AD ASTRA: A Reimagining of Stock and The Outer Planets Mod - "It's Cloudin' Time"

[bQuest]

On 11/12/2022 at 12:57 AM, G'th said:

Threw out the old color map and started over.  Not entirely certain if I love this or hate it. 

 

I know this is incredibly old (Duna's probably been done better now, I'm still just reading all the posts.) but I love Duna's look here.

Duna never was a realistic mars analogue, I always disliked how they lowered the red in the remake, and hated how in Parallax they made it a more realistic orange-ish color completely contrasting the deeper red visible from orbit/in the map view. A return to the old red is in order!

Damn, I found this page looking for a tutorial on how to make custom EVE effects, And I've left with a new mod bookmarked. This is perhaps one of the best mods for the game ever made, I do have one question though.

How will you manage the upcoming release of the true volumetric clouds in EVE Redux? Will the pack not come out until it has a config for those or will it release without them at first?

[Gojira]

I love that red to be quite honest.

[Diddly Feelerino]

This whole thing looks incredible. Can't wait to see the final version with Parallax and the new EVE clouds!

[KSP Atlas]

How is the mod going?

[Rutabaga22]

18 hours ago, KSP Atlas said:

How is the mod going?

presumed dead

[G'th]

2 hours ago, Rutabaga22 said:

presumed dead

 

Somewhat recent events in the TTRPG world culminated in me starting to write my own game and thats been sucking up all my creative willpower. 

The mod isn't necessarily dead, and I can honestly pick right back up where I left off whenever, it just isn't what Im wanting to focus on atm. 

Plus I like to think it'll be a good thing in the end. When I come back inspired to work on it more it'll be the better for it, particularly considering only one planet needs "hard" terrain work put into it, and the rest is just making it beautiful which is the comparatively easier part for me. 

[Royalswissarmyknife]

There back!

[Rutabaga22]

On 3/13/2023 at 6:03 PM, G'th said:

Somewhat recent events in the TTRPG world culminated in me starting to write my own game and thats been sucking up all my creative willpower. 

G'th ttrpg confirmed?  

[Iodyne]

On 3/13/2023 at 6:03 PM, G'th said:

The mod isn't necessarily dead, and I can honestly pick right back up where I left off whenever, it just isn't what Im wanting to focus on atm. 

Do you have an in-dev release we can play around with in the meantime?

[louie]

it's not dead!!! wooo! can't wait to see any more screenshots you make later G'th

[space_otter]

This mod looks really great!!! 

On 3/29/2023 at 6:25 AM, Iodyne said:

Do you have an in-dev release we can play around with in the meantime?

I would really like to play along with this mod as well.

[Cytauri]

This mod’s development was good, I really liked what G’th’s idea was with the parallax scatter for OPM and the cool visuals like geysers and ash plumes. I wonder you, @G'th, ever had plans to have configs for the volumetric cloud mod by Blackrack for all the stock planets and the OPM planets. 

[rigel222]

in the "read me" in the download, it says to install the 43k cloud pack. I just wanted to let you know that the link doesnt work. Could you send me the file for your clouds if you have it on your pc. Thanks

[PicoSpace]

On 6/26/2023 at 8:18 PM, Cytauri said:

This mod’s development was good, I really liked what G’th’s idea was with the parallax scatter for OPM and the cool visuals like geysers and ash plumes. I wonder you, @G'th, ever had plans to have configs for the volumetric cloud mod by Blackrack for all the stock planets and the OPM planets. 

Having played with the Volumetric clouds I can honestly say once its fully released I'd expect a +80% uptake in the community, its just amazing, utterly amazing.

Edited July 20, 2023 by PicoSpace

[Cytauri]

23 hours ago, PicoSpace said:

Having played with the Volumetric clouds I can honestly say once its fully released I'd expect a +80% uptake in the community, its just amazing, utterly amazing.

I agree! My dream for that mod is that the entirety of the OPM mod’s planets have those clouds including the gas giants. It would be so cool to have an entire system with those lifelike clouds.

[PicoSpace]

6 hours ago, Cytauri said:

I agree! My dream for that mod is that the entirety of the OPM mod’s planets have those clouds including the gas giants. It would be so cool to have an entire system with those lifelike clouds.

I'm working on a patch that will add fire storms (I asked him how to do it, pretty straight forward in that regard) and eventually fire tornados to Moho (there was talk of him adding in tornadoes & hurricanes, I'm just going to make them fire-like if possible). So patching all the planets in OPM by an experianced planetary modder (I'm not) shouldn't be too hard.

Apparently Auroras are also on the list to be developed, it will be quite a mod once fully released.

Edited July 22, 2023 by PicoSpace

[Cytauri]

On 7/21/2023 at 9:27 PM, PicoSpace said:

I'm working on a patch that will add fire storms (I asked him how to do it, pretty straight forward in that regard) and eventually fire tornados to Moho (there was talk of him adding in tornadoes & hurricanes, I'm just going to make them fire-like if possible). So patching all the planets in OPM by an experianced planetary modder (I'm not) shouldn't be too hard.

Apparently Auroras are also on the list to be developed, it will be quite a mod once fully released.

Sounds great! I haven’t been playing KSP that much but that sounds so interesting that I think I’ll start playing again daily! 

[Great Liao]

[/deleted]

Edited October 17, 2023 by Great Liao
This comment aged well.

[Cytauri]

R.I.P AD Astra. The baby that never was born...

 

[Great Liao]

I really hope someone carries this vision forward.

