[1.12.2]Sci-Fi Visual Enchancements V-1.6 (high performance alt to SVE)

[TheRagingIrishman]

it can also be fixed by disabling ocean shaders

[HafCoJoe]

9 hours ago, ModerndayLink64 said:

Do you have scatterer installed? 

Because scaterer is actually not compatible with 1.3 and causes the magic floating terrain squares

this problem can be fixed by uninstalling scatterer or downgrading to 1.2

Likewise you can also disable the ocean shaders; I've heard that fixes it as well

[michanst]

Normal setup now. No other visual mods like scatterer added, only the this mod files. Got this bug.

Edited June 18, 2017 by michanst
more pics

[Bottle Rocketeer 500]

@panzer1b Awesome mod!

Also, at first I used this with scatterer, but when I uninstalled scatterer, it looked much better. 

[Rocket In My Pocket]

1 hour ago, Bottle Rocketeer 500 said:

@panzer1b Awesome mod!

Also, at first I used this with scatterer, but when I uninstalled scatterer, it looked much better. 

Agreed, I really like the simple, bright, almost "cartoon" look of this pack.

Some of the super realistic GFX mod effects can actually detract from it rather than make it look better. (Although I do recommend PlanetShine to pair with it, looks really nice, no performance hit either.)

Sometimes less is more!

[Clonos]

Nice! Hopefully even my Celevon processor (or whaterver you spell that like) could handle it!

[LordOfMinecraft99]

Does this work with the new Scatterer 1.3 release?

[LordOfMinecraft99]

Does this work with 1.3 scatterer?

[themaster401]

2 minutes ago, LordOfMinecraft99 said:

Does this work with 1.3 scatterer?

Yes. Please do not send the same question twice in a row, you will get answered, just be patient.

[LordOfMinecraft99]

2 minutes ago, themaster401 said:

Yes. Please do not send the same question twice in a row, you will get answered, just be patient.

Sorry, I forgot I had posted the first one. I was reeinstalling KSP with all mods and I forgot about the last question.

[panzer1b]

Well, i had a HDD crash a few months back and decided to take a bit of a hiatus from KSP and KSP modding, but now im back and i think the best thing to start off with would be updating the one mod i cant play this game without anymore .

Here it is: V-1.3, with the primary focus being on beautifying the 3 atmospheric planets i travel to alot: Kerbin, Duna, and Laythe.  I spent the most of my time creating new detail textures, some of which are 4096x4096 which allows me to create extremely varied cloud formations on a planet without having either tiling issues (obvious texture repetition), or have lousy resolution resulting in jagged edges and the like on cloud formations.  It takes a little more ram, but i think its well worth the end result.  I also spent some time to make slightly better particle textures all around for clouds and dust, a bit more resolution and a bit more detail.  Eve and Jool have also gotten a few "minor" alterations but i didnt focus too much on those 2 bodies (i was quite happy with Eve and Jool is something im not entirely sure what i want to do with, although im certain i want to switch the look to something else in future patches).  Finally worth mentioning is that EVE fixed its shadow bugs, so i enabled shadows on many planets, and im not noticing any real performance loss doing so.  If its an issue, you can always go into teh alt-0 menu and disable teh shadow layer for planets.  Anyways, enjoy the update, hopefully its good enough ...

And a little bit of a spoiler containing one of the features i plan to include in a future version (once i can fix the bugs and issues with its implementation).

Any input is appreciated, be it positive or negative, if you guys dislike something (or even worse find something bugged) then ill be happy to take a look at it and possible make a quick hotfix with the input or so as i dont expect to release another huge alteration any time soon (next features will likely require me to heavily modify EVE plugin itself as it just doesnt support some of what i want in the game with regards to effects).

Edited August 6, 2017 by panzer1b

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Just got around to updating, love the new version!

Solid improvements throughout, looks better, and still performs great even on my weaker system. Bravo!

One question: Did you remove the dust clouds on the Mun? I was looking around for them and didn't see any, I always really liked them and your other "sci-fi" visual touches, maybe I didn't look hard enough?

[panzer1b]

On 8/18/2017 at 3:35 PM, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Just got around to updating, love the new version!

Solid improvements throughout, looks better, and still performs great even on my weaker system. Bravo!

One question: Did you remove the dust clouds on the Mun? I was looking around for them and didn't see any, I always really liked them and your other "sci-fi" visual touches, maybe I didn't look hard enough?

