[1.1.2][1-1-2] May 13-2016 EnvironmentalVisualEnhancements

[ddavis425]

This release did fix the seam issue, thanks.

On a side note, there seems to be a difference with the Jool clouds in release 6-4. In that release it has dark blue clouds, but other releases, including the latest one, have green clouds. Here's a screenshot comparing the two, though I'm using Alternis Kerbol so Jool looks different:

If there's some way I can manually change it back to that dark blue then that would be great.

[entaran]

Well done mate!

Could you please add the date of your release to your thread title? That helps us keep track of when we last d/led it and makes it super easy to keep up to date

[Motokid600]

Question rbray.. would 6-6 work with .22 by chance? Ive yet to update. ( Im in the middle of a month long mission )

[DasBananenbrot]

How does the new 8k textures look like? Can't download right now and would like a little preview...Or are the screenshots in the OP updated?

[Bothersome]

The small clouds look smaller. But I kind of liked the clouds from 6-4 better. There were two layers of clouds over Kerbin in 6-4 and now in 6-6 there is only 1.

The jury is still out though, I still have my 6-4 zip file.

[rbray89]

Question rbray.. would 6-6 work with .22 by chance? Ive yet to update. ( Im in the middle of a month long mission )

Should work without issue.

[rbray89]

Well done mate!

Could you please add the date of your release to your thread title? That helps us keep track of when we last d/led it and makes it super easy to keep up to date

It's in there... [6-6]

[rbray89]

The small clouds look smaller. But I kind of liked the clouds from 6-4 better. There were two layers of clouds over Kerbin in 6-4 and now in 6-6 there is only 1.

The jury is still out though, I still have my 6-4 zip file.

I liked the two layer clouds as well... But my Shopp`n skills stink, and I was able to make two less cloudy layers, but couldn't make them seamless. I think I'll be looking at the other bodies next. I think the colors need to be updated too, but that will have to be in an "artistic" update.

[papics]

Hey rbray89, I had finally some time to look into the new release (6-6). Good work around the poles! Here are a few issues/suggestions I still have:

1) for the 8k clouds, I see you got also the Blue Marble textures, but they have here and there a few pixel-level errors... For my original 8k pack, I manually went over those and corrected them, so if you want to compile your 8k clouds from an even nicer version, then you can get my corrected cloud layer at http://ster.kuleuven.be/~peterp/KSP/8kNASAprocessed.png (pixel level errors cleaned up, and a slight scaling) - although you will need to turn this PNG into a tga with alpha, but since you did that with the original Blue marble image, that can not be a big problem for you I guess

2) For the city lights, it would be really nice if they could not shine through the clouds, so the whiter the clouds are, the less transparent they should be. See image below with the issue.

So the lights from below the big white stretch of clouds should not be visible. It is especially an issue, when you put the MinLight to 0 (over cloud brightness), which makes the clouds on the dark side totally black (as they are in real life, except on long exposure images where lights indeed come through a bit, but not to this extent), which would be even more realistic (try it, on low orbit, around sunset or sunrise, only the dark silhouette of the clouds can be seen over the reflecting surface of the planet, really cool), because currently the lights shine through, even though I would want them to block the light. I hope you get what I mean.

3) I think lots of users complain because they see the following:

Too much repetition in detail texture. It is very easy to go around this, just change the default scale for the Detail and Bump to 15 (then globally we are still using 15k x 15k coverage), which makes the texture still detailed enough from above the atmosphere, but keeps it large enough so that the repeating pattern is not really visible.

4) Change all the default rotation values to negative on Kerbin Go to map mode and time warp, you will see it is much better like that Check other planets to have the same effect everywhere. Slower cloud layer than planet is very strange.

5) Maybe in the UI include a switch for the city lights, if it is not too much work.

Keep up the good work!

[rbray89]

This release did fix the seam issue, thanks.

On a side note, there seems to be a difference with the Jool clouds in release 6-4. In that release it has dark blue clouds, but other releases, including the latest one, have green clouds. Here's a screenshot comparing the two, though I'm using Alternis Kerbol so Jool looks different:

http://i.imgur.com/d2V2HKr.jpg

If there's some way I can manually change it back to that dark blue then that would be great.

The color can be changed in the GUI. I even added the alpha component in there in case people want to make semi-transparent layers.

[rbray89]

Hey rbray89, I had finally some time to look into the new release (6-6). Good work around the poles! Here are a few issues/suggestions I still have:

1) for the 8k clouds, I see you got also the Blue Marble textures, but they have here and there a few pixel-level errors... For my original 8k pack, I manually went over those and corrected them, so if you want to compile your 8k clouds from an even nicer version, then you can get my corrected cloud layer at http://ster.kuleuven.be/~peterp/KSP/8kNASAprocessed.png (pixel level errors cleaned up, and a slight scaling) - although you will need to turn this PNG into a tga with alpha, but since you did that with the original Blue marble image, that can not be a big problem for you I guess

2) For the city lights, it would be really nice if they could not shine through the clouds, so the whiter the clouds are, the less transparent they should be. See image below with the issue.

http://ster.kuleuven.be/~peterp/KSP/Clouds_screenshot2.png

So the lights from below the big white stretch of clouds should not be visible. It is especially an issue, when you put the MinLight to 0 (over cloud brightness), which makes the clouds on the dark side totally black (as they are in real life, except on long exposure images where lights indeed come through a bit, but not to this extent), which would be even more realistic (try it, on low orbit, around sunset or sunrise, only the dark silhouette of the clouds can be seen over the reflecting surface of the planet, really cool), because currently the lights shine through, even though I would want them to block the light. I hope you get what I mean.

