[0.20+] BlueHarvest ENB Series and BlueHarvest ENB +SweetFX - Better Graphics in KSP

[WAS]

BLUEHARVEST ENB Series /w +SweetFX

BlueHarvest ENB Series is a custom configuration of ENB Series by Boris Vorontsov.

It’s intended for use with recording KSP videos or cinematic looking screenshots for your modifications.

Or just so your KSP looks a little more moody then your friends.

BlueHarvest comes with several palettes custom made for KSP to give a atmospheric look to your game.

Such as DunaFlats to give Duna a much more lively look, much like Mars. Or KiwiJool to give Jool the thick atmosphere it deserves.

Not to mention BlueHarvest, our original preset.

BlueHarvest on Spaceport: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/blueharvest/ (ENB License)

BlueHarvest+ on Spaceport: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/blueharvestplus/ ([url=ENB License | SweetFX License)

BlueHarvest Download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4mev7a10w7rozhy/BlueHarvest_ENBSeries_RC2.zip

BlueHarvest +SweetFX Download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/atmwxljj0qx0cim/BlueHarvest_ENBSeries_Plus_SweetFX_RC6.zip

**New!** BlueHarvest Palettes Expanded (More Palettes!)

Don't forget to to tell me your favorite palette that you use, and if you have suggestions on new color schemes please share!

INSTALLATION:

In order for this plugin to work, your Antialiasing and Antistropic Filtering must be turned off.

1) Head over to ENB Dev and download ENB Series Generic: http://www.enbdev.com/mod_generic_v0076.htm

2) Extract the "d3d9.dll" ENB Plugin from the "Wrapper" folder in the generic ENB download to your KSP_win folder with your KSP.exe, or wherever you have installed it.

3) Extract the contents of the "INSTALLATION FILES" in your BlueHarvest download into your KSP_win folder with your KSP.exe, or wherever you have insalled it.

4 Optional) Pick a palette from the "OPTIONAL PALLETTES" folder and replace the "enbpalette.bmp" in your KSP_win folder with your KSP.exe, or wherever you have installed it.

5 Optional) Pick a quality settings file from the "QUALITY SETTINGS" folder and replace the "enbseries.ini"

in your KSP_win folder with your KSP.exe, or wherever you have installed it. This may be necessary for older

computers as ENB Series is very GPU intensive.

6 Optional) Pick a optional effect like Depth of Field and replace your "enbseries.ini" with it.

These are not meant for KSP and may cause bugs. Depth of Field is GREAT when you have the GUI turned off for recording movies.

7) Enjoy!

NOTE: You can change palettes while in gameplay! This is convenient for setting your mood on other planets.

RESULTS WITH DOF (This is buggy and blurs even the menus, so it's only good for taking images with HUD off)

EFFECT FIXES/DEACTIVATING

VIGNETTE

If you want to turn of vignette, (the shadowing in the corner of the screen in BlueHarvest+) simply do the following

Open "SweetFX_settings.txt" and replace

#define USE_VIGNETTE          1

with

#define USE_VIGNETTE          0

Depth of Field

If you want to activate DOF change the following (Warning: Blurs HUD and doesn't accurately distinguish depth. It's only good for screenshots.)

Open "enbseries.ini" and under [EFFECT] replace:

EnableDepthOfField=0

with

EnableDepthOfField=1

The Following Images are PREVIEWS of RC8 which currently is not ready for release

RC8 COMING SOON!

Edited May 23, 2014 by WAS

[15nelsoc]

These look great. I am thoroughly impressed.

[The Destroyer]

Oooh. What's the performance impact?

[WAS]

Performance doesn't seem like very much of a impact if much of any on my 9600 GT (Made for Crysis, so pretty old), surprisingly. I think it's the Depth of Field Optional Effect, and other ENB Series effects that really make the impact. BlueHarvest+ runs great, for all the shaders, and even runs film grain smoothly, unlike ENB.

[sidfu]

enb uses gpu and vid ram where normal ksp uses system ram and cpu. so should be no performance hit

[bac9]

Those are extremely simple color filters that have next to none performance impact.

