What does it take to retexture a planet?

[RocketBlam]

I'm kind of interested in doing a higher rez version of one of the planets, probably Duna. My suspicion is that I'll need a new mesh and a new texture.

Can someone give me an idea of how to go about this with Unity? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[G'th]

Welp, unless KSP does it differently than every other game out there, there shouldn't be any need to mess with the mesh unless you're going to completely change the shape of the planet's surface or if you want to do some proper bump maps, both of which aren't that necessarily required if you want to to do a high resolution texture. Changing the planets surface would be too much work for what you want to do, and doing a bump map would result in a very high visual quality, but on the same token I'm not even sure if KSP can utilize a bump map for planets. I've never seen a texture pack that's included one.

Now, as for creating a higher resolution texture, all you need is an image editing program (Gimp, Photoshop, or Paint.net are going to be the key choices, with the first and last being completely free and without hassle to acquire) and some moderate artistic ability. Typically what I would do is pull up the original texture as a reference and go about recreating it in whatever resolution you want your new texture to be.

Another method, and one that might be easier if you don't have any artistic ability, is to just upscale the original texture and then go about touching it up so that its richer and takes more of an advantage of the increased resolution. However, doing this isn't a perfect solution as the end result can run the gamut from awful looking to amazing regardless of skill level.