[1.12.x] Waterfall - a framework for continuous, mesh-driven engine effects (October 9)

[assimo]

On 2/18/2021 at 10:23 PM, lrd.Helmet said:

On the front page there is a link to the documentation.

thx

[Nertea]

Re: WaterfallRestock, it needs a bunch of work, I'll be looking at it after the next Waterfall release which will have a lot of improvements and better templates.

[EnderKid2]

12 hours ago, RyanRising said:

who did those Twitch and Spark plumes a while back?

ah, I did those. I'll see about figuring out the Github thing

Edit: although if WaterfallRestock is being redone there might be little point in doing that. Eh, might as well figure out how to.

Edited February 21, 2021 by EnderKid2

[Nertea]

Not so much redone as hopefully doing a few things

1. Improving the basic templates included with the base Waterfall mod 
2. Applying some users' contributed templates to some of the engines, including many of @Zorg's new effects
3. Working towards finishing the missing ones. 

[Zorg]

I've also actually applied a few of the new templates for testing purposes and can submit these in a PR.

Kero booster (with film cooling), Kero booster alt, kero sustainer, kero upper.

Kero upper in vacuum. All the new kero plumes I added look similar in vacuum. Will try to introduce some variety with modifications in the future maybe (that wont affect sizing).

New cryo sea level and vac on the J2. Vac az50 on the apollo SPS.

Putting aside Waterfall restock for a moment, just as a general point for Waterfall Core, the newly added templates are:

 

Improved (configs using these may need adjustment though hopefully minimal). CryoEngines already updated.
hydrolox-upper-1
hydrolox-lower-2
hydrolox-lower-3

New Configs

Hypergols
AZ50+NTO upper
AZ50+NTO lower
IRFNA+UDMH upper
HDA+UDMH upper
UDMH+NTO upper
UDMH+NTO lower
Hypergolic white upper generic (for MMH+MON or IWFNA+UDMH etc)
Hypergolic vernier upper

Kerolox
These all feature colour change from yellow to red to blue as the rocket ascends the atmo. FInal vac form will have a yellow plume with blue trailing effects

Kerolox booster (w shock cones)
kerolox booster (alternate look, more flamey looking)
Kerolox sustainer
Film cooled versions of the later two
kerolox upper
kerolox vernier (sl or vac)

Methalox
BE4 based sea level
BE4U based (sustainer)
Raptor based sea level
RaptorVac based (sustainer)
Upper (generic)
Vernier (TQ11 based)

Utility
Simple nozzle glow effects to fill in the bell of an engine if the built in emissive is not sufficient.
Config makers should Apply template to an ADDITIONAL Waterfall module with a different module ID. Can then be adjusted independently of the main plume

Available in orange, blue, yellow and white (yellowish tint)

 

A few more previews applied to other mods

 

new keroxide plume

 

Kerolox plume undergoing expansion

 

Alcolox plume at sea level

UDMH + NTO plumes left and right with AZ50+NTO in the middle

 

Expanded Aerozine 50 plumes

 

(Im keeping the methalox previews under wraps, you'll see them with the CryoEngine update  )

Edited February 21, 2021 by Zorg

[Perantor]

1 hour ago, Zorg said:

I've also actually applied a few of the new templates for testing purposes and can submit these in a PR.

Kero booster (with film cooling), Kero booster alt, kero sustainer, kero upper.

Kero upper in vacuum. All the new kero plumes I added look similar in vacuum. Will try to introduce some variety with modifications in the future maybe (that wont affect sizing).

New cryo sea level and vac on the J2. Vac az50 on the apollo SPS.

Putting aside Waterfall restock for a moment, just as a general point for Waterfall Core, the newly added templates are:

 

Improved (configs using these may need adjustment though hopefully minimal). CryoEngines already updated.
hydrolox-upper-1
hydrolox-lower-2
hydrolox-lower-3

New Configs

Hypergols
AZ50+NTO upper
AZ50+NTO lower
IRFNA+UDMH upper
HDA+UDMH upper
UDMH+NTO upper
UDMH+NTO lower
Hypergolic white upper generic (for MMH+MON or IWFNA+UDMH etc)
Hypergolic vernier upper

Kerolox
These all feature colour change from yellow to red to blue as the rocket ascends the atmo. FInal vac form will have a yellow plume with blue trailing effects

