Any way to remove animated kerbal portrait?

[Spraki]

Hi. 

I've been trying to figure this one out for a while. I've noticed time and again that when I am flying an unmanned/drone ship, the frame rate is spectacular. When I have multiple Kerbals however, the framerate drops hard - or has the ups and downs all the time. Aside to parts count, it seems like each animation strains the fps. I am playing on a lowend laptop, however the fps seems fine even with bigger unmanned ships. Can't play all the time with drones after all, so I am seeking ways to fix this.

To me, I have the feeling this can be modded somehow in a cfg file somewhere?

I've googled like crazy but just can't find a mod that for instance could edit the UI to remove the portraits. Of course, the IVA/EVA buttons should still be available if possible. Any ideas on editing this?

Likewise, I'm still trying to figure if it is possible to remove the smoke particles as well. (the actual engine exhaust effect, not just surfaceFX = false)

I've already turned off windows aero and stuff like that. I just find that I need to get rid of the animated portraits and things should run much better. Stock install has the same issue.

[Rodger]

I've looked into hiding the portraits too, but to no avail. One idea I had as an option would be to modify manned command pods to have no IVAs, but I didn't try it.

And Smokescreen has an option for particle reduction, in it's cfg file.

[SecurityAttack!]

I have had this issue before but just in case, try the settings in the main menu. There might be something there. Hope it helps! 

[Spraki]

4 hours ago, SecurityAttack! said:

I have had this issue before but just in case, try the settings in the main menu. There might be something there. Hope it helps! 

Everything is pretty much "on low settings", but found nothing that had relevance to the portraits. Unless I'm missing one button.

16 hours ago, Rodger said:

I've looked into hiding the portraits too, but to no avail. One idea I had as an option would be to modify manned command pods to have no IVAs, but I didn't try it.

And Smokescreen has an option for particle reduction, in it's cfg file.

I think I have that mod installed. I will check it. Thanks

OTOH, I spotted this one declaration thing in the stock parts cfg related to smoke genration. but I dont know if I can just delete them without breaking the game

[NathanKell]

Remove the INTERNAL from the part cfg. No IVA, no portrait.

[johnniewalker]

18 hours ago, NathanKell said:

Remove the INTERNAL from the part cfg. No IVA, no portrait.

Got the exact same problem as the OP -probes high, manned low fps etc- however removing internal removed EVA and IVA options from the UI. Key bindings don't work either. I'd love to hear a workaround for that mainly because it's pointless to play the game without EVA's.

[NathanKell]

Click on the hatch you want the kerbal to exit from.

If they're not in that part, click on the hatch of the part they are in, transfer to the part you want them to exit from, then exit them from the hatch by clicking on the hatch.

 

Obviously you won't be able to go IVA, because as I said this solution removes IVA.

[Spraki]

On 2.1.2016 at 9:09 PM, NathanKell said:

Remove the INTERNAL from the part cfg. No IVA, no portrait.

okay, that sounds more like it! : )

Thanks! I'm looking for the particular cfg. Or do I have to remove them from each part that has that term?

edit: wiki says there are internal.cfgs 

I'm probably going to have to delete every Internal, I guess. 

Wondering too if I can kill the kerbal animations sitting in the cockpit as well. 

Edited January 3, 2016 by Spraki

[FungusForge]

31 minutes ago, Spraki said:

okay, that sounds more like it! : )

Thanks! I'm looking for the particular cfg. Or do I have to remove them from each part that has that term?

edit: wiki says there are internal.cfgs 

I'm probably going to have to delete every Internal, I guess. 

Wondering too if I can kill the kerbal animations sitting in the cockpit as well. 

I'll see about attempting to rig an MM config to disable the IVAs without having to manually remove them from each part.

Edited January 3, 2016 by FungusForge

[Spraki]

13 hours ago, FungusForge said:

I'll see about attempting to rig an MM config to disable the IVAs without having to manually remove them from each part.

Whoa thanks. That would really help a ton!

[swjr-swis]

On 1/3/2016 at 8:04 AM, FungusForge said:

I'll see about attempting to rig an MM config to disable the IVAs without having to manually remove them from each part.

