There is a pyramid on the Mun!

[Galileo Kerbonaut]

Today I landed on the North Pole on the Mun. Although I crash landed my lander, I was able to capture these pictures.

I never knew there was a pyramid on the Mun

Did you!?

Edited November 10, 2013 by Galileo Kerbonaut

[Whackjob]

It's a glitch with the terrain generation.

[NASI Director]

It's a glitch with the terrain generation.

But a great find nonetheless.

[Vanamonde]

Is that the first, um, odd thing you've found, Galileo Kerbonaut? There are others.

[Specialist290]

Indeed. You might want to pay extra attention to the surface while flying low near the equator, for instance

[The Destroyer]

I think the above to people and me are all thinking the same thing- hint, it's located in a crater... it stands out... you will see.

[Felsmak]

I'm not saying it's aliens, but...

[Kasuha]

For some reason the game always puts the flag wrong way for me.

On Duna the pyramid is even worse - but surprisingly, can be climbed. I didn't manage to put a flag on it, though. Jeb died in a puff of smoke as soon as he reached the top and I didn't try again. I'd probably succeed if I was a bit more patient.

But what really upset me was an inverse pyramid on Moho North pole. Maybe if I stuck my lander in it somehow... but sending a Kerbal in there always ended with his death.

Edited November 10, 2013 by Kasuha

[SyberSmoke]

Mmmm...Sphere Tessellation errors, gotta love them. Simply put, at the north and south pole of any 3D generated sphere your going to get weirdness. Usually you just see strange wrapping from a texture, but when you throw in LOD and Tessellation to get a varied terrain...those top and bottom poles have to be handled some how. In many cases keeping the area smooth helps keep that area clean. But if terrain is varied, the differences can create pyramids, crevasses, or other weird things. And really...there is no real way around it...it is just the nature of 3D meshes.

There is a way around it, use a tessellated sphere (triangles) instead of one made out of quads (Squares). But this causes other issues when dealing with texturing as wrapping a square texture around a spherical object...well...it does not work well. But hey, these anomalies do look cool. Oh and just keep the Kerbles off them, where the mesh goes odd, so will collision and physics.

[Dooz]

The muns poles are scary bumpy and when ever i go to the poles i just have a feeling someone or something is gonna get me

[Kasuha]

Mmmm...Sphere Tessellation errors, gotta love them.

I'm not sure they are errors. They all have much less detail than surrounding terrain, it almost looks like they're put there intentionally. And many other poles are perfectly flat (at least Kerbin, Minmus, Dres, and Ike).

[OrtwinS]

The muns poles are scary bumpy and when ever i go to the poles i just have a feeling someone or something is gonna get me

Mun-poles are temples of ancient deities that thirst for sacrificial Kerbal blood.

[lajoswinkler]

I'm not sure they are errors. They all have much less detail than surrounding terrain, it almost looks like they're put there intentionally. And many other poles are perfectly flat (at least Kerbin, Minmus, Dres, and Ike).

Every body with procedurally generated variable terrain will have rendering anomalies on its poles. Moho has moholes, Eve has cliffs, Duna has a weird set of canyons with pyramids... There's probably something on Laythe's poles, too.

Minmus poles are almost completely flat. Other than a faint line and camera going wild, there's nothing special up there.

[Camelotking524]

There is a couple of pyramids at the North Pole of the Mun.

You can see a smaller one in the background of this picture.

[95tiger59]

they are were the kraken focuses its power wait for unsuspecting kerbonauts

[Sof]

Every body with procedurally generated variable terrain will have rendering anomalies on its poles. Moho has moholes, Eve has cliffs, Duna has a weird set of canyons with pyramids... There's probably something on Laythe's poles, too.

Minmus poles are almost completely flat. Other than a faint line and camera going wild, there's nothing special up there.

And Kerbin has almost been entirely done by hand now, and they intentionally removed the pole anomalies.

The mun pyramids are a result of the terrain formation, but the other anomalies on the mun were placed there on purpose.

[Galileo Kerbonaut]

Is that the first, um, odd thing you've found, Galileo Kerbonaut? There are others.

Indeed. You might want to pay extra attention to the surface while flying low near the equator, for instance

I think the above to people and me are all thinking the same thing- hint, it's located in a crater... it stands out... you will see.

I know what you guys are talking about...

---

I didn't know it is a graphical glitch, still pretty cool though. It's the first time I've seen it.

[Geschosskopf]

The mun pyramids are a result of the terrain formation.....

You don't know how right you are. See, back during Kreation, the Kods used a lathe to turn all the planets down from bar stock. Moho was their 1st attempt and they just used whatever was handy, in this case wood. So the polar Mohols are just the marks left where the lathe spindles penetrated. But the Kods got pretty much everything wrong with Moho so among other changes, they switched to metal for the other planets. This meant they had to reverse the layout where the bar stock met the lathe. They machined the pyramids into the ends of the bar stock and used lathe arbors that would grip them. That's why everything else has polar pyramids instead of holes.

[Febin]

I've journeyed into the Moho hole before, sent got a mk2 plane cockpit(the inline one) and covered it in aircraft wheels, it survived all the way down, got the kerbal out to.

[regex]

That's where the Kraken stores its shaving products.

[Kasuha]

Every body with procedurally generated variable terrain will have rendering anomalies on its poles.

That's of course completely untrue. First of all, polar coordinatesa are not the only way to map a sphere and if you use normal mapping instead you don't get any anomalies because for it the pole is no different than any other place. And even when you use polar coordinates you can still avoid all problems.

[Brotoro]

Every body with procedurally generated variable terrain will have rendering anomalies on its poles. Moho has moholes, Eve has cliffs, Duna has a weird set of canyons with pyramids... There's probably something on Laythe's poles, too.

Minmus poles are almost completely flat. Other than a faint line and camera going wild, there's nothing special up there.

Both of Laythe's poles are flat (but so is the surrounding terrain). But you don't want to try to stand right on the pole, because your kerbal can explode in a puff of smoke.

[lajoswinkler]

That's where the Kraken stores its shaving products.

Now that's just wrong.

That's of course completely untrue. First of all, polar coordinatesa are not the only way to map a sphere and if you use normal mapping instead you don't get any anomalies because for it the pole is no different than any other place. And even when you use polar coordinates you can still avoid all problems.

OK, in KSP every body with procedurally generated variable terrain will have rendering anomalies on its poles. Better?

Both of Laythe's poles are flat (but so is the surrounding terrain). But you don't want to try to stand right on the pole, because your kerbal can explode in a puff of smoke.

Good to know. Last night I was looking at them and they seemed oddly distorted from orbit.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

don't forget the ominous star at bops north pole that sent the conspiracy theories through the roof

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

Haha, I landed myself on the Mun's Pole not too long ago

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