[0.25/0.90] Better Atmospheres [V5 - June 14th, 2014]

[Thesonicgalaxy]

This is a bit of an update, pretty important actually.

I think I'm going to slow down development on this pack. It's been taking a toll on real life.

I haven't been getting as much school work done as I should, I haven't been spending a lot of time with my friends, and I have a driving test coming up soon. EVE also bugs out a lot and has been making the creation of this pack un-enjoyable. I've also ran into some computer problems which don't really help. I will continue to work on and update this pack, but don't expect a brand new huge update soon. I do enjoy making this when it all works well, but real life comes first. I hope you all understand. Thank you.

[vanlock]

Real life always comes first, I totally agree.

Anyway I didn't expect any update from you at least until Rbray releases his massive new version, so you were allowed to return to real life and deal with all of it

Work well and we'll cheer when you get your licence !

[lajoswinkler]

This is Kerbal Space Program, If you're looking for realism, check out real solar system mod.

This is KSP, but it's not Super Mario Brothers. A significant level of realism is one of the KSP's signatures.

In that case, Kerbin shouldn't have an atmosphere.

Kerbin has enough surface gravity to hold its atmosphere. It has incredible density, but that's the core property of Kerbal universe. There is no need for additional diverging from that path. Otherwise, let's make a 100 km cake floating around Kerbol.

[Andrew Hansen]

I will continue to work on and update this pack, but don't expect a brand new huge update soon. I do enjoy making this when it all works well, but real life comes first.

No problem! Real life totally comes first, and I totally understand. EVE is a bit buggy at the moment, but once rbray89 sorts out the bugs, it will be easier to work on BetterAtmospheres.

I'll see what I can do to slightly reduce Minmus's fog density. I'm sure it's just some configuration file adjustment or something. EDIT: Yep! Here's my current setup. I removed Minmus's atmosphere because I was having issues making it 100 meters tall, and it looked strange in Map View.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Download the altered configuration file!

Edited April 30, 2014 by Andrew Hansen

[Phazon8058]

My feelings about this pack are mixed. From orbit, all the planets and moons like fantastic. Absolutely gorgeous, especially Kerbin and Laythe. However during ascent to Kerbin orbit, and during reentry, the... clipping into the blue layer just looks bad. Also I just did a moon landing, and the grey in the sky on Mun really kills the look of being on the Mun.

I'm not discrediting your work. You obviously put tons of effort into this, and it shows... in orbit... Ascent and landing need some work. That's just my two cents.

[Thesonicgalaxy]

My feelings about this pack are mixed. From orbit, all the planets and moons like fantastic. Absolutely gorgeous, especially Kerbin and Laythe. However during ascent to Kerbin orbit, and during reentry, the... clipping into the blue layer just looks bad. Also I just did a moon landing, and the grey in the sky on Mun really kills the look of being on the Mun.

I'm not discrediting your work. You obviously put tons of effort into this, and it shows... in orbit... Ascent and landing need some work. That's just my two cents.

You shouldn't be clipping through a blue layer. It's just EVE's saving being crap as usual.

[Andrew Hansen]

However during ascent to Kerbin orbit, and during reentry, the... clipping into the blue layer just looks bad. Also I just did a moon landing, and the grey in the sky on Mun really kills the look of being on the Mun.

I think you must have installed it wrong. The Mun's atmosphere fades away when I get up close to it, and it looks normal while I'm on the surface. In my opinion I really like the thin atmosphere I can see at around 6 or 7 km above the surface, but I do admit the atmosphere can get a bit thick at perhaps 12-15 km above the surface. Any higher than that, and it just looks fantastic and adds that "glowy" look to the Mun that makes it look more like our own moon.

EDIT: Got ninja'd by a whopping 28 minutes! That's what I get for not refreshing the page.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Andrew Hansen

[CatastrophicFailure]

Echoing what others have said, if you're getting that annoying clipping, you need to tweak fadedist in your advanced settings, sounds like for every body.

Speaking of which, I actually kinda like it on Minmus... But is there any way to keep that defined "passing thru the surface" look but just make it a bit fuzzy?

[pingopete]

Echoing what others have said, if you're getting that annoying clipping, you need to tweak fadedist in your advanced settings, sounds like for every body.

Speaking of which, I actually kinda like it on Minmus... But is there any way to keep that defined "passing thru the surface" look but just make it a bit fuzzy?

