R-T-B

Ok everyone a new release candidate fixing the new near/far transitional bug is about to drop (easy bug fix, it's literally due to a missing zero). I just had work and it took up a lot of my time today. Expect it soon, I will edit this post when out. Unfortunately, it appears the "excellent performance boost" I noted last night was due to that insanely close clipping plane, so we will lose that. Oh well, still will perform as good as before. EDIT: Latest builds are out! Here is the change log: RC9 is out with the following changes: 1.) Added a missing zero to fix near-far transitional issues. Reduced the impact on the nearclip plane too. 2.) Scatterer-shadows have been disabled by default because they are still buggy at extreme ranges, though they work upclose pretty well, (KSP will take over, don't worry). Please specify your OS when posting bug reports, as always. Download Locations for RC9: Github: https://github.com/R-T-B/Scatterer/releases My Server: http://glacialsoftware.net/ScattererBuilds

Yeah I'm missing a zero actually. I'm going to blame lack of sleep, lol. New release incoming. I'm also going to toy with restoring the nearclip to 1f at most, since it's been messed with a bit too much.

I just released RC8. Usual sources (github or my server). Changelog follows. RC8 is out with the following changes: 1.) Scatterer-shadows have been reenabled due to a new novel fix that renders them nearly completely bug free and far more performant than before! This fix involves adjusting the near clipping plane (basically you clip through walls slightly sooner, if you understand what that mean)... if this bothers you, you can always manually overrride it in your KSC settings, but it should be worth it to lose a tiny bit of foreground viewing space for fully functional shadows again. Please specify your OS when posting bug reports, as always. This is likely my last RC as I think that's the last bug. Prove me wrong! If you don't, I'll promote this to release on my feed soon!

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/UnluckyBestKrill-mobile.mp4 Not gonna lie, first thing I'd do is make a spacesuit for those guys and become a Mun Shepard.

In stock KSP, the only mention of them ever eating anything was them trying to taste the surface of Minmus while taking a surface sample. So they are dirt eaters. Case closed.

The goo is more mysterious anyways.

If you want a bug free experience, there's no safer way to go. Right now scatterers own terrain shadows glitch out like crazy, I just had to temporarily disable them (they can still be turned back on for testing, but most wouldn't want them) until we can fix them. Glad KSP 1.9 at least offers SOME terrain shadows stock to replace them! But yeah, the best experience will come officially.

Heh, newest release candidate is the best (I think we're at 6 now). Release Candidate is a fancy way of saying beta, and newer = better. We're pretty close to release-grade now. The only buggy thing is terrain shadows. You might want to turn those off (KSP provides it's own anyhow). Just drop the folder in and merge with gamedata like any mod. Delete any old scatterer first though, just to be safe. EDIT: OH! Are you clicking "assets?" Github hides the downloads on prereleases until you click that.

Scatterer in general is a performance hit, but running in DX12 is a far bigger one than scatterer. Doing both is murder on your PC. If you just swap the folders with my builds, and get rid of dx12, I think you'll find it runs far smoother than the old workaround.

Yep. And though I am not officially a member of the Kopernicus team (so I have no say so in this), I can safely say that if I were in charge, Kopernicus would be considered ready. But I'm a more bleeding edge type, so... hehe, I get why they wait. ...Anyways: RC6 is out with the following changes: 1.) OpenGL/dual camera mode support has been restored. That means *nix users can enjoy 1.9 scatterer, now, too. Please specify your OS when posting bug reports, as always. Now new bugs or performance impacts on Windows should result from this. File a report if you find any. Grab at the usual spots: https://github.com/R-T-B/Scatterer/releases or my server: http://glacialsoftware.net/ScattererBuilds/

Astrononmers Visual Pack did most of it. You can find their awesome visual pack around here somewhere. I just integrated a bunch of red-dwarf coloration things into it.

