the -u8888 command right now. (EDITED) Nope, the command works fine but jool rings remain invisible in-game.

The problem is solved now, I used other programs to do the conversion without resizing, (used compressonator back then, I have a batch plugin for paint.net now), A lot of textures worked fine rescaling, and -rescale hi was good enough in quality and size terms. The problem was that some toolbar mod icons didn't worked once rescaled, KSP itself load the rescaled texture fine but they appear either purple or deformed once in-game. It only happens to some of the non multiple of 4 textures with transparency and the particular effect depends of the program used for the conversion. Easy to spot example textures would be Ascent_Guidance.png or Landing_Guidance.png in GameData\MechJeb2\Icons folder. Example and code used to rescale: http://i.imgur.com/kKs9XTN.jpg FOR /R "%localdir%" %%F IN ("*.png") DO ( CALL %DDSTool% -dxt5 -outsamedir -rescale hi -quality_highest -flip -file "%%F" IF EXIST "%%~dpnF.dds" ( del "%%F" ) ) I guess that it should be possible to use -rescale hi and some particular DDS format to do the job, default DXT1 has poor quality with transparency and default DXT5 turns purple or just doesn't load. I would really apreciate some explanation in that RGB and RGBA thing or at least the correct nvdxt.exe command to use them, there is a lot of diferents formats and combinations and that optional alpha thing has something to do with transparency but I don't understand it ....yet, (I'm returning from jool at this moment and I want to load those rings in .DDS next time I go there http://i.imgur.com/uExvSRU.jpg).

I have found the part of the code that I think changes the color of the jool rings textures while in-game: PlanetJool{ AdditionalData { Stock = True AddAtmoFx = False AtmoWaveColour = RGBA(0.6745098, 0.5960785, 0.8509804, 0.000) AddOceanFx = False AddRings = True Rings { Ring { Tilt = 8 OuterRadius = 1850 InnerRadius = 1900 Colour = RGBA(0.300, 0.724, 0.300, 1.000) } Ring { Tilt = 8 OuterRadius = 1650 InnerRadius = 1850 Colour = RGBA(0.700, 1.000, 0.483, 1.000) } Ring { Tilt = 8 OuterRadius = 1400 InnerRadius = 1650 Colour = RGBA(0.700, 1.000, 0.483, 1.000) } } } } So besides having KSP accepting the image I need to also use the correct format for this code. Well, trial and error doesn't worked. I think the key of this is in the alpha channel and that RGBA thing but I don't know the correct paint.net option to choose.

That particular texture is 8192x4096 and 25mb in png. I can convert it in paint.net or gimp with DDS plugin using DXT5 resulting in 43mb with mipmaps or 32mb without. At first I considered that size in mb too big...now I am starting to think that it can't be less without loosing quality and I'm using it. The image has transparency and needs to have perfect quality so DXT1 is not good enough. I did found a program to convert all the non multiple of 4 textures to DXT5 no mipmap --> http://developer.amd.com/tools-and-sdks/archive/legacy-cpu-gpu-tools/the-compressonator/ The program itself is easy to use BUT doesn't flip the images and names them *.DDS instead of *.dds so I ended up using fastone image viewer to flip them and other program to rename them. The whole process is complex so maybe It's not worth it, (arround 300 images converted but they are under 1 mb in total). In any case I'm currently using 99.9% .dds textures in the gamedata folder without any problem. (Jool rings texture will have to wait until tomorrow).

Paint.net doesn't change the Height/Weight, the only problem is the size in megabytes of the resulting .dds image being too big. I'm using DXT5 as the output format --> http://i.imgur.com/d3OZABE.jpg?1 I guess that I just need to choose the rigth output options ... but unfortunately the real problem here is that I dont know them Using DXT1 the size is good and it works but the quality of the image is bad. I could use it for the small toolbar icons but I prefer just use them as .png rather than decreasing quality. That paint.net command line reference would be really usefull, with that and the rigth output options the problem will be solved.

