Better Atmospheres Development Thread

[Thesonicgalaxy]

First, let me say that this mod for mod is beautiful. But second, "Houston, we have a problem":

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

Any workaround/fix for this? There's also an issue with repeating cloud pattern (seen in the lower right corner), any chance of making it less obvious? It's a V3.

Are you using EVE 7-3?

[J.Random]

Oh, I didn't know there's new release. That's with EVE 7-2. I'll check it with 7-3, thanks.

[Thesonicgalaxy]

Oh, I didn't know there's new release. That's with EVE 7-2. I'll check it with 7-3, thanks.

Hm, even then you should be fine...

Your fadedist. on the atmo layer should be saving to 100...

[falken]

J.Random delete your boulderco and eve folders and start over. Might be an old file causing the conflict (it was for me).

[Thesonicgalaxy]

J.Random delete your boulderco and eve folders and start over. Might be an old file causing the conflict (it was for me).

Ah, good info. I'll add that to the FAQ.

[Thesonicgalaxy]

Apparently, the bug on gilly, vall, bop, and pol will take some time. So they will have to wait for V5.

So expect V4 sometime soon, I'll give erona and pete till the 21st(I might expand the time if I have an idea I want to quickly work on), if by then, they aren't done, I'll just go ahead and release v4 and include those in V4-1.

Thank you all for the patience, I hope you all enjoy V4 when it comes out

UPDATE: How's this new Jool cloud texture?

Edited April 20, 2014 by Thesonicgalaxy

[erona]

Here's a cropped in preview of the city lights texture I have been working on. I wasn't able to test how it looked in the game since for some reason I can't get city lights to show up in KSP right now. Even tried a fresh install and the latest EVE version. Odd... It might need some tweaking to make it the right brightness and tile repeat.

[Thesonicgalaxy]

Here's a cropped in preview of the city lights texture I have been working on. I wasn't able to test how it looked in the game since for some reason I can't get city lights to show up in KSP right now. Even tried a fresh install and the latest EVE version. Odd... It might need some tweaking to make it the right brightness and tile repeat.

http://i.imgur.com/A2I9KiZ.png

Wonderful work, erona! You also might need to go into flight mode first, CL won't show up in the tracking station until you've went into flight mode.

[Read have Read]

I am loving V3, and while the dark sides being dark is nice, I think the Terminators on V4 are too harsh for my tastes, it looks like very solid cartoon style line and it throws off my sense of roundness and depth.

compared to

Will you keep the download link for V-3 available?

[Thesonicgalaxy]

I am loving V3, and while the dark sides being dark is nice, I think the Terminators on V4 are too harsh for my tastes, it looks like very solid cartoon style line and it throws off my sense of roundness and depth.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-DUsAe2LSlmU/TntVfDywsjI/AAAAAAAAA5k/1BfTsmA2e8E/s1600/Light%2Bon%2Ba%2Bsphere.jpg

http://www.pa.msu.edu/people/frenchj/moon/moon-5day-1807.jpg

compared to

http://i.imgur.com/x4o5v9k.png

Will you keep the download link for V-3 available?

Sure, but I'm not exactly sure what the "Compared to" image is about. The terminator on the IRL image looks WAY harsher than mine.

[Read have Read]

Sure, but I'm not exactly sure what the "Compared to" image is about. The terminator on the IRL image looks WAY harsher than mine.

Okay, let me exaggerate the harshness of the contrast to show the midtones.

These two have had their curves changed to the same amount.

The real moon - and earth and all round things - has a twilight or sunset/sunrise area immediately preceding the line of the terminator. The V4 moon has a sharp line that does not fade as a spherical body would.

Reference: to

A flat surface will have a very sharp line like Jool in this picture, but a sphere will gradually and partially obscure the light as it approaches the terminator as the same amount of light is spread over a larger surface, and with an atmosphere, diffused. This scattering is what cases sunsets to be red. As sunlight passes through more of the Earth's atmosphere, more of the blue is removed by the air. The recent Blood Moon was caused by this 'blue blocking' as the atmosphere only scattered red sunlight to the completely obscured moon during the Eclipse.

Edited April 20, 2014 by Read have Read

[Thesonicgalaxy]

Okay, let me exaggerate the harshness of the contrast to show the midtones.

These two have had their curves changed to the same amount.

http://i.imgur.com/7gMmGNb.png

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

The real moon - and earth and all round things - has a twilight or sunset/sunrise area immediately preceding the line of the terminator. The V4 moon has a sharp line that does not fade as a spherical body would.

Reference: http://i.imgur.com/5era7a9.png to http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/moons/images/PIA17177-br500.jpg

A flat surface will have a very sharp line like Jool in this picture, but a sphere will gradually and partially obscure the light as it approaches the terminator as the same amount of light is spread over a larger surface, and with an atmosphere, diffused. This scattering is what cases sunsets to be red. As sunlight passes through more of the Earth's atmosphere, more of the blue is removed by the air. The recent Blood Moon was caused by this 'blue blocking' as the atmosphere only scattered red sunlight to the completely obscured moon during the Eclipse.

ah, I see. Hard part is, the setting I change to get the darker side darker, is also the one that makes the terminator sharper. I'll see if i can find a middle.

How about this?

Edited April 20, 2014 by Thesonicgalaxy

[Read have Read]

Wow, that is looking really good now. Nice work!