It relies on a Kopernicus patch, and I'm not sure I'm allowed to release an early Kopernicus for 1.9. Got yelled at last time I tried to do that during the 1.8 update, so no, but maybe soon? You can kind of emulate it with scatterer though. Set your sunflare color and it will try to match up the atmopshere a bit. It's a lot of fun, honestly. I do plan to one day release the whole shebang.

Blackrack and I are working on it now. You can test my "earlybird" builds from the link in the OP, keeping in mind they are unofficial and beta. So yes, there'll be one. Likely soon. I just got scatterer's build system to work on both OpenGL and DirectX targets with the same source: Observe these two images of my pretty red dwarf Kerbolar system from the KSC: One is on OpenGL/linux, the other DirectX/windows. Same build, all on 1.9, despite OpenGL and DirectX featuring entirely different camera setups. NIce eh? You can't even tell the difference quality wise, but the bottom one is actually dual camera/opengl, while the top is the new unified camera. It auto sets the mode so you don't have to think about it. So yes *nixites, this means the next RC will probably support you guys too.

Oh, I see! I can look into it for sure, especially if OpenGL is staying that way. I have some ideas of how to do it. I can get you a head start if you'd like. BTW everyone, we rolled back to RC4. This means shadows are back! Why? Because it turns out tweaking the normal bias a bit seems to make them work right. I'd like to test that and see if we can actually keep dem Terrain shadows in scatterer. Please, if you are having shadow issues/flicker with RC4, play with the values at the KSC titled "shadow bias" and see if you can't find a happy spot to make it work (the ones I'm distributing now work pretty well though)

Excellent to have you back, blackrack. My pull request is a bit disorganized (honestly I did not expect it to well... work), but I think you'll probably want it all other than the last commit, which comments out the shadow code. If you can make that work again, I'm all for it! It was just beyond my skills. Ask away, remember: this is still your baby. If anything I did seems wrong, father probably knows best as I was stumbling in the dark a bit. My advice for opengl builds is simple: Use a seperate branch with either a full codebase, or even better, a simple patchset you maintain. That's how I'd tackle it anyhow for the shortterm, unless we don't think they are going to merge cameras on OpenGL soon (I imagine they are, why wouldn't they?) As a resident of Washington State USA, one of the hardest hit states, I feel you. At least I'm rural so lockdown isn't so bad. If you have any questions or concerns, write here or PM me. I have to remote in to work (yes, they still demand digital attendance I guess) so I may take an hour or so to reply, but I will do my best.

We have unofficial builds at the end of the thread that truly work without workarounds on 1.9, but they have a few small bugs (mainly, terrain shadows don't work, but KSP added something like that anyways, so...). They are actually pretty decent quality other than that, if you want to try them until blackrack returns. https://github.com/R-T-B/Scatterer/releases

Unoffical Release 1.2 just dropped: This is a minor bugfix update to the 1.0 unofficial 1.9 release series of Scatterer. To install simply extract to your KSP install. What was changed / added since Unofficial Release 1.1? 1.) Fixed RSS Mode, which was broken by a regression caused by a over-optimistic optimization. Now it works again, and we still have pretty much the same level of optimization for those who don't use it. If you aren't experiencing any of the above bugs, this is a fairly minor release and I'd not worry about it. Usual places: Github: https://github.com/R-T-B/Scatterer/releases My Server: http://glacialsoftware.net/ScattererBuilds/ Thank you all and enjoy! -RTB

Would a fingerprint before and after sucesfully running the patcher on 1.9 help? I found out why my build is working, it's been so long since i compiled it I forgot I updated (and noted!) the fingerprints lol: Straight out of Principia\Principia\astronomy\solar_system_fingerprints.hpp in my build tree: constexpr std::uint64_t KSPStockSystemFingerprint = 0x63A5CF9AAB1676AE; constexpr std::uint64_t KSPStabilizedSystemFingerprint = 0x9DCFF6CCCD13551F; That's for 1.9. Result on fresh game: This is the Jool system retrobop'd after the patcher runs on 1.9, after ~2.5 years max time acceleration, max history shown. My game has been running a similar time with no issues, btw. Seems similar to your analysis: Chaotic but stable. Hope these details are helpful! You can view the complete log here as well: http://glacialsoftware.net/PrincipiaLog.txt

