[0.25] Astronomer's Visual Pack - Interstellar V2

[Artophwar]

I halved the resolution of all the png and they still look good plus it is like almost a gig in memory savings. Maybe you could have a separate half-res download for people who dont know how to do it themselves. A lot more people could run it that way.

Also the clouds are pretty sparse, if this is your artistic choice thats fine but I prefer thicker cloud coverage. Everything else is awesome though. Love the aurora, lightning, snow, interstellar music, and more. Great pack.

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

To those having memory isses, I use DDSLoader, OpenGL, and Active Texture Management to get enough memory savings on my other mods (lots of them) to run this pack with 32-bit KSP. I'm actually running this new pack faster than Edge of Oblivion thanks to the sparser clouds.

[FenrirWolf]

Sweet, this pack is working great for me... unless Jool happens to be in my field of view. Even if look at it from the map screen or from Kerbin orbit, my FPS goes to crap. I'll have to try tweaking things around a bit to fix that lol

[Fizban]

Can i ask something because i am kinda confused, does Astronomer's interstellar pack include all previous visual packs or are they seperate entities? Is it an improvement on those or is it something completely different?

[Beetlecat]

Sweet, this pack is working great for me... unless Jool happens to be in my field of view. Even if look at it from the map screen or from Kerbin orbit, my FPS goes to crap. I'll have to try tweaking things around a bit to fix that lol

That happens to me when I spin around and face the sun from the runway, for instance. I'm running quite a few mods, so it may be nearing the upper limit. Shoot.

[blowfish]

To those having memory isses, I use DDSLoader, OpenGL, and Active Texture Management to get enough memory savings on my other mods (lots of them) to run this pack with 32-bit KSP. I'm actually running this new pack faster than Edge of Oblivion thanks to the sparser clouds.

What methods have you used for converting the PNGs here to DDS? I've found many of them crashing both Lilleman's converter and nvdxt.

[Drew Kerman]

Since lightning is hard to take screenshots of, how would one modify the config to have it show up like a cloud layer so it's always visible? Then you can pause the game, take a screenshot, use the GUI to remove the lightning layer, take another screenshot and then composite them and remove any lightning you want so only a few bursts are in the final image. I use the same technique to ensure no aurora shows up in daylight in my images.

Anyone have advice on tweaking the configs? At some point I'll get around to experimenting myself if I find time, but seeing as Astronomer is looking for pictures of lightning for his album this method will get that done and I'd be happy to take care of that for him...

[MartGonzo]

What methods have you used for converting the PNGs here to DDS? I've found many of them crashing both Lilleman's converter and nvdxt.

I can't speak for Kerbas_ad_astra (obviously) but I used a free package called paint.net and saved as DXT5 with mipmaps

[blowfish]

I can't speak for Kerbas_ad_astra (obviously) but I used a free package called paint.net and saved as DXT5 with mipmaps

I can probably do it with nvcompress of the Photoshop plugin. Do these textures require flipping vertically to work when converted to DDS?

[somnambulist]

What methods have you used for converting the PNGs here to DDS? I've found many of them crashing both Lilleman's converter and nvdxt.

Try resaving them as uncompressed PNG or TGA first. I ran into similar issues with a different texture.

[MartGonzo]

I can probably do it with nvcompress of the Photoshop plugin. Do these textures require flipping vertically to work when converted to DDS?

As far as I know they should be the same orientation as the original, but I'm not too sure because I only did a few textures and nothing related to this pack or the skybox.

probably not much help really, sorry

[Estron]

Can someone please help me?

http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/2ol738/help_please_astronomers_visuals_interstellar/

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

I didn't convert any of these textures (Lilleman's tool ignores them by default) -- I got memory savings on everything else I've installed.

[blowfish]

I didn't convert any of these textures (Lilleman's tool ignores them by default) -- I got memory savings on everything else I've installed.

I think ATM converts them anyway, but it's taking a while. Nearly everything else in my KSP folder is converted to DDS too, but I'm still running our of RAM ... *sigh* maybe I just need fewer mods.

[Toxiccameron]

When i launch this my loading bar stops at detail aurora and crashes. Any ideas?

Im using all of the highest settings with no texture managment

Thanks

[Chezburgar7300]

Im using all of the highest settings with no texture managment

Well, there's your problem...

[AccidentalDisassembly]

Seem to be getting a bunch of NREs and, occasionally, when I return to the KSC after a flight (just sent a satellite crashing into the Mun), I can't click on any buildings. I don't *know* that it has anything to do with your pack per se - if it doesn't, please let me know and I'll go post somewhere else!

This happens a lot: NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

at Clouds.Clouds.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

In this log log: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59567837/output_logClouds.txt

[gkorgood]

When i launch this my loading bar stops at detail aurora and crashes. Any ideas?

Im using all of the highest settings with no texture managment

Thanks

Try loading in -force-opengl mode

[tygoo7]

I wonder if cutting the texture resolutions in half would save a bit more RAM...

[MartGonzo]

I wonder if cutting the texture resolutions in half would save a bit more RAM...

I'd like to add my vote for a half resolution pack, the Eve + Jool clouds are a real PC killer

[Drew Kerman]

I wonder if cutting the texture resolutions in half would save a bit more RAM...

Myself and another I saw already attested to saving several hundred MB up to a GB by doing this. Just open whatever you want to downsize in an image editor, resize and resave. I took the 3 aurora textures down to 2048x1024 looks just fine from orbit and saves a couple hundred MB

[AccidentalDisassembly]

Just to update previous post - perhaps this belongs in the EVE thread, I don't know - but there seems to be something going on when visiting other bodies and then returning to the KSC. Happened with both the Mun and Minmus; returning to KSC -> no clouds in the sky, can't click on any buildings. Have to restart KSP to get the buildings to be clickable again...

[RobotsAndSpaceships]

I'm still not clear on how to install the lens flare. Any help?

[Unknown_Enemy]

Nice pack, really beautiful.

By the way... would you have the craft file for the ranger shuttle you used in your pictures ?

I tyied to find it but .. no joy..

[Chezburgar7300]

I'm still not clear on how to install the lens flare. Any help?

Just drop the KSP_Data and KSP_x64_Data folders into the Main KSP folder, not the Gamedata folder. They will overwrite some files, but that is normal.