Not that I see any point in using them, this is essentially equivalent to throwing away a portion of the color range (which is already tiny without HDR). I'm in favor of good color grading similar to cinema, but this thing here is more reminiscent of a tinted glass. Not to mention that good color grading can't be done without HDR, and KSP has no HDR support, so sweet visuals from Skyrim or GTA4 based ENB derivatives will never be replicated there.

enb uses gpu and vid ram where normal ksp uses system ram and cpu. so should be no performance hit

Completely incorrect. Like with any other game, KSP will use your GPU to draw everything your see and will use VRAM to store everything you see from the textures to frame buffers. Performance hit is absent because this particular version of ENB won't do anything but simple post processing that's probably achieved by creating another screen-sized texture and doing stuff to it, which is a fairly trivial operation.

and even runs film grain smoothly

Film grain is literally random noise overlayed on the image, of course it's virtually free.

I think it's the Depth of Field Optional Effect, and other ENB Series effects that really make the impact.

KSP is using multi-camera setup and scaled world around the player, so depth of field effect distribution will be incorrect, as the depth buffer DoF will be using as the reference in no way represents real distances in the scenery. Can't recommend using it.

_________________

P.S.: As a side note to those who will no doubt say that ENB will get better in the future, nope. ENB loaded with KSP won't have feature parity to GTA4, TES, DXHR and other versions in the foreseeable future. KSP is using the forward rendering and not postprocessing-friendly deferred rendering. Expect no AO, GI, reflections or other fancy effects from those other versions. Simply put, there is no data available in the game for those effects to work from. So yeah, ENB here is going to be stuck with simple color filters and some half-working effects like DoF.

Edited November 10, 2013 by bac9

[little square dot]

Completely incorrect.

bac9, I understand that you are very knowledgeable on these things, but please try to correct people with at least some degree of tact.

Your posts tend to be blunt and come across as hostile in tone. Knowledge need not come with an inflated ego, and certainly does not preclude politeness. I really don't think that developers should be having a negative impact on the tone of a discussion. Just soften it up a bit man.

[KvickFlygarn87]

Why release a 0.20 mod in 0.22 times? Just feels odd

[Galacticruler]

this actually needs no version number, it should work with KSP no matter what version the game is.

[WAS]

Those are extremely simple color filters that have next to none performance impact.

Not that I see any point in using them, this is essentially equivalent to throwing away a portion of the color range (which is already tiny without HDR). I'm in favor of good color grading similar to cinema, but this thing here is more reminiscent of a tinted glass. Not to mention that good color grading can't be done without HDR, and KSP has no HDR support, so sweet visuals from Skyrim or GTA4 based ENB derivatives will never be replicated there.

Completely incorrect. Like with any other game, KSP will use your GPU to draw everything your see and will use VRAM to store everything you see from the textures to frame buffers. Performance hit is absent because this particular version of ENB won't do anything but simple post processing that's probably achieved by creating another screen-sized texture and doing stuff to it, which is a fairly trivial operation.

Film grain is literally random noise overlayed on the image, of course it's virtually free.

KSP is using multi-camera setup and scaled world around the player, so depth of field effect distribution will be incorrect, as the depth buffer DoF will be using as the reference in no way represents real distances in the scenery. Can't recommend using it.

_________________

P.S.: As a side note to those who will no doubt say that ENB will get better in the future, nope. ENB loaded with KSP won't have feature parity to GTA4, TES, DXHR and other versions in the foreseeable future. KSP is using the forward rendering and not postprocessing-friendly deferred rendering. Expect no AO, GI, reflections or other fancy effects from those other versions. Simply put, there is no data available in the game for those effects to work from. So yeah, ENB here is going to be stuck with simple color filters and some half-working effects like DoF.

Try everything you said Effect wise in ENB. ENB Film Grain runs very much like crap for some unknown reason. Maybe his scanline algorithm to dance the scatter, whatever it is, it runs about 10 frames slower then SweetFX Noise. And it's not a overlay, my friend. ENB and SweetFX take the last shot of the game rendered and apply post processing effects like you would in photoshop before it's passed to the display.

This is not meant for people that like original KSP, this is to add depth and color to scenes for filming, Such as on Duna, where there is no light refraction and reflection like on Mars. Your ship is gray despite a red environment and sun. That is unrealistic, so the DunaFlats adds color masking to give a realistic environment like you'd actually get when light reflects on solid colors.

