Environmental & Terrain Clouds do not have smooth transition or animation. [After a given years of game time]

[NexusHelium]

Reported Version: v0.1.4 (latest) | Mods: none | Can replicate without mods? Yes 
OS: Windows 11 | CPU: Intel i7 | GPU: Geforce 1080 | RAM: 12 GB

 

Severity: Low (It's just a bit annoying.)

Frequency: High (No matter what)

I'm not sure if this is a bug or an unfinished asset but the clouds on... everywhere as far as I know do not have a stable and smooth animation. They just kind of skip from one spot to another no matter where you are (With the notable exception of on the map and in orbit).

The clouds also appear to kind of haze on the screen whenever you move the camera around, resulting in a really fuzzy and perspective breaking scene.

Again, if this is a unfinished asset and something they're working on feel free to move this to archived. This has just... bugged (he he) me for a little while now.

 

Edited December 6, 2023 by Spicat

[Anth]

I have noticed that happening as well.

[Mushylog]

Yes!
I talked about this a few months ago. It happens (to me) in a campaign save when I reach maybe 2 years of game time? Something along those lines. The clouds are smooth, however, in a new campaign. I was told it's because of my old Hard Disk Driver, and was recommended to get a SDD.

Did you try a new campaign to see if it was the same problem as mine?

I also noticed the fuzziness of the clouds when the camera moves around a vessel - it looks like the clouds shake a bit before sticking to their rightful position around the globe of Kerbin. I think this is something that could be relatively easily fixed. The stutter of the clouds though... I'm afraid it's a hardware issue. Maybe the devs can improve the animation of clouds, for sure.

[NexusHelium]

 

16 hours ago, Mushylog said:

I also noticed the fuzziness of the clouds when the camera moves around a vessel - it looks like the clouds shake a bit before sticking to their rightful position around the globe of Kerbin

I have not yet tried the new campaign but the shaking of the clouds does remind me of the one bug where tidally locked moons show the planets shaking violently (Especially in timewarp.) so maybe it has something to do with that? Just some guesses. There's no real evidence that these two are related it just reminded me of that bug.

EDIT: I just saw that the bug I mentioned does not affect just tidally locked moons. It appears to affect atmospheres and clouds as well.

Edited September 13, 2023 by NexusHelium

[Mushylog]

Reported Version: v0.1.4 (latest) | Mods: none | Can replicate without mods? Yes 
OS: Windows 10 Home Version: 22H2 OS Build: 19045.3324 | CPU: CPU Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz Base speed: 3.40 GHz Sockets: 1 Cores: 4 Logical | GPU: GPU 1 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Driver version: 31.0.15.3713 Driver date: 14/08/2023 DirectX | RAM: Memory 32.0 GB DDR3 Speed: 1600 MHz Slots used: 4 of 4 Form factor: DIMM Hardware reserved: 4

The animation for the clouds on Kerbin (and probably any other type of volumetric cloud on other planets - to be investigated) is choppy after a few years. I would say 4 years. Perhaps it is related to the size of the game file and the fact that my computer uses a Hard Disk Drive (HDD).

This animation bug is not observed in a new campaign save with only a few seconds of game time. It appears to only happen after a few years.

There was speculation in the discord server of KSP2 that the cause of this is because my computer uses an HDD, and it would probably not happen with an Solid State Drive (SDD).

Here is a video of the clouds animation bug:

We can clearly observe a choppy movement from the clouds when they move forward, at 1:32 and onward. The stuttering becomes more obvious as my craft approaches the clouds.

To be clear: in a new campaign save, the animation is smooth and constant. There are no issue whatsoever. The bug only happens after some time (uncertain as to when exactly, perhaps the bug is triggered after a long time-warp, perhaps it's only related to the size of the campaign's file).

Edited September 18, 2023 by Anth12

[Mushylog]

This Cloud animation bug is still present on v0.1.4.1 after 4y of in-game time (tested on a new save of this current patch, time-warped until 4 years).

 

[mucco]

I might know what this is. Could be due to a noise-generation function taking a float parameter for time. If the function is passed "seconds from start of the game" for time, after 4 years or so this value is well into the hundreds of millions, and float has lost enough precision, skipping values as it goes. So the function, instead of computing cloud shape for time 100M+0, 100M+1, 100M+2, 100M+3, 100M+4, 100M+5 seconds, it will do, 100m+0, 100m+0, 100m+0, 100m+0, 100m+0, 100m+8, 100m+8, 100m+8, thus appearing to skip.

[Mushylog]

Reported Version: v0.1.5 (latest) | Mods: none | Can replicate without mods? Yes 
OS: Edition Windows 10 Home Version 22H2 Installed on ‎29/‎06/‎2022 OS build 19045.3570 Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19052.1000.0 | CPU: CPU Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz Base speed: 3.40 GHz Sockets: 1 Cores: 4 Logical | GPU: GPU 0 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Driver version: 31.0.15.4592 Driver date: 19/10/2023 DirectX | RAM: Memory 32.0 GB DDR3 Speed: 1600 MHz Slots used: 4 of 4 Form factor: DIMM Hardware reserved: 4

Severity: Medium

Frequency: High (only for me and NexusHelium) 

I encountered this visual bug as long as I can remember, ever since release of Early Access. Before patch v0.1.5 , it always happened after 4 years of game time (time displays 4y). It may be related to the fact I used the 2 fastest time-warp speed in the tracking station*, in order to have a good launch window with other planets.

However, it happened at 2 years of game time (time displays 2y) after I time-warped to also capture a good planetary transfer window.

 

*: I say this because it is possible that the bug could not trigger if I never used time-warp ever, but for obvious reasons I cannot test and wait months, years, of game-time and actual real time to see if the clouds will stutter or not.

 

Here is a video that shows right away the clouds froze in place and then suddenly teleporting forward to freeze again, then teleport again, etc.

 

I also provide the save file of my campaign where the bug occurs.

 

Included Attachments:

autosave_1.json

Edited October 28, 2023 by Spicat

[Spicat]

@Mushylog, merged your bug report.

[Vl3d]

Same bug:

 

[mucco]

Reported Version: v0.1.5 (latest) | Mods: none | Can replicate without mods? Yes 
OS: Win11 | CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 | GPU: AMD RX 6600 | RAM: 16GB

This bug has been present for a while. It is still very noticeable on 0.1.5, and it will become prominent once more players start to have extended time playthroughs.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Load a new game
2. Time warp 10 years, maybe even less
3. Observe clouds regularly "skipping ahead" in a very jarring way, as if they teleported 10s into the future

 

Included Attachments:

[Spicat]

@Mushylog and @mucco, merged both of your bug report.