I removed em since i thought it looked a little odd having dust on every possible body (personal preference i guess), but ill add it again if you think it was cool.  Ill add it when i update everything to a slightly improved version with a few other changes primarily to volumetric particles (biggest personal annoyance with SciFiVE atm is the volumetric particles and how derpy they look at certain angles, will prolly switch to RGB style textures since it looks a hair better in mods that use those like SVE), no ETA exactly but soon...

 

In the meantime you can modify the config files really easily by taking the V-1.2 textures required and config entry from Mun-Dust.

 

Also worth mentioning is that i am working on creating a scatterer compatible version of this mod.  Obviously it wont perform crazy fast or anything, but preliminary testing with most of the scatterer fluff disabled (water refraction, eclipses, ect, stuff that you normally wouldnt even notice) shows fairly decent performance and while its obviously laggy, its nowhere near as bad as SVE gets.

Edited August 23, 2017 by panzer1b

[Vorg]

what is the difference between this mod and para-sci-high-performance-atmosphere-pack?

[panzer1b]

On 8/23/2017 at 9:22 PM, Vorg said:

what is the difference between this mod and para-sci-high-performance-atmosphere-pack?

Basically parasci takes performance to an extreme, but cuts out alot of stuff that i personally dont see the point of even installing EVE without.  This mod has volumetirc particles (actual 3d like clouds made of sprites), and it also does a far better job (im my opinion at least) when it comes to atmospheric glow effects (this mod does it in a similar way to the old mod called better atmospheres which was imo even better looking them this, but had performance issues cause of using 3-4 layers per planet atmosphere).  All in all, this mod has more fluff in it, but doesnt quite take the performance hit that SVE normally would, sorta a middle ground between those 2.

 

Basically if you want some sort of clouds, and need to have absolute highest performance, parasci is your best choice.  If you have a monster rig (or are willing to deal with sub 10 FPS), SVE is probably the best bet since its far more detailed then SciFiVE (more cloud layers, thicker clouds, designed to be run alongside scatterer, ect).  This mod is kinda between those 2 and also has a bit more of a "scifi" feel to it since i didnt go with realistic coloring like those other 2 mods, but actually put in some more bright saturated colors like blue and purple rather then that more whitish coloring that SVE/scatter has.  Personally im not a fan of "realism" in KSP since the game revolves around a miniature solar system (tried RSS but didnt really like it much), with green things and such, and i never view it as realistic, but some sort of real life based scifi game, thus i made a cloud mod that fit that idea more.  If you like the style, this is pretty much almost as good visually as SVE but performs far better and doesnt require scatterer to look good, but if you prefer 100% realism and need performance i think parasci is a hair better (i havent ran it myself but ive looked at the screenies).

Incase anyone is interested, this is what the preliminary version looks like with scatterer enabled.  Its laggier then regular SciFiVE, but its actually manageable and the total part count in that screenie is ~1000 or so between the 2 vessels.  I wouldnt do a massive space battle with this installed (its bad enough bone stock), but for anything but excessiveness, it actually runs on my lappy just fine.  All that needs to get done is redoing of some of the cloud layers and such, since scatterer tends to derp out a bit and make em look funny...

Edited August 25, 2017 by panzer1b

[Mlg Dank Meme lord]

how do you install this with scatterer? should i use SVE or install it by itself? and does this mod require EVE?

Edited August 28, 2017 by Mlg Dank Meme lord

[klgraham1013]

Looks great.  Added to collection.

[sardia]

If I understand this, then this is just the template to make texture replacer work for 1.3. BUT none of the custom suits and textures created for 1.2 and back work until someone ports them forward?

[Jacke]

2 hours ago, Mlg Dank Meme lord said:

how do you install this with scatterer? should i use SVE or install it by itself? and does this mod require EVE?

Read the 1st post carefully.

Scatterer is a visual mod that can be combined with other visual mods.  Its files are in "GameData/scatterer/".  You just install those.

All the main visual improvement mods use EVE's plugins and shaders, located under "GameData/EnvironmentalVisualEnhancements/".  Many of them include the EVE plugins and shaders in their install archive, located under that directory, especially when a mod's configs are very particular about the version of EVE they need.

