First Landing on the New Munar Surface.

[VincentMcConnell]

So I wasn\'t so impressed with the Munar Surface in all the pictures that were released. I do like it from orbit, though! No tiles and whatnot. I decided to take a LEM down to land and see the surface for myself. I picked the Sea of Instability for my landing site and burned into my Powered Descent. First off, I did like how tall the mountains were. It required a 30KM orbit to feel nice and safe while in the orbital phase of my mission.

As I neared the ground, I saw all the boulders and all was going well. Touchdown occurred with about 2 m/s of velocity and was one of the smoothest touchdowns I have ever had. Engine shut down. Here\'s my landing site:

Anyway, my suggestion: Is it possible that the Dev\'s can go back to having the Maria Regions as dark as before, with the same smooth terrain, yet have the lunar surface look cratered and ridgy like it used to? The whole place is pretty much uniform color now and the ground looks like gray sand with sparkles in it...

EDIT

I have since began the return back to Kerbin, having left nothing on the Mun. No descent stages, no debris. Just the shallow imprints of the footpads that once made history for the Kerbals of Kerbin. Ok, but seriously... Enough dramatic story-telling aside, here is a photo of my descent stage separating as I return to Kerbin.

[Rico88]

I totaly agree. The new engine is beautiful, the rocks are awsome, but the old munar texture was way better. This one is too grainy, and lost it\'s original moon-like look.

[Kosmo-not]

I hate how everything is pretty flat now. Quit catering to the noobs, lol.

[VincentMcConnell]

I hate how everything is pretty flat now. Quit catering to the noobs, lol.

haha Yes. I do agree. Landings seem very easy. On the old engine, we used to have to do a lot of piloting during final approach to avoid mountains, hills, ridges etc. Now as soon as you come down, you\'re just in an open plain with some boulders.

[TNTGODZZ]

haha Yes. I do agree. Landings seem very easy. On the old engine, we used to have to do a lot of piloting during final approach to avoid mountains, hills, ridges etc. Now as soon as you come down, you\'re just in an open plain with some boulders.

hmm. i really like having to have my wits about me when landing, so we didnt die. was always the best. please see this mu, harv and the team

[NovaSilisko]

It\'s not flat all over. There\'s plenty of rough areas, but it\'s hard to identify them from orbit due to the surface being fairly bland now...

[VincentMcConnell]

It\'s not flat all over. There\'s plenty of rough areas, but it\'s hard to identify them from orbit due to the surface being fairly bland now...

Yeah, we\'re all kind of disappointed about some aspects of the Lunar Surface. I think what would be nice is a surface like last time but with a terrain generator that makes everything high quality even from high orbits.

Kerbin\'s surface is PERFECT.

[Causeless]

Yeah, we\'re all kind of disappointed about some aspects of the Lunar Surface. I think what would be nice is a surface like last time but with a terrain generator that makes everything high quality even from high orbits.

Kerbin\'s surface is PERFECT.

The problem is, it\'s impossible to make it higher detail when up high without lagging, usually. Try changing PLANET_DETAIL_FACTOR up a bit in the settings.cfg, and you\'ll see what I mean.

Also, the surface is generally flat, only a few areas are really rough, and anyways, what I think Nova meant by 'being fairly bland' was the texturing, instead of the actual level of detail... the ground texture is very uniform so you can\'t get any form of depth perception well out of it.

We need better shading effects for mountains - on Kerbin, the planet looks tiny up high because the mountains are big but there have no shading to indicate this, and on the Mun, it\'s hard to tell if any mountains are even there at all!

[trbinsc]

You wouldn\'t believe how rugged the new terrain actually is in some places, you just have to do a little exploring. I actually found a huge mountain ridge with about a 75º-80º slope at 1º 29\' 42' S 22º 12\' 18' E and a weird canyon thing nearby, at 3º 40\' 3' S 13º 56\' 59' E.

[VincentMcConnell]

We need better shading effects for mountains - on Kerbin, the planet looks tiny up high because the mountains are big bug there have no shading to indicate this, and on the Mun, it\'s hard to tell if any mountains are even there at all!