Didn't I already say depth of field has issues? Why do you think it's not a default option. If you turn of your GUI it runs just fine. When you change cameras, so does the depth of field, as it does in any game when you look around... duh....

In KSP 0.19 this causes textures to invert and become solid red, this is why it's for 0.20+ I've been using my BlueHarvest since 0.18, and it didn't run well in 0.18 or 0.19 for unknown reasons. That's why these are release candidates, I feel there is a lot of issues that no longer made me turn it off. I am even figuring out the shaders and have gotten MechJeb windows to appear over Depth of Field, and hopefully can get default KSP GUI to do the same, fixing DoF.

KSP image are in 16bit, dither revives a 32bit scene actually getting rid of a lot of KSP banding. So it actually simulates more colors then original KSP. lol These aren't simple color filters, their gradient maps, for one, and they arne't as easy to make as you think if you want to see things clearly. Hence the reason most ENB looks too dark. Like original ENB where half the gradient map is in the dark tone. I don't use half dark dones, I use quarter. Don't mistake gif animations and compressed jpegs as actual gameplay. Lol

BlueHarvest ENB Series is a custom configuration of ENB Series by Boris Vorontsov.

It’s intended for use with recording KSP videos or cinematic looking screenshots for your modifications.

Or just so your KSP looks a little more moody then your friends.

All and all, read the part where this, (and ENB always has been for) is for recording videos with more depth and atmosphere and not a clear gray, reflectionless environment. Not for those that like KSP default, reflectionless, gray, dull environment lacking the laws of bright atmosphere and light through them. Kinda like when we get sunny days here things are 'hued' nice and sunny. It's just how environments work with light. If you are on mars, your ship will look orangish (look at curiosity landings) because of all the orange light from the atmosphere. These palettes (as they're obviously called cause of how simple it is) bring that life to the game for your videos.

Do not appreciate rude comments from people that don't even understand what ENB is for, and if you don't like them. Go somewhere else? It clearly says ENB, if you don't like them, then don't use them. Plenty of people do. ENB has always been for people that like ENB, no one is forcing anyone here. So you're just preaching to the choir.

Also, P.P.S. KSP is getting a new shader and rendering system that uses standards in rendering, it most definitely will, and already has the key handlers to do it now, you just gotta know how to develop.

Why release a 0.20 mod in 0.22 times? Just feels odd

Life works in mysterious ways my friend! No, but because I've been working on these since 0.18, which 0.18 and 0.19 had some weeeird issues like textures inverting or becoming solid red. Also, a lot of my friends still use older version due to unupdated parts and their favorite ships, while play newer versions on the side. (the magic of not using KSP installer, but extracting the folder, multiple versions or copies can be used at once)

this actually needs no version number, it should work with KSP no matter what version the game is.

That all depends. Not all DX9 games work with ENB. KOTR Definitely doesn't and it uses DX9. Earlier versions of KSP do some pretty interesting things with ENB. When I first tried in 0.9 everything was a confetti show of rainbows like a broken LCD screen, so I gave up for some time. That's why Boris says to 'try' for yourself.

Edited November 10, 2013 by WAS

[KhaosCorp]

This is awesome!!

I'm curious if you have tested this on less than max graphic settings? I understand its aimed at movie makers, and I think most of them guys keep graphics on max.....but not me. I happen to be a mod junkie, so i run on half res....just wondering if its still worthwhile to install.

Great job on a great mod bud! dont let the rude comment get to ya =)

[WAS]

This is awesome!!

I'm curious if you have tested this on less than max graphic settings? I understand its aimed at movie makers, and I think most of them guys keep graphics on max.....but not me. I happen to be a mod junkie, so i run on half res....just wondering if its still worthwhile to install.

Great job on a great mod bud! dont let the rude comment get to ya =)

I use my 9600GT, which doesn't create much of a slow down, seems to run the same as it did before. (which is it slows down if I decide to make a 120 part space craft lol) This card was intended for Crysis's launch like 6 years ago? I think? Something like that. Definitely no top of the line card.

[sidfu]

anyway to get rid of the black shading at corners of screen?

[WAS]

That's in BlueHarvest+ right? Open "SweetFX_settings.txt" and replace

#define USE_VIGNETTE          1

with

#define USE_VIGNETTE          0

[usulrasolas]

Curious Error I'm Getting.