All the visual improvement mods provide their own configs using EVE to create the visual effects.  You only want to use one set of configs.  Two or more configs can only be combined with a great deal of editting to make them one config.  That's something you don't want to do.

EVE has a set of its own configs under "GameData/BoulderCo/".  SVE provides its own configs under "GameData/StockVisualEnhancements/".  Sci-Fi Visual Enchancements has its configs under "ScifiVisualEnchancements".  There are other sets of EVE config in other mods.  You only want one set of configs installed.

Edited August 28, 2017 by Jacke

[TeraByte_Gaming]

Minimum required ram and processor? (With fifty-ish various parts mods.) I took one look at this mod and immediately said, "I need it." Not sure how well it would work on my twelve gigabyte RAM i7 computer with my various parts mods. (I can't live without Kerbal Planetary Base Systems.)

[panzer1b]

On 8/28/2017 at 11:42 AM, Mlg Dank Meme lord said:

how do you install this with scatterer? should i use SVE or install it by itself? and does this mod require EVE?

Just in case anyone is wondering what my current plans are for scatterer, i plan to have the next release of SciFiVE be slightly adjusted to be fully compatible with scatterer but i will not prepackage scatterer with my mod.  Sofar ive managed to get the cloud layers (and the all important "atmosphere" scatter layers that i made using EVE) to look decent with scatterer installed, and while the coloring is a little different depending on whether you elect to use scatterer or not, there is no visual artefacting present as is the case with certain planets right now (the biggest eyesore with V1.3 is prolly laythe, the atmo looks terrible if you install scatterer and dont modify that layer).  To fix that issue, i actually lowered the opacity a bit (so its less visible), and lowered the altitude of the EVE atmo layers on certain planets (makes it less screwy looking while still giving the intended effect even without scatterer).  Sofar i think i can get it so that 1 version works well with both scatterer and without, but if i cannot get that ideal i will release 2 separate versions for everyone to be happy, whether you want or do not want scatterer.

 

9 hours ago, TeraByte_Gaming said:

Minimum required ram and processor? (With fifty-ish various parts mods.) I took one look at this mod and immediately said, "I need it." Not sure how well it would work on my twelve gigabyte RAM i7 computer with my various parts mods. (I can't live without Kerbal Planetary Base Systems.)

I have no idea about the min requirements, but i have a rather old gaming laptop and i can run SciFiVE, scatterer, BDA, planetshine, distant object, and a few quality of life mods like KAC and such without any real performance concerns.  Ofc the exception is when i try to do some really stupid things like launch a rocket with 200 engines on it as the sheer amount of smoke generated by that many engines (and the 500 or so parts the payload is made up of) just make the game drop to 2 FPS or something of that sort. 

Anyways, id say that for most regular space programs, you should have no trouble running stock SciFiVE, as EVE itself isnt that resource demanding, and the real performance hog is certain features of scatterer (mostly ocean refraction and shadow related things).  Im currently running a updated (i need a few more days for testing and development before ill even consider V1.4 ready for release) version alongside scatterer with the vast majority of scatterer fluff disabled, and ive not had much trouble with framerates despite having ~1500 parts loaded at once (decently sized dres station, alot of asteroids clawed to it in a makeshift asteroid field, and 1 capital ship with 3 starfighters escorting it).  Yeah it really doesnt like my 2000 part base like whatsoever (even bone stock that base lags like crazy), but aside from truly excessive things, you shouldnt have any issues running this on anything that isnt a potato.

[TeraByte_Gaming]

Thanks so much @panzer1b, I've felt like SVE was missing something for a while,  I think I just found its successor. I know what I'm downloading tomorrow! 

Edited August 31, 2017 by TeraByte_Gaming

[TeraByte_Gaming]

One question, is there a way to overwrite the configs for non-atmospheric planets and moons? Love the atmospheric effects, but in my opinion, Minimus looks like a glow-in-the-dark bouncy ball. Other than that, I get the feeling that this mod will be my reason to update to 1.3.

Edited September 2, 2017 by TeraByte_Gaming

[TeraByte_Gaming]

Bug report, using 1.2.2 and the 1.2version of SciFiVE, sky turns bright white.

[UbuntuLinuxKing]

I installed it, but nothing changes and a white button in the tracking station opens a UI window that has a bunch of EVE errors (something about missing textures or something? IDK) I just dragged+dropped the SiFive folder into GameData. Did I miss something?