[WIP][1.9.x-1.12.x] Scatterer-atmospheric scattering (0.0838 - 14/08/2022) Scattering improvements, in-game atmo generation and multi-sun support

[NathanKell]

@blackrack don't think we do, but thanks.

[pingopete]

Ok so I figured that the effect I'm describing started occurring at .234 and 5, but wasn't present in 0.233. I took some screens with varying contrast to try and show that it's not the just the settings that are influencing it.

Obviously I don't wanna keep bugging you with this if you don't think it's necessary/insignificant, and it may be that it's only occurring on my linux setup I guess but essentially yeah I think it may be what you said at first about the change to rendering scat over clouds or at least the change that brought about that effect may be producing this issue(not really an issue) in PQS.

 

 

 

Edited March 28, 2016 by pingopete

[blackrack]

39 minutes ago, pingopete said:

Ok so I figured that the effect I'm describing started occurring at .234 and 5, but wasn't present in 0.233. I took some screens with varying contrast to try and show that it's not the just the settings that are influencing it.

Obviously I don't wanna keep bugging you with this if you don't think it's necessary/insignificant, and it may be that it's only occurring on my linux setup I guess but essentially yeah I think it may be what you said at first about the change to rendering scat over clouds or at least the change that brought about that effect may be producing this issue(not really an issue) in PQS.

I see what it is now. I may have changed the .raw file or one of the height variables between those two versions, are you indeed using the included .raw files or did you generate your own? If using the included ones, could you try copying the .raw file from 233 to 234 and copying over any different variables and see if that fixes it? Also, check if the .raw file's size is different by 1 kb.

[pingopete]

1 hour ago, blackrack said:

I see what it is now. I may have changed the .raw file or one of the height variables between those two versions, are you indeed using the included .raw files or did you generate your own? If using the included ones, could you try copying the .raw file from 233 to 234 and copying over any different variables and see if that fixes it? Also, check if the .raw file's size is different by 1 kb.

Ok wicked!, I'll try this now

EDIT: all the .raw files are the same size between 233,234 and 235 but you do include the .meta files in scatterer .233.  Just tried putting the raws from 233 into my 235 game still the same effect, did you mean put the 233 raws into a 234 scatterer setup, or 235? Also where are these height variables?

Ok So setup a 234 game, and slowly added all aspects of 233 to it, I tried moving all 233 shaders in but the game froze when entering the space centre screen, I then put the 233 .dll in and it was back to looking right, so I don't think it's any config file

Edited March 28, 2016 by pingopete

[Sackboy338]

*sniff* it's beautiful

Edited March 28, 2016 by technicalfool
Snipped entire-OP quote.

[davidy12]

@blackrack: Remind me again, how do I get rid of the orange outline on the edge of Kerbin?

[pizzaoverhead]

On 24/03/2016 at 11:27 AM, blackrack said:

Indeed, on atmosphere bodies however it kind of gives a sort of fake global illumination effect so I'm reluctant to take it out, I think RSS disables it or turns it way down and the shadows look a bit too dark and too hard.

Yeah, things look pretty bad in atmosphere (or even in brightly lit vacuum surfaces) without ambient light:

Using tinted ambient lighting gives some nice effects, without going full cubemap environmental lighting. Outerra's AeroKinetics mod, has a distinctive blue tint for example:

Here's an attempt in KSP:

Before	After

The most interesting part was having more dramatic lighting for sunrise and sunset. It doesn't look right with the stock sky, but it could tie together the environment nicely alongside Scatterer's sunsets:

Again, this is probably more at home in something akin to Planetshine or Distant Object Enhancement (scope creep for all!), but it's fun to play around with.

[blackrack]

29 minutes ago, pizzaoverhead said:

Yeah, things look pretty bad in atmosphere (or even in brightly lit vacuum surfaces) without ambient light:
Using tinted ambient lighting gives some nice effects, without going full cubemap environmental lighting. Outerra's AeroKinetics mod, has a distinctive blue tint for example:

Here's an attempt in KSP:

The most interesting part was having more dramatic lighting for sunrise and sunset. It doesn't look right with the stock sky, but it could tie together the environment nicely alongside Scatterer's sunsets:

Again, this is probably more at home in something akin to Planetshine or Distant Object Enhancement (scope creep for all!), but it's fun to play around with.

I was actually discussing doing this not long ago with @pingopete but didn't have time to try it yet.

Another approach would be to do in the same way that Proland does it, instead of using colored lights or a "fixed" ambient light, it has a more sophisticated lighting function which uses the atmospheric data to do both effects, but adapting it would require the source code for the KSP terrain shaders be available and distributable to the public, or making replacement terrain shaders which sounds like quite the complicated task. Also traditional lights won't work (as with the ocean shaders right now).

20 hours ago, davidy12 said:

@blackrack: Remind me again, how do I get rid of the orange outline on the edge of Kerbin?

