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Greetings everyone! It's been quite a long time since I was last actively part of this community and game. For those that remember me, I was once one of the Community Managers alongside CaptSkunky way back in the day. A lot of things have changed in my life, including the fact I go by Ciara now (and can't seem to update my display name on the forums) but after a very long time away I'm back! Not only am I back, but I've been inspired by StarCrusher's Galaxies Unbound Project to attempt not only learning how to mod, but undertaking a massive planet mod pack. I'd like to share this journey with you including my workflow, concepts, and successes and failures. So, please come along for the ride and maybe in the next few months I'll have something I can be proud of contributing to the community along with all these amazing and talented authors. Workflow Concept Artist Controlled Procedural Content Generation The concept of Artist Controlled PCG is one that exists in multiple mainline space projects of note. The primary concept is that an artist will use a tool to procedrually generate a planet or terrain and then utalize the output of that tool as a "Canvas" to work off of using said Canvas as a foundation to contorl the following, Atmospheric Color Points of Interest Specific Terrain Features Scatter and Ground Clutter Control Color Palette Main Goals and Features * Utalize a Procedural Star System Generation System to use as a staging point to launch pad off from. * Utalize a Procedural and Fractal Based Terrain Generation Method to make truly unique planets generating 8bit greyscale height maps procedrually * Take Real world Orbital Data and Information Generated by the tools in order to create the proper scaled versions in a Kerbol Stock-a-like manner. Test Map - Low Quality / Low Reolution Step 1 - Procedurally Generated Height Map Step 2 - Lightness (HSL) Color Desaturation Step 3 - Color Inversion Step 4 - Color Correction Obvioulsy this height map wont work, it's just a test of the process that I'm going to attempt to see if I can quickly (a few days or so) generate a height map, normal map, and color map, and with the tools I have work on tweaking the outputs to create unique worlds that are procedurally generated but the final outcome is artist controlled. I'll be running some tests tonight and tommorrow and I hope to have test worlds in game to showcase then. See ya soon! -Ciara (Formerly DR) Quick Color Map Test (The Color isn't final but I wanted to see how it would look.) Tool Used: Wilbur + GIMP Procedures Used: Percentage Noise & 1st Pass Erosion Test (Yes I know the edges are way to sharp, just testing and learning tools.)

Hey all, just curious what everyone else has seen in terms of the future of moded star systems and planets. I was working on a KSP 1 planet pack some months back and had to step away, but if it's going to be easier in KSP 2 I'd like to come back to it.

To make the simulator more realistic, shouldn't we add regular stars in addition to star systems with planets? I believe that if you add N star systems in a game about interstellar travel, and you will have only N stars, it will look unrealistic, unprofessional and not in line with the concept of the game The game would feel fairer if you had more freedom to fly to different objects in the galaxy, such as that star kebler23878 over there, even if it has no planets. I believe it takes much less resources to create stars than planets because for stars we don't have to think about topography, geology, concept. You could make an autogenerator of stars along the lines of a star catalog that would randomly set radius, age, mass, type, and maybe location. Stars can have similar textures and other features because they are not as unique as planets Perhaps in science mode, you will be added to the eyes or other bonuses for studying a star of a certain type In my opinion, filling space with stars makes the game more realistic and similar to what you expect from such a game than just having N more systems with planets

Akin to SpaceEngine, KSP2 procedurally generating star systems? (If the comment made on KSP Episode 5: Interstellar Travel is true, this seems the most physically plausible) Thoughts?

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