Knight of St John

Maybe. We'll see if @Nertea wants this in his mod or not. I don't know if its good enough, or fits the RS version well.

sneak peek of what I'm working on next:

Okay people, new release is ready: New engines configured with waterfall effects: • Swivel • Skipper • Mainsail • Twin Boar • Nerv Minor changes: • added deep throttle effect to the Vector and Mammoth • improved upper stage kerolox plumes • added gas generator plumes Not much has changed from the previous screenshot I sent, but here's a look at the new gas generator plumes: I ended up not going for smoky gas generators because they were visible through the main plume. it looked weird.

So I'm working on a decent kerolox generator plume: but as you can see, the smoke is visible through the main plume. Would you guys think this is still okay? or would you rather not have smoke in the generator plume, and just flames? it'd be unrealistic though.

Wow, this actually works now. basic cylinder with an alpha dynamic shader. smoke effects here we come! Although, you can't simulate trailing smoke, that stays behind and marks your path. for that, we still have to use the stock particles or smokescreen.

heh, this is actually how i did it. stacking templates works, as long as you give them the same transforms (scale, position, rotation) but it does mean i have to make new engine bell cores for every single engine.

I did not know this was possible. So if i wanted to, i could for instance add 2 waterfall modules to an engine, one for the main plume, and one for the gas generator plume? this way i can reuse the same gas generator plume for different engines, and scale/position them easily, without having to mess with individual effects? Does this method impact performance more though?

My bad. I meant the swivel, not skipper. Argh! And yea, the reliant too.

Aye, well spotted. I'm going to add them for the skipper and twin boar too, since they have exhaust pipes too. Was planning on doing this today, the pic above is just the WIP :-)

oh hey thanks for that! I won't contradict this, but the fact that they were "garbo" did motivate me to learn to work with your mod. So I guess you were unconsciously thinking 2 universes ahead there ;-)

Well, today was a productive day. I added most of the stock kerolox engine plumes. I repurposed some of @Zorg's plumes again. If all goes well, I'll make a pre-release with these tomorrow

Just looked up some info, and it looks like I had it wrong in my head running fuel rich improves ISP because the methane has lower molecular weight, even though you get less energy produced per kg of fuel expended. Anyways... According to those 2 pictures I posted of methalox engine tests, there is at least some cyan visible in the flame. So I guess I'll keep my vac-plumes cyan-ish, unless of course someone has better info on that.

Well, the whole point of making a full flow staged combustion cycle engine is that you can react all of your fuel, to get the maximum amount of energy out of your fuel mass, and therefore the max isp. and for that you need a stoichometric mix.

True. Also: The color is also very dependent on the temperature of the plume, which would be bluer when hotter, and redder when cooler. And then there's the exact fuel mixture ratios. If you have excess methane, you will get methane-glow, and not just CO2 and H2O glow. and even small differences there will influence the final color. The air around the plume also gets entrapped by the flow, and the longer the plume is, the more air will mix in with the plume, and you may get some oxygen, nitrogen, or even NOx glow in there. And on top of that, the camera that filmed the tests could also influence what color it looks on screen. and the lighting conditions can influence that too. Looking at that video, I do see some green at the start, but that's lighting fluid (or whatever its called) But also when it shuts down, you can see blue and green, which isn't because of lighting fluid, but probably because of the changing fuel ratios. (when it's shutting down, this can vary a little because the flow isn't that exact in those transient stages) So who knows... maybe the cyan color is because of excess methane, which would make sense, since that altitude test picture I showed probably also has excess methane. running an engine on exact fuel mix is dangerous because you could get some really hot excess oxygen fluctuations, which damage your engine fast, and usually they have an excess of the other fuel component as a margin so this doesn't happen. In that case, I think it's still okay for my plume to have cyan colors, because the poodle and terrier would probably also have excess methane. The Raptor is fairly special in that it's a full-flow staged combustion cycle engine, and therefore has exact fuel mixes, and (theoretically) no excess of methane. EDIT: this is another test I found. It looks a lot more like the raptor plume here, but you can definitely see the plume is cyan near the nozzle.