Disable the "draw atmo on top of eve clouds" option in the main menu UI.

On 3/28/2016 at 4:40 AM, pingopete said:

Ok wicked!, I'll try this now

EDIT: all the .raw files are the same size between 233,234 and 235 but you do include the .meta files in scatterer .233.  Just tried putting the raws from 233 into my 235 game still the same effect, did you mean put the 233 raws into a 234 scatterer setup, or 235? Also where are these height variables?

Ok So setup a 234 game, and slowly added all aspects of 233 to it, I tried moving all 233 shaders in but the game froze when entering the space centre screen, I then put the 233 .dll in and it was back to looking right, so I don't think it's any config file

Alright, thanks for testing, I will check it out when I have time.

Edited March 29, 2016 by blackrack

[V8jester]

@blackrack Is there a way currently (or potentially in the future) to adjust the opacity of the water? Subs are next up in my videos and I thought it would be great if I could lighten up the water to see them while they are at parascope depth skimming just under the surface. If not no biggie.

[pingopete]

1 hour ago, blackrack said:

I was actually discussing doing this not long ago with @pingopete but didn't have time to try it yet.

Another approach would be to do in the same way that Proland does it, instead of using colored lights or a "fixed" ambient light, it has a more sophisticated lighting function which uses the atmospheric data to do both effects, but adapting it would require the source code for the KSP terrain shaders be available and distributable to the public, or making replacement terrain shaders which sounds like quite the complicated task. Also traditional lights won't work (as with the ocean shaders right now).

Disable the "draw atmo on top of eve clouds" option in the main menu UI.

Alright, thanks for testing, I will check it out when I have time.

cool, no rush, thanks for looking into it!

[Manwith Noname]

@blackrack This might be of interest to you...

 Look at that...wow...oh my god...here we go... 

 

 

[blackrack]

28 minutes ago, Manwith Noname said:

@blackrack This might be of interest to you...

 Look at that...wow...oh my god...here we go... 

This is absolutely awesome, and very helpful. That guy talking however...

 

2 hours ago, V8jester said:

@blackrack Is there a way currently (or potentially in the future) to adjust the opacity of the water? Subs are next up in my videos and I thought it would be great if I could lighten up the water to see them while they are at parascope depth skimming just under the surface. If not no biggie.

Yeah, in the ocean settings tab there's an alpha value somewhere, keep in mind it is faded out by distance, the same variable that controls the foam fading radius also controls the alpha fading, I forgot what I called it, probably foam radius or alpha radius. Also in the config points there's an ocean alpha variable to fade the whole thing with altitude.

Edited March 29, 2016 by blackrack

[V8jester]

25 minutes ago, blackrack said:

....

Yeah, in the ocean settings tab there's an alpha value somewhere, keep in mind it is faded out by distance, the same variable that controls the foam fading radius also controls the alpha fading, I forgot what I called it, probably foam radius or alpha radius. Also in the config points there's an ocean alpha variable to fade the whole thing with altitude.

Thank you, good sir.

[fast_de_la_speed]

Scatterer seems to be freezing my game (not crashing) when I switch from map view to ship view, in orbit. I use DX11, and this happens with and without E.V.E. The log ends with scatterer reloading tables, I think. Any possible reason this is happening?

[Chimer4]

Hi @blackrack, i saw you mention on the sub reddit how U5 and U4 handle some kind of channel differently (something like 32 bit vs 8 bit i think) does this mean that v0.024 will toa performance increase over v0.0235 in addition to the faster loading times? I would try it out for myself but I'm stuck at work for the next 5 hours

[blackrack]

I just uploaded a new version with 1.1 compatibility, much faster loading and effects enabled in map view for planets other than ones nearing the active ship.

.raw files are not used in scatterer anymore but switched to lighter .half files, these are essentially a direct snapshot of the video memory data and will load very quickly and without any processing thanks to new unity 5 floating point texture2D format. The config tool still provides .raw files, just copy these over like usual and delete the .half files, the .raw files will be converted to .half the first time the planet is loaded, modders only need to distribute the resulting .half files, but to be on the safe side keep a backup of your .raw files in case the format is changed again in the future.

Directx11 isn't working for KSP at all in 1.1 it seems so disable terrain shadows if you get the terrain shadow issue.

Have fun.

15 hours ago, fast_de_la_speed said:

Scatterer seems to be freezing my game (not crashing) when I switch from map view to ship view, in orbit. I use DX11, and this happens with and without E.V.E. The log ends with scatterer reloading tables, I think. Any possible reason this is happening?

Try if this happens in the newest version and 1.1, otherwise try running the game in windowed mode.

Edited:

1 minute ago, Chimer4 said:

Hi @blackrack, i saw you mention on the sub reddit how U5 and U4 handle some kind of channel differently (something like 32 bit vs 8 bit i think) does this mean that v0.024 will toa performance increase over v0.0235 in addition to the faster loading times? I would try it out for myself but I'm stuck at work for the next 5 hours

The performance will not increase, only the loading time, the end result is the same.

