[1.4.x] The Horsehead Nebula - 4K Skybox for TextureReplacer Replaced

[SinfulD]

 

Nestled between the gorgeous Flame Nebula and the intimidating Horsehead, is the home planet of the Kerbals. They are a peace loving people, and having just become a space-faring civilization, little do they know that roughly 1200 light years from their beautiful planet Kerbin, lies the home planet of the war mongering species of Man, called Earth. At such a relatively close distance, it’s only a matter of time until the two civilizations come into contact with each other. Can the peace loving Kerbals hold their own when the corporate might of Mankind come knocking with their galactic-class mining ships? The Kerbals have, at least, 1200 years to prepare for that eventuality. For now however, they are happy to look up at the night sky and wonder, “Where the kell did Jebediah hide the Horse’s body?"

 

DOWNLOAD

1. You MUST download TextureReplacer Replaced, if you haven’t already.
2. Download the skybox from SpaceDock or CurseForge.
3. Unpack the ZIP archive and place the GameData folder into your KSP install directory, replacing the original. 

TECHNICAL INFO

• The skybox was captured using SpaceEngine 0.9.8. Later, I used 'real' images of the individual objects, from various sources (see full list below), to add more detail.
• How did I choose which objects to make visible and which ones to ignore? I increased SpaceEngine’s magnitude limit to the 8th (from the default of 7th) and exported the skybox at 4096px resolution. I kept the objects which were visible in the exported images. For example, even though the Eagle nebula is ~3300 ly away, it wasn’t showing inside SpaceEngine, whereas the Lagoon nebula which is farther away at ~5200 ly was visible; probably because the Lagoon is nearly 4 times larger than the Eagle.
• How ‘realistic’ IS this skybox? The locations of the stars, nebulae and galaxies in the sky are precisely where they should be, at least according to SpaceEngine, but I have taken some artistic liberty with their sizes. For example, the Flame nebula should appear a lot larger, and the Great Carina nebula, a lot smaller, in the sky. My priority was to create something dynamic and intriguing without making it too overwhelming or too unrealistic. As such, I wouldn’t claim the skybox to be a very ‘realistic’ depiction of the sky from that location in space. Not to mention, many of the nebulae and galaxies shouldn’t even be visible. However, I have reduced the brightness of such objects to make them hard to spot.

 

 

CREDITS and SOURCES
There are lots! Please expand the section below to see the full list of credits and sources. All other objects, except the ones exclusively mentioned below, are sourced directly from Space Engine v0.9.8.

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Galaxy ESO 97-G13, Circinus
Credit:    NASA/Andrew S. Wilson (University of Maryland); Patrick L. Shopbell (Caltech); Chris Simpson (Subaru Telescope); Thaisa Storchi-Bergmann and F. K. B. Barbosa (UFRGS, Brazil); and Martin J. Ward (University of Leicester, U.K.)
Source:   https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/multimedia/Circinus.html
License:    Public Domain / Attribution

Galaxy NGC 5128, Centaurus A 
Credit:    ESO/WFI (Optical); MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al. (Submillimetre); NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al. (X-ray)
Source:   http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0903a/
License:    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Galaxy M83, Southern Pinwheel
Credit:    ESO
Source:   https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0825a/
License:    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Galaxy M31, Andromeda
Credit:    Torben Bjørn Hansen
Source:   https://www.flickr.com/photos/torbenh/6105409913
License:    Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Galaxy M33, Triangulam
Credit:    Alexander Meleg
Source:   https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:M33_-_Triangulum_Galaxy.jpg
License:    Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Galaxy UGCA 39, Maffei 2
Credit:    Atlas Image courtesy of 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF; Image mosaic by R. Cutri (IPAC)
Source:   https://www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/gallery/maf2atlas.jpg
License:    Public Domain / Attribution

