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KSP Weekly: Venerating the Venera


SQUAD

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3 hours ago, DMagic said:

It's muddy garbage on the left, and clean, high quality work, with lots of details on the right.

With respect, I don't see any difference... to me they just look like the same parts, only colored a little differently

 

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3 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Is the texture switching in the stock game or in the DLC?

It will be part of the base game. More details about the actual functionality will be released later. 

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That radial menu does look quite swish!

As for texture switching, \o/   its good the devs look like they're getting into these things, since texture switching and part switching can add so much. We need more modder-inspired abilities added to the base game, methinks.

 

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6 hours ago, SQUAD said:

and, of course, new parts. Here’s our new 1.875 monopropellant tank.

The wear on the edge ring is nice as always, and the AO is appreciably strong enough too which goes to show that it doesn't matter if you bake or brush as long as you give the same attention to detail.

But don't you think you guys are over using the normal mapped corrugation layered over a plain flat diffuse trick? This can get a pass on thin lengths like decouplers but it becomes less appealing as you scale up the surface unless you paint some detailing on the diffuse layer underneath (see previous complaints about the saturn V and 1,875m tank's plainness).

Also shouldn't the spheres be connected to something?

Finally what historical rocket or vehicle would use this? Soyuz?
 

6 hours ago, SQUAD said:

Two textures will be included - one with the traditional yellow markings used for other stack RCS tanks, and a plain white one that should blend better with historic rocket builds. So yes, we can confirm that stock texture switching will be a thing.

So how does this texture switching work? Is it ye ole swapping whole texture files?(which can be ram inefficient without dynamic asset loading) or is it hip new switching between mesh objects that are UV mapped to different spots on the same sheet? (to save ram in the long run) or is it powerful enough to do either as the modder wishes? :)

6 hours ago, SQUAD said:

Also, we will be using the introduction of a new monoprop tank as an opportunity to perform a long overdue balance pass on our existing monoprop tanks.

This is greatly appreciated balance can be just as important and intensive as art so thank you for the polish.

Edited by passinglurker
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6 hours ago, SQUAD said:

So yes, we can confirm that stock texture switching will be a thing.

My synergy potentio-meter just went off: will it be possible to use (part of) this code as an easier method to switch localized textures? Or even... KSPedia articles?

 

6 hours ago, SQUAD said:

Also, we will be using the introduction of a new monoprop tank as an opportunity to perform a long overdue balance pass on our existing monoprop tanks.

Perhaps also an opportunity to see if monoprop fuel flow can be -optionally- made to obey crossfeed restrictions?

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Quote

The new mono tank looks great. And texture switching is awesome.

Unfortunately, that picture also provides the clearest example to-date of how poorly the don't-call-them-placeholders parts hold up to the new parts. Just look at them next to each other... 

... think it's great to have new, high quality parts, but it just exacerbates the problem ... 

Quote

But don't you think you guys are over using the normal mapped corrugation layered over a plain flat diffuse trick? 

Forum: Why don't you make new parts? 

Squad: We're making new parts. 

Forum: Why don't you show us the new parts? 

Squad: Here are the new parts. 

Forum: Those suck. Make them better, make different ones and make more of them. 

Squad: Sigh. 

Forum: Why are you so secretive and don't tell us what you're working on? 

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12 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

Forum: Why don't you make new parts? 

Squad: We're making new parts. 

Forum: Why don't you show us the new parts? 

Squad: Here are the new parts. 

Forum: Those suck. Make them better, make different ones and make more of them. 

Squad: Sigh. 

Forum: Why are you so secretive and don't tell us what you're working on? 

We've had better regression is bad m'kay?

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1 hour ago, Vanamonde said:

Forum: Why don't you make new parts? 

Squad: We're making new parts. 

Forum: Why don't you show us the new parts? 

Squad: Here are the new parts. 

Forum: Those suck. Make them better, make different ones and make more of them. 

Squad: Sigh. 

Forum: Why are you so secretive and don't tell us what you're working on? 

Go ahead an delete this post if you must, but trying to stifle feedback and advocating for the developer to share less information only hurts the community. Furthermore, no where in what you selected to quote did anyone say the new parts are bad. I see someone pointing out that old parts don't look as good as the new ones and I see a question about an art technique that is used on the newly revealed part. I can't agree with your post and I can't take it seriously since it seems personal.

 

Completely on topic: I enjoy the space history paragraphs at the beginning of these Weeklies. Hopefully the bug fixing for 1.3 doesn't take too long and hopefully we hear more about the future of KSP soon.

Forgot to mention my thoughts on the fuel line/strut improvements. Those look awesome! I love seeing the editor get better and better.

I'm still wondering how Squad plans for users to share missions created with the Making History Expansion. Any devs able to offer some insight yet?

Edited by Mako
Forgot something.
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Deleted. Apologies for any offence. I'm bailing out of this discussion.

Edit: Not addressed to @regex. Like he said, this stuff is getting old so I'm outta here.

Edited by KSK
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1 hour ago, Mako said:

Go ahead an delete this post if you must, but trying to stifle feedback and advocating for the developer to share less information only hurts the community. Furthermore, no where in what you selected to quote did anyone say the new parts are bad. I see someone pointing out that old parts don't look as good as the new ones and I see a question about an art technique that is used on the newly revealed part. I can't agree with your post and I can't take it seriously since it seems personal.