This mod has been put on halt until end of exam periods, but I may be able to help before then. Isn't there some option for the internal rim distance? As in the opposite of Fade dist. ?

[Grunf911]

The mod looks awesome, and I like the textures, and the effects.

The only mood killers in my opinion are:

1. Feeling of clipping through the blue layer surface on ascent/descent for planets

2. Grey sky above Mun surface (but from screensots when using reneissance mod, it looks ok, but with Distant Object looks grey at mun surface)

3. Darkness being too dark sometimes (not sure if it is due to atmospheres or Distant Object mod though)

This is the main reason why i install the mod, get annoyed, deinstall it, then I miss it, then install again. It's a vicious cycle

Is there any way to tweak the above issues in configs ? That could break the cycle ;-)

Also in the screenies you post, could you put the in-atmospheres shots, maybe we could see what it should look like.

I can confirm that issue 1 shows on EVE 7.1 (especially on LowRes version)

Edited May 2, 2014 by Grunf911

[Thesonicgalaxy]

The mod looks awesome, and I like the textures, and the effects.

The only mood killers in my opinion are:

1. Feeling of clipping through the blue layer surface on ascent/descent for planets

2. Grey sky above Mun surface (but from screensots when using reneissance mod, it looks ok, but with Distant Object looks grey at mun surface)

3. Darkness being too dark sometimes (not sure if it is due to atmospheres or Distant Object mod though)

This is the main reason why i install the mod, get annoyed, deinstall it, then I miss it, then install again. It's a vicious cycle

Is there any way to tweak the above issues in configs ? That could break the cycle ;-)

Also in the screenies you post, could you put the in-atmospheres shots, maybe we could see what it should look like.

I can confirm that issue 1 shows on EVE 7.1 (especially on LowRes version)

1.That's EVE's fault. It should save but of course no it doesn't as usual. You can hit alt+n(You can also tweak many other settings to your like), there should be an advanced option, then under SETTINGS(Not scaledsettings) set the fade dist option to 100. Be sure you have EVE 7.2 or later. Same for issue 2.

2. I'll look into making the darkside less dark when school, and my Driving test are both done. Right now this mod is on hiatus.

[xrayfishx]

I have a serious problem with this mod. It looks great and all, but it's impossible to tell the difference between land and water from LKO. Normally it doesn't really matter, but it becomes an issue when I want to land a spaceplane or I have a capsule with an automated landing procedure that is adjusted for water landings. From med/high kerbin orbit it's better, but still not good.

EDIT: Also, please don't make darkness less dark. It's already pitiful what most games consider a night. KSP was only slightly better at this, but with this mod I can really see something that I can almost call a night (almost, because at ground level it's still only about as dark as Skyrim, maybe).

Edited May 2, 2014 by xrayfishx

[Phazon8058]

You shouldn't be clipping through a blue layer. It's just EVE's saving being crap as usual.

I tweaked some settings, and the clipping is gone now. All my previous problems with the mod are now null. Excellent work. It's absolutely gorgeous.

[Andrew Hansen]

I have a serious problem with this mod. It looks great and all, but it's impossible to tell the difference between land and water from LKO.

This is something I've begun to notice as well. In stock KSP, the atmosphere only shows around the rim, not when you're looking straight down into it. Something similar needs to be implemented with this mod, and this problem will go away.

[smunisto]

Sooo....removing unwanted cloud layers during game brings several problems:

1. How do I remove all layers from non-atmospheric bodies - I like Minmus, but I hate Mun and the rest of the gray moons. I don't think adding EVE layers is the best way to present the Kerbol light reflection off of planetary bodies.

I know I can remove them via the Alt+N menu, but this does not persist through game restarts. If I delete all layers I lose the option to save apply and save as default.

Also, deleting layers while ingame leads to the following major bug. This is not only spamming the log, but also it is disabling the game's ability to pause under all and any circumstances.

This can be reproduced 100% of the time. Just delete the layers on one body and try to press Esc. Or set up an alarm with KAC and make it pause the game at the alarm time.

