[1.12.x] Parallax - PBR Terrain and Surface Objects [2.0.8]

[Carni35]

The flickering you are seeing in the video is due to the EVE city light . Just have to disable it.

[Idinyphe]

This is the one of the biggest things with this game.

Those mods never... ever work. In this case there is no impact at all... 

[Dafni]

3 hours ago, Idinyphe said:

This is the one of the biggest things with this game.

Those mods never... ever work. In this case there is no impact at all... 

This week I built a few new KSP installs around different sets of core-mods... and they all worked just fine when I test-ran them.

You must be doing something wrong... May I suggest using CKAN? This way you'll get all dependencies along with your mods and will always have the latest versions too.

[Eklykti]

11 hours ago, Gameslinx said:

Can I ask what your GPU is and how much RAM you have?

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 x 4GB
16GB system RAM

[Dinotrakker]

Not sure if anyone else has run into this, but I've noticed that saving modifications to the Scatter distribution settings in the CTRL+P menu doesn't actually save them, they'll revert back to defaults if you restart the game. This applies both to editing them in the menu and saving them to the config file via the button in the menu, and editing the config text file itself.

I've only tested this on the Mun. I'm not sure if it applies to other bodies but I'm guessing it would?

My terrain quality is high and shader quality is Ultra. I can provide KSP.log and Settings.cfg if needed.

[Gameslinx]

29 minutes ago, Dinotrakker said:

saving modifications to the Scatter distribution settings in the CTRL+P menu doesn't actually save them

Saving the scatters does not save to the live config. It instead exports a config to GameData/Parallax/Exports with the node title "ParallaxScatters-EXPORTED". You can copy this into the actual config, then remove '-EXPORTED' from the root node to have Parallax load the config

Edited September 16, 2022 by Gameslinx

[Eklykti]

Apparently after I changed dxgi.nvapiHack back to True (as I did experiment with that on a 2.0.0), it works, but runs slower than native and the real memory difference is much less than what top says (not sure how, but there's heavy swapping despite showing SWAP + RSS columns being less in total than free memory before starting KSP). So I guess I'll try to play native and maybe remove a couple of other mods.

[Dinotrakker]

5 minutes ago, Gameslinx said:

Saving the scatters does not save to the live config. It instead exports a config to GameData/Parallax/Exports with the node title "ParallaxScatters-EXPORTED". You can copy this into the actual config, then remove '-EXPORTED' from the root node to have Parallax load the config

Huh, didn't know that. My bad! Thanks for the clarification. Great mod.

Just to make sure, you mean copy the -EXPORTED config to the "Config" folder, and not as an addition to the ParallaxGlobal.cfg file, right?  

Edited September 16, 2022 by Dinotrakker
Additional question

[Idinyphe]

5 hours ago, Dafni said:

This week I built a few new KSP installs around different sets of core-mods... and they all worked just fine when I test-ran them.

You must be doing something wrong... May I suggest using CKAN? This way you'll get all dependencies along with your mods and will always have the latest versions too.

I tried that. No impact.

I deleted it from Steam locally and reinstalled a clean installation without any mods. No impact.

I am sure there is a solution that is not mentioned yet like "you have to edit this file and that file and then say bibbidi bobbidi boo" and it will work. But I don't have time to learn how you write some decend mods that work for this game... so I depend on something like: here is the download, copy this to that folder and thats it.

 

 

[Entropian]

16 minutes ago, Idinyphe said:

I am sure there is a solution that is not mentioned yet like "you have to edit this file and that file and then say bibbidi bobbidi boo" and it will work. But I don't have time to learn how you write some decend mods that work for this game... so I depend on something like: here is the download, copy this to that folder and thats it.

Step 1: download the mod and its dependencies

Step 2: copy (or extract to in the case of zips) into Kerbal Space Program/Gamedata

Step 3: load the game

Essentially what CKAN does is this exact thing, but it also ensures that you can easily update your mods and not miss dependencies.  It's really not as hard as you're making it out to be.

