Hi all!!! I’m Emu, (former) lead developer of the Promised Worlds mod for KSP1 and now KSP2 Redux celestial body architect! I’ve been having a lot of fun with the new planet crafting tools coming to Redux (created by Infinity, many thanks :3) and I’m excited to share my experience and some sneak peeks at new celestial bodies coming to Redux!
The planet crafting process is a lot different from KSP1, much more straightforward. Instead of having to close and reopen the game and sit through painful loading screens for every little adjustment, you get a celestial body authoring scene where you can see your changes happen in real time. Your work is validated as you go, being checked for mistakes and showing you how resource-intensive your new world will be. Many processes that would involve multiple other applications and several minutes of loading screens are now just a click of a button! For me, the transition from creating worlds in KSP1 to KSP2 was like night and day.
In KSP2, the texture process is done in reverse. You bake your main global maps from many terrain materials and height maps tiled across one main global height map, which lets you add insane detail that just isn’t possible with KSP1 modding tools. You can also add crazy variety to your planets; up to 16 surface materials and a large number of height maps, in total over 100 textures. Of course you don’t have to go that far, but it’s nice to have the option to do that much.
Redux’s planet crafting tools take the stress out of making non-spherical bodies. You simply sculpt your new world in your preferred 3d modelling software and then run it through the height map baker tool which turns your sculpted model into a height map! This tool creates a 16-bit texture, so your nightmares of stepping terrain from KSP1 are over.
And this is only the beginning! Local-space scatter creation tools are coming soon, and eventually atmospheres, clouds, rings and more will be easier than ever. Once I’m fully acquainted with these new tools, I will be writing extensive guides for modders and contributors on how to use them.
We’ve been hard at work crafting two new celestial bodies: Drast and Beyl! These minor moons were found in the game files, likely meant for a future update, and now we’re bringing them to Redux. Both moons of Dres, Drast accumulates debris from Dres’ rings, while Beyl hurtles through the outer SOI in a distant, retrograde, inclined orbit.
Currently these two lack scatters or discoverables, but their terrain is mostly finished. Here are some sneak peeks!
Drast
Beyl