[1.2] PlanetShine - v0.2.5.2 stable - v0.5 experimental [4 October 2016]

[Valerian]

Experimental version released, please see the details and download link at the bottom of the main post.

Remember to completely delete the old PlanetShine before installing this one, settings files have been changed a bit!

 

This experimental version should work fine without changing any settings, you can definitely play KSP with it, but expect a few potential bugs

I would really appreciate some feedback about it, regarding the performance, the accuracy of the effect, or anything else.

[Ishimura]

Hello Valerian

I am very insterested in using your experimental version, but it seems I am unable to download the file at Mediafire (retry gains nothing). Could you maybe add another link to download it?

I'll give some feedback about the feel once I get to download it :-P

 

EDIT: Got it working on my phone, I'll be trying it out now. 

Edited December 14, 2015 by Ishimura
download solved via phone

[Speadge]

@Valerian

Hi, regarding your expected feedback about the performance it would be nice to know what u expect it to be - should there be a boost compared to the old version? Your devnotes sound as if...

[Proot]

Congrats @Valerian, seems to works perfectly, much more "natural" and accurate than the previous color setting, I still need to test in more situations so expect more feedback ASAP.

Edited December 14, 2015 by Proot
corrected

[Valerian]

33 minutes ago, Speadge said:

@Valerian

Hi, regarding your expected feedback about the performance it would be nice to know what u expect it to be - should there be a boost compared to the old version? Your devnotes sound as if...

It will definitely not be a boost lol, where in my devnotes did it make you think that? Maybe I should rewrite them.

EDIT:

Ah I see now, it will be a boost in RAM compared to my previous EXPERIMENTAL version, which I never actually released

This experimental version takes a tiny picture of the planet to determine its color and does that several times per second, whereas the previous PlanetShine used a list of predetermined colors which did not use any resources.

 

 

 

23 minutes ago, Proot said:

Congrats @Valerian, seems to works perfectly, much more "natural" and accurate than the previous color setting, I still need to test in more situations so expect more feedback ASAP.

Thank you, I appreciate

Edited December 14, 2015 by Valerian

[Speadge]

9 minutes ago, Valerian said:

It will definitely not be a boost lol, where in my devnotes did it make you think that? Maybe I should rewrite them.

EDIT:

Ah I see now, it will be a boost in RAM compared to my previous EXPERIMENTAL version, which I never actually released

well, you mentioned that the code "has been rewritten and cleaned up" mostly showing that you found some old mistakes and the handling might just be easier now.

additionally u mentiones _more_ performance tweaks in your planned features - so i assumed that you did already some - which might fit to my first point

Yeah - i read & think (mostly too) much

about the picture: wouldnt it been enough to take just one picture per second? i know that the surface might change much faster - but to make changes for milliseconds is a detail I (personally) would cut first for performance...

Edited December 14, 2015 by Speadge

[Valerian]

12 minutes ago, Speadge said:

well, you mentioned that the code "has been rewritten and cleaned up" mostly showing that you found some old mistakes and the handling might just be easier now.

additionally u mentiones _more_ performance tweaks in your planned features - so i assumed that you did already some - which might fit to my first point

Yeah - i read & think (mostly too) much

about the picture: wouldnt it been enough to take just one picture per second? i know that the surface might change much faster - but to make changes for milliseconds is a detail I (personally) would cut first for performance...

Yes that's planned to do frame skipping (take one picture every X frame), and I will add it to the settings. Currently it takes one every 3 frames.

Some things were definitely optimized compared to the previous versions, but the new auto color detection will definitely use more CPU and GPU.

[Speadge]

thanks for explanation

[peteletroll]

I use your mod on my cheap netbook, so I approve frame skipping strongly! Even much more than 3 :-)

[Speadge]

35 minutes ago, peteletroll said:

I use your mod on my cheap netbook, so I approve frame skipping strongly! Even much more than 3 :-)

@Valerian
FeatureIdea:

would it be possible to check the actual framerate of the game and dynamically activate / deactivate PS?Im not sure if your maths are done in a seperated thread, but if not, it would be nice if i can use my ressources for the basic game first, and the spare ressources for your mod; as long as there is enough delta.
 