So in my configs for stock , I've created a methalox upper stage plume for the poodle and terrier. (the reasoning behind this is explained on my thread) and I've also made RAPIER configs for the methalox jet and closed cycle. I based myself on the vacuum raptor test footage for atmospheric conditions: this is the closed cycle rapier mode though. the jet mode looks more like a jet, but similar colors. But for the vacuum plume, I based myself on this: It shows a methalox plume in near-vacuum. As you can see its very cyan, so that is how my plume also looks in vacuum: Honestly, I'm not completely satisfied with the colors yet, but broadly speaking, that's how they will look in the end.

Oh that looks really nice. I've never tested them on actual craft before hah. That's indeed probably because you didn't try the right engines. Read the entire main post. There's a list of the engines that have been configured already. You should just copy the Waterfall mod folder andthe StockWaterfallEffects mod folder into your GameData folder, and then it should already work. Of course, you shouldn't have ReStock installed, because it's incompatible with my mod and therefore it won't show my effects. Actually, Nertea and I are talking about adding some of my plumes to the WaterfallReStock mod as well. So with some patience, you'll be able to have my effects on ReStock as well. I'm planning on making configs for all the stock (and DLC) engines, yes.

Thanks :-) I put a lot of effort in them. Honestly, I haven't thought that far ahead. But what you're proposing sounds completely logical.

Well, yes. It isn't compatible with restock. that's the whole reason I put it there. It also says that in the main post under "compatibility" The reason is that the restock models are different from the stock ones, so that the plumes don't line up with the engine bells well. If you want Restock and waterfall effects, go and download WaterfallReStock. Or did I misinterpret your post? I just tested it on my own KSP again, just to make sure and everything works fine. I don't have ReStock installed.

Oh i see now, so that's where they are. Been looking all over where they were defined. thanks for your help! Also, once I get a decent amount of engines done, would it be possible to let my mod override realplume for engines where I defined an effect, just like you did for ReStock?

Haha, I know :-) That's not what I meant. What I meant is I don't know what sounds are linked to what engines. And often the sounds are mixed as well. So It'll be a nuisance for me to figure this out by listening instead of finding the configurations somewhere in the mod folder. But looks like that is my fate anyways.

Right. The thing is, isn't there a way for me to view the sounds that realplume uses? Otherwise, I'd need to go through all the engines in-game and listen to the effects that realplume applied to them, and then try to match this manually.

So I've got a question. How does Realplume assign the custom rocket sounds to the different engines? I've looked in the Realplume-Stock folder, and I couldn't find any config files that added sound effects to engines. I'm asking because I'd like to give the same sounds to the same engines in my StockWaterfallEffects mod.

Thanks a lot for the clarification. Yea, I'll rewrite the part about BDB. I guess I overlooked that because I'm only concentrating on plumes :-) Well, you sort of can't expect to run both mods at the same time, since Restock remodels the original parts, and this mod is intended to work with the original models... But as Zorg neatly explained above, I'll try and include as many checks as I can, so the user won't experience any issues when they mistakenly install both. Yes exactly. Many KSP players want to keep their gameplay pure stock. Especially when they play the game in a very technical way, where small differences in the aero-physics could determine the success of the mission. (think about Eve ssto's) And of course, these people also want the good waterfall looks. Right, thanks for repeating that here. I think I agree with your opinion, but t the same time I know some others who think differently, so that's why I'll keep this matter open for a bit until I can be sure I'm not making a mistake.