I couldn't agree with this more. I feel like this has been extremely personal over the last few weeklys and it is very detrimental to the thread, not to mention my trust in the forums. Surely there is room for critique without someone trying to derail the thread with snide sniping attempts every single Friday...

Seriously, this is getting incredibly old.

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50 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

Nope. Still there. 

Disagreement is neither oppression nor censorship. 

My apologies. I couldnt help but respond to your post, which made mine off-topic, so i figured it might be up for deletion. I didn't realize you were simply disagreeing with others' opinions. It looked like you trying to prove a point that Squad should share less information which in my opinion is not in the best interest of the community. Your response didn't really match the quotes you chose so it kind of looks like an attempt to ridicule and discredit opinions.

I should have used the word "dissuade" instead of stifle; it would be more accurate because your post felt like its intent was to discourage others from offering their feedback instead of actually censoring anyone. I'm sorry for the poor word choice.

Edited by Mako
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19 minutes ago, KSK said:

Fixed that for you. And for all other self-appointed speakers for the community.

I don't see the difference. People make up thier minds, states thier opinions, and then ultimately squad takes all that feedback and sorts it out all the same.

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Guys, I am disagreeing with the unreasonable negativity I see in the replies to the dev notes. Which yes, does seem to come up every week, and is indeed getting old. And if you wish to assert your right to be critical, then you must support the right of others to disagree with your own disagreement with Squad. 

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8 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

unreasonable negativity I see in the replies to the dev notes

Untrue just because you don't care about art doesn't mean people who do are "unreasonable"

8 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

Which yes, does seem to come up every week, and is indeed getting old.

Hey three weeks without an art complaint is a new record (thought to be fair one of those weeks had no art)

8 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

And if you wish to assert your right to be critical, then you must support the right of others to disagree with your own disagreement with Squad.

And you can voice your disagreement by stating your opinion not by attacking others. Attacks like this coming from a moderator reflect poorly on the rest of the mod team. Not in my eyes of course cause I've been around long enough to only see you as the problem, but in the eyes of a newer users that are unfamiliar with the who's who on the forums your approach can leave the impression that mods abuse thier power here.

Edited by passinglurker
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I think that what we see often in these KSP Weeklies is that there is a passionate debate about overhauling the visuals of the older parts, and it often goes more or less as Vanamonde summarised, @Mako. I was quite happy to see that the critique seemed to be a little more positively-worded this time, though. There are some users who love the details and enjoy seeing great quality artwork in textures. But just like there are people who go into an art exhibition and can't see anything special, there are others here who can't see what the fuss is all about. For them, KSP isn't about the graphics, it's more about the physics and gameplay.

Personally, I think the existing textures are ok, and it's not something I spend a lot of time thinking about, but I do also see the improved quality of the newer artwork and I can understand that the older parts could be made to look great, if Squad were to choose to go in that direction. I think that the recent critiques are perhaps well founded, but it does get repeated a lot and I think some people get tired of reading repeated arguments about the same thing every week. I think that the criticism can also go overboard and focus too much on tiny subjective details, but that's just my own opinion, of course.

More on topic: I think the new stock texture-swapping feature sounds very exciting and full of potential! We don't know any details yet, but it would be amazing to have a pristine capsule get covered in scorch marks after re-entry. Or imagine colouring your own crafts. Maybe that's not what it will be used for, I don't know. But there's a lot of potential there.

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Thanks Squad! A leap in the right direction!

Idea for the future: the ability to actually paint parts, directly from the SPH/VAB

For anyone unfamiliar with the concept, this is an example what you can do with the mod KerbPaint. It doesn't change the textures, it just changes a shader.

 

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Nice work squad! (I'm guessing that squad do the work and TakeTwo just own it now)

I'm hoping the stock texture switch will be in stock eventually, and with that RCS tank looking so majestic I also hope we could get an overhaul of the stock parts (with texture switch to include older textures) in 1.4 or 1.5

Edited by Skylon
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Ah. this is cool. we dont need to replace the Model at all, we can replace the placeholder textures with a proper and good looking one.

As long as the common user can do that, its fine!

Does this open opportunities for microtransactions to sell textures too?

 

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3 minutes ago, Sirad said:

Ah. this is cool. we dont need to replace the Model at all, we can replace the placeholder textures with a proper and good looking one.

As long as the common user can do that, its fine!

Sadly 3d art doesn't work like this if a texture is "don't-call-them-placeholders" quality then the model and most importantly the UV map(the bit that says which swath of texture goes on which facet of polygon in a model) will be about the same meaning flaws like inconsistent texel densities and inefficient layouts will still exist not to mention some parts are missing vital normal and specular maps which necessitate re-exporting the models through unity to enable the needed shaders. Basically with all the effort it would take to shoe horn a better quality texture into a "don't-call-them-placeholders" quality part in a way that is consistent with the peak quality parts in stock you'd be better off just modeling from scratch (to fit the existing collider so that there are no vessel loading issues of course).

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