[Gameslinx]

49 minutes ago, Dinotrakker said:

Just to make sure, you mean copy the -EXPORTED config to the "Config" folder, and not as an addition to the ParallaxGlobal.cfg file, right? 

Yes. It can be anywhere in GameData, but if you keep in in the Exports folder it can be overwritten by future changes. The -EXPORTED text is only there to stop it from being loaded alongside the original config

[JonnyOThan]

9 hours ago, Idinyphe said:

This is the one of the biggest things with this game.

Those mods never... ever work. In this case there is no impact at all... 

The best way to get help with this is to post your ksp.log file somewhere that we can look at it.  Here's some info: KSP Logs

[HebaruSan]

1 hour ago, Idinyphe said:

No impact.

No impact.

Believe it or not, I've seen multiple cases in the past where "I installed the mods but they're not there" happened because the user installed the mods to one copy of the game and then ran a different copy of the game. I have no way to check whether that's the cause in your case since we haven't seen a log or a screenshot of your GameData or anything else, but it's one possible explanation that's consistent with all the available evidence we do have.

Edited September 16, 2022 by HebaruSan

[Folkhoer]

Amazing mod but the Kerbal Konstructs runways are a bit crowded atm :D. Any way to fix this?

 

 

 

[Gameslinx]

20 minutes ago, Folkhoer said:

Amazing mod but the Kerbal Konstructs runways are a bit crowded atm :D. Any way to fix this?

 

Whoever made the launch sites needs to add a MapDecal with 'removeScatters' set to true

[JonnyOThan]

54 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Believe it or not, I've seen multiple cases in the past where "I installed the mods but they're not there" happened because the user installed the mods to one copy of the game and then ran a different copy of the game. I have no way to check whether that's the cause in your case since we haven't seen a log or a screenshot of your GameData or anything else, but it's one possible explanation that's consistent with all the available evidence we do have.

Can confirm, have also seen this a few times.

[Zelda]

16 hours ago, Carni35 said:

The flickering you are seeing in the video is due to the EVE city light . Just have to disable it.

Is this still the case with the latest version of EVE? BR pushed a fix explicitly for this, and I can confirm it is fixed for me at least using a 2.5x stock system and AVP. 

 

[RilonMusk]

Hello @Gameslinx! I am having trouble getting parallax 2.0 to work. I got the green text to show up  on the loading screen, and that usually means the mod is working.  Here is the link to the computer I'm using, and I cant tell wether its graphics card is good enough or not. https://www.costco.com/dell-inspiron-desktop---12th-gen-intel-core-i5-12400---windows-11.product.100853478.html The problem specifically is that literally nothing shows up. It is no different from the stock game. (Also I set all the graphics settings to max.)

 

[Gameslinx]

28 minutes ago, RilonMusk said:

Hello @Gameslinx! I am having trouble getting parallax 2.0 to work. I got the green text to show up  on the loading screen, and that usually means the mod is working.  Here is the link to the computer I'm using, and I cant tell wether its graphics card is good enough or not. https://www.costco.com/dell-inspiron-desktop---12th-gen-intel-core-i5-12400---windows-11.product.100853478.html The problem specifically is that literally nothing shows up. It is no different from the stock game. (Also I set all the graphics settings to max.)

 

Hi, you won't see much of a difference until you launch a vessel on the runway. If you're not seeing any foliage, make sure you installed the Stock_ScatterTextures correctly. There's a handy video in the OP that shows you how to install Parallax correctly.

As for your computer, you are lacking a dedicated graphics card which means you are running Intel UHD 730 graphics. While Parallax will work, I can't guarantee amazing performance. I recommend you instead run terrain shader quality set to High to disable tessellation but retain the cool surface foliage. Let me know how that goes

[RilonMusk]

11 minutes ago, Gameslinx said:

Hi, you won't see much of a difference until you launch a vessel on the runway. If you're not seeing any foliage, make sure you installed the Stock_ScatterTextures correctly. There's a handy video in the OP that shows you how to install Parallax correctly.