S t o c k W a t e r f a l l E f f e c t s This mod contains a set of template and engine configuration files, that give amazing waterfall effects to the stock engines. Downloads: Primary: https://github.com/KnightofStJohn/StockWaterfallEffects/releases Dependencies: You will of course need to install the Waterfall mod for this to work: https://github.com/post-kerbin-mining-corporation/Waterfall/releases Make sure you install the latest version of Waterfall when updating Stock Waterfall Effects Module Manager 4.1.4 is already included with waterfall. As of version 0.6.0, you will also need B9PartSwitch: https://github.com/blowfishpro/B9PartSwitch/releases Known Issues & Workarounds: Issue: Some engines might lag your game if you use too many of them. Workaround: Waterfall has some options available in the WaterfallSettings.cfg file: Set the "EnableLights" and "EnableDistortion" options to "false". Issue: For a very limited amount of people, some plumes can show through parts. This is a Waterfall base mod bug that affects some older hardware and some Linux or Mac users. We are going to look into this bug in the near future. New in 0.8.0: Compatibility fixes with ReStock and WaterfallRestock: I am currently working to iron out a number of loose ends. For a detailed list, see the github release notes. This first update targets some plume misalignments that were still happening with the ReStock model of the Rapier, for instance. I also added some of my plumes to other ReStocked engines. These will in other words "override" the plumes configured by WaterfallRestock. I decided to do this for a limited set of engines because these specific plumes in WaterfallRestock seemed far less refined than my own... sorry Nertea The other engines configured by WaterfallRestock, I left alone for now. Future work: Fixing the z-fighting inside some engine bells More ReStock compatibility Fixing the "plumes showing through parts" bug Some Waterfall base mod work... if I have time Plume selection Feature: My goal with this mod is to give the stock engines a realistic looking exhaust plume. This means that I try to give the engines that are inspired by real life engines, the correct type of plume. For example the Vector is based on the Space Shuttle Main Engine, the RS25, and therefore has a very similar looking hydrolox plume in this mod: However, some engines in the stock game were designed to look like certain real-life engines, but do not have similar stats in the game. I have to strike a balance between realism in engine performance, or realism in real-life inspiration.I chose to focus on giving the engines the correct plumes according to their performance. This is a list of the configured engines and the type of plume they have in this mod: • Vector & Mammoth: Lower stage hydrolox / Lower stage methalox • Poodle & Terrier: Upper stage methalox the reasoning here is that the Wolfhound and Cheetah are also both vacuum engines, but with even better ISP. Therefore they will be hydrolox engines, while the terrier and poodle will be methalox. • Rapier: Lower stage methalox & Methane-air • Rhino & Skiff: Mid-range hydrolox • Nerv: Upper stage nuclear hydrogen • Reliant, Swivel, Skipper, Mainsail, Twin Boar, Kodiak & Mastodon: Lower stage kerolox These kerolox plumes were originally designed by @Zorg for the Bluedog Design Bureau, and altered by me. Some more than others. • Spark & Cub: kerolox sustainer. • Cheetah & Wolfhound: Upper stage hydrolox Although the models for these engines are based on real hypergolic engines, I still made these two hydrolox engines because they have exceptionally high Isp. • Bobcat, Thud, Twitch & Spider: Lower stage Hydrazine 50 (hypergolic). This plume was originally designed by @Zorg for the Bluedog Design Bureau, and altered by me. • Puff & Ant: Upper stage Hydrazine 50 (hypergolic). • Dart: hydrolox aerospike. • Dawn: Xenon Hall-effect ion plume. • Goliath, Juno, Wheesley: Kerosene turbofan. • Panther: Kerosene turbofan & generic kerosene afterburner. • Whiplash: Blackbird J58 type kerosene afterburner. Eye Candy: Licensing: • All content is distributed under a CC-BY-SA-NC-4 License And if you happen to have some free time to fill, go check out my youtube channel : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoJWYYRrzVDmap8uzhHsj_A

Looking extremely H O T. You did a great job those hypergolic plumes. It's pretty hard to nail that almost transparent color. It looks just like the Titan II plume. And again, them vac plumes are simply the best. I've downloaded all the plumes you made 2 days ago and went through them to see how you did the vac plumes. very creative. I'm now using the same technique for mine. also: sorry for the post in realplume earlier. I meant to post in BDB, but I misclicked on the realplume side of your banner