Rover wheel tracks, kerbal footprints

[LethalDose]

I think it will not be very hard to do, just add planes with footprints textures at runtime! It can be even done via mods! ( Other thing will be making them persistent )

They should not lag a lot, if they are optimized properly (Make them disappear at certain distance/time)

Cheers!

Yeah, I don't think foot prints, tread marks, or scorching would be any more difficult to add than rocket contrails (already in the game), and would use a similar technology. They just disappear after a certain amount of time.

Unfortunately, it's a different set of code than would be used for destructible buildings.

[Alshain]

The earliest of polygonal 3D games had footprints and tire treads. They just overlayed semi-transparent markings on top of the existing texture and had them fade after a distance. Final Fantasy VII had them. It's really easy to do, it just takes time which is more the issue here.

Edited October 16, 2014 by Alshain

[CalculusWarrior]

One thing I'd like to see added is dirt. Just make things dirty! Spacecraft can kick up dust when landing on the Mun, leading to their lower halves being covered in it. When your plane makes an unscheduled landing several kilometres short of the runway, your underside can be covered in mud from landing at 70 m/s on a grassy surface. Also, when your kerbal trips and rolls down a 2 kilometre canyon on Duna, I'd love him to be completely red when he finally gets up.

[prophet_01]

Sounds like a good idea for the beta. Some enviromental effects would rly help the feeling and make the planets/moons more unique. I just realized what a difference eye-candy means when I installed astronomers visual pack. Makes the whole game a lot more imersive, although this mod is far too memory hungry for stock. But smaller features (that needs to have an option to be turned off) can add much, too. Just think of the eclipses we see once in a while. They add quite a bit to the feeling

Edited October 16, 2014 by prophet_01

[moronplays]

I swear when Rover wheels were in development their was a picture of tracks. Its a vivid memory.... or just a crazed hallucination but the concept stands

[bonyetty]

a footprint left on your heart...

Nice one.

Thanks Kailar for your reply and others. That food print on my heart seems to be fading, sort of.

I had no intent to make you feel forced to justify you guess. Your guess seemed reasonable and a good idea to make KSP more immersive. Just got me curious. A good thing.

[Whackjob]

I've always thought there should be a continent missing after I do a launch...

[SkyRender]

I've always thought there should be a continent missing after I do a launch...

Well, thanks to 0.25 at least you can have a launchpad (and potentially most of the rest of the space center) missing after a launch. That's some progress, right?

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

I'm sure at some point the dust effects were being discussed... or it was at least a suggestion! Google seems to be failing to find the post...

[boxman]

I'm sure at some point the dust effects were being discussed... or it was at least a suggestion! Google seems to be failing to find the post...

I know at the very least that they did talk about tiretracks back in old days before the "dlc incident" and steam release. They did not promise anything but it was said that it was something they would like to see in the game one day.

[NovaSilisko]

I swear when Rover wheels were in development their was a picture of tracks. Its a vivid memory.... or just a crazed hallucination but the concept stands

You aren't crazy. The image should still be floating around somewhere...

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

Just rediscovered this on Reddit:

Apparently was being planned as a mod, but it doesn't seem to have progressed much recently...

[bonyetty]

Just rediscovered this on Reddit:

http://i.imgur.com/40bGScU.gif

Apparently was being planned as a mod, but it doesn't seem to have progressed much recently...

That looks great. Way better than attaching some SRBs to the launch clamps and keeping the point of view low to the ground. It would be nice if was part of the upcoming polishing and detailing.

Edit :Although after having a closer look they could be SRBs under the rocket. No idea how the exhaust only comes out the vents in the launch pad though.

Edited October 19, 2014 by bonyetty

[Cmdr. Arn1e]

That looks great. Way better than attaching some SRBs to the launch clamps and keeping the point of view low to the ground. It would be nice if was part of the upcoming polishing and detailing.

Edit :Although after having a closer look they could be SRBs under the rocket. No idea how the exhaust only comes out the vents in the launch pad though.