[praise the suuun]

That probably has to do with the shadow fadedist.

Set the fadedist on the shadows layer(the only with the lowest altitude) to about 20-50.

excuse me i am currently trying to do exactly this. my mods are almost set up except for this and i need you to be clear. what cfg do i edit and where on that file do i find it?

[BudgetHedgehog]

excuse me i am currently trying to do exactly this. my mods are almost set up except for this and i need you to be clear. what cfg do i edit and where on that file do i find it?

When you're in flight and can see the circle, pause and press Alt-N. Click advanced settings, then select the layer which has the lowest altitude (I think it's 2). Then set the fade distance to 20-50 (or however much you want until the circle's gone and you're happy), apply and save then press Alt-N to close the window.

[phoenix_ca]

I have to agree that the highlight-shadow transition area is extremely sharp. Far too much so, using 7-3 EVE and V3 of this. Also...why does the Mun look so hazy? It doesn't have an atmosphere. (Tweaking MinLight under scaling settings for Layer 1 seems to sorta fix this. 1 is just way too high. Makes the Mun look like it has a thick dusty atmosphere.)

And "Reset to Default" in the Alt-N menu is broken. It resets to some settings that are truly awful that create a posterised effect. It's definitely not resetting to the settings that this comes with originally.

Edited April 20, 2014 by phoenix_ca

[Tom K.]

Is this compatible with RSS v6? (With the real Earth instead of Kerbin.)

[phoenix_ca]

No. It isn't.

[heyimchandler]

Sorry, noob question here. I'm having a lot of trouble getting this, texturereplacer, and environmental visual enhancements installed. I'm stuck. Can someone please explain to me how to get all three installed and working?

[montyben101]

I cant wait for V4 looks amazing, i think that the terminators on the planets look fine and very realistic...

Edit: just loaded it up and the clouds look very... pixalated from orbit... any way to change this?

Edited April 20, 2014 by montyben101

[Thesonicgalaxy]

I have to agree that the highlight-shadow transition area is extremely sharp. Far too much so, using 7-3 EVE and V3 of this. Also...why does the Mun look so hazy? It doesn't have an atmosphere. (Tweaking MinLight under scaling settings for Layer 1 seems to sorta fix this. 1 is just way too high. Makes the Mun look like it has a thick dusty atmosphere.)

And "Reset to Default" in the Alt-N menu is broken. It resets to some settings that are truly awful that create a posterised effect. It's definitely not resetting to the settings that this comes with originally.

You AREN'T supposed to reset to default. Reset to default is a horrible idea. It resets it to what ever the defaults are in the config(Don't ask me what's in there)

Sorry, noob question here. I'm having a lot of trouble getting this, texturereplacer, and environmental visual enhancements installed. I'm stuck. Can someone please explain to me how to get all three installed and working?

Are you putting them all in gamedata? If you are, are you MERGING the gamedatas?

I cant wait for V4 looks amazing, i think that the terminators on the planets look fine and very realistic...

Edit: just loaded it up and the clouds look very... pixalated from orbit... any way to change this?

http://i59.tinypic.com/2vl30rd.png

That would be the detail image. I'll see if I can fix that in V4.

Edited April 20, 2014 by Thesonicgalaxy

[Captain Sierra]

V4 Laythe clouds look rediculously thick! Not sure I'm down for that as it's something I've come to expect only from Eve and Jool. I've kind of liked Laythe as this home away from home. The new clouds just seem uninviting (on top of making precision landings a freaking nightmare). When weather conditions become modelable, those storms would make flying a pain too. Also, how high is the ultra high cloud layer really? Laythe's atmosphere stops somewhere near 45km so I know the're not at 120.

Minmus dust clouds look freaking unbelievable. Been wishing for someone to do that.

[Thesonicgalaxy]

V4 Laythe clouds look rediculously thick! Not sure I'm down for that as it's something I've come to expect only from Eve and Jool. I've kind of liked Laythe as this home away from home. The new clouds just seem uninviting (on top of making precision landings a freaking nightmare). When weather conditions become modelable, those storms would make flying a pain too. Also, how high is the ultra high cloud layer really? Laythe's atmosphere stops somewhere near 45km so I know the're not at 120.

Minmus dust clouds look freaking unbelievable. Been wishing for someone to do that.

I've actually given Laythe a Makeover, but her clouds are still thick

I believe its:

13KM

10KM

4.5KM

2KM

Edited April 20, 2014 by Thesonicgalaxy

[pingopete]

Hey sonic finally got around to remaking my gamefolder and testing this, I had no idea there were so many layers Reckon you could give me a quick list of the different layers, I'm running the RSS config you have in the download. I also sent rbray a request to make cloud layers nameable in the alt+n menu; figure it'd make this significantly easier when editing

[Thesonicgalaxy]

Hey sonic finally got around to remaking my gamefolder and testing this, I had no idea there were so many layers Reckon you could give me a quick list of the different layers, I'm running the RSS config you have in the download. I also sent rbray a request to make cloud layers nameable in the alt+n menu; figure it'd make this significantly easier when editing

Awesome!

A quick list? Erm, well. There's the Kerbin1 cloud layer, theres the shadow layer, the volumetric shading layer, then there's the atmo layer. That's in order too.

Also, here's the new Joolvian System for V4 guys:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited April 20, 2014 by Thesonicgalaxy