Kerolox booster (w shock cones)
kerolox booster (alternate look, more flamey looking)
Kerolox sustainer
Film cooled versions of the later two
kerolox upper
kerolox vernier (sl or vac)

Methalox
BE4 based sea level
BE4U based (sustainer)
Raptor based sea level
RaptorVac based (sustainer)
Upper (generic)
Vernier (TQ11 based)

Utility
Simple nozzle glow effects to fill in the bell of an engine if the built in emissive is not sufficient.
Config makers should Apply template to an ADDITIONAL Waterfall module with a different module ID. Can then be adjusted independently of the main plume

Available in orange, blue, yellow and white (yellowish tint)

 

A few more previews applied to other mods

 

new keroxide plume

 

Kerolox plume undergoing expansion

 

Alcolox plume at sea level

UDMH + NTO plume

 

Expanded Aerozine 50 plumes

 

(Im keeping the methalox previews under wraps, you'll see them with the CryoEngine update  )

Very nice! I appreciate the realism in KSP and you've taken it one step further.
I confess that my favorite fuel is various toxic substances, for example, UDMH 

Edited February 21, 2021 by Perantor

[Hyunkell]

Hi. I was wondering if anyone is writing configs for the SSTU engines yet?
I've done some initial testing and found that if you find the right transform, Waterfall works just fine with the SSTU engine clustering system.

So, unless somebody else is already doing so,  I wouldn't mind setting up the offsets and linking the basic templates.

[m4ti140]

Is there any way to use the nozzle position in J-404 as a controller? Would be really useful for afterburners.

[xebx]

Very interesting, will the Waterfall methalox SL config have the same diamond effect as realplume ? it's the best (realistic) part of realplume, after that during ascend i find the expansion and color (all pink ?? when it should be 80% bluegray and 20% pink/purple imo, but can't change the tint) unrealistic, Waterfall may help fix it.

Edited February 23, 2021 by xebx

[AgentDew]

Since @Nertea mentioned that he's working on an overhaul to the Waterfall Core templates and that he'll add some of @Zorg's templates (ZT's) to WaterfallRestock, does that mean that ZT's will be included in the Waterfall Core from now on? From the comments on this thread it seems like this is the direction that is being taken and I just want to make sure.

IMO, Zorg's templates are so good that they should become the default Waterfall templates of the KSP mod community. It would be great to distribute them in a more general form than the BDB master. This could help accelerate the adoption of Waterfall by most popular mods since the mod creators would only have to focus on the alignment of the templates (and very few mods would require custom engine plumes different from the ones already made by Zorg). Real Plume would still provide great engine sounds, smoke effects, and maintain support for those that don't want Waterfall. Perhaps this is already what is being planned and my comment is not necessary but oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . 

Also, I can  help with the alignment of ZT's on ReStock engines. I have already added Waterfall patches of ZT's to most ReStock and ReStock+ engines in my personal KSP install and could provide the alignment and scaling numbers as well as the template-engine pairing if that saves some time.

P.S. 

On 2/21/2021 at 5:45 AM, Zorg said:

I've also actually applied a few of the new templates for testing purposes and can submit these in a PR.

Kero booster (with film cooling), Kero booster alt, kero sustainer, kero upper.

I'd like to suggest to have the ReStock Skipper engine use a hydrolox lower template since I believe it is based on the LE-7A (I may be wrong though). If CryoEngines doesn't acknowledge it as a hydrolox engine, keeping it with the kero sustainer template is perfectly fine.

[Knight of St John]

2 hours ago, xebx said:

Very interesting, will the Waterfall methalox SL config have the same diamond effect than realplume ? it's the best (realistic) part of realplume, after that during ascend i find the expansion and color (all pink ?? when it should be 80% bluegray and 20% pink/purple imo, but can't change the tint) unrealistic, Waterfall may help fix it.

So in my configs for stock , I've created a methalox upper stage plume for the poodle and terrier. (the reasoning behind this is explained on my thread) and I've also made RAPIER configs for the methalox jet and closed cycle.
I based myself on the vacuum raptor test footage for atmospheric conditions:

this is the closed cycle rapier mode though. the jet mode looks more like a jet, but similar colors.

But for the vacuum plume, I based myself on this:

It shows a methalox plume in near-vacuum.
As you can see its very cyan, so that is how my plume also looks in vacuum:

 

Honestly, I'm not completely satisfied with the colors yet, but broadly speaking, that's how they will look in the end.