 

Apologies if I'm a bit impatient, but codewise it's literally a oneliner (he says, and then posts an entire codeblock):

// MM-removeinternals.cfg
// single patch to delete all INTERNAL from command pods
// to alleviate fps problems with animated portraits
// NOTE: obviously portraits will be gone, and IVA will no longer be possible
// EVA and transfers can still be done by clicking the hatch of pods
//
// suggestion by NathanKell, initiative by FungusForge, implementation by swjr-swis
//
// usage: place this text in a file ending with .cfg anywhere in the GameData directory
// requires Module Manager to work
//
@PART[*]:HAS[@INTERNAL[*]]:FINAL
{
    !INTERNAL,* {}
}
// yep, all that comment space for a oneliner patch

Tested in 1.0.5, no side effects noticed other than the obvious missing animated portraits in the bottom right of the flight view, and no IVA option. Will remove the IVA from anything that may contain a Kerbal, both command pods and 'passenger' cans, thereby ensuring that no animated portraits at all show up.

 

Feel free to claim, publish, use, ridicule or scribble on public bathroom walls to your heart's content.

If license is required for what amounts to a code example: wtfpl or whatever is most permissive.

[Spraki]

9 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

 

Apologies if I'm a bit impatient, but codewise it's literally a oneliner (he says, and then posts an entire codeblock):

// MM-removeinternals.cfg
// single patch to delete all INTERNAL from command pods
// to alleviate fps problems with animated portraits
// NOTE: obviously portraits will be gone, and IVA will no longer be possible
// EVA and transfers can still be done by clicking the hatch of pods
//
// suggestion by NathanKell, initiative by FungusForge, implementation by swjr-swis
//
// usage: place this text in a file ending with .cfg anywhere in the GameData directory
// requires Module Manager to work
//
@PART[*]:HAS[@INTERNAL[*]]:FINAL
{
    !INTERNAL,* {}
}
// yep, all that comment space for a oneliner patch

Tested in 1.0.5, no side effects noticed other than the obvious missing animated portraits in the bottom right of the flight view, and no IVA option. Will remove the IVA from anything that may contain a Kerbal, both command pods and 'passenger' cans, thereby ensuring that no animated portraits at all show up.

 

Feel free to claim, publish, use, ridicule or scribble on public bathroom walls to your heart's content.

If license is required for what amounts to a code example: wtfpl or whatever is most permissive.

/edit

Oh, so you did that. I was really confused right there just a moment ago. 

Thanks a lot, I will try it out right now. Just did a cleanup of KSP to vanilla first. Now adding in a very very few mods and then this one. Will respond when done (but you know the result already haha. Let's see if it helps with my lowend stuff)

Edited January 5, 2016 by Spraki

[swjr-swis]

@Spraki So, does it help? Better FPS without the IVA?

[Rocket In My Pocket]

3 hours ago, swjr-swis said:

@Spraki So, does it help? Better FPS without the IVA?

@swjr-swis Just tried it, I play on an older laptop myself. I can definitely see a difference when flying crafts that hold several Kerbals. I'm noticing an increase of 5-10 fps for certain ships.

The lack of IVA kind of sucks but I use Hull cam mod anyways so no great loss.

Thanks a lot man, Tourist flights were turning into a slideshow for me before!

[swjr-swis]

1 hour ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

@swjr-swis Just tried it, I play on an older laptop myself. I can definitely see a difference when flying crafts that hold several Kerbals. I'm noticing an increase of 5-10 fps for certain ships.

The lack of IVA kind of sucks but I use Hull cam mod anyways so no great loss.

Thanks a lot man, Tourist flights were turning into a slideshow for me before!

5-10fps extra... that's not bad. From ugh to bearable.

I suspect the same basic thing is 'at fault' for some scenes (Administration, Mission Control, R&D Science Archives) making the GPU work surprisingly hard despite the largely 2D display, as evidenced by laptop fans revving up within a few secs of switching to them. The Kerbal animation in those scenes is likely the same basic code as the portraits in the flight scene.

@NathanKell , if you're still looking: perhaps it is worth considering a graphics setting to toggle the animation of the portraits (maybe even the Admin/MC/R&D Kerbals)? 5-10fps gain is more than some of the existing graphics settings grant, and could help people with less than optimal hardware (and at times even those of us with good equipment that just lug humongous stuff into the skies ) a little more breathing room to avoid the slideshow experience.