[Cytauri]

On 10/16/2023 at 9:27 PM, Great Liao said:

I really hope someone carries this vision forward.

Me too. It was the only thing that made me look forward to playing the game after KSP 2 flopped, but I just abandoned the game since there is not really anything I can do. I stopped playing the game and I moved on. I sometimes check this forum but now I'm leaving for a long time. Have a good time playing this game because it really does hook you in and makes you open your mind.

I hope the dev is doing well irl as well.

Edited October 18, 2023 by Cytauri

[G'th]

7 hours ago, Cytauri said:

I hope the dev is doing well irl as well.

 

I am indeed.

Im still pretty focused on my TTRPG, though the temptation to crack open this old chestnut is starting to grow. If only just so I can take a break lol. Like you I got pretty burnt out on KSP in general but it has been a sufficiently ling while...

Id also say it's less that it was never born and more that I locked it in the basement like a red headed stepchild.

[rheaunderstars]

3 hours ago, G'th said:

 

I am indeed.

Im still pretty focused on my TTRPG, though the temptation to crack open this old chestnut is starting to grow. If only just so I can take a break lol. Like you I got pretty burnt out on KSP in general but it has been a sufficiently ling while...

Id also say it's less that it was never born and more that I locked it in the basement like a red headed stepchild.

YOOOO he's returned!! There is hope

I know people have asked this already, but do you think you could throw together an in-dev release for us to try out? I've been dying to take a look at this!!

Also, I'm curious about how you designed the planets. I've been wanting to get into designing my own planet pack too. Do you model the planets in blender or something? Is there some specialized software you use for making planets?

[G'th]

1 hour ago, rheaunderstars said:

YOOOO he's returned!! There is hope

I know people have asked this already, but do you think you could throw together an in-dev release for us to try out? I've been dying to take a look at this!!

Also, I'm curious about how you designed the planets. I've been wanting to get into designing my own planet pack too. Do you model the planets in blender or something? Is there some specialized software you use for making planets?

 

Its mostly GIMP work actually. The main hurdle is coming to grips with how heightmaps work, and once you know that then you can make some really great normals, which is the main secret to why mine look as good in a 3d space, and then its just having a good eye for textures and knowing how to paint with them. (Every planet you've seen me do in this thread was effectively painted by hand)

But its also a lot of iteration and learning how different manipulations extrapolate out into the final look. 

Beyond that, its also having the best source material you can get your hands on. Actual DEMS (digital elevation models; basically another term for heightmaps) in the highest resolution you can find work best. You can get those at astrogeology.usgs.gov for most of the planets/moons in our system. Not all of them are complete (Venus is notoriously incomplete despite being super high res) and some aren't at a very high res, but they're still useful if you play with them. If you do some googlefu you can find others; I can't for the life of me tell you where I found it but I even found for Halleys Comet of all things. 

Tangrams heightmapper is also a really useful project. It lets you zoom into a super high res DEM of earth and pull shots out of it directly. Very useful for pulling out different shapes of mountains. 

From there its just a matter of getting your heightmap together (its a whole process to cover how to make one out of nothing) and then extrapolating the color map from it. If you're doing a real planet its a similar rigmarole to find a really good one that covers the whole planet and isn't already manipulated, but its dead easy once you have it. Just line up the maps and you're good to go. 

If you're making up stuff though, then its a bit more involved. The technique I used is to first set up a GIMP file with the heightmap as one layer, and then copy it twice. The original layer I just leave alone as a clean copy. The second layer is what I used for the painting process, and then on the third layer, I generate a really strong normal map for it; way stronger than it should be for the game. I then desaturate it and set it to soft light. 

What this does is set it up so that you'll get a sense of how its going to look once you bring it into the game. Once you starting bringing in colors and textures, its going to really pop.

From there, how you paint in the land depends. If you want to go cartoony you can just use solid colors, but for me I like textures, and more than that I like making my own. That involves, again, having good source images. I usually pulled from one of either Earth, Luna, Mars, or one of the bigger Jovian moons, as those had the best truecolor maps I could find, and then its just a matter if finding an interesting looking spot and making a seamless texture out of it. 

 

Once you have that, add a layer filled with that new texture and add a layer mask. Copy/paste your heightmap layer into that mask.

 

What will happen is that the texture will fade in and out according to the opacity generated by the height map (ie whites will have full opacity, blacks will be transparent, greys in the middle). 

 

By then going in and tweaking the mask (inverting it, messing with the Levels, and even erasing chunks of it) then you can start doing all kinds of wonderful things. 

Main thing to keep in mind, especially with really complex planets with lots of interwoven colors going on, is to keep a heirarchy of colors going so you know how to layer them properly.

For example on an Earth like, I could have upwards of 16-20 different layers covering different elements. Usually at the bottom I have a "bedrock" texture that mostly shows up under the ocean, then I build up different biomes, then add snow, and then at the very top is the ocean which should cover everything below it. 

Oh, and yeah, oceans and rivers are a pain in the ass. I was lucky in finding a map of earth that already plucked out all the waterways (sooo many rivers) and Kerbin/Laythe were all easy too as you can just use the already made color maps to make a mask. So if you're going to do waterheavy planets you want to try and find a way to make pulling out the water easy. Sometimes though it can come down to just having to do it by hand. 

 

So yeah this isn't the best tutorial or what have you but it should give an idea of the process. Beyond the artwork is just learning how Kopernicus works which is all config work. A pain but the devs there are friendly enough. 

[Great Liao]

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Edited October 18, 2023 by Great Liao
to delete it