Looks to me like there are some 'exhaust tubes' under the SRB's that get let behind on launch... and they might be the parts either making or directing the dust plumes through the launchpad flame trenches... either way, I think it looks much better too

[pizzaoverhead]

Im more into the rover sounds,I want to hear electric motor sounds when I drive my rovers :/

Some statical objects are now destroyable, hence dynamic in at least one dimension. There must be a query that askes "Is this first object beeing hit by a second object that has a speed times mass greater than x? If yes change the state of the first object." This code is certainly reusable for other interactions between dynamic objects (e.g. vessels).

Ok so far. This is essentially "free with Unity" in the form of the collisions system.

If this is the case, it must be possible to ask "Is this planet hit by a Kerbal? If yes, change the state of the surface and add footprints". I leave open if the result is modelled by a texture change or by applying a change in the collision and surface mesh.

This is the difficult part, and is unrelated to destroying buildings.

Yeah, I don't think foot prints, tread marks, or scorching would be any more difficult to add than rocket contrails (already in the game), and would use a similar technology. They just disappear after a certain amount of time.

Unfortunately, it's a different set of code than would be used for destructible buildings.

Contrails are the standard Unity particle system. Unity doesn't have built-in support for the kind of decals you'd use for tracks. There are lots of different methods of achieving it, with varying levels of success, as well as packages available on the Unity store. There's no quick fix however. Any decal system worth implementing is a bigger effort than the destructable buildings.

You aren't crazy. The image should still be floating around somewhere...

Your render of the rover wheels with a textured track behind them? I haven't seen it since the big forum wipe.

With regards to other potential effects for the game:

[moronplays]

After I few Google searches and forum checks I have been unable to find said photo, I believe It may have been wiped during the forum purge but when I search for 0.19 feature lists for a discussion thread I am unable to turn up anything meaning full.

P.s Have Nova reply to me is a highlight of my year... oh the interesting life I live.

[Problemless Mods Wanter]

Anybody still pursuing this dream?

[Deddly]

Merged two similar threads. No need to bring both back to life - one will do

[selfish_meme]

On 2/14/2014 at 11:19 PM, pizzaoverhead said:

As the Persistent Trails mod shows, tracking the locations of craft over long distances can be done. I haven't seen a good method for attaching the tracks to surface level and displaying them correctly however.

 

 

 

3 decals, foot, track and scorching, database to store position and orientation (compass angle and slope angle) taken from Kerbal feet and wheel surface interactions, show a millimetre above surface plane, I think it's doable, I'm sure tracks would get messed up over time, in fact they should probably expire over time, especially on an atmosphere'd world.

PS: Of course I think it's doable I am not a modder or a developer

PSS: I should have probably read the whole thread before replying.

Found the thread @NovaSilisko was talking about and the image

 

 

Edited May 9, 2017 by selfish_meme

[selfish_meme]

Some more thought on this, bundle an sqlite library and make a database for each body, then divide the body up into numbered hexagons and create a table for each hexagon, each row has the time created and track data, a pruning process to delete old rows and re-index could work slowly in the background so as not to affect performance. Track placement for scorch would be quite easy, each engine has wash that propogates effects from a point on the ground so you know the co-ordinate for the decal, the two axis slope angle and surface height would need to be recorded too. Rover tracks are a simple function of the decal length plus the other positional data (could get ugly over bumps). To record tracks properly you would need to know the Kerbal speed to calculate the step distance (I think this could be just fudged with a single track length like the wheels). It's not like we are going to have Bill kneeling over some tracks going "Jeb travelled this way recently, running, we can assume he was pursued by the Kraken".

Edited May 9, 2017 by selfish_meme

[Burning Kan]

On 8/18/2016 at 11:45 AM, Smart Parts Wanter said:

Anybody still pursuing this dream?

FOOTPRINTS?

YES,I had that dream too

Thanks @MrHappyFace

ROVERWHEELTRACKS  are DEAD?

edited 28.4 .2018

 

Edited April 28, 2018 by Burning Kan
pic link