0.990.46.1955 Release: Improved Water and Bugfixes

Version 0.990.46.1955 is now being released to everyone! The main focus of this update was bug fixes and improvements to water rendering. The full changelog can be found at the bottom of the post, but we'll highlight some of the more visible changes below.

Improved appearance of cold Earth-like planets (with large snow-coverage):

A fix for the "transparent mountains" bug (artifact of the atmospheric scattering rendering):

Fix for the lighting of terrain detail textures under water:

Significantly improved accuracy of underwater color and view distance:

Fixes for the artifacts near shores:

Improved shorelines, rivers, and lakes on Earth:

And improvements to make 3D water lighting match terrain lighting, so that the transition to 3D water is now almost perfect!

There are a number of other important improvements and fixes in the changelog below, so be sure to check them out too. Happy exploring!

Changelog (0.990.46.1955):

• General improvements

• Added "power save mode": framerate is limited if SE's window loses focus (PowerSaveMaxFPS variable in the config)

• Added button on left toolbar to toggle the HUD text (same effect as using [Ctrl]-[`] shortcut)

• Better appearance of frozen terra worlds (large snow coverage)

• Changed environment maps from 16-bit to 32-bit (worse performance, but fixes fluctuating brightness issues when changing camera exposure)

• Added dwarf galaxies Boötes II and Boötes III

• Shuttle aero control surfaces now reset to neutral position (0 deflection angle) when not accepting input (i.e. below 10 kPa dynamic pressure)

• Faster initial creation of sprite galaxy and nebula models

• Updated palettes of brown dwarfs

• Changed catalog loading logic ○ CSV files will always be considered "older than" SC files (CSV always loads first) ○ If catalog files have the same modification date, the merging order is determined by file name comparison (e.g. ExoPlanets2.sc will be applied as a patch to ExoPlanets.sc)

• Updated localizations

  Water-related fixes and improvements

• Improved color and density of water absorption/fog effect

• Better shoreline, rivers and lakes on Earth

• 3D water lighting matches terrain lighting, transition to 3D water is almost perfect

• Fixed atmospheric attenuation calculated for underwater terrain (the Mariana trench was visible from space)

• Fixed lighting of terrain detail textures (soil) under water

• Fixed lighting on underwater terrain if water layer is switched off

• Fixed artifacts near shorelines

  Bug fixes

• Fixed crash when changing graphics quality preset

• Fixed bug with cut-off text on tutorial dialogs if GUI scale is larger than 100%

• Fixed flashing of planet lighting in auto and manual exposure modes

• Fixed the "transparent mountains" bug (artifact of atmospheric scattering rendering)

• Fixed issue with blurry milky way after changing from potato or low quality to custom

• Fixed ship model disappearing in a planet's shadow

• Fixed illumination of brown dwarfs by stars

• Fixed illumination of planets by brown dwarfs

• Fixed artifacts in stereoscopic modes on Nvidia

• Fixed main menu layout for 720p displays

• Fixed cutting of outer edge of rings around small bodies (asteroids)

• Fixed bug with clouds disappearing at altitude of 10 km on oceanic planets

• Fixed some bugs with planet re-classification after evolution of life and atmosphere

• Fixed bug with the rings winter effect (it had made clouds black instead of transparent)

• Fixed many catalog errors, including sizes of galaxies TON 618 and IC 1101

• Fixed bug with background star magnitude in the Chart mode when opening it with narrow camera FOV

• Fixed planet lighting in Chart mode when opening and manipulating Wiki or Solar System Browser

• Fixed atmospheric scattering artifact near shoreline and discontinuity at horizon

• Fixed rendering of labels for static ships and asteroids with