visual pack [1.12.3] Spectra Visual Compilation 1.6.2 "Horizons" (26th July 2022)

[HafCoJoe]

25 minutes ago, KSPrynk said:

@Avera9eJoe, I've tried out Spectra in KSP 1.10 with EVE 1.8.0.2 and Scatterer 0.0610 (which I think are the most up to date) and everything appears to work - or at least not be obviously broken.  I did have a question about Jool.

The new, highly detailed, textures for the surface seem a bit muted with Spectra.  Was this a deliberate adjustment, or just a side effect of the cloud layer settings?

I took a craft on a death plunge into the atmosphere, and it seemed like the clouds were a bit more tenuous that usual, to the point where I could really only tell what was a cloud by time warping along.  I thought Jool atmo layers were a bit more distinct in previous Spectra versions, but maybe I was thinking of Eve.

Hey! Great questions and observations all around. You must be thinking of Eve; Jool has only ever had three layers: A 2D cloud layer with UVnoise (makes the clouds ripple from orbit), the lightning layer, and the aurora layer. Of these layers, only the UVnoise layer is visible when diving through the surface, and even that layer does not have any 3D particles, its simply a 2D layer that covers the whole planet.

The reason Jool is so sparse for surface effects is quite simple: performance. Jool is by far the largest planet in the Kerbol system (roughly the size of the real earth) and is also the least visited (save maybe Dres) considering that any mission into its atmosphere never lasts for a few hours before it descends never to be seen again (save the ludicrous). Since Jool is so massive, any layers you add to it cause a significant FPS drop when you visit Jool or any of its moons just from the game loading such a large texture. I wagered that since so few people visit Jool, it was more worth it to save FPS and not add any cloud layers to its surface. Since you are the only one to notice this since Spectra's release I'd say it was the right call 

25 minutes ago, KSPrynk said:

To spice things up a bit, I copied the VallDust Object and renamed it JoolDust, and arbitrarily tweaked the color (40,100,70,70) and altitude (20000).  This may have added some subtle ring-like optical effects on the planet (I have to revert back and see), but it felt more like a real gas giant, with various layers of different gases as temp and pressure changes.

Is there a guide to EVE parameters out in the wild?  I'm stabbing in the dark on the settings - for instance, I just assumed Color values were Red, Green, Blue, and Opacity. The VallDust settings resulted in a relatively thin layer of fog, that I fell through quickly, so now I'm looking for how to make it thicker (in height). But I don't know how that impacts performance. 

Awesome! Personal edits are always the best  For performance, more particles = less FPS. That said, you can increase the *size* of the particles without too much of an impact on lag. I optimized Spectra for fewest particles while still looking good, but I'd wager you can still increase the particle size if you want the effects to be higher up from the ground, too. Try raising the layer height and increasing the particle size. 

As for practical guide, there isn't one that I know of. All that I can say would be to download SVE (the simplest pack), press ALT+0 to open the GUI, and fiddle with all the effects until you get a basic feel for what they do. When I started editing, there was no GUI so you had to guess what would work and reboot the game to see any effects. At one point I actually made separate installations for each planet in order to keep load time down. I first started editing cloud effects way back when Astronomer's Visual Pack was still being run by Astronomer, and when KSPRC and Better Atmospheres were still being updated. If you do experiment let me know if you need any help. I don't recommend using the GUI to edit Spectra, however, as I added some custom ModuleManager patches and they tend to break when you press save in the GUI.

25 minutes ago, KSPrynk said:

My goal is a visual trip to the bottom that provides incentive to do a Galileo-style probe mission.   I'm wondering if it's possible to duplicate the current surface textures as a translucent second layer, a few tens of km up, perhaps with shadowing, and a final layer of "superfog" near the crush depth line, to create a murky, dim layer of atmo between the two.  It'd be a great place to hide some Carl Sagan-esque terrain scatter/BG surface feature life forms hanging in the air....  

Ah that would be awesome indeed... also more than a fair bit laggy, though. If you want to do this in the simplest way, I suggest you download SVE and try to copy the effects from the planet Eve. Last I checked, Galileo added 5 separate cloud layers that all swirl with different colors. That could be the type of effect you are looking for.

Edited July 4, 2020 by Avera9eJoe

[KSPrynk]

@Avera9eJoe, thanks.  Just to be clear, I'm loving this optimization of Spectra.  I hadn't seen the more recent Squad re-vamp planet textures up to this point, because of Kopernicus going into a temporary coma at 1.8.1.  It's weird seeing how comparatively bland the terrain on Vall, Tylo, and the other re-touched planets are compared to what's come out in 1.9.X and 1.10.  As I suspected, Squad's folder blew up a few hundred MB since 1.8.1, so getting some of that back on Spectra makes my RAM very happy....

