[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

[Gorzideudeus]

8 hours ago, blackrack said:

 

Do people still have to rebuild the ocean on 0.0246?

Just downloaded your update, and it all seems to be working correctly now.

[Proot]

@blackrack It's me, or your shader for the shadows it's enhancing the stock shadows too? (it look smoother, less sawtoothed)

Anyways, I just love how the lighting works currently. Great work!

Edited May 9, 2016 by Proot

[Valkyria90]

11 hours ago, blackrack said:

Are you on 0.0246?

I use CKAN, and its listed as 2:v0.0246.

[blackrack]

2 hours ago, Proot said:

@blackrack It's me, or your shader for the shadows it's enhancing the stock shadows too? (it look smoother, less sawtoothed)

Anyways, I just love how the lighting works currently. Great work!

Yeah it could be, extending the shadow distance means the shadow maps are more spread out and have to be smoothed more, plus there is some normal bias applied which might contribute to the smoother look.

And yeah, terrain shadows are a rather simple thing but I also absolutely love how they work with the scattering and the visual look.

13 minutes ago, Valkyria90 said:

I use CKAN, and its listed as 2:v0.0246.

Check what the UI says in-game (alt f10) or install manually, because this shouldn't happen anymore.

[daniel l.]

I tried out using the Scatterer flare to create a spatial glow effect, And it worked but i had two problems: The flare disappeared when the sun went behind an object (Obviousely) And the flare always had to be on top when i would like it in the background.

Is it possible to add options to disable the flare disappearing behind objects and put it in the background?

[Valkyria90]

 

2 hours ago, blackrack said:

Check what the UI says in-game (alt f10) or install manually, because this shouldn't happen anymore.

I tried installing manually, and there is no difference. The overlay says v0.0246  

Reloading the oceans seems to fix it though. I never tried that before since I just learned about the in-game UI  

[XxhafizzaxX]

On 5/8/2016 at 1:36 PM, davidy12 said:

Agreed @XxhafizzaxX, just deal with it. Its minor.  

Thanks guys. Ya its a minor effect. I was wondering if anyone else saw this in their installs.

[TheCrimsonCorndog]

Just popping in to report that, as of this most recent build, I'm still getting the coast-flickering when panning the camera.  I'm not referring to the FOV bug, but the issue that was apparently fixed in v0.0244

[Tricky14]

On 12.4.2015 at 10:37 AM, blackrack said:

-Fixed terrain shadow artifacts (adjust shadow bias and shadow normal bias if you still get issues)

Still getting jaggies, but I do not know what these settings do. Can someone give me some recommended values? I have a pretty powerful machine.

[blackrack]

3 hours ago, Tricky14 said:

Still getting jaggies, but I do not know what these settings do. Can someone give me some recommended values? I have a pretty powerful machine.

The default settings are the recommended ones, this update has been around for two days so no one can recommend you anything, you'll just have to experiment.

What do the values do? Turn them up to make the artifacts go away at the cost of getting imprecise shadows, i.e shadows smaller than casting objects or ground contact points having no shadows. For more detail go here: http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/ShadowOverview.html and scroll down to "Shadow Mapping and the Bias Property".

 

12 hours ago, daniel l. said:

I tried out using the Scatterer flare to create a spatial glow effect, And it worked but i had two problems: The flare disappeared when the sun went behind an object (Obviousely) And the flare always had to be on top when i would like it in the background.

Is it possible to add options to disable the flare disappearing behind objects and put it in the background?

What is this spatial glow effect you're trying to create?

[Mine_Turtle]

Are there still problems with ocean-coast flickering? Adjusting new parameter in 0.0246 nearClipPlane to higher values(10) seems to help with this issue(flickering is still there but to a lesser degree), however camera starts  clipping through craft making access to components difficult.

[Diddly Feelerino]

Allright; sorry if this has been mentioned already (had a quick scroll, also checked the listed issues and couldn't see).

When I view a planet in the KSC Tracker the planets have no scatterer effects or embellishments really. However they work fine when actually using a craft in the game proper.

Is this a common occurrence among other players? Will it be addressed at a later stage?

Mod is amazing btw - keep it up!

[daniel l.]