Probably scatterer terrain shadows? Turn them off from the main KSC view if you have them on with the toolbar... or if you have them off, then that's a mystery to me. They should be off right now as they are just buggy enough to work, but mess with you. Besides, stock KSP has basic terrain shadows in the standard settings now anyways, so they sort of aren't needed. The atmosphere transition is because literally the "Far away" space trackingcenter camera and the camera your ship uses are the same now. We have to kind of ease into that new idea graphically speaking, and it's tough to get the transition from "near" to " far" right without two seperate cameras like we had before. It can appear jarring where it tries to switch the clouds over, which is what you are seeing at 200,000m or so. I may try improving that a little later, but not right now, I'm pretty happy with the result as far as being safe enough to use (and yes, I "eat my own dogfood," been playing with this all day lol). I'd say overall though yes, it's a lot better than -force-d3d12, that's for sure! And yes, the unified camera does improve FPS.

There is an experimental build I've been maintaining that supports 1.9. But it's not official, and it has buggy terrain shadows. Other than that, there are performance-hurting workaround options. See the main scatterer thread: My Release candidates for 1.9 (windows/directx only): https://github.com/R-T-B/Scatterer/releases

Would that happen in a save game? If not, I should probably revert and update the fingerprints to force the systemfixup. I don't think it's an issue though: I still have retrobop and the planets/moons have hung around for nearly a game year in Frenet.

Hello all. Another build. RC4 is out. This will probably be my last build until blackrack gets back barring a major buck report. Here's the release log: For DirectX 11 Windows Unified Camera mode only! (ksp default on windows) RC4 is out with the following changes: 1.) Fix a rare cloud-clipping bug at high angles in low atmosphere. Known bugs in this release (Will not fix without PR): 1.) The built in Scatterer shadows are jumpy/buggy, and disabled by default. Despite my best efforts I can only reduce this problem, not eliminate it, so I advise leaving them off. As KSP now provides it's own Terrain shadows, this is not such a big deal (actually, that may even be the source of the bug). The default settings are set to disable scatterer terrain shadows and I do not support changing that at this time. Test and report back. Download at github: https://github.com/R-T-B/Scatterer/releases or from my server (grab the highest number) http://glacialsoftware.net/ScattererBuilds/ Thanks all for the help debugging. It's pretty usable now, minus the shadow glitch noted above, which I consider minor considering KSP implements terrain shadows now.

Seems like that put us on the border of the fix, if not a complete fix. I'll mess with it some more. I need to ensure first it hasn't messed with low altitude transitions (this would occur as "cloud clipping" around 70,000m on Kerbin, you'll know it when you see it). Thank you for testing! This will only help blackrack work on more fun stuff when he gets back. Afterall, I'm just doing an update, he knows the black magic that makes it pretty.

RC3 is out with the following changes: 1.) Adjust the near/far clip plane ratio to attempt to fix near field shadow corruption (flickering and jumping). Please test and report. Also low atmospheric scenes should be tested, as adjusting these clip planes are known to affect low atmospheric flights in bad ways sometimes even if it fixes something else. Links updated in orgin post and at github. Also can grab at the following links (please use the latest and report what version when reporting bugs): Github: https://github.com/R-T-B/Scatterer/releases My Server: http://glacialsoftware.net/ScattererBuilds/

Seems there are still some issues with the near clip plain. That's what causes the shadows glitch (in particular jumpiness). Darn, I thought I had that hammered out. Oh well. I will look into it. Standby for another Release Candidate, until then you can simply disable scatterer shadows and it is less noticeable. Kerbal itself will still do its thing with shadows.