[Valerian]

I'm very busy IRL, so I will not have time to work on PlanetShine until the weekend, which will be 100% dedicated to it.

I'm very frustrated, so many things I want to code right now

Edited December 15, 2015 by Valerian

[Trann]

20 hours ago, Valerian said:

Yes that's planned to do frame skipping (take one picture every X frame), and I will add it to the settings. Currently it takes one every 3 frames.

Some things were definitely optimized compared to the previous versions, but the new auto color detection will definitely use more CPU and GPU.

I am a fan of this mod so thank you for it.

While I am happy for your more elegant approach (which will no doubt make it ideal for any planet mods, atmospheric mods, etc.), is there any way to make this an option in the GUI so that those of us with minimal specs can stick with the hardcoded (CelestialBodies.cfg file based on default KSP planets) and less computational method?

Thanks for considering.

[Valerian]

3 hours ago, Trann said:

I am a fan of this mod so thank you for it.

While I am happy for your more elegant approach (which will no doubt make it ideal for any planet mods, atmospheric mods, etc.), is there any way to make this an option in the GUI so that those of us with minimal specs can stick with the hardcoded (CelestialBodies.cfg file based on default KSP planets) and less computational method?

Thanks for considering.

Yes of course I will keep the old way still available as an option, don't worry about that! One of the strength of Planetshine is that it can be used with almost no effect on your RAM and FPS.

It's just that the experimental version doesn't provide this option yet.

[Valerian]

I'm working on a brand new light attenuation formula for the planetshine light, and I think I really found the right balance now.

The goal is to still have a nice realistic light intensity at low and medium orbits, but to also have some light still visible at really high orbits, the goal being to use this formula both for the vessel and the planets, so that planets and moons can illuminate each other.

The new formula looks like that, consider that X is the altitude, and 1 is the radius of the planet: https://www.desmos.com/calculator/m1icqgv3vw

I took inspiration from this article https://imdoingitwrong.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/light-attenuation/ and then added my personal touch to keep the light on further away.

This is still in development, no release yet including this formula, sorry!

 

 

Edited December 21, 2015 by Valerian

[LaytheDragon]

Planets and moons illuminating each other? ^{_{The Mun glows! Vall and Tylo glow with Jool's light when looking from Laythe's surface! That is what you just said you are trying to achieve.}}

The community demands_{(Or, they will, in peaceful ways)} a peek at a very WIP^{NotAnOfficialTM,} ™ picture or two. At the phase of having just announced this, people want a picture to see if it's good or not, THEN they flood the thread with questions of the time of release.

Edited December 17, 2015 by LaytheDragon

[Curiosity7907]

Planetshine is and should be highly highly highly highly recommended with  Distant Object Enhancement.²

[Proot]

Hi Valerian. You know I'm a big fan of your plugin, and btw I'm pretty happy with the last changes.
I was wondering, due the last changes, do you mind if I still redistribute Planet Shine along with the new KSPRC?
I'm planning to use CKAN for the dependencies as soon as possible to avoid re-distributions of the plugins, but for now I wish to avoid the "people going crazy for installs" as much as possible...

Please don't worry and be sincere, I want to respect to the plugin creators as much as possible.

[Waxing_Kibbous]

On a whim I installed this mod and sort of forgot I did- later when I was docking with my Kerbin space station I thought "Man this game looks good," then remembered it was because of this mod! So I spent a few minutes on EVA just admiring how good everything looked, then when I went to Minmus I was blown away again. I play using pretty low gfx settings btw, but d$#@ does a little GI* go a long way, great job on this- I rarely say a mod should be stock, but this adds a massive improvement for what seems like little cost cpu wise.

