Is there any way to add the new 1.9-1.10 Planetary Textures to 1.8.1?

[rudemario]

So I began playing KSP again recently after a few years of hiatus on version 1.10, and was amazed by the new textures SQUAD had added. Some of them look really good. It's to the point that going back is like playing Pong on Colecovision.

Interstellar is my favorite movie of all time, and a random encounter with a steam screenshot led me to downgrade my current game to 1.8.1 to play EventHorizon, a spiritual successor of a mod adding in the Gargantua System from Interstellar. 

With the announcement that VABs on other planets would be available with the Colonization addition in KSP2, I have toyed with the idea of building a new "headquarters" on another world as a "new Kerbal home". There was no point to doing this in stock game, but after looking around at MKS Colonization, ULS Life Support, ExtraPlanetary Launch Pads, and noticing the SUBSTANTIAL amount of Delta V required to navigate the Gargantua system (Named Murph in EventHorizon) it has inspired me to build a new "home" and launchsite on Laythe! (I may need to look into Near Future Technologies though with these kinds of dV requirements...)

I was only able to find a forum post discussing someone attempting this with version 1.1? I believe, and since there was a Unity version upgrade, that this would be incompatible completely. 

 

If I'm not mistaken, there was a unity update before the planetary textures were updated. Would it be possible to copy the Laythe (and other planets) textures over to a 1.8.1 install of the game? I don't believe 1.8.1 was before any Unity overhaul before the textures were added, AND a lot of mods are still on this version, so it might be a welcome addition to many community members!

 

Thank you for helping me out with this

[RealKerbal3x]

@rudemario If I'm not mistaken, 1.8.0 did add the Unity upgrade, alongside revamps for the Mun, Minmus, Duna and Ike. Presumably adding the later celestial body revamps to 1.8.1 would work, but I don't think the textures for the planets/moons are accessible in the game files to the normal user, so that may be your stumbling block.

Edited August 14, 2020 by RealKerbal3x

[rudemario]

19 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

@rudemario If I'm not mistaken, 1.8.0 did add the Unity upgrade, alongside revamps for the Mun, Minmus, Duna and Ike. Presumably adding the later celestial body revamps to 1.8.1 would work, but I don't think the textures for the planets/moons are accessible in the game files to the normal user, so that may be your stumbling block.

Maybe there's a way to copy chunks of the games core files into the older 1.8.1 install? Like maybe modifying individual planets files is not possible but a transplanting of "planet asset" or even "game asset" directories could work? Apologies for the limited knowledge

[RealKerbal3x]

59 minutes ago, rudemario said:

Maybe there's a way to copy chunks of the games core files into the older 1.8.1 install? Like maybe modifying individual planets files is not possible but a transplanting of "planet asset" or even "game asset" directories could work? Apologies for the limited knowledge

As far as I know, the planet textures (as well as the KSC building textures, the UI, and other stuff) are inside directories called asset bundles that can't be opened unless you have some special software. There are multiple asset bundle files, but I have no idea what stuff is in what file, and attempting to transplant them between versions of KSP has a high likelihood of borking your installation.

Have you tried using Event Horizon on 1.9.1? There are a couple of Kopernicus forks made for that version and the mod itself may work fine. 1.9.1 does have the majority of the planet revamps anyway (1.10 only revamped Jool and Laythe) so it might do for now.

[rudemario]

26 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

As far as I know, the planet textures (as well as the KSC building textures, the UI, and other stuff) are inside directories called asset bundles that can't be opened unless you have some special software. There are multiple asset bundle files, but I have no idea what stuff is in what file, and attempting to transplant them between versions of KSP has a high likelihood of borking your installation.

Have you tried using Event Horizon on 1.9.1? There are a couple of Kopernicus forks made for that version and the mod itself may work fine. 1.9.1 does have the majority of the planet revamps anyway (1.10 only revamped Jool and Laythe) so it might do for now.

Sadly, its Laythe I'm most interested in, and that was added in 1.10 like you said. I suppose I'll just have to deal with it for now, since I don't believe Stock Visual Terrain goes up to 1.8.1, and wait for Kopernicus to slowly make its way to 1.10. Thank you for the help though!

[jimmymcgoochie]

There's a version of Kopernicus for 1.9.1, find it here:

So far I've used it with OPM, Grannus and JNSQ in 1.9.1 and all worked fine for me. The only issue I've had is that it forces terrain shader quality to Ultra, that might not work for everyone but I've had no issues with it.

There's also this more experimental version which might work in 1.10(.x):

 

[R-T-B]

5 minutes ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

The only issue I've had is that it forces terrain shader quality to Ultra, that might not work for everyone but I've had no issues with it.

Just FYI, the latest release of stable (and Bleeding edge too) ship with a file GameData\Kopernicus\Config\Kopernicus_Config.cfg

 

The file is as follows:

// Kopernicus base configuration.  Provides ability to flag thigns and set user options.  Ships at defaults for stock system and warnings config;
Kopernicus_config
{
	EnforceShaders = true
	WarnShaders = true
	UseStockAsteroidGenerator = true
}

If you really don't want to use ultra shaders, I think you can figure it out.

Also if your pack has custom asteroids, be sure and set UseStockAsteroidGenerator to false.  Otherwise they won't spawn and you'll only get stock ones.  That line is a (hopefully temporary) hack to make SENTINEL contracts work.  Yes, turning it off does break sentinel contracts right now, but at least you get your custom asteroids back.  It's about choices, people.

Other than those little notes, no big bad bugs at all!

Edited August 16, 2020 by R-T-B

[jimmymcgoochie]

@R-T-B nah, I like the ultra shaders, so pretty  and my PC can take it (well, it hasn't caught fire yet!)