That\'s a great idea... Something like this:

[pina_coladas]

I don\'t know what you guys are talking about because from what little exploring I\'ve done it\'s clear that the new Munar surface is much more varied and interesting than before. It just has a different texture.

[Mu.]

Mun was quite a tricky beast. The original heightmap was a bit of a weird scale, and not actually a height map, so I recreated Mun by hand and spent a good chunk of time trying to get it to look nice. I personally think it looks a lot better than before but, of course, could always be better.

Unfortunatly the high ambient light setting in the game means that our beloved, but grey, Mun does look very bland and sadly theres not a sniff of running realtime shadows out to many km in Unity.

Anyways.. I\'m going to tweek the materials for Mun and will increase the contrast on its colours to make it a bit more varied. If I add too much height noise then the craters lose form but i\'ll see about increasing it slightly. Cant have your landings being too easy.

Ideally we need a fractal crater generator but such a thing doesnt, as yet, exist. If anyone has such a thing hidden away then i\'ll graciously plagiarise it.

[deadshot462]

Every big update will always get criticism, but glad you\'re (Mu) taking it positively. The Mun definitely looks better without the tile seems, and I\'m sure further adjustments can be made with player feedback. In one way, it\'s good that we do not have other planets yet, that way the Dev team can focus on making each planet/moon just right, and learn from them that way.

[NovaSilisko]

Mun was quite a tricky beast. The original heightmap was a bit of a weird scale, and not actually a height map, so I recreated Mun by hand and spent a good chunk of time trying to get it to look nice. I personally think it looks a lot better than before but, of course, could always be better.

Unfortunatly the high ambient light setting in the game means that our beloved, but grey, Mun does look very bland and sadly theres not a sniff of running realtime shadows out to many km in Unity.

Anyways.. I\'m going to tweek the materials for Mun and will increase the contrast on its colours to make it a bit more varied. If I add too much height noise then the craters lose form but i\'ll see about increasing it slightly. Cant have your landings being too easy.

Ideally we need a fractal crater generator but such a thing doesnt, as yet, exist. If anyone has such a thing hidden away then i\'ll graciously plagiarise it.

I think replacing the current simplistic 'noise' texture with the old texture that had little rocks and clumps of dirt on it would go a long way toward helping it look better.

[VincentMcConnell]

I think replacing the current simplistic 'noise' texture with the old texture that had little rocks and clumps of dirt on it would go a long way toward helping it look better.

100% agree.

[VincentMcConnell]

Mu, thank you for taking our constructive criticism so nicely and openly. I really hope you understand we\'re not bagging on your excellent work, we\'re just trying to tell you what we think may have looked better. Ultimately, you make the textures and you\'re entitled to what you find to look the best.

Players can post here to give a little feedback for Mu on his lunar surface.

[Elven_sword]

haha Yes. I do agree. Landings seem very easy. On the old engine, we used to have to do a lot of piloting during final approach to avoid mountains, hills, ridges etc. Now as soon as you come down, you\'re just in an open plain with some boulders.

I was too lazy to pilot, I just landed on the ridges. However, with the Down Under Luna lander being so light, I often flipped 20+ meters in the air. Damn those are springy.

[rkman]

Ideally we need a fractal crater generator but such a thing doesnt, as yet, exist. If anyone has such a thing hidden away then i\'ll graciously plagiarise it.

maybe you can use this:

Terraform

license: GPL

OS: Linux

language: C

'Terraform is a fully-featured terrain generator with a plethora of options.... It lets you add craters...'

http://freecode.com/projects/terraform

filters.c contains code that is described as 'Add craters to a heightfield array'

[randyrules711]

The more I see this new munar surface, the more I hope the goal for some future missions in the full game will be to collect those boulders.

[rustymcclintock]

from what I\'ve seen in videos the long distance veiw of the mun is 100 % better, but as i have yet to buy the game I\'ll let you know my feeling on the surface come around monday or so.