11 hours ago, blackrack said:

The default settings are the recommended ones, this update has been around for two days so no one can recommend you anything, you'll just have to experiment.

What do the values do? Turn them up to make the artifacts go away at the cost of getting imprecise shadows, i.e shadows smaller than casting objects or ground contact points having no shadows. For more detail go here: http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/ShadowOverview.html and scroll down to "Shadow Mapping and the Bias Property".

 

What is this spatial glow effect you're trying to create?

That of an Elliptical galaxy 

It really works with the flare mechanics because it is a sphere and looks the same from any angle, Making a simple billboard texture perfect for the task.

[TheCrimsonCorndog]

8 hours ago, Mine_Turtle said:

Are there still problems with ocean-coast flickering? Adjusting new parameter in 0.0246 nearClipPlane to higher values(10) seems to help with this issue(flickering is still there but to a lesser degree), however camera starts  clipping through craft making access to components difficult.

Still there for me too.  I'm pretty sure that nearClipPlane parameter has been around for a while, but it never seemed to do much for me. 

[Thomassino]

22 hours ago, Diddly Feelerino said:

Allright; sorry if this has been mentioned already (had a quick scroll, also checked the listed issues and couldn't see).

When I view a planet in the KSC Tracker the planets have no scatterer effects or embellishments really. However they work fine when actually using a craft in the game proper.

Is this a common occurrence among other players? Will it be addressed at a later stage?

Mod is amazing btw - keep it up!

It is completely nominal. Scatterer doesn't render scattering, shadows, nor the sunflare in map mode.

[MrMeeb]

I while back I posted asking for guidance on how to get a look from the atmosphere based on a previous version, and you explained that I need to change some values back.

Post for reference: 

And the settings I am trying to change to match:

However, I've come back and I'm trying to change it again to the same values (I mentioned which values I changed in the second post), and I'm getting a drastically different result.

Here is what it looked like in a previous version, on 1.0.5):

And with the same settings on the current version, I get this:

I really crave the look I got in the frst picture again, and any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks  

[Galileo]

1 hour ago, MrMeeb said:

I while back I posted asking for guidance on how to get a look from the atmosphere based on a previous version, and you explained that I need to change some values back.

Post for reference: 

And the settings I am trying to change to match:

However, I've come back and I'm trying to change it again to the same values (I mentioned which values I changed in the second post), and I'm getting a drastically different result.

Here is what it looked like in a previous version, on 1.0.5):

And with the same settings on the current version, I get this:

I really crave the look I got in the frst picture again, and any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks  

If someone hasn't helped you by the time I get home I will do it and post the settings you will need

[MrMeeb]

3 hours ago, Berlin said:

If someone hasn't helped you by the time I get home I will do it and post the settings you will need

Thanks, I'd appreciate it a lot!

[Leandro Basi]

Working perfectly with DX9, but forcing DX11 i had this!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/26avlj61yxc4g86/screenshot193.png?dl=0

Orbital Map:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2h0331ijg50cjao/screenshot196.png?dl=0

And this

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b7l41azcz040fdz/screenshot199.png?dl=0

 

Edited May 12, 2016 by Leandro Basi
Images dont show

[Proot]

@blackrack, may I convert the sunflare textures to .dds?

Also, when you have time, I have a small suggestion for the sunflare ghosts: as you go far from the flare, the ghosts should have a slow fade-out and/or decrease the size at far distances from the sun. Right now the size is always the same, this is more or less accurate until you reach to Dres, Jool or beyond. But then the flare ghosts remains too big for the flare size at those distances. You can try to look to the sun from Eeloo and you will see quickly what I mean.

Oh, and a small issue's report (if it is known please forgive and excuse me): the atmos at the Joolean system and beyond (except, precisely, for Jool which is working fine) are experiencing some type of fighting, which is doing some type of blink and movement at the atmo layer. (noticed under dX9, I still must check at OpenGl and dX11).

Edited May 12, 2016 by Proot

[Tiberius K]

For reference for anyone with terrain shadow issues, with certain sun angles I have intense shadow acne (flickering stripes) until I increase the Shadow Normal Bias setting up to 0.9, at which point it is un-noticeable.  At this setting however the shadows are large imprecise smudges so I'm going without.  It would be the icing on the cake if it worked but honestly this mod is fantastic without.

