[discontinued] Minimum Ambient Lighting v1.2.4

[Red3Tango]

Continued/Updated by the legend himself @linuxgurugamer.

[Postmortem]
I had "real life" blind-side me very drastically, and I apologize for lack of motivation in continuing to support this project. The base mod hasn't changed or evolved since its inception, and am grateful that a knowledgeable and dedicated author has decided to update and continue this idea.

Are you a streamer or make videos and its too dark?

Here is your answer! A small plugin that will set a minimum ambient lighting level based on percentage. Percentage is modified by using the toolbar icon (or though config file)!

Don't like cluttering your Toolbar?

You can disable the button from the Flight scene, or completely disable in the config file. (this does not disable the mod, just the icon)

Does this wash out the colors when the in-game lighting is already high?

Nope! The mod does NOT indiscriminately raise the existing ambient lighting, it ONLY sets what the minimum value can be.

Note: This mod will only limit the minimum ambient light of a scene. Using other mods (or the Ambient Boost slider in 1.3), adjusts the overall ambient light of the game.

Mod Spotlight

Video by maxhfx (a.k.a. maxrsp)

Download (for possible legacy support)
*uses very basic and rudimentary functions that are very unlikely to break with future game updates

SpaceDock (Also available on CKAN)

=== CHANGE LOG ===

v1.2.4
[Updated] - Rebuild with 1.6 libraries

Spoiler

v1.2.3
[Fixed] - UI working with new KSP Release
[Updated] - Rebuild with 1.2 libraries

v1.2.1
[Fixed] - Possible Memory Leak

v1.2.0
[Fixed] - Got legacy UI working
[Updated] - Rebuild with 1.1 libraries

v1.1.2
[hotfix] - Removed UI temporarily so it was compatible with 1.1

v1.1.1
[updated] - Rebuild with 1.0.4 libraries

v1.1
[Added] - Stock Toolbar integration and in-game UI
[Changed] - Folder Structure *remove existing install before upgrading*

v1.0.2
[updated] - Rebuild with 1.0.2 libraries
[Added] - Hosted on Kerbal Stuff (available on CKAN)

v1.0.1
[updated] - Rebuild with 0.90 libraries
[Changed] - Folder structure *remove old install under GenesisRage folder*

v1.0
initial release

 

Edited February 24, 2020 by Red3Tango
Discontinuing Mod

[Razorcane]

This is an interesting mod. In real life, the Moon bounces photons off its surface and they hit Earth, providing a tiny bit of light. It always annoyed me that vessels were pitch back when not in line of sight of the sun. I have a few questions though. Does the mod alter lighting during the day(exposure from sun) as well? Or just the night. Also, it would be great if you could do the same thing during eclipses, that way even though the light side is exposed to the sun, it's still dimmed because of an eclipsing planet.

[kristianj99]

Will you add a way to make the lighting darker in the future?

[Red3Tango]

@Razorcane:

It doesnt really effect anything during the day, it just sets the minimum ambient level. So it doesnt let it drop below 20% (or whatever you have it set at).

As for eclipse lighting, I doubt I will add that in, because that gets into a whole new area of calculations.

@kristianj99:

I honestly didnt think about that, but it may be possible later. Might require a rewrite as currently the mod takes in the games ambient setting and overrides if below a certain threshold.

Edited January 28, 2014 by Red3Tango

[BigFatStupidHead]

Hopefully this will put an end to all those videos and pictures that are just "vast expanse of black." Nice work.

[Red3Tango]

Thx BigFatStupidHead! Yeah I watch a lot of videos/stream (and stream myself on occasion) and it got to me that you see a black screen with a couple green dots from the batteries haha. Ive heard complaints from Scott Manley in his videos, and also from several streams, so I thought "hey why not make a mod for them".

Edited January 28, 2014 by Red3Tango

[Streetlamp]

@BigFatStupidHead

I know what you mean. The "vast expanse of black" is a bit of a problem when filming any shot behind a moon/planet. Of course you can increase the shot's brightness in post processing, but the result of doing so looks ugly nine times out of ten.

[jacobgong]

This is an interesting mod. In real life, the Moon bounces photons off its surface and they hit Earth, providing a tiny bit of light. It always annoyed me that vessels were pitch back when not in line of sight of the sun. I have a few questions though. Does the mod alter lighting during the day(exposure from sun) as well? Or just the night. Also, it would be great if you could do the same thing during eclipses, that way even though the light side is exposed to the sun, it's still dimmed because of an eclipsing planet.

Because Unity has no HDR, the incredible range of brightness of the real world cannot be captured in the pathetic 256 levels of brightness.

I know what you mean. The "vast expanse of black" is a bit of a problem when filming any shot behind a moon/planet. Of course you can increase the shot's brightness in post processing, but the result of doing so looks ugly nine times out of ten.

screenshots are in 8-bit, no photographer will edit photos in 8-bit.