[HafCoJoe]

12 minutes ago, KSPrynk said:

@Avera9eJoe, thanks.  Just to be clear, I'm loving this optimization of Spectra.  I hadn't seen the more recent Squad re-vamp planet textures up to this point, because of Kopernicus going into a temporary coma at 1.8.1.  It's weird seeing how comparatively bland the terrain on Vall, Tylo, and the other re-touched planets are compared to what's come out in 1.9.X and 1.10.  As I suspected, Squad's folder blew up a few hundred MB since 1.8.1, so getting some of that back on Spectra makes my RAM very happy....

It's funny you mention that because I dropped Kopernicus in the most recent Spectra release in order to save simplicity and RAM both haha. It's good to hear you agree with me

[Mawd14]

18 hours ago, Avera9eJoe said:

It should already be on CKAN since it updates automatically from Spacedock, although I haven't checked myself.

It is not. As of now, there are 110 mods compatible with 1.10 and Spectra is not on this list.

[HafCoJoe]

2 hours ago, Mawd14 said:

It is not. As of now, there are 110 mods compatible with 1.10 and Spectra is not on this list.

Spectra is updated to 1.10 but EVE is not, meaning Spectra is not showing up because its parent mod is not updated. Try clicking compatible versions in the top bar in CKAN and checking the boxes for 1.10, 1.9, and 1.8. Do this and you should be able to install Spectra.

Edited July 4, 2020 by Avera9eJoe

[Mawd14]

Ohh.. Thanks!

[HafCoJoe]

Glad to help! I added a note to help others

[Cade]

Are there plans to add citylights to kerbin?

 

[HafCoJoe]

10 hours ago, Cade said:

Are there plans to add citylights to kerbin?

 

City lights are already an option if you install via CKAN, called KSPRC City Lights  I revamped and updated Proots old configs and released them as a standalone add-on in suggestions/recommendations. Just make sure you go into compatible KSP versions and tick 1.8 and 1.9 too to make sure CKAN recognizes Visual enhancements.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Avera9eJoe

[ACSoft]

3 hours ago, Avera9eJoe said:

City lights are already an option if you install via CKAN, called KSPRC City Lights  I revamped and updated Proots old configs and released them as a standalone add-on in suggestions/recommendations. Just make sure you go into compatible KSP versions and tick 1.8 and 1.9 too to make sure CKAN recognizes Visual enhancements.

Does this mean that City lights are imcompatible with version 1.10 of KSP ?

If it should work, can-you please indicate what shall I do manually to activate them ?

If not, are-you going to include them late on ?

Thanks in forward

PS: I am completely new to KSP and I really like your "Spectra"  mod. Great work, congratulations and warm thanks !

[KSPrynk]

15 hours ago, Avera9eJoe said:

City lights are already an option if you install via CKAN, called KSPRC City Lights  I revamped and updated Proots old configs and released them as a standalone add-on in suggestions/recommendations. Just make sure you go into compatible KSP versions and tick 1.8 and 1.9 too to make sure CKAN recognizes Visual enhancements.

@Avera9eJoe, how does one get this this stand-alone version of KSPRC City Lights doing manual install via Spacedock?

[HafCoJoe]

Technically speaking you could download KSPRC and delete everything in it except the City lights folder inside GameData/KSPRC. CKAN does the same thing but does it automatically instead of having to do it by hand

Edited July 8, 2020 by Avera9eJoe

[Cade]

20 minutes ago, Avera9eJoe said:

Technically speaking you could download KSPRC and delete everything in it except the City lights folder inside GameData/KSPRC. CKAN does the same thing but does it automatically instead of having to do it by hand

thank you

[HafCoJoe]

Good news everyone. With @pingopete's permission I created an addon to give Kerbin 64k clouds courtesy of his RVE64k mod!

I'm keeping it as an addon because it does cause a drop to performance, but it looks absolutely stunning and I'm sure more than a handful of you will enjoy.

RVE64k Kerbin Clouds for Spectra

RVE64k

Edited July 10, 2020 by Avera9eJoe

[AlphaRP]

I was just wondering if Spectra keeps the stock terrain textures that were revamped in the latest updates and also if we have the new Jool.

I love the look and feel of Spectra but id like to have the stock revamps. Or is there a way to enable them in the configs?

[HafCoJoe]

13 hours ago, AlphaRP said:

I was just wondering if Spectra keeps the stock terrain textures that were revamped in the latest updates and also if we have the new Jool.

I love the look and feel of Spectra but id like to have the stock revamps. Or is there a way to enable them in the configs?

