[1.3.1] Pood's OPM-VO (Outer Planets Mod - Visual Overhaul) [v0.3.5] [2017-09-23] (2024)

With the release of EVE for 1.0.5 and Scatterer gaining multi-planet support I decided to jump right in and start messing around with configs for OPM as I rarely play KSP without it. As the two mods are still very much in their infancy really with respect to 1.0.5 and their latest releases I am learning as I go and have never shown any of my previous tinkerings with EVE in the past on these forums (I used to run a modified AVP-I, AVP-EoO and KSPRC mashup in previous versions of KSP).

I initally started working on Tekto as it has a pretty crazy atmosphere in OPM canon. Current progress can be seen here:

I also have very hazy mist clouds rumbling over the lowlands that look a lot like heat haze up close. These are very much still WIP and I am still learning new tricks/techniques with EVE's new volumetric cloud options. The look I have gone for is a very chaotic, dense atmosphere that is suffering from a sever over abundance of a toxic gas that could be generated from underwater plant life or similar.

After visiting MatoroIgnika's Twitch stream he commented to me that he loves Thatmo and how it should look like a Triton analog, so... next on to Thatmo!

Like Triton, Thatmo has a very think atmosphere but it can be visualised from orbit. It is very hard to convey through screenshots but a very thin, wispy cloud cover has been added, viewable from orbit. Down on the moon's surface, clouds are visible somewhat more than they are from orbit purely for the fun aspect of actually seeing the atmosphere present. Triton's albedo coefficient is one of the highest in our whole solar system and so I decided to make Thatmo very reflective and bright to convey the shiny, ice like nature of the moon. Its pretty blinding down on the surface. As the surface of the moon is refracting light through its ice layers I have also introduced a chromatic aberration-like quality, visible when in orbit.

Finally at this point I have been tinkering heavily with texture generation for Gas Giants (as OPM has 3 of them!) using curling noise for procedural fluid flow to try and create some really interesting base texture maps for the gas planets. It has been pretty laborious switching between Linux running the generations and Windows for Photoshop texturing (I don't like GIMP at all) but its getting a lot easier to manage now I am use to the process. I should be able to utilise this technique to also create completely procedural cloud texture maps also with a bit of work that could range from thick stormy stuff ala Venus down to very light, high atmo wisps.

As you can see there are a lot of different style outcomes using the same texture by changing the input parameters. Let me know what you like and what you think would suit each gas planet as I can create a variety of effects. Generation takes around 20 minutes and then I have to wrap a cubemap back into an rectilinear texture for use within KSP.

All of this is really in its infancy and I created this thread as a place to store my ongoing efforts whilst also being able to receive some feedback. Progress may come in fits and spurts around work; I get two weeks off over the Christmas period I may be able to cram a load of texturing in. Depending on how far I continue the final piece of the long-term puzzle would be re-texturing the base moon textures to hi-res variants.

Feedback is greatly appreciated and any thoughts or critiques are appreciated, even though at the moment all you are able to look at is screenshots. Once things become more substantial I will upload configs and textures in a pack for testing out within KSP. At this point I will apply a suitable license.