Walan Planet Pack [Release 0.91]

[Tynton]

Walan Planet Pack: Release Thread

Pictures:

 

Summary

The Walan Planet Pack adds one planet, Walan, with four intriguing moons.

Legend: (Not Started/Planning),(WIP),(Finished)

Here's a list of objects:

Walan: A large ice giant, known for the Great Typhoon in its southern hemisphere, it also has other points of interest, such as its Golden Region. It's around half of the size of Jool, and also comes with asteroid spawning around its rings.

Dalom: An asteroid moon within Walan's vast ring system. It is around 3 and-a-half kilometers in radius, and has a small sphere of influence. Kerbal scientists say this could be a decent place to start bases in the Walan moon system.

Brayes: A decent size barren moon, this moon is marked with craters all around its surface. It's dark coloration makes scientists believe it might have been a world with plenty of lava at its surface at one time.

Kespochim: A small, grey-tan world with a thick atmosphere.

Besco: Another barren moon, it's very far from Walan, and it's known for a countless number of craters, rendering most features unnoticeable.

Compatibilities:

-PlanetShine (Finished)

http://imgur.com/a/p7dLr

-DistantObjectEnhancement (Finished)

http://imgur.com/a/V2r2E

-CustomAsteroids (Finished)

http://imgur.com/EpBjTsZ

-7-4 EVE (I need a little help with the newer ones, rather tough) *DELETE THE CFG IN BoulderCo/Clouds/*

http://imgur.com/a/L1R7m

Planned Compatibilities:

-And other planet mods

Eventually, other mods, but for the time being, these are what I can confirm.

To-Do List:

-Bug-fixing.

Walan Stock VFX (Optional) (WIP):

Comes with the Walan download, it re-designs the stock worlds to have atmospheres fitting with the planet pack.

http://imgur.com/a/5N0Fl

____________________

Download: SpaceDock

-Installation Instructions: Open [Walan 0.90] (and go to your Kerbal Space Program folder) ---> move the GameData folder to your KSP folder, and click "yes" on folder merge.

Prerequisites:

Kopernicus

____________________

Credits:

Thomas P. (Kopernicus)

KillAshley & The White Guardian (Examples & Tutorials)

____________________

Notice: Do bear in mind I'm rather new to planet design and modding, but I've learned a lot in the last few weeks, and I hope to continue learning over the coming months.

 

Edited April 18, 2016 by Tynton
[RELEASE 0.91]

[RomanCat]

Link for download not work. Reload please.

[sDaZe]

Do you plan on adding eve support? 

[Tynton]

@RomanCat I fixed the DL, sorry

@sDaZe Yes.

[RomanCat]

Just now, Tynton said:

@RomanCat I fixed the DL, sorry

@sDaZe Yes.

Thx.

[Tynton]

Also, tell me what you guys think of it!

[teag2]

The spacedock link says it is compatable with 1.1. I have my doubts this is true, so I wanted to point it out.

[Tynton]

I'm going to fix it

Also, this is my first mod (and first time using SpaceDock)

[RomanCat]

Great work!

[sDaZe]

1 hour ago, Tynton said:

 

Also, this is my first mod (and first time using SpaceDock)

Gl man, excited to see where this goes

[KillAshley]

@Tynton

constructive feedback time! (dont take any of this as an attack, i can be quite blunt sometimes but this is meant solely for feedback)

1>Style

Ok so this is a big one for me personally, I've spent a lot of time refining my style for planets (if you look at UL or KASE you can see what i mean) but the planets don't seem to "fit" with each other. The gas giant is VERY bright and bold, with sharp color transitions, and the orange planet is like a SE export world. perhaps spending time refining the planets so they fit your own particular style, and so they all fit together will benefit you and the future of the pack. Having them as a mixed style can be visually jarring, and can put a downer on the overall style of the pack

2>Normal maps

There's an issue with your normal maps currently. They are very distorted and the terrain features are blurred quite badly. This is likely due to improper .dds conversion, however even the normal map that is still .png has a lot of distortion. Your best bet is to re-do all the files and ensure they are done correctly. Heightmaps should be saved as L8. Colormaps as either DXT1 if no alpha channel is required, or DXT5 if alpha layers are utilized. Normal maps can be tricky to get right, however the best bet is to do the following: go HERE and upload a .png heightmap, select the box to invert the R channel, and download. Then open the file and save it as DXT5_NM. There are more advanced ways to manipulate the maps to reduce the moire effect they can have, but that's pretty advanced.

3>Ring artifacts

The rings are creating a lot of artifacts, you can see the distortion clearly when you look at them from any angle. There are numerous reasons why this happens, high contrasting bands is the biggest culprit, however file size is a big one too. Try either muting out the contrast of the colored rings, or reducing the resolution to improve it.

4>Uniqueness

This is probably a major one. Try and find a way to make each planet unique to the game. Sure having more planets to explore is always a good thing, however I'd rather have only 1 unique world to visit than 10 generic worlds. Try and find a way to give each body it's own character to make it interesting and worth a visit. Try and create a backstory for each planet, think about how it was formed, what it's made of, how the kerbals perceive it...and then try and reflect that on the bodies, rather than having "generic moon 1", "generic moon 2" etc.

 

Probably enough for now, remember noone gets it perfect on their first try. good luck!

[Tynton]

0.91  Plans

-Fix any remaining bugs

-Continue adding compatibilities

-OPTIONAL INSTALL "WalanStockVFX"- Adds new atmospheric prominence to the stock planets, offering a more lively stock solar system. It also changes the Jovian clouds to have more contrast. The Sun is also more red-orange tinted.

Edited April 18, 2016 by Tynton

[Nnimrod]

How is this 1.1 compatible when kopernicus isn't 1.1 compatible?

[Tynton]

@Nnimrod

You were looking at an older version, (where I screwed up and forgot to change the version number)

I will update it when Kopernicus gets updated.

[Spraki]

I have a question about the ice giant. Probably a silly one - but is it possible to also land on the ice giant?

Was just wondering since you said it was have the size of Jool. So I'm not sure if it is possible to land without going boom by kraken or something.

[Tynton]

@Spraki

I apologise for a late response, but you can't land on it, or any gas giant for that matter.

Walan may be updated sooner or later, it seems sometimes the moons will spontaneously disappear every so often under your rover.

[Spraki]

Oh, it's considered a gas giant. Ok

Thought it was a BIG solid snowball. Thanks for response

[SamBelanger]

Your mod function very well on 1.3

[Tynton]

@SamBelanger

Thanks for the feedback. I didn't think to patch it since it's extremely far down in my history as a modder, but if by popular demand people want it to return, then I'll patch it for 1.3.