[WIP] Kopernicus Expansion v0.2: comets, footprints, new PQSMods for Kopernicus

[CaptRobau]

What do you want to know exactly. Your question is a bit vague.

[Sigma88]

if I wanted to make Comet 67p, how would I do that?

if you want, this mod adds 67p (and other stuff too)

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/129098

[Tristonwilson12]

What do you want to know exactly. Your question is a bit vague.

well since I'm making a rosetta/Philae mod I want to make 67P but idk were to start

[MrHappyFace]

You use Kopernicus to make custom planets, this mod (KopernicusExpansion) is just an addon to Kopernicus that adds a few visual effects.

[NAMROG]

I really really really love this mod. However, I've found that it puts itself visually on top of cloud layers I add in through other mods. Is there anyway, for instance, for the Jool config file to place itself bellow other layers? I'd really like to have lighter high clouds above this mod.

[daniel l.]

Is it possible for you to make an extension to kopernicus that gives a object a absolute orbital velocity of zero and removes the orbit trail.

This way you could have static star systems located near kerbol. Why?... Because IRL galaxies are so massive that the relative velocity between two nearby stars would be so close that they would be indistinguishable, so what i suggest would create a similar system allowing players to build awesome star clusters and other stuff.

[Mr Betelgeuse]

Is there any photo of Heat Refraction in action?

[MrHappyFace]

[quote name='Mr Betelgeuse']Is there any photo of Heat Refraction in action?[/QUOTE]

It's not really something you can show with a photo of, so I tried to record it in a video, but my screen recorder didn't pick it up for some reason. It didn't turn out the way I wanted it to anyways, and it's not a very good representation of heat refraction, so I may just remove it entirely anyways.

I did take some video of the new footprints though, and I wrote up an update on development too:

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/i4xLN9u.gif[/IMG]
Gfycat Version: [URL]http://gfycat.com/ImpressiveGenerousAngwantibo[/URL]

Development has been a bit slow lately, but there are still a few things left to do before I can release the next update:


[LIST]
[*]Finish the Creatures, they still don't have AI.
[*]Fix the jittery comet tails, and make dust tails move correctly
[*]Fix the OpenGL bugs with the procedural gas giants. It would help a great deal if you people could actually send me log files when reporting this bug :mad:
[*]Finish particle grass
[*]Update to KSP 1.0.5, and Kopernicus 0.5
[/LIST]

Once I do those things, I'll be able to release an update
That update will have these new features:


[LIST]
[*]Creatures, both avian and marine, but not terrestrial yet.
[*]EVA Footprints, shown above
[*]Modular Noise, detailed [URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/132390-WIP-Kopernicus-Expansion-v0-1-2-comets-animated-gas-giants-and-more?p=2252129&viewfull=1#post2252129"]here[/URL]
[*]A bunch of new debug and planet making utilities
[*]Particle grass
[/LIST]

Subsurface oceans and caves will not be making an appearance in the next version, for reasons I'll explain once the new version is out, probably sometime in the next week or two.
:D Edited November 18, 2015 by MrHappyFace
words are fun

[daniel l.]

what if you made stellar corona's animated? as in modders could use .gif files instead of png or dds? it would be cool to have animated coronas.

Also did you read my previous post? sorry but i would like your opinion on it.

[Proot]

OMG. The footprints are an insanely clever detail! Gz!

[MrHappyFace]

[quote name='daniel l.']what if you made stellar corona's animated? as in modders could use .gif files instead of png or dds? it would be cool to have animated coronas.

Also did you read my previous post? sorry but i would like your opinion on it.[/QUOTE]

Unity doesn't support gif files unfortunately, so animated coronas aren't possible like that, although I could do something similar to the gas giant shader, although I'm a bit wary of doing that, seeing as so many people have apparently been having problems with it.

Your other idea is cool, but there isn't a way to force orbits to be infinitely long, or transparent, AFAIK, so I'm not sure. :P

[Mr Betelgeuse]

[quote name='MrHappyFace']It's not really something you can show with a photo of, so I tried to record it in a video, but my screen recorder didn't pick it up for some reason. It didn't turn out the way I wanted it to anyways, and it's not a very good representation of heat refraction, so I may just remove it entirely anyways.