Nebula M78
Credit:    ESO/Igor Chekalin
Source:   https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1105a/
License:    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Nebula NGC 2023
Credit:    ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA. Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit
Source:   https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0949e/
License:    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Nebula Barnard 33, Horsehead
Credit:    Ken Crawford
Source:   https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barnard_33.jpg
License:    Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Nebula M42, Orion
Credit:    Bryan Goff
Source:   https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Backyard_photo_of_the_Orion_Nebula.jpg
License:    Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Nebula NGC 2818
Credit:    NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Source:   http://hubblesite.org/image/2464/news_release/2009-05
License:    Public Domain / Attribution

Nebula Puppis A
Credit:    NASA/CXC/IAFE/G.Dubner et al & ESA/XMM-Newton
Source:   https://www.nasa.gov/chandra/multimedia/puppisA-2014.html
License:    Public Domain / Attribution

Nebula NGC 3372, Eta Carinae
Credit:    Harel Boren
Source:   http://www.pbase.com/boren/image/151851961
License:    Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Nebula NGC 3324
Credit:    ESO
Source:   http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1207a/
License:    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Nebula ESO 170-6, Fleming 1
Credit:    ESO/H. Boffin
Source:   http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1244a/
License:    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Nebula HD 44179, Red Rectangle
Credit:    H. Van Winckel (KU Leuven), M. Cohen (UC Berkeley), H. Bond (STScI), T. Gull (GSFC), ESA, NASA
Source:   https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040513.html
License:    Public Domain / Attribution

Nebula M8, Lagoon
Credit:    ESO
Source:   http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0936a/
License:    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Nebula IC 2118, Witch Head
Credit:    NASA/STScI Digitized Sky Survey/Noel Carboni
Source:   https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1209.html
License:    Public Domain / Attribution

Nebula NGC 2024, Flame
Credit:    ESO and Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin
Source:   https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0949k/
License:    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Nebula M45, Pleiades
Credit:    Zdeněk Bardon/ESO
Source:   https://www.eso.org/public/images/pleiades-ch17-bardon-cc/
License:    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Nebula NGC 7000, North America
Credit:    Oliver Stein
Source:   https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:North-America-nebula.jpeg
License:    Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Nebula NGC 1499, California
Credit:    Zdeněk Bardon/ESO
Source:   https://www.eso.org/public/images/pleiades-ch17-bardon-cc/
License:    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Nebula NGC 7380, Wizard
Credit:    Chuck Ayoub
Source:   https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wizard_Nebula.jpg
License:    Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Nebula Sh2-190 and Sh2-199, Heart and Soul
Credit:    NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
Source:   https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/multimedia/wiseimage20100524.html
License:    Public Domain / Attribution

Nebula M1, Crab
Credit:    ESO
Source:   https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso9948f/
License:    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Nebula Sh2-274, Medusa
Credit:    ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2
Source:   https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1520c/
License:    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

 

LICENSE
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. Expand the section below, for the details.

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You are free to:
•    Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
•    Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

Under the following terms:
•    Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
•    ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
•    No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Notices:
•    You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.
•    No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.

For the full legal code, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode

 

Closing Notes - Since this is my first attempt at a 'mod' I would love to receive your feedback, even if you hated it! I have more such skyboxes planned for KSP and will update this thread when I am ready to release each of them. Thanks!

Edited April 11, 2018 by SinfulD
Added CurseForge download link.

[Deadpan110]

Beautiful work, I love the introduction too - well done!

[SkyKaptn]

Very nice skybox indeed

[SinfulD]

  On 4/10/2018 at 11:54 AM, Deadpan110 said:

Beautiful work, I love the introduction too - well done!

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Thanks! Yeah, I wanted to set it up somehow so that 'the player' can relate to it in a way. Planning to do the same for all my upcoming skyboxes too.

 

  On 4/10/2018 at 8:04 PM, SkyKaptn said:

Very nice skybox indeed

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 Thank you for sharing the screenshot! Would be nice to see what others come up with as well.

