While doing the DLC8 compatibility version, I already mentioned that I plan to rework and rebuild the whole vonBiomes lighting and visuals system since it has "historically grown a little bit" - and for the last couple of weeks I have done that rework. Here is a shiny new version of vonBiomes with maaaany changes in the looks department - and some neat addons, too!
Mod Downloads on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/vonseiten/posts/vonbiomes-27-5-163729413
(Version name: vonBiomes 27.5 Release Candidate 2 (RC2))
What's new in the Mod?
All new lights and visuals
Oh, all so much - over the last 5 years (yeah, it has been so long:) vonBiomes's spaghetti code was already tangling up, and it made things increasingly difficult to maintain and balance. So I threw many layers of noodles into the bin. New Lighting and Looks The opportunity was a perfect one - wiht PGI fixing in Volumetric Fog finally in DLC8, the timing was good to first cut and burn through the noodle roots.
I made a new variables system that I can more elegantly balance and adjust for all kinds of visual variety impacts - from orbit distances and sun class types to space nebulas, cloud conditions, moons and sky objects, plant coloring by sun class, and more.
The new rework also has the core goal at its heart: mission should look different, and there should be a ton of variety instead of always the same setup and looks. Needless to say, that makes things a little more challenging, and I wanted to keep all the shuffle and visual uniqueness alive.
Testing and refining was a major time factor, and that is how I spent the last couple of weeks. Sometimes in tears and sweat, sometimes giggling with enjoyment. Also, an overhaul on many levels happened for Global Illumination (GI) and Ambient Occlusion and for the optional "High Quality Shadows".
New: Sky Objects System
When you look up on an evening, you can see Venus, Jupiter, and Mars in the sky as bright dots. I took this inspiration and built a system that takes the number of planets in a solar system and represents them in the evening or night skies. It is a detail, but a lovely one! Also, it opened up the possibility to add rings as a slight chance on moons and other cloudless conditions. And last but not least... shooting stars! I have added shooting stars to your mission skies and each time you see some, make a wish! ;)
Also I resized the moons in the sky. Noticed that in eeeevey mission it is like the planet you are on is actually a moon of a super large planet in the sky? Now there is a new per-mission dice roll - the larger chance is that the moon actually has a more realistic size. But I also didn't want to remove those cool science fiction vistas with a mega-planet hanging in the sky - so that is still possible to discover with a smaller chance and it makes those large planet-views more special, too.
New: vonBiomes Volumetric Clouds v2
I have also completely remade the volumetric clouds in vonBiomes. There it was important to me not simply to use a plugin from the Unreal Marketplace (Fab) like Ultra Dynamic Skies (UDS), but to make everything myself and handcraft from the very basic volumetric clouds in the engine. I must say I am quite proud of the outcome so far - and I can now even paint custom cloud shapes as a base, e.g. for long bands of clouds, or whirls. Super nice!
Mod Options:
I have reorganized the mod options further, with the 3 core elements right on top (Volumetric Fog, Global Illumination (GI) and High-Quality Shadows) for easy access and more clarity.
If you are on a relatively modern GPU, activate those!
What I have again noticed on various testing computers is the difference, the monitor has on how things look. On one computer I have to raise the contrast (either monitor or mod options) to get a good looking picture; on others, saturation can be stronger. Just a note: the physical hardware makes an impact, and thats why there are sliders in the mod options for saturation, contrast - or your screen probably has some too:)
Maaany fixes and adjustments
During testing I found minor things like one biome having no ocean layer, or flags being wrongly rotated on a base - so those little details also got some attention.
Despite not so many bullet points, this has been a huge effort with many upgrades and changes so far - as usual with lighting stuff, please make sure to not override vonBiomes with another package, modding the "Weather and Sky" asset.
Please resave (And recheck) the mod options - and enjoy the new vonBiomes! Next time, more new biomes are coming, too, with already one in the works, and if there are things to adjust in this RC version (release candidate), I will shoot out another patch.
Cheers, and thank you for your support on Patreon, it keeps the ball rolling and noodles noodling!
Jonathan
PS: And here are some images from the test runs - enjoy!