I changed the code a little to add .jpg and tried different things to improve the textures, this are the results: :: Initialization of environment states and variables. SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION SET localdir=%CD%\GameData SET DDSTool="D:\Kerbal Space Program\nvdxt.exe" SET mbm="d:\Kerbal Space Program\mbm2png7\mbm2png.exe" FOR /R "%localdir%" %%F IN ("*.mbm") DO ( CALL %mbm% "%%F" IF EXIST "%%~dpnF.png" ( del "%%F" ) ) pause FOR /R "%localdir%" %%F IN ("*_NRM.png") DO ( CALL %DDSTool% -dxt5nm -outsamedir -quality_highest -nomipmap -flip -file "%%F" IF EXIST "%%~dpnF.dds" ( del "%%F" ) ) FOR /R "%localdir%" %%F IN ("*_NRM.tga") DO ( CALL %DDSTool% -dxt5nm -outsamedir -quality_highest -nomipmap -flip -file "%%F" IF EXIST "%%~dpnF.dds" ( del "%%F" ) ) FOR /R "%localdir%" %%F IN ("*.png") DO ( CALL %DDSTool% -dxt5 -outsamedir -quality_highest -flip -file "%%F" IF EXIST "%%~dpnF.dds" ( del "%%F" ) ) FOR /R "%localdir%" %%F IN ("*.tga") DO ( CALL %DDSTool% -dxt5 -outsamedir -quality_highest -flip -file "%%F" IF EXIST "%%~dpnF.dds" ( del "%%F" ) ) pause FOR /R "%localdir%" %%F IN ("*.jpg") DO ( CALL %DDSTool% -dxt5 -outsamedir -quality_highest -flip -file "%%F" IF EXIST "%%~dpnF.dds" ( del "%%F" ) ) pause My current KSP loading time is 1:15 with 50 mods, some of them big, (pimp my kerbals, Better Atmospheres V5 in glorious HD, KW_Rocketry...). I actually changed to opengl due to all the mods using more of the maximum ram for 32 bits. (Less fps this way but little difference) The ram now stays below 2gb so I will probably add even moar mods. http://i.imgur.com/KH98RHc.jpg In-game loading time when change scenes seems faster. Now the problems: - Very big textures make nvdxt.exe fail when trying to convert them. For example GameData\BoulderCo\Clouds\Textures\kerbin1.png from Better Atmospheres. Right now I left that particular texture in .png ... but I'm working on that. Paint.net does covert it but the resulting texture is too big, almost 50mb, so I'm doing something wrong. - Some textures with extreme proportions turns invisible when ingame, (only noticed jool rings from PlanetaryEditingToolsUI mod). Since they are small I just not change them. - nvdxt.exe doesn't convert non multiple of 4 textures. I tried rescaling them but -rescale nearest deforms the image and -rescale hi doesn't work in the toolbar icons, (they appear purple when loading the game). Paint.net does convert them without rescaling ... but also increases the size. Since all the problematic files are small I just let them remain as .png for the moment. And now the idea for improve this: I found a tool to access the .tex textures inside the .assets files, convert them to .dds and put them back as .tex. Better explained here --> http://zenhax.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=36 That is interesting by itself and allow things like the sunflare for Better Atmospheres. So the idea is to turn that .tex images in .dds and make KSP load them as .DDS ... in case of that being a good thing because I really don't know if the tex format is better or worst than .DDS, I just found it and share the idea so somebody can tell if the .tex format is good as it is or not. And now some thoughts: - There is only 6 days from the creation of the DDSLoader mod and you can see already some mods releasing new versions using this format, this could very probably be the new texture format to use from now on KSP mods. - From my original 4 minutes of loading time to 1:15 minutes is a huge difference, and I didn't have any "beautiful textures" mod back then, my KSP Gamedata folder compressed in DDS was at 600mb, now is at 900mb, (I use the HD version of Better Atmospheres now ). So I can say that one of the problems of KSP, (long loading times), is solved for me as this mod is right now and it will probably solve it for everybody in the near future, so thanks sarbian for the mod and thanks to everybody here for testing it and share the results.