I run a lot of mods so it could be related, but due to my own experience with ENB, I think this is a lighting shader error.

When I am viewing a directly solar reflecting surface of any planet inside the "kerbal goldilocks zone", the textures all shift to nearly primary red in the space tracker interface map. Not getting this with the in-game map.

I am working on isolating the problem, perhaps visual enhancement mod? Right now I am getting some awesome visuals from this mod. I loved ENB for skyrim and this is a start in the right direction!

[WAS]

This seems to happen when you run KSP in windowed mode. ENB was intended for fullscreen games. Try switching to actuall Fullscreen mode so ENB and the game can have full rendering priority over your screen.

[usulrasolas]

This seems to happen when you run KSP in windowed mode. ENB was intended for fullscreen games. Try switching to actuall Fullscreen mode so ENB and the game can have full rendering priority over your screen.

At first I was like, WHA? I am fullscreen. Then I realized I was using Kerbal Mod Manager and had fullscreen borderless set. Unchecked the box and works perfectly. Thanks a bunch!

[WAS]

Yeah, KMM has some interesting features I'm not sure what the point is besides interfering with other stuff. All it needs to do is remember files placed and backup overwritten files to be restored.

Edited November 13, 2013 by WAS

[sidfu]

would be nice if we had more paletes. me i typicaly prefer more natural palets with higher contrast.

[dubhorizon]

I'm kind of an amateur when it comes to enb so I'd like your help. It seems to be working just fine just the textures seem harsh on the edges. I followed your instructions, disabled AA from in-game menu and Nvidia control panel and also disabled anything in Nvidia control panel that does antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. Is there something I should change there or the enbseries.ini to make textures look smooth again?

[WAS]

would be nice if we had more paletes. me i typicaly prefer more natural palets with higher contrast.

I can make more. I usually stay away from the high contrast so I can see bright stuff correctly. I'll add more palettes soon to the packs, or a seperate pack. I've been making mine through exports from my planetary scenes that I use in artwork, like this one with the moody desert one.

When ground atmosphere is added to planets things will look a lot nicer with ENB.

I'm kind of an amateur when it comes to enb so I'd like your help. It seems to be working just fine just the textures seem harsh on the edges. I followed your instructions, disabled AA from in-game menu and Nvidia control panel and also disabled anything in Nvidia control panel that does antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. Is there something I should change there or the enbseries.ini to make textures look smooth again?

I've actually noticed, KSP Antialiasing sometimes works with ENB, you can try turning them on. If that doesn't work BlueHarvest+ has SweetFX which does a Antialiasing sweep and makes things smooth.

Edited November 24, 2013 by WAS

[Camacha]

Should I interpret this as a careful start to making KSP visually more attractive? I mean, I love the game, but its looks could be a little better.

[sidfu]

well dont want high enough wehre lights are to bright but want it where everything looks crisp if kno wwhat i mean. guess im just spoiled from the hundreds of skyrim enb lol.

[WAS]

You mean like this? (My skryim palette)

Right click "Save as..." and rename to "enbpalette.bmp" and save to your KSP_win folder (or wherever you installed KSP in the root folder with the EXE files).

(Note: Skyrim enbpalette.bmp files will work with KSP ENB, sometimes entirely too dark though.)

Should I interpret this as a careful start to making KSP visually more attractive? I mean, I love the game, but its looks could be a little better.

Yes, it is, basically. Though intensive on your GPU if it's older. When KSP uses more standardized shaders and rendering, hopefully we can get a much better experience, with accurate DOF, refractions, and all that snazzy stuff. But for now, it still adds quite a bit of depth to the game, especially with the right palette while on other worlds (like DunaFlats for Duna).

There is a lot going on in KSP, as is, so I think that is why the graphics aren't, lets say, Crysis status. Maybe in the future though.

Edited November 24, 2013 by WAS

[dubhorizon]

Yep you were right, using KSP AA worked and it's now smooth and with all the ENB effects in full swing. Looks like it improved my loading times too! Thanks a lot, beautiful graphics!

Update: Space looks amazing with this. There's this mystifying darkness in it that is almost scary! How it should really be.

Edited November 25, 2013 by dubhorizon