[NathanKell]

No, the issue there is that the space center (i.e. land and water PQS, and all the buildings) is still being rendered, since unlike VAB/SPH and tracking station it's not a new scene, just an overlay GUI.

[swjr-swis]

44 minutes ago, NathanKell said:

No, the issue there is that the space center (i.e. land and water PQS, and all the buildings) is still being rendered, since unlike VAB/SPH and tracking station it's not a new scene, just an overlay GUI.

Ok, thanks for that clarification. So no use on the Admin/MC/R&D 'scenes'.

So.. just for the flight scene portraits then? <ever the optimist>

[Spraki]

On 5.1.2016 at 5:35 AM, swjr-swis said:

 

On 7.1.2016 at 6:37 AM, swjr-swis said:

@Spraki So, does it help? Better FPS without the IVA?

It works great: As RocketInMyPocket had recently said. The fps is indeed better. And is somewhat nicely playable with higher part count too. I really like it.  Many many thanks for that one. I now wonder if more fat can be cut here and there just by them oneliner-codes lol. I'm guessing the IVA has a lot of shadows/ambient occ and, well, animation that just tears the fps down. Even feels a bit like a memory leak. After all, no kerbals/using drones and things runs ultra smoothly. So yeah, this really helped. 

I was trying to get IVA done manually, but I couldnt even find the hatch. Was a bomber cockpit of the Firespitter mod. Maybe it odesn't have it or I screwed up finding it (or even blocked it with a Canard without looknig at Engi report. Hmm.

Oh well. I still have to see about that stock smoke generation (SmokeScreen mod doesn't kill all of the smoke really). 

I will try out turning off camera wobble too, maybe that too will give frames. Though the wobbling really fits the atmosphere of flying. 

[AlamoVampire]

anyway this can become a feature? the idea of messin with code scares me. thanks to my ex gf, i know just enough about code to know i dont know enough to alter it safely...

[Padishar]

Yes, a main option to control the display of the IVA portraits would be nice, as would making sure the game isn't doing any unnecessary processing of the portraits that you can't currently see (I think there was something in a recent devnote about overhauling this system for 1.1 so hopefully it will improve).  It could also be extended to be settable at different levels, e.g. global, vessel, part and individual kerbal.  The default would be to use whatever the "parent" setting says or it could be forced to on or off, e.g. you could turn off the IVAs on a vessel with a large crew capacity but you could force it on, either for the cockpit or for the pilot and then you would only get those displayed.

[Jimbodiah]

I had a similar topic about this.

Could Squad fix this please, I basically was at the point of uninstalling the game because of this (and the many other issues with ksp).

[MatterBeam]

Would this affect the display of Kerbal Stats, the mod which puts little stars in the portrait?

[Padishar]

6 hours ago, MatterBeam said:

Would this affect the display of Kerbal Stats, the mod which puts little stars in the portrait?

Does that mod work sensibly with other crew parts that don't have an IVA, e.g. the science lab?  Basically, if the portraits aren't there then, unless it's doing something really weird and hacky, the mod won't be able to add anything to them.

Given this only requires a simple ModuleManager config (and ModuleManager if you don't already have it) it should be very easy for you to test it and remove the mod if you don't like the side-effects...

[swjr-swis]

10 hours ago, MatterBeam said:

Would this affect the display of Kerbal Stats, the mod which puts little stars in the portrait?

The portraits are removed, so the stats won't show either. The test I performed was on an install with DMagic's PortraitStats in it.

Edited January 27, 2016 by swjr-swis

[Rodger]

If you use the script here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/50533-105-module-manager-2618-january-17th-with-even-more-sha-and-less-bug/&page=136#comment-2372348
then instead of removing the IVA altogether it will just replace it with the plain blank black placeholder IVA, so it won't render any fancy internals, but you'll still have the IVA/EVA buttons and PortraitStats. You can even delete any IVA stuff in your GameData if you want then, except for the Placeholder one, and it may save some loading time/RAM. It will still show and animate the kerbals though.

Edited January 27, 2016 by Rodger