Hey! Good question. I removed Kopernicus in the most recent release, meaning Spectra is indeed using the new terrain textures (plus gaining even more of a performance boost). As for new Jool, completely removing my own effects would do mean removing lightning, auroras, and my own swirling clouds since I added swirling clouds long before they were a thing in stock. Instead of removing everything with new Jool, I lessened my effects so that you can see the new default Jool underneath my addons. Jool looks quite nice  I suggest you download it and take a peek, though. It's hard to describe things in text

Edited July 22, 2020 by Avera9eJoe

[AlphaRP]

53 minutes ago, Avera9eJoe said:

Hey! Good question. I removed Kopernicus in the most recent release, meaning Spectra is indeed using the new terrain textures (and it also gains a bit of a performance boost since it isn't using Kopernicus). As for new Jool, completely removing my own effects would do mean removing lightning, auroras, and my own swirling clouds since I added swirling clouds long before they were a thing in stock. Instead of removing everything withnew Jool, I lessened my effects so that you can see the new default Jool underneath my addons. Jool looks quite nice. I suggest you download it and take a peek, though. It's hard to describe things in text

Thanks, been using Spectra for a while now after AVP irked me with the thick atmospheric effects. Spectra also runs alot smoother, I was getting random freezes before. I was just wondering how the interaction was, makes sense you dont want to undo your own work. 

I really love how your mod looks! Makes for some epic screenshots from my missions. I'll check out the new clouds addon, looks epic!

Edited July 22, 2020 by AlphaRP

[HafCoJoe]

1 hour ago, AlphaRP said:

Thanks, been using Spectra for a while now after AVP irked me with the thick atmospheric effects. Spectra also runs alot smoother, I was getting random freezes before. I was just wondering how the interaction was, makes sense you dont want to undo your own work. 

I really love how your mod looks! Makes for some epic screenshots from my missions. I'll check out the new clouds addon, looks epic!

Awesome! I'm always looking for more performance boost wherever I can, which honestly is kind of silly considering most of my craft are sub 100 parts... What can I say, I like my frames  I hope you like the super HD clouds! They definitely cause a drop in FPS but its well worth it

[Kerminator K-100]

On 6/22/2020 at 7:33 PM, Avera9eJoe said:

On 6/22/2020 at 6:27 PM, John Wayne said:

I'm on 1.8.1 and I don't think my terrain is correct. I also have no config for AtmosphereManager or ShadowManager either.

 

Spectra only uses EVE's CloudsManager and does not use TerrainManager, AtmosphereManager, or ShadowManager. Instead it uses Kopernicus for terrain and Scatterer for atmosphere. Do you have Kopernicus and Scatterer installed?

Also, did you ever press `save` in the EVE GUI? If you did you will have to reinstall Spectra since hitting save breaks EVE's ModuleManager patches and breaks a few planets atmospheres. You'll have to re-download it if you did.

Does this mean I need to install Kopernicus for better terrain?   Never mind about this question, just saw the Spectra 1.4.0 release page.

Also I can't find any geysers or dust storms (I haven't been on Duna much, just once, and have never been to Eve), what is the frequency of those kinds of things?

Edited July 23, 2020 by Kerminator1000
Another question, answered my first question

[AlphaRP]

9 hours ago, Avera9eJoe said:

Awesome! I'm always looking for more performance boost wherever I can, which honestly is kind of silly considering most of my craft are sub 100 parts... What can I say, I like my frames  I hope you like the super HD clouds! They definitely cause a drop in FPS but its well worth it

When I get home in two days its first on my list! However I myself tend to launch rediculous bases and stations so the performance might not be worth it. Currently I have a 1000 part Eve sea base on orbit around Kerbin...

[HafCoJoe]

11 hours ago, Kerminator1000 said:

Does this mean I need to install Kopernicus for better terrain?   Never mind about this question, just saw the Spectra 1.4.0 release page.

Also I can't find any geysers or dust storms (I haven't been on Duna much, just once, and have never been to Eve), what is the frequency of those kinds of things?

Geysers are only on Eeloo I'm afraid. Dust storms are on Vall, Pol, and Eve.

[Vivalas]

Hello, just got this after using scatterer and EVE stock settings, and the sunsets seem less vibrant, which I miss.

 

Is there a way to get the configs back to normal that EVE comes with so that Kerbin sunsets can be as bright as they used to with stock EVE configs? Do you know what I have to change to accomplish this?

 

Great mod

[HafCoJoe]

7 hours ago, Vivalas said:

Hello, just got this after using scatterer and EVE stock settings, and the sunsets seem less vibrant, which I miss.

 

Is there a way to get the configs back to normal that EVE comes with so that Kerbin sunsets can be as bright as they used to with stock EVE configs? Do you know what I have to change to accomplish this?

 

Great mod

If you want, you can go into GameData/Spectra/Specta_Scatterer/Body/Kerbin and delete 'Atmo.cfg' - this will revert Kerbin to default Scatterer settings.

Edited July 24, 2020 by Avera9eJoe

[AlphaRP]

On 7/23/2020 at 11:12 AM, AlphaRP said:

When I get home in two days its first on my list! However I myself tend to launch rediculous bases and stations so the performance might not be worth it. Currently I have a 1000 part Eve sea base on orbit around Kerbin...

Installed it and its awesome, performance hit I didnt really notice, so its a keeper!

[Arco123]

Two questions: 

1. How would you Frankenstein AVP's OPM textures and keep spectra as everything else in 1.9.1?

2. How do you make the atmosphere fuzer?