Edited March 30, 2016 by blackrack

[selfish_meme]

Haha, I'm digging the KSC being tsunamied, this wave moves back and forth consuming the KSC, I have the new EVE installed, running on OpenGL of course

I don't think I am getting light scattering

 

Edit: Removed EVE still the same

Edited March 30, 2016 by selfish_meme

[Theysen]

10 minutes ago, selfish_meme said:

Haha, I'm digging the KSC being tsunamied, this wave moves back and forth consuming the KSC, I have the new EVE installed, running on OpenGL of course

I don't think I am getting light scattering

 

Edit: Removed EVE still the same

Why are you running OpenGL "of course" when it's stickied in the prerelease forums that OpenGL and dx11 are currently not supported and should not be used? 

[blackrack]

10 minutes ago, selfish_meme said:

Haha, I'm digging the KSC being tsunamied, this wave moves back and forth consuming the KSC, I have the new EVE installed, running on OpenGL of course

I don't think I am getting light scattering

Edit: Removed EVE still the same

Aren't OpenGL in dx11 completely messed up in 1.1 anyway? In any case I cannot test with either as I get fullscreen pink.

[selfish_meme]

3 minutes ago, Theysen said:

Why are you running OpenGL "of course" when it's stickied in the prerelease forums that OpenGL and dx11 are currently not supported and should not be used? 

I'm on Linux, and it works fine, just scatterer at the moment, once you Windows guys can run OpenGL I am sure it will get fixed, the new EVE works fine.

[Bored971]

First off awesome work!  Love this mod.  I just got it and EVE installed without incident and they seem to be running for me fine with one exception.  In one section of the sky, advancing over the sky as the sun moves, are a series of vertical bars, like great big rectangular plates evenly spaced.  I have screenshots but I'm rubbish and can't seem to get them to paste in here to upload them.  I've tried killing Godrays thinking that might be the problem but without luck even after exiting and reloading the game.  I didn't see any existing fixes for this but perhaps it will ring a bell.  Keep at the awesome work guys; fastest modders in the world 

Edit:  Figured it out :-p

I've found that if I hit Alt-F10 and click the button that says Disable Postprocessing the problem goes away but as this also removes the beauty of the mod....

Since I see people posting their specs (dunno why I didn't think of that) I'll say that I have an Intel i7-3930k processor, 16 GB of Ram installed, and a NVidia GeForce GTX 660 video card.

Hope that helps nail down the problem :-)

Edited March 31, 2016 by Bored971
Forgot to include my specs!

[_Krieger_]

I ran into the same issue on Mac (2.8 Ghz i7, 16 GB RAM, GeForce GT 750M 2048 MB, 512 GB SSD).

The ocean looks glitchy and a wave floods the KSC.

https://imgur.com/a/O8tq2

 

Edited March 30, 2016 by _Krieger_

[Ghosty141]

37 minutes ago, Bored971 said:

First off awesome work!  Love this mod.  I just got it and EVE installed without incident and they seem to be running for me fine with one exception.  In one section of the sky, advancing over the sky as the sun moves, are a series of vertical bars, like great big rectangular plates evenly spaced.  I have screenshots but I'm rubbish and can't seem to get them to paste in here to upload them.  I've tried killing Godrays thinking that might be the problem but without luck even after exiting and reloading the game.  I didn't see any existing fixes for this but perhaps it will ring a bell.  Keep at the awesome work guys; fastest modders in the world 

Edit:  Figured it out :-p

I've found that if I hit Alt-F10 and click the button that says Disable Postprocessing the problem goes away but as this also removes the beauty of the mod....

Hope that helps nail down the problem :-)

I got the same issue ! Win10, gtx660, amd fx8350.

[Eskandare]

39 minutes ago, Bored971 said:

First off awesome work!  Love this mod.  I just got it and EVE installed without incident and they seem to be running for me fine with one exception.  In one section of the sky, advancing over the sky as the sun moves, are a series of vertical bars, like great big rectangular plates evenly spaced.  I have screenshots but I'm rubbish and can't seem to get them to paste in here to upload them.  I've tried killing Godrays thinking that might be the problem but without luck even after exiting and reloading the game.  I didn't see any existing fixes for this but perhaps it will ring a bell.  Keep at the awesome work guys; fastest modders in the world 

Edit:  Figured it out :-p

I've found that if I hit Alt-F10 and click the button that says Disable Postprocessing the problem goes away but as this also removes the beauty of the mod....

Hope that helps nail down the problem :-)

Same problem I'm having.

Edit: AMD FX 8350, Radeon R9 390 

Edited March 30, 2016 by Eskandare

[Ghosty141]

Interesting, Eskandare and me have the same processor and we both have the same issue. Maybe it's AMD related ?