Each time you press Esc, this is spammed:

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at Clouds.Clouds.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

(Filename:  Line: -1)


NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at Clouds.Clouds.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

(Filename:  Line: -1)


NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at Clouds.Clouds.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

(Filename:  Line: -1)


NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at Clouds.Clouds.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

(Filename:  Line: -1)


NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at Clouds.Clouds.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

(Filename:  Line: -1)

[Thesonicgalaxy]

Sooo....removing unwanted cloud layers during game brings several problems:

1. How do I remove all layers from non-atmospheric bodies - I like Minmus, but I hate Mun and the rest of the gray moons. I don't think adding EVE layers is the best way to present the Kerbol light reflection off of planetary bodies.

I know I can remove them via the Alt+N menu, but this does not persist through game restarts. If I delete all layers I lose the option to save apply and save as default.

Also, deleting layers while ingame leads to the following major bug. This is not only spamming the log, but also it is disabling the game's ability to pause under all and any circumstances.

This can be reproduced 100% of the time. Just delete the layers on one body and try to press Esc. Or set up an alarm with KAC and make it pause the game at the alarm time.

Each time you press Esc, this is spammed:

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at Clouds.Clouds.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

(Filename:  Line: -1)


NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at Clouds.Clouds.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

(Filename:  Line: -1)


NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at Clouds.Clouds.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

(Filename:  Line: -1)


NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at Clouds.Clouds.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

(Filename:  Line: -1)


NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at Clouds.Clouds.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

(Filename:  Line: -1)

\_(. _ .)_/

I just apply my crappy cloud layers to planets and save it and hope it works. That hope is based on EVE's saving. You'll have to ask rbray about this unless it's my fault then sorry :c

[smunisto]

I doubt it's your fault. It's my bad for posting here, forgot it's actually related to EVE rather than your cfg's. Apologies.

[BudgetHedgehog]

So you'll be pleased to know that Scott Manley is now using BA (he says so in the latest Interstellar video,

).

Party time, I reckon.

[Thesonicgalaxy]

So you'll be pleased to know that Scott Manley is now using BA (he says so in the latest Interstellar video,

).

Party time, I reckon.

[Yargnit]

I don't suppose anyone's come up with a tweak of this that works with regex's 6.4:1 scale Kerbin mod? I've tried tweaking some of it myself with various degrees of success, but nothing that's actually to my satisfaction.

[Thesonicgalaxy]

I don't suppose anyone's come up with a tweak of this that works with regex's 6.4:1 scale Kerbin mod? I've tried tweaking some of it myself with various degrees of success, but nothing that's actually to my satisfaction.

The huge problem is that EVE isn't really designed for RSS.

[Yargnit]

The huge problem is that EVE isn't really designed for RSS.

It works pretty well with the standard clouds with just altitude tweaks, but Better Atmospheres has so many different layers I'm not having any real luck getting the tweaks right. especially stuff like the dual layering of clouds it uses to get shadowing doesn't respond to my attempts to tweak them.

[Elmetian]

Loving the shadows under the clouds on Kerbin. A few things I'd love to see changed in any future versions though:

• I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already, but Kerbin doesn't appear to have clouds on the night side. The city lights shine through as though the cloud layer ends at the terminator (see pic).

Also noticing that the night side is a bit too dark, both from low orbit and near the surface as others have mentioned. It makes the game harder to play and isn't entirely realistic (see video).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X5DqKdi8A4

• It would be nice to have a higher resolution cloud option as with the city lights. Because they now have shadows, it seems to exaggerate how pixelated they look (see pic):

• For the 2048 city textures the .tga files are the wrong way round as far as I can tell. The 2048 Details.tga is actually a high-res version of CityDetails.tga and vice versa.

• It would be nice to have a better explanation of how to install the high-res city textures. In the readme you say: "Put the city lights into the city lights texture folder under \GameData\BoulderCo\CityLights\Textures and put the daytime cities under - \GameData\BoulderCo\Clouds\Textures" but there's no explanation of which file is which. It's easy enough to work this out by opening the targa files in photoshop or equivalent, but not if you don't have access to these programs. It would be better to just state explicitly which file goes where I think.

Edited May 4, 2014 by Narcosis

[phoenix_ca]

Wait, what? How does not having clouds on the dark side of Kerbin make the game "harder to play"?

[Elmetian]

Wait, what? How does not having clouds on the dark side of Kerbin make the game "harder to play"?

Sorry, that's not what I meant. The lack of clouds makes it look unrealistic. The fact that it's too dark and it's hard to differentiate between water and land makes it difficult. Perhaps I shouldn't have lumped both points in the same paragraph.