Reentry contrails

[check]

I think contrails would add a touch more realism to the reentry effect. It could be the same effect used to generate contrails from jets, or maybe the same effect used for the SRB exhaust/flames, colour tweaked.

Relevant images:

(Progress and Soyuz reentry).

Thoughts?

[Guest]

Nice idea, would probably be simple to add.

[lajoswinkler]

I like the idea. Not only the trail, but the intense brightness of the surface being eroded, too.

[pizzaoverhead]

Yes, it feels missing currently. Even a line would be an improvement:

[rodion]

Good idea, and similar effects already exist for rocket engines in the atmosphere so it seems like it would be a relatively quick job to add such a thing.

[lajoswinkler]

The rocket exhaust is made of lots of tiny fragments (set all details on low and look at the exhaust from up close), I think the correct term is sprites, so I'd rather not implement that because it's CPU intensive. A line is better and more closer to reality.

[karolk]

A line is better and more closer to reality.

And also looks out of place considering how it would actually look in-game.

You would have no good angle from where it would actually look good while deorbiting.

[check]

It would be cool if the reentry effect persisted with multiple debris within a certain radius:

If that becomes too CPU intensive then have it turned off with lower settings, but I don't think that'd be a problem seeing that exhaust from multiple rocket sources gets rendered pretty easily.