[Nertea]

37 minutes ago, AgentDew said:

Since @Nertea mentioned that he's working on an overhaul to the Waterfall Core templates and that he'll add some of @Zorg's templates (ZT's) to WaterfallRestock, does that mean that ZT's will be included in the Waterfall Core from now on? From the comments on this thread it seems like this is the direction that is being taken and I just want to make sure.

IMO, Zorg's templates are so good that they should become the default Waterfall templates of the KSP mod community. It would be great to distribute them in a more general form than the BDB master. This could help accelerate the adoption of Waterfall by most popular mods since the mod creators would only have to focus on the alignment of the templates (and very few mods would require custom engine plumes different from the ones already made by Zorg). Real Plume would still provide great engine sounds, smoke effects, and maintain support for those that don't want Waterfall. Perhaps this is already what is being planned and my comment is not necessary but oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . 

Also, I can  help with the alignment of ZT's on ReStock engines. I have already added Waterfall patches of ZT's to most ReStock and ReStock+ engines in my personal KSP install and could provide the alignment and scaling numbers as well as the template-engine pairing if that saves some time.

P.S. 

Yes, that's the idea, most of the templates can do a direct replace with a few engines needing new/tweaked ones. I'm working on this now. 

[Zorg]

40 minutes ago, AgentDew said:

Real Plume would still provide great engine sounds, smoke effects, and maintain support for those that don't want Waterfall. Perhaps this is already what is being planned and my comment is not necessary but oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . 

Also worth noting the RealPlume library of sounds (originally from the old KW rocketry pack) are already in Waterfall core for anyone who wants to use them with waterfall to directly reference. 4 new running sounds from Beale (from Tantares and Commonwealth Rocketry) will be in the next update too.

[Zorg]

37 minutes ago, Knight of St John said:

 

But for the vacuum plume, I based myself on this:

It shows a methalox plume in near-vacuum.
As you can see its very cyan, so that is how my plume also looks in vacuum:
 

 

Honestly, I'm not completely satisfied with the colors yet, but broadly speaking, that's how they will look in the end.

Thats quite fascinating! I'll admit I dont love the colour just from a personal level, maybe because it reminds me a bit of some of the older RealPlume cryo stuff, but nature doesnt care what you think I guess . fwiw I didnt do a colour change from the familiar pink/purple hues at SL but its intruiging for sure.

[Spaceman.Spiff]

1 hour ago, AgentDew said:

LE-7A (I may be wrong though). If CryoEngines doesn't acknowledge it as a hydrolox engine,

I think that is the case. CryoEngines turns it into a LH2 burning engine. 

[Vevladdd]

Hello. Is it possible to show different plumes depending on the chosen RealFuels config? If it is possible, how do I configure it? I tried the way RealPlume configures this, but the plume doesn't change. 

@MODULE[ModuleEngineConfigs]

{

@CONFIG,*

{

%powerEffectName = Hypergolic_UpperWhite

}

@CONFIG[AJ10-133-LH]

{

%powerEffectName = CombinedPlume

}

}

This is an example from ROEngines, which uses RealPlume

[GuessingEveryDay]

Sir, this is a Waterfall. You want to head back 2 blocks, take a left, and then show the secret password. Or use this tunnel.

 

[Vevladdd]

1 hour ago, GuessingEveryDay said:

Sir, this is a Waterfall

I know it. I want to know information about Waterfall configs. And I use RealPlume as an example of what I want to make.

Probably you didn't understand my post correctly due to my awful writing skills in English lol

[MalevolentNinja]

@Nertea What a great mod, thanks for taking the time to create and share this with the community.

I had a thought... would it be feasible and have you considered expanding the effects from this mod to re-entry?

[xebx]

20 hours ago, Knight of St John said:

So in my configs for stock , I've created a methalox upper stage plume for the poodle and terrier. (the reasoning behind this is explained on my thread) and I've also made RAPIER configs for the methalox jet and closed cycle.
I based myself on the vacuum raptor test footage for atmospheric conditions:

this is the closed cycle rapier mode though. the jet mode looks more like a jet, but similar colors.

But for the vacuum plume, I based myself on this:

It shows a methalox plume in near-vacuum.
As you can see its very cyan, so that is how my plume also looks in vacuum:

 

Honestly, I'm not completely satisfied with the colors yet, but broadly speaking, that's how they will look in the end.

I really like the plume on the right on the first picture, the rapier one ? it should be fine for the SL raptor.