First of all, sorry for my humble attempt at english, I am working on it. Now to the point: I found a .mbm converter https://www.dropbox.com/s/txthm7h5jwqgnz5/mbm2png7.zip?dl=1 I used it to convert all my .mbm to png and then used Ph34rb0t code to convert to dds. This Reduced my ksp load time from 4min to 1,5min. (I have a SSD), and my Gamedata folder from almost 2gb to 600mb. Unfortunately the memory usage once KSP is running is the same or very similar, (hard to tell). As far as I can tell all the textures work perfectly, including transparent toolbar icons. I didn't noticed a difference in texture quality but I guess that there is one, (pass from 2gb to 600mb without change the quality doesn't seem probable). I copy the code I used here so you can tell me if any of this is actually good or the .mbm didn't needed a change to begin with .... because, let's face it ... I have no idea what the heck did I really achieved, I just found it and put some code together to see what happens. :: Initialization of environment states and variables. SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION SET localdir=%CD%\GameData SET DDSTool=[B]"D:\Kerbal Space Program\nvdxt.exe"[/B] SET mbm=[B]"D:\Kerbal Space Program\mbm2png7\mbm2png.exe"[/B] FOR /R "%localdir%" %%F IN ("*.mbm") DO ( CALL %mbm% "%%F" IF EXIST "%%~dpnF.png" ( del "%%F" ) ) pause FOR /R "%localdir%" %%F IN ("*_NRM.png") DO ( CALL %DDSTool% -dxt5nm -outsamedir -quality_highest -nomipmap -flip -file "%%F" IF EXIST "%%~dpnF.dds" ( del "%%F" ) ) pause FOR /R "%localdir%" %%F IN ("*_NRM.tga") DO ( CALL %DDSTool% -dxt5nm -outsamedir -quality_highest -nomipmap -flip -file "%%F" IF EXIST "%%~dpnF.dds" ( del "%%F" ) ) pause FOR /R "%localdir%" %%F IN ("*.png") DO ( CALL %DDSTool% -dxt5 -outsamedir -quality_highest -flip -file "%%F" IF EXIST "%%~dpnF.dds" ( del "%%F" ) ) pause FOR /R "%localdir%" %%F IN ("*.tga") DO ( CALL %DDSTool% -dxt5 -outsamedir -quality_highest -flip -file "%%F" IF EXIST "%%~dpnF.dds" ( del "%%F" ) ) pause This will search gamedata folder for .mbm, convert them to .png and delete original .mbm, after that it just uses Ph34rb0t code to do the usual .DDS conversion. At the end all textures will be in DDS format...except the ones with sizes not multiple of 4. ¿Any way to convert them without deformations? It takes a lot of time to do the conversion, around 15 minutes depending your mods. You need to put the nvdxt.exe file from http://es.originaldll.com/file/nvdxt.exe/39376.html in your KSP folder along with the uncompressed folder of the .mbm converter and/or change the paths. Thanks for all the work doing the mod and testing it, i can now load my KSP in less than half the time Edited: Thanks for the alternative link technicalfool

I used the Ph34rb0t code to convert all my gamedata folder again and all textures are working now, including transparent toolbar icons and textures from mods. I noticed than only images multiple of 4 are being converted, is this intended or i should use another converter for that kind of images? (Around 300 unconverted images due to this, all of them small). Thanks for the work, this is looking realy promising and evolving fast

I converted to DDS using Xnview. Around half loading time, from 4 min to 2. All stock textures working fine. Some mod textures not working, (parts are totally white, toolbar icons are purple). http://oi59.tinypic.com/2e0sfit.jpg Still, very promising mod, thanks sarbian