[Domin1c]

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Looks very good.

Edited April 10, 2018 by Domin1c

[Catatau_27]

Please, the Spacedock is out of service "500 internal ERROR" i suggest another way to share the mod!

[SinfulD]

  On 4/11/2018 at 3:48 PM, Catatau_27 said:

Please, the Spacedock is out of service "500 internal ERROR" i suggest another way to share the mod!

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Thanks for letting me know. I am working to get it uploaded on CurseForge. Will update as soon as it's up.

[Catatau_27]

 

  On 4/11/2018 at 4:13 PM, SinfulD said:

Obrigado por me avisar. Eu estou trabalhando para obtê-lo carregado no CurseForge. Vai atualizar assim que estiver pronto.

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This error is in all Spacedock mods, you are not the only one, if you meet any mod creator who has hosted mods in Spacedock recently warn you, it has been like that since yesterday!

[SinfulD]

  On 4/11/2018 at 4:22 PM, Catatau_27 said:

This error is in all Spacedock mods, you are not the only one, if you meet any mod creator who has hosted mods in Spacedock recently warn you, it has been like that since yesterday!

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So that's why the downloads counter froze on SpaceDock!!!!

Anyway, got myself a CurseForge account just now... Download link coming soon.

[Catatau_27]

  On 4/11/2018 at 4:33 PM, SinfulD said:

So that's why the downloads counter froze on SpaceDock!!!!

Anyway, got myself a CurseForge account just now... Download link coming soon.

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Whenever you make a mod, always make more than one mirror available, because it avoids problems like this =) keep up the good work, you're amazing!

[SinfulD]

  On 4/11/2018 at 5:10 PM, Catatau_27 said:

Whenever you make a mod, always make more than one mirror available, because it avoids problems like this =) keep up the good work, you're amazing!

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Thanks! Yes, I also wanted to upload it to Github as well (that is, including all the source files) but then I discovered Github doesn't allow files over 100 MB and the source file is way more than that. I guess, Github isn't the best for 'graphic design' related stuff. Still working on finding an alternative. But I WILL release the source files soon, so it's easy for others to work on any derivations they might come up with, or improve this one maybe.

The CurseForge page is up, pending moderator approval. Will update OP as soon it's approved.

[Sunesha]

Thanks mate, I really want try this out. I been F5:ing spacedock with little success 

[SinfulD]

CurseForge link is up. I have edited the OP. Sharing the link here as well: https://kerbal.curseforge.com/projects/sinfulds-skybox-collection-the-horsehead-nebula

Thanks guys, for your patience!

  On 4/11/2018 at 6:02 PM, Sunesha said:

Thanks mate, I really want try this out. I been F5:ing spacedock with little success 

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[Barzon]

I really want to use this, but TextureReplacerReplaced is not updated for 1.4.x

Edited April 11, 2018 by Barzon Kerman

[Barzon]

Does TextureReplacerReplaced work with 1.4.2?

[Catatau_27]

  On 4/11/2018 at 6:30 PM, Barzon Kerman said:

Eu realmente quero usar isso, mas TextureReplacerReplaced não é atualizado para 1.4.x

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 Take a look =) enjoy!

[Barzon]

@SinfulD can DiRT be used instead of TextureReplacerReplaced?

[SinfulD]

  On 4/11/2018 at 6:44 PM, Barzon Kerman said:

Does TextureReplacerReplaced work with 1.4.2?

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I just checked... and it works, at least for skybox replacements. I only use TRR for skyboxes, so I don't know if it works for other texture replacements.

  On 4/11/2018 at 6:49 PM, Barzon Kerman said:

@SinfulD can DiRT be used instead of TextureReplacerReplaced?

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DiRT has the same naming convention as TRR, so it should work. All that you'd have to do is take the 6 texture files and place them inside the 'Textures' folder under the DiRT directory. Please try it out once and let us know if it worked. I shall update the OP instructions to reflect that.