I'm more surprised with the second picture, it looks recent (less than 20 years) and it's clearly Cyan lol.

Now i was looking at this :

And damnit lol, it looks mainly red/orange/pink/purple after the flow is stabilized.

But during daylight tests (Boca) i find it looks more bluegrey and pink (maybe 50%-50%) at full power, and yellow/torch mode at low power.

In the end it's not easy to say realistic color is this one or that one.

Maybe 2 or 3 different settings per engine type could cover the different real possibilities (and taste lol).

Edited February 23, 2021 by xebx

[Knight of St John]

39 minutes ago, xebx said:

In the end it's not easy to say realistic color is this one or that one.

True. Also: The color is also very dependent on the temperature of the plume, which would be bluer when hotter, and redder when cooler.
And then there's the exact fuel mixture ratios. If you have excess methane, you will get methane-glow, and not just CO2 and H2O glow. and even small differences there will influence the final color.
The air around the plume also gets entrapped by the flow, and the longer the plume is, the more air will mix in with the plume, and you may get some oxygen, nitrogen, or even NOx glow in there.
And on top of that, the camera that filmed the tests could also influence what color it looks on screen. and the lighting conditions can influence that too.

Looking at that video, I do see some green at the start, but that's lighting fluid (or whatever its called)
But also when it shuts down, you can see blue and green, which isn't because of lighting fluid, but probably because of the changing fuel ratios. (when it's shutting down, this can vary a little because the flow isn't that exact in those transient stages)

So who knows... maybe the cyan color is because of excess methane, which would make sense, since that altitude test picture I showed probably also has excess methane. running an engine on exact fuel mix is dangerous because you could get some really hot excess oxygen fluctuations, which damage your engine fast, and usually they have an excess of the other fuel component as a margin so this doesn't happen.

In that case, I think it's still okay for my plume to have cyan colors, because the poodle and terrier would probably also have excess methane.
The Raptor is fairly special in that it's a  full-flow staged combustion cycle engine, and therefore has exact fuel mixes, and (theoretically) no excess of methane.

EDIT:
this is another test I found. It looks a lot more like the raptor plume here, but you can definitely see the plume is cyan near the nozzle.

Edited February 23, 2021 by Knight of St John

[RealKerbal3x]

2 minutes ago, Knight of St John said:

Looking at that video, I do see some green at the start, but that's lighting fluid (or whatever its called)

Raptor uses spark ignition so it's not TEA-TEB lighting fluid. It might be some of the copper channels in the nozzle combusting, which isn't good, but that was an early test.

[RyanRising]

1 hour ago, Knight of St John said:

So who knows... maybe the cyan color is because of excess methane, which would make sense, since that altitude test picture I showed probably also has excess methane. running an engine on exact fuel mix is dangerous because you could get some really hot excess oxygen fluctuations, which damage your engine fast, and usually they have an excess of the other fuel component as a margin so this doesn't happen.

In that case, I think it's still okay for my plume to have cyan colors, because the poodle and terrier would probably also have excess methane.
The Raptor is fairly special in that it's a  full-flow staged combustion cycle engine, and therefore has exact fuel mixes, and (theoretically) no excess of methane.

I don't see why a full-flow staged combustion cycle necessitates a stoichometric mix - all it means is you have both an oxidiser-rich and fuel-rich preburner that both supply the main combustion chamber, right? So your fuel-rich preburner could be more fuel-rich than your oxygen-rich preburner is oxygen-rich, resulting in a mixture ratio that's still fuel-rich.

I'd also like to say that, perhaps in contrast to Zorg, I really like do like having the cyan colour in there as a contrast to the purple near sea level, and (in the case of a RAPIER's closed cycle) to the orange-yellow plasma surrounding an SSTO on ascent.

 

Edited February 23, 2021 by RyanRising
Remembered why the RAPIER plume struck me as much as it did.

[Spaceman.Spiff]

16 minutes ago, RyanRising said:

really like do like having the cyan colour in there as a contrast to the purple near sea level.

Definitely. 

The cyan looks very nice.

Especially in the RAPIER plumes.

[Knight of St John]

1 hour ago, RyanRising said:

I don't see why a full-flow staged combustion cycle necessitates a stoichometric mix

Well, the whole point of making a full flow staged combustion cycle engine is that you can react all of your fuel, to get the maximum amount of energy out of your fuel mass, and therefore the max isp.
and for that you need a stoichometric mix.