3) I think lots of users complain because they see the following:

http://ster.kuleuven.be/~peterp/KSP/Clouds_screenshot8.png

Too much repetition in detail texture. It is very easy to go around this, just change the default scale for the Detail and Bump to 15 (then globally we are still using 15k x 15k coverage), which makes the texture still detailed enough from above the atmosphere, but keeps it large enough so that the repeating pattern is not really visible.

http://ster.kuleuven.be/~peterp/KSP/Clouds_screenshot9.png

4) Change all the default rotation values to negative on Kerbin Go to map mode and time warp, you will see it is much better like that Check other planets to have the same effect everywhere. Slower cloud layer than planet is very strange.

5) Maybe in the UI include a switch for the city lights, if it is not too much work.

Keep up the good work!

Thank you Papics!

I don't have hardly any artistic ability, and I can never decide what looks better, so I created the GUI in hopes people could help out with the artistic side.

I think I'll be able to integrate all these changes into the next release. I've been trying to mess around with the GIMP in hopes of separating the cloud layer into two, but I was never able to really make it look nice.

[papics]

I've been trying to mess around with the GIMP in hopes of separating the cloud layer into two, but I was never able to really make it look nice.

Yeah, that is pretty much impossible to do in a proper way... (Thats why I simply used a 180 degree rotated version of the original layer as Layer2, because the other option is just way too damn difficult and would take ages to execute properly) For the implementation of the rest, looking forward to it, as always

[DasBananenbrot]

Looking forward to the next release

[therealcrow999]

I wasn't having repetition in detail texture at 100k with the new 6-6 update. I did test at 100k, 200k and 300k, everthing seemed fine.

[rbray89]

I wasn't having repetition in detail texture at 100k with the new 6-6 update. I did test at 100k, 200k and 300k, everthing seemed fine.

It's more noticeable with the bumpmap where light is approaching at an angle.

[Wiracho]

this looks good!!!im dowloading it right now, but i dont want the clouds in duna and eve, how can i change that? plz

[Helix935]

would it be possible to choose which effects in this plugin are shown so as to lessen the impact of this plugin on my nearly breached memory cap taken up by mods

Edit: nvm

Edited December 27, 2013 by Helix935

[therealcrow999]

Yeah I saw that now, but to be honest I am use to clouds like that from other slightly older games, so it didn't really bother me much. The bumps are usually between certain heights. Personally I like this version a lot.

It's more noticeable with the bumpmap where light is approaching at an angle.

[Kalista]

I have a small request. Is it possible to readd the old textures to the download? New 8k textures are making my game crash on startup now due to exceeding the 4gb limit ( 6.4 at peek with all my mods was only drawing 2.7gbs worth).

[rbray89]

I have a small request. Is it possible to readd the old textures to the download? New 8k textures are making my game crash on startup now due to exceeding the 4gb limit ( 6.4 at peek with all my mods was only drawing 2.7gbs worth).

I didn't want to do that, as it would require people to go in and manually delete it to save space. You can take it from 6-4 though.

If you aren't using it yet, I highly recommend you try my active memory reduction mod.

[therealcrow999]

They are all here:

https://github.com/waka324/VisualEnhancements/releases

I was using 5.2 before the latest one, worked great. It didn't have the pole fix, but didn't mind the clouds at the poles.

I have a small request. Is it possible to readd the old textures to the download? New 8k textures are making my game crash on startup now due to exceeding the 4gb limit ( 6.4 at peek with all my mods was only drawing 2.7gbs worth).

[rbray89]

this looks good!!!im dowloading it right now, but i dont want the clouds in duna and eve, how can i change that? plz

ALT+N brings up the gui.

[therealcrow999]

I did have my first crash because of new texture. I do use texture reduction mod and I don't use any large parts mods, so I put in KW without the texture reduction pack it comes with. It crashes on load up of KSP, first time. I'm sure it could be fixed if I use KW texture reduced pack instead of the straight KW install. Never had problems before, I was always way under the limits.

I have a small request. Is it possible to readd the old textures to the download? New 8k textures are making my game crash on startup now due to exceeding the 4gb limit ( 6.4 at peek with all my mods was only drawing 2.7gbs worth).

[Kalista]

I did have my first crash because of new texture. I do use texture reduction mod and I don't use any large parts mods, so I put in KW without the texture reduction pack it comes with. It crashes on load up of KSP, first time. I'm sure it could be fixed if I use KW texture reduced pack instead of the straight KW install. Never had problems before, I was always way under the limits.

See I was the same way had KW KSPX B9 and all of those without any issues 8k textures hit and the game refuses to load flipped back to 6.5 now without any issues ( thanks for the link btw did NOT want to go back to a naked kerbin).

[rbray89]

I did have my first crash because of new texture. I do use texture reduction mod and I don't use any large parts mods, so I put in KW without the texture reduction pack it comes with. It crashes on load up of KSP, first time. I'm sure it could be fixed if I use KW texture reduced pack instead of the straight KW install. Never had problems before, I was always way under the limits.

KW is pretty hefty. I have to set aside some time for the updates to the memory reduction mod. I plan to make all other texture reduction packs obsolete with a single DLL