I did take some video of the new footprints though, and I wrote up an update on development too:

[URL]http://i.imgur.com/i4xLN9u.gif[/URL]
Gfycat Version: [URL]http://gfycat.com/ImpressiveGenerousAngwantibo[/URL]

Development has been a bit slow lately, but there are still a few things left to do before I can release the next update:


[LIST]
[*]Finish the Creatures, they still don't have AI.
[*]Fix the jittery comet tails, and make dust tails move correctly
[*]Fix the OpenGL bugs with the procedural gas giants. It would help a great deal if you people could actually send me log files when reporting this bug :mad:
[*]Finish particle grass
[*]Update to KSP 1.0.5, and Kopernicus 0.5
[/LIST]

Once I do those things, I'll be able to release an update
That update will have these new features:


[LIST]
[*]Creatures, both avian and marine, but not terrestrial yet.
[*]EVA Footprints, shown above
[*]Modular Noise, detailed [URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/132390-WIP-Kopernicus-Expansion-v0-1-2-comets-animated-gas-giants-and-more?p=2252129&viewfull=1#post2252129"]here[/URL]
[*]A bunch of new debug and planet making utilities
[*]Particle grass
[/LIST]

Subsurface oceans and caves will not be making an appearance in the next version, for reasons I'll explain once the new version is out, probably sometime in the next week or two.
:D[/QUOTE]

Wow! Are the foot prints going to be presistant? That would be really cool if you could do that.

[ibuckshot5]

Woohoo! Can't wait for the update. Hope it will be good!

[ThatOneBritishGuy...]

I swear on me mum. This guy..... Hyped for the footprints! :cool:

[amarius1]

[quote name='MrHappyFace']It's not really something you can show with a photo of, so I tried to record it in a video, but my screen recorder didn't pick it up for some reason. It didn't turn out the way I wanted it to anyways, and it's not a very good representation of heat refraction, so I may just remove it entirely anyways.

I did take some video of the new footprints though, and I wrote up an update on development too:

[URL]http://i.imgur.com/i4xLN9u.gif[/URL]
Gfycat Version: [URL]http://gfycat.com/ImpressiveGenerousAngwantibo[/URL]

Development has been a bit slow lately, but there are still a few things left to do before I can release the next update:


[LIST]
[*]Finish the Creatures, they still don't have AI.
[*]Fix the jittery comet tails, and make dust tails move correctly
[*]Fix the OpenGL bugs with the procedural gas giants. It would help a great deal if you people could actually send me log files when reporting this bug :mad:
[*]Finish particle grass
[*]Update to KSP 1.0.5, and Kopernicus 0.5
[/LIST]

Once I do those things, I'll be able to release an update
That update will have these new features:


[LIST]
[*]Creatures, both avian and marine, but not terrestrial yet.
[*]EVA Footprints, shown above
[*]Modular Noise, detailed [URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/132390-WIP-Kopernicus-Expansion-v0-1-2-comets-animated-gas-giants-and-more?p=2252129&viewfull=1#post2252129"]here[/URL]
[*]A bunch of new debug and planet making utilities
[*]Particle grass
[/LIST]

Subsurface oceans and caves will not be making an appearance in the next version, for reasons I'll explain once the new version is out, probably sometime in the next week or two.
:D[/QUOTE]

Hey when will you add the Procedural Planetary Cloud system? Is it in thsi update or the next one? Also Geysers?

Update is awesome! I'm right now messing with SUbsurfaceOceans for one of my planets... Edited November 25, 2015 by amarius1

[ibuckshot5]

Also what ever you do please [B]DON'T remove the PQS-exporter[/B]. I hate having to get Kittopia to export planets.

[daniel l.]

Is it possible to make a planet shaped like a torus? i know its impossible IRL but it would be really cool ingame. I can imagine it working by giving a planet a big equatorial bulge around the equator, then deleting everything above and below it to leave just the bulge as an outer rim, then you create a inverted terrain plane like with subterranean oceans and give that one a bulge as well, this would be the inner rim.

It would be so cool to stand on the outer rim in gravity and walk off of it, and since the center of gravity is in the absolute center you would have to use a grappling hook or the BDA critter crawler to survive on the inner rim. Imagine all the creepy creatures that could inhabit the inner rim as well!

Please make the torus planet a thing

[amarius1]

How's version 0.13 coming along? Tired to use dev version

[Proot]

I'm a huge fan of this expansion! I'm looking forward that the configurations of the comet's tails can be saved.

BTW, a bug report: procedural clouds seems to not work under DirectX11.

 

[daniel l.]

Helloooooooo? You still here? 

[MrHappyFace]

So I'm still working on KopernicusExpansion, i've just been bogged down with real-life stuff lately..

I'll probably get some time off Soon^TM, and I'll try to fix the last few bugs that have been preventing me from releasing version 0.2, but it'll have to be scaled down a bit.

I'll also have to delay the creatures getting released to 0.3 because they seem to be the least useful feature, and are taking the most time to complete, but hopefully everything else I planned to do for 0.2 will be in.