[blackrack]

On 5/10/2016 at 0:42 AM, daniel l. said:

That of an Elliptical galaxy 

It really works with the flare mechanics because it is a sphere and looks the same from any angle, Making a simple billboard texture perfect for the task.

What I don't understand is why you're trying to accomplish that. I guess you aren't making a sun/lens flare right?

16 hours ago, Leandro Basi said:

Working perfectly with DX9, but forcing DX11 i had this!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/26avlj61yxc4g86/screenshot193.png?dl=0

Orbital Map:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2h0331ijg50cjao/screenshot196.png?dl=0

And this

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b7l41azcz040fdz/screenshot199.png?dl=0

Yeah this happens a lot in dx11 and sometimes in OpenGL, I'll fix it when I can.

8 hours ago, Proot said:

@blackrack, may I convert the sunflare textures to .dds?

Also, when you have time, I have a small suggestion for the sunflare ghosts: as you go far from the flare, the ghosts should have a slow fade-out and/or decrease the size at far distances from the sun. Right now the size is always the same, this is more or less accurate until you reach to Dres, Jool or beyond. But then the flare ghosts remains too big for the flare size at those distances. You can try to look to the sun from Eeloo and you will see quickly what I mean.

Oh, and a small issue's report (if it is known please forgive and excuse me): the atmos at the Joolean system and beyond (except, precisely, for Jool which is working fine) are experiencing some type of fighting, which is doing some type of blink and movement at the atmo layer. (noticed under dX9, I still must check at OpenGl and dX11).

I don't know if the sunflare textures will load in .dds format but you can try, the filename is expected to be .png so try converting to .dds and rename to .png and see if it works. Are the textures you're using big enough though that it makes a difference? Usually sun flare textures are pretty smooth and low-detail so I wouldn't expect the difference in filesize to be very important.

For the fade-out, I think making them smaller or bigger will throw off the "shape" that you have carefully created by configuring the ghosts and all. Maybe making them fade-out in intensity would work better? What do you think? I thought about it before but decided the ghosts getting bigger and smaller while staying at the defined screen positions wouldn't look very good so I locked them and left only the flares to vary in size.

For the jittering issue, have you checked if it happens if your ship is currently orbiting the Jool system? I would expect it to happen in map view if you are orbiting Kerbin but switched the view to a far-away system, if it's the case I'll fix it next time.

Edited May 12, 2016 by blackrack

[Proot]

1 hour ago, blackrack said:

I don't know if the sunflare textures will load in .dds format but you can try, the filename is expected to be .png so try converting to .dds and rename to .png and see if it works. Are the textures you're using big enough though that it makes a difference? Usually sun flare textures are pretty smooth and low-detail so I wouldn't expect the difference in filesize to be very important.

For the fade-out, I think making them smaller or bigger will throw off the "shape" that you have carefully created by configuring the ghosts and all. Maybe making them fade-out in intensity would work better? What do you think? I thought about it before but decided the ghosts getting bigger and smaller while staying at the defined screen positions wouldn't look very good so I locked them and left only the flares to vary in size.

For the jittering issue, have you checked if it happens if your ship is currently orbiting the Jool system? I would expect it to happen in map view if you are orbiting Kerbin but switched the view to a far-away system, if it's the case I'll fix it next time.

I was wondering about the .dds format for the mipmaps (it's good for some effects at far distances), but is not important for me at all... In fact I hate the lossy quality of that format, so don't worry at all about it.

You are probably right about the ghost's resizing, it's probably much better option to do a slow and long fadeout.

Also, I'll check about the jittering issue, because I think you are right. Anyways I see it as a minor issue, so no hurry about it.

As always, many thanks for your attention!

[daniel l.]

4 hours ago, blackrack said:

What I don't understand is why you're trying to accomplish that. I guess you aren't making a sun/lens flare right?

Yes im not  My Goal is to create an Elliptical galaxy in KSP with lots of stars, But i need that classic Elliptical glow to do it. So far as i've seen, Your flare system works mostly great but i need to disable a few standard flare functions to make it work.

[selfish_meme]

@blackrack is there a setting which would push the light scattering out to the edges of the atmosphere and leave the central part with very little to none? Like the picture below.