As for your computer, you are lacking a dedicated graphics card which means you are running Intel UHD 730 graphics. While Parallax will work, I can't guarantee amazing performance. I recommend you instead run terrain shader quality set to High to disable tessellation but retain the cool surface foliage. Let me know how that goes

Thanks! Does it work when the green text on the loading screen appears, or do I have to do something else. Also, does the starting menu show any difference when parallax 2.0 is working/not working? Also, I have launched a vessel, and driven it around. I can confirm that nothing is showing up near the launch site, mountains, or underwater. Will setting the shader quality to high make them appear? I dont really need the planet beutification, I just want the scatters. Also, awesome replying so quickly!

[Gameslinx]

4 minutes ago, RilonMusk said:

Does it work when the green text on the loading screen appears, or do I have to do something else

It should do. Parallax will warn you if you've not installed a part of it correctly

4 minutes ago, RilonMusk said:

does the starting menu show any difference when parallax 2.0 is working/not working

No

4 minutes ago, RilonMusk said:

I can confirm that nothing is showing up near the launch site, mountains, or underwater

Can you send me your KSP.log file which is located in your Kerbal Space Program folder? Also, if possible, can you attach a screenshot of the files inside the Parallax_StockTextures folder in GameData? Cheers

[Musuko42]

@Gameslinx you magnificent creature, I wonder if you might be able to help me; I'm playing with the scatters set to 15x because I'm using a 10 times rescale. The scatters should be at 100x but that just kills the computer. 15x seems about the most I can get it before performance starts to get hit.

I've had a look in the ctrl-P menu, but confess that I don't entirely understand it. Is there a good way for me to increase the density of the scatters closer to that holy grail of 100x, perhaps with the range of the scatters reduced correspondingly? If there is, I'm not sure which settings to adjust.

Even with the reduced density, though, it's just...so very, very good. You are a wizard.

[Gameslinx]

1 minute ago, Musuko42 said:

Is there a good way for me to increase the density of the scatters closer to that holy grail of 100x, perhaps with the range of the scatters reduced correspondingly

All this can be achieved in the ParallaxGlobal.cfg rather than the Ctrl+P menu. You can adjust both the density and range of the scatters there, as well as LOD ranges. As you increase the density and range, you may want to lower the LOD range.

The Ctrl+P menu is for editing individual scatters on a config level

[Musuko42]

7 minutes ago, Gameslinx said:

All this can be achieved in the ParallaxGlobal.cfg rather than the Ctrl+P menu. You can adjust both the density and range of the scatters there, as well as LOD ranges. As you increase the density and range, you may want to lower the LOD range.

The Ctrl+P menu is for editing individual scatters on a config level

Ah! Is the rangemultipler the value I need to change? For example, if I double the densitymulitplier from 1 to 2, and half the rangemultiplier from 1 to 0.5, would I see denser scatter in a smaller area?

For my rescale, I take it I would want a densitymultiplier of 100 and a rangemultiplier of 0.01?

[Gameslinx]

1 minute ago, Musuko42 said:

Ah! Is the rangemultipler the value I need to change? For example, if I double the densitymulitplier from 1 to 2, and half the rangemultiplier from 1 to 0.5, would I see denser scatter in a smaller area?

For my rescale, I take it I would want a densitymultiplier of 100 and a rangemultiplier of 0.01?

The range multiplier increases the radius of how far scatters render. So doubling it amounts to 4x as many scatters being rendered. If you wanted the same amount of objects to be rendered as 1x density, 1x range but with density set to 100x, you will need a range of 0.1x to balance it out.

Tl;dr, set your density to 100x and your range to 0.1x. I must warn you though, your memory usage will still be very high and could mean your performance is still bad as you run the risk of using up a lot of VRAM. Most people I've talked to don't go past 50x density