Edited January 28, 2014 by jacobgong

[Frostiken]

Dammit, I was hoping this was Nova's lighting plugin for making space, you know, *dark*.

[The-Bean]

Thank you so much for this! Can you also edit the normal lighting? The game used to look really nice and vivid, now it looks really desaturated and dull. Here's a screenshot, for example:

http://i.imgur.com/tyTTX.png

[illectro]

This is exactly the kind of thing I need, sometimes I can't ensure that events take place on the daylit side of kerbin.

[aeTIos]

Thx BigFatStupidHead! Yeah I watch a lot of videos/stream (and stream myself on occasion) and it got to me that you see a black screen with a couple green dots from the batteries haha. Ive heard complaints from Scott Manley in his videos, and also from several streams, so I thought "hey why not make a mod for them".

This is exactly the kind of thing I need, sometimes I can't ensure that events take place on the daylit side of kerbin.

Well, seems that your plugin has come to its destination ;D

[Dobrodav]

Very usefull, thanks.

[Motokid600]

I would love NO ambient light. The dark side of planets should DARK like in real life. All you should see is its silhouette against the stary background ( which too should not be visible if the vessel is in the sunlight, but that's for another plugin I suppose. ) But when orbiting in the dark... it should just be stars... maybe a cabin light and a SMALL amount if ambient light from the stars and Mun. ( wish it could vary depending on its phase/posistion, but unity has no HDR to reflect light ).

Oh and apparently removing ambient light gives a noticeable performance boost.

[Red3Tango]

I have renamed the thread to "Raise Minimum Ambient Lighting" to alleviate some confusion on what this mod is intended to do. I apologize to everyone that has been confused by the mis-leading title. I may modify the plugin if I get more time to dig deeper into the backend of the KSP program and see if there is a way to hook into the code they use to set the ambient lighting. Until that time, I will change the title of the thread.

@Motokid600: theoretically removing ambient lighting would give a performance boost, because the entire game would be completely black. I know some would like to lower the ambient lighting, but with how KSP uses ambient lighting I do not see a way to dynamically modify that without ruining other parts. Basically all the light you see in game is ambient light (unless you have lights on your craft), like the lighting from the towers around the launchpad and even the sun. This mod dynamically adjusts how far it goes down, but is unable to go below what the game sets. Yes I could rewrite the plugin to just offset the ambient lighting, but that task is much easier to do by just simply turning down the contrast and brightness on your monitor (would have the same effect).

Edited February 13, 2014 by Red3Tango

[jpinard]

Thank you so much for this! Can you also edit the normal lighting? The game used to look really nice and vivid, now it looks really desaturated and dull. Here's a screenshot, for example:

http://i.imgur.com/tyTTX.png

Just go into your video card settings and adjust it there.

[Motokid600]

Well it all basically comes down to the lights need to be brighter and the dark needs to be darker. But that may be a job for another mod.

NovaSilisko said he was going to release a separate lighting mod that replicates the lighting in Alternis Kerbal. That's spot on there imo.

[Camacha]

I would love NO ambient light.

Same here. I believe NovaSilisko did this for his planet mod. It removed all ambient light in space and left only the sun to illuminate objects. If you look at real life pictures from space they look weird and as if they were made in a studio. This is because people are hardly used to light that comes from a sole distant source (without an atmosphere to scatter it).

@Motokid600: theoretically removing ambient lighting would give a performance boost, because the entire game would be completely black.

Not entirely true, as the sun would still provide light. How that works from a technical point of view is another matter.

[Red3Tango]

Not entirely true, as the sun would still provide light. How that works from a technical point of view is another matter.

Yeah its a technical point of view, when in Line-Of-Sight with the sun the game increases the "ambient" light settings.

[GavinZac]

Another great mod idea, you're good at this. Little features that just straight up improve the game experience.

I wonder would it be possible to adjust this in-flight? I'm not sure I'd want this all the time but it would be super to be able to boost the light a bit before a screenshot without having to use an EVA-ing Kerbal as a speedlight!

[Captain Sierra]

The OP images appear broken, which is a shame because I want to see this in action. It sounds like it will make farside cinematics quite doable.

[Red3Tango]

I wonder would it be possible to adjust this in-flight?

That is an interesting idea, I may have to look into a keybind to toggle it!

And thanks for the compliment

[Frijolez]

Downloading ! Been looking for something like this or similar !

[Absolute Human]

Zomg teh clone! Another version of a similar plugin is now available.

[Red3Tango]

@Absolute Human:

Technically NOT a "clone", that mod just adjusts the current ambient lighting based on a slider.

My mod dynamically increase the minimum ambient lighting, but does not effect anything if the in-game lighting is above the threshold (to prevent wash-out)