[SkyKaptn]

  On 4/11/2018 at 10:40 PM, SinfulD said:

DiRT has the same naming convention as TRR, so it should work. All that you'd have to do is take the 6 texture files and place them inside the 'Textures' folder under the DiRT directory. Please try it out once and let us know if it worked. I shall update the OP instructions to reflect that.

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It works just fine. I actually never used Texture Replacer in the first place. DiRT is a much more lightweight mod.

[Gordon Dry]

  On 4/11/2018 at 6:46 PM, Catatau_27 said:

Take a look =) enjoy!

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I also use that.

I quickly created Envmaps for this package, just resize the textures to 256x256 and save them without the leading "GalaxyTex_" in the filename, so "GalaxyTex_NegativeX.dds" is resized to 256x256 and saved as "NegativeX.dds".

[Sunesha]

The skybox is just gorgeous. In my taste I often find skyboxes to be to have way to many stars or are have to bright or to big features. This is dark and still have nice details. 

I finally did a video(2min) I wanted to do for a long time. The kerbals are actually visible, as there is not to much detail everywhere. 

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[Deadpan110]

  On 4/12/2018 at 6:22 PM, Sunesha said:

The skybox is just gorgeous. In my taste I often find skyboxes to be to have way to many stars or are have to bright or to big features. This is dark and still have nice details. 

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OMG... hahaha... that is awesome... lmao... well done... well done sir!

Edit: Yes you can plop this sky box into other visual packs... I have also used AVP with KS3P and put this sky box in... friggin awesome

Edited April 12, 2018 by Deadpan110

[HafCoJoe]

Woah this looks incredible! How difficult would it be to modify the nebula to be more pink/multicolor in hue? The deep red is a bit too much for my personal tastes, but I love what you've done putting Kerbol close in line to the galactic disk. Could I ask for a copy of the straight space engine image with just the galaxy? I might see about using it in something... More on that after I gather some more thoughts

Edited April 12, 2018 by Avera9eJoe

[DeltaDizzy]

  On 4/10/2018 at 4:44 AM, SinfulD said:

You MUST download TextureReplacer Replaced, if you haven’t already.

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I think i'll convert this to Sigma Replacements(modular texture replacement mod that does some other stuff). In fact, if I do it right, it should work with TRR or Sigma, whichever you use.

[SinfulD]

  On 4/12/2018 at 6:22 PM, Sunesha said:

The skybox is just gorgeous. In my taste I often find skyboxes to be to have way to many stars or are have to bright or to big features. This is dark and still have nice details. 

I finally did a video(2min) I wanted to do for a long time. The kerbals are actually visible, as there is not to much detail everywhere. 

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AWESOME!! 

Well done, indeed! Looks great.... Oh and, you got a new subscriber! 

 

 

  On 4/12/2018 at 7:18 PM, Avera9eJoe said:

Woah this looks incredible! How difficult would it be to modify the nebula to be more pink/multicolor in hue? The deep red is a bit too much for my personal tastes, but I love what you've done putting Kerbol close in line to the galactic disk. Could I ask for a copy of the straight space engine image with just the galaxy? I might see about using it in something... More on that after I gather some more thoughts

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Shouldn't be too hard. Gotta say, that might look great too!

But I have already started working on another skybox. Maybe I will give it a go after I have completed it! Or, I will upload all the source files of this one soon, and maybe you or someone else can make create it?

 

 

  On 4/12/2018 at 9:14 PM, DeltaDizzy said:

I think i'll convert this to Sigma Replacements(modular texture replacement mod that does some other stuff). In fact, if I do it right, it should work with TRR or Sigma, whichever you use.

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I was think that too, especially after I found out that it's working with DiRT without even changing the file names! I will include the instructions in the OP. But before I do that, can any of you list down the texture replacer mods that are out there other than TRR, DiRT and Sigma? I will test them before making the change. Thanks!