 

* sort of like comparing a scanline renderer to a pathtracer

[Valerian]

On 12/22/2015 at 0:06 PM, Proot said:

Hi Valerian. You know I'm a big fan of your plugin, and btw I'm pretty happy with the last changes.
I was wondering, due the last changes, do you mind if I still redistribute Planet Shine along with the new KSPRC?
I'm planning to use CKAN for the dependencies as soon as possible to avoid re-distributions of the plugins, but for now I wish to avoid the "people going crazy for installs" as much as possible...

Please don't worry and be sincere, I want to respect to the plugin creators as much as possible.

Sorry, I didn't see your post before! Thanks for your support!

Sure you can redistribute it, as long as MiniAVC is still included to automatically warn users about updates, and that you continue to mention and link the plugin like you used to do.

Did you look at Teflon's Skybox? It has kind of the same feeling as your skybox, but a bit darker, which I think fits better with PlanetShine, but I didn't really take time to compare them in details. Take a look: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rxpiegan8zetucg/AAAiqgJCso7Ez8PoRMzAX9lCa?dl=0 (link taken from this page: http://www.twitch.tv/teflon_mike)

3 hours ago, Waxing_Kibbous said:

On a whim I installed this mod and sort of forgot I did- later when I was docking with my Kerbin space station I thought "Man this game looks good," then remembered it was because of this mod! So I spent a few minutes on EVA just admiring how good everything looked, then when I went to Minmus I was blown away again. I play using pretty low gfx settings btw, but d$#@ does a little GI* go a long way, great job on this- I rarely say a mod should be stock, but this adds a massive improvement for what seems like little cost cpu wise.

 

* sort of like comparing a scanline renderer to a pathtracer

Thank you, I really appreciate!

[Talavar]

On 12/14/2015 at 2:02 PM, Valerian said:

This experimental version takes a tiny picture of the planet to determine its color and does that several times per second, whereas the previous PlanetShine used a list of predetermined colors which did not use any resources.

 

 

  Val, Is this photo rate hard-coded, or is it changeable in a config? Also, what is the size of this photo? is it a general thumbnail? A little more info would go a long way here. just to have an idea of the computation/ram required. I'd like to give this a shot, just leery of the impact it may have. I'm playing on a decent rig, but I still suffer if I go overboard.. (Edit) I do see a setting for "update frequency = 2" is that how many updates there are per second?

Edited January 8, 2016 by Talavar

[Valerian]

30 minutes ago, Talavar said:

  Val, Is this photo rate hard-coded, or is it changeable in a config? Also, what is the size of this photo? is it a general thumbnail? A little more info would go a long way here. just to have an idea of the computation/ram required. I'd like to give this a shot, just leery of the impact it may have. I'm playing on a decent rig, but I still suffer if I go overboard.. (Edit) I do see a setting for "update frequency = 2" is that how many updates there are per second?

The photo is 64 x 64 pixels, it only takes a small amount of kilobytes, so it's almost nothing for the RAM, you can watch it live when you select "debug mode" in PlanetShine menu.

The "update frequency" option is only for the calculations of the light position, it does not affect much for the new picture-based system.

[Talavar]

6 minutes ago, Valerian said:

The photo is 64 x 64 pixels, it only takes a small amount of kilobytes, so it's almost nothing for the RAM, you can watch it live when you select "debug mode" in PlanetShine menu.

The "update frequency" option is only for the calculations of the light position, it does not affect much for the new picture-based system.

 I see, Thanks for the explanation. I just did a wipe of my Hard-drive and am loading up on mods on a clean install. Your experimental is going in there. Cheers!

[MatterBeam]

On 1/8/2016 at 8:24 PM, Talavar said:

 I see, Thanks for the explanation. I just did a wipe of my Hard-drive and am loading up on mods on a clean install. Your experimental is going in there. Cheers!

Can you tell us of any results?

[Talavar]

10 hours ago, MatterBeam said:

Can you tell us of any results?

 Seems to be working fine, no impacts on performance. Good stuff!

[MatterBeam]

29 minutes ago, Talavar said:

 Seems to be working fine, no impacts on performance. Good stuff!

The experimental version, right?