Sorry for the delay. 
Also sorry for not posting this update sooner, seems like a lot of you thought I was gone.

Edited February 8, 2016 by MrHappyFace
grammarnaziftw

[daniel l.]

On 2/8/2016 at 4:55 PM, MrHappyFace said:

So I'm still working on KopernicusExpansion, i've just been bogged down with real-life stuff lately..

I'll probably get some time off Soon^TM, and I'll try to fix the last few bugs that have been preventing me from releasing version 0.2, but it'll have to be scaled down a bit.

I'll also have to delay the creatures getting released to 0.3 because they seem to be the least useful feature, and are taking the most time to complete, but hopefully everything else I planned to do for 0.2 will be in.

Sorry for the delay. 
Also sorry for not posting this update sooner, seems like a lot of you thought I was gone.

Thats great! BTW any plans on adding grass to the game? you know little billboard textures that wave in the wind, And apply by toggle to a specific planetary biome, Perhaps the textures could be interchangeable as well.

Edited February 10, 2016 by daniel l.

[MrHappyFace]

I did add some grass, but it looked rather ugly, and was broken whenever the terrain LOD changed. I did figure out how to fix most of it though, so It'll probably be in the next release, unless there's some terrible bug I can't fix.

[MrHappyFace]

Status Update:

So I got the particle grass "working". Remember what I said about being able to release it unless there was some terrible bug I can't fix. Well that happened...

Despite what you may think from the image, it's not the lack of lighting/shadows, or near-plane clipping, both which are easily fixable with a new shader. It's unity's built-in frustum culling which is ruining it. That's what makes objects not in the field of view of the camera not rendered, and it works very well for meshed objects, but it fails miserably for particles. With particles, none of the particles are rendered unless the very center of the particle emitter object is visible from the camera, even though some particles are still onscreen. The red-outlined terrain quads in the image above should have grass, but don't because of frustum culling.

I currently have no way of fixing this because unity's rendering pipeline is hidden so deeply. However, the good news is that this is fixed in unity 5, so when 1.1 comes around, I'll *probably* be able to finally finish this infernal grass once and for all.

I also was able to mostly finish the new scaledspace texture exporter tool, shown below.

The new scaled exporter can:

1. Export in any resolution from 8192x4096 pixels to 4x2 pixels. Note that you will run into the 32-bit memory ceiling when building really complicated planets, such as Kerbin, at 8k.
2. Set the normal map strength. The slider goes from 0 to 16, although you can set it to anything >= 0. Setting this lower will make features less prominent, and setting it higher will make them more prominent.
3. Set the ocean color. It supports any text-based color input that you can put into a planet config, including hex and RGB.
4. Generate the planet's specularity map from the ocean, if you so choose.
5. Set it to ignore oceans entirely.
6. Use a custom specularity map. Handy if you're like me and hate GIMP.
7. Update the ingame scaledspace planet, if you so choose.

It also exports info about the build into a log file at Logs/KopernicusExpansion/<body-name>.ScaledExport.log. This has helpful information, such as the highest and lowest terrain point on your planet (used for generating the height map), and how long it took, etc. I exported minmus at 8k, and it took about 7 minutes. Kerbin would have taken 3-4x longer, had my game not crashed by running out of memory.

It saves 3-4 textures: The color map, the normal map, the height map (black is lowest point on planet, white is highest), and optionally the spec map, if you generated it from the oceans.
If you set it to render the oceans, the height map's lowest point will be 0 instead of the actual lowest point.

Also, I moved over all of the development utilities into a new UI, so there's no more toolbar clutter.

P.S. the comets are now fully configurable, so the settings found in the comet editor can be used by your configs.

Edited February 18, 2016 by MrHappyFace
fun grammar is fun

[daniel l.]

1 hour ago, MrHappyFace said:

Status Update:

So I got the particle grass "working". Remember what I said about being able to release it unless there was some terrible bug I can't fix. Well that happened...

Despite what you may think from the image, it's not the lack of lighting/shadows, or near-plane clipping, both which are easily fixable with a new shader. It's unity's built-in frustum culling which is ruining it. That's what makes objects not in the field of view of the camera not rendered, and it works very well for meshed objects, but it fails miserably for particles. With particles, none of the particles are rendered unless the very center of the particle emitter object is visible from the camera, none of the particles are rendered anymore, even though some are still onscreen. The red-outlined terrain quads in the image above should have grass, but don't because of frustum culling.

I currently have no way of fixing this because unity's rendering pipeline is hidden so deeply. However, the good news is that this is fixed in unity 5, so when 1.1 comes around, I'll *probably* be able to finally finish this infernal grass once and for all.

Thats great!