Absolution

One more step has been taken in the development of the First Light. I am particularly pleased to post it since the design currently stands as "complete" as far as what you will have once you assemble it in space. It's a complete interplanetary ship now. The next step is to design the tools to assemble it in orbit. There will be a disconnect module and a special type of bi-directional engine using mono-propellant as fuel. This "Payload Assist Module" (PAM) will allow you to thrust in either prograde or retrograde directions without having to spin the First Light Module. That should make orbital rendezvous a snap. Have you noticed those weird hand-hold looking objects on the side of the CMU and, now, Kinetic Energy Generator (KEG)? That is where the PAMs will attach. Pictures soon. I've been trying to complete one module a week but I missed my target last week. In part I was enjoying the Labor Day weekend but more significantly is the fact I had to redesign the KEG. It's an old story: I finished it and suddenly hated it once I attached it to the side of the fuel tank module. Also part of that old story is the fact it wasn't a bad design. It just didn't work with the rest of the ship. Another issue I ran into just today was that the latest Unity build hates the way KSP does emissive textures and, in fact, doesn't work without some back door config work. I was lucky to find a post on these forums that explained how to make it work and you can see the results of my tests in the image gallery below. I tested the fix on one engine and not the other. Enough with the typing. Time for some screen shots. I've added pictures from the KEG static tests to the album you've already seen in the previous pages. What do you think of the engines?

Here is a preview of the Fuel Tank Module: I was browsing a couple of the aerospace packs (notably Spaceplane Plus) and trying to reverse engineer the way they did their textures. To my shame I discovered what they can do with a 1024x1024 texture I can't do with a 2048x2048. Oh well. It's not like I had illusions of being nearly as good a texture artist as those guys but it's still disheartening. What I did take away from their techniques is to edge the panels with a very gentle dark color. It's almost weathering but not quite. It just gives the panels slightly more depth even if you don't notice it. It's one of those subtle details that really make the texture pop. I gave it a go on the fuel tank module and I like the results. You can kind of see it in the screenshot above if you squint. When I go back for an art pass on the CMU I'll be adding that detail. I've been painting miniatures for decades and I've employed all of these techniques on those. Edge highlights, shadowing, washes, etc. For some reason it never clicked with me that the same techniques can be applied to a 3D model. That was a major 'duh!' moment. There's still a fair share of config work to do on the tanks but artistically I consider it done. What do you think?

That been on a to-do list ever since I first released the Dune Raider. I was going to offer an alternative texture pack that changes the green to several other common colors. It's still on that to-do list but who knows when I'll get around to it. In the short term one could use a free program like Gimp (my choice) to edit the textures themselves to make any number of bespoke color choices. It's pretty straight forward. Just open "CORE_DR-BDY-1A.png" and play around with the green parts of the texture. --- In First Light news I've been hard at work modeling the Engines, Fuel Tank, and Payload Assist Module. The first two are done and I only need to UV unwrap the PAM. I've already started on texturing the Fuel Tank section and should be done with that this week. It's finally coming together and hopefully I will have a functional test ship in orbit in a few short weeks. Here's hoping.

Thank you for the compliment! I downloaded Squad's part balance spreadsheet and plan on trying to shoehorn my parts into their scheme soon. I lost a week of development time due to a vacation but I've got a solid design direction for the fuel tanks and engine modules. I should be able to show something on those in the next week. Once I get those done and I get a chance to build my first functional prototype of the First Light I will revisit Anvil and do some balancing. That means I probably wont have anything until early September based on my recent development pacing.

First Light Update: I've been bashing my head against the wall for about a week trying to get the lights to work on the Command Module Unit (CMU). I'd like to make it so that you can turn the lights on and off. Not only would the side of the ship get lit up but the cockpit would also glow like the bac9 Aerospace pack. It's fighting me every step of the way. If you have any insight into such matters please consider helping me out below: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/87683-Combining-LightModule-with-others-causes-broken-parts However, there is good news. The CMU and Universal Docking Module (UDM) are both in game and looking fine. There's still a lot of work to do on the CMU. I need to figure out the lights (of course) and also make it so Kerbals can enter/exit the CMU via the hatch on the side of the hull. At the moment it's just eye candy. My plan is to save those two issues until later. I'd like to get the Kinetic Energy Generator (KEG) a.k.a. 'the engines' into game and assemble this very basic, robotic, ship in orbit and take it for a spin around Kerbin. I'm trying not to burn out so I'm rotating through my work-flow from concept to result before going back and tackling the next milestone. It may not be the most efficient pathway but it helps me see the fruits of my labor and serves to motivate me to move on to the next challenge. I was a little worried those normals were not going to turn out but artistically I think this is really coming together. It's missing fine details such as rivets and, maybe, weathering but I'll come back for an art pass later. I needed to prove to myself that I was on the right path. By the way; that third picture was me testing the docking modules on the ground. No sense in spending 30+ minutes trying to rendezvous and dock in orbit when I can just slap on some wheels (god bless those gigantic rover wheels) and take it out into an open field next to the space port. Thought of the day: Why does that image remind me of a Sand Worm from Dune?

I'm trying to create a window that not only glows via an emissive but also emits light with a point light and is controlled by an animation. When the player selects the part and "turns on the light" the glass should glow and cast light in a cartoonish but realistic way. My inspiration is the bac9 aerospace pack. I've got my parts and animations laid out in Unity and when I run the animation in Unity everything does what I expect it to do (this isn't my first part to behave this way). The problem comes when I load up KSP and try to test the part in game. One of two things happens: 1) The part has the "enable light" option but nothing animates when I push it. 2) The model fails to load entirely. The config loads but not the model. Deleting the animation fixes the load issue but, of course, I'm left without an animation. The difference between this part and one I've done in the past is this new one also includes a built in RCS module where the old part only had the light module. I'm inclined to blame myself or Unity and not KSP. When I remove the animation the part loads fine even with the light module still intact in the config (it just points to nothing). Furthermore the lights are glowing okay in game; I simply can't turn them on and off. Thoughts?

Do this test for me: Delete the animation, export, and attempt to load it into KSP. Did the model load correctly? You can check by pressing Alt+F12 at the space port scene and going to "debug" and then "models". You should see your model listed. I'm having the same problems and the animation seems to be causing the failure to load.

I have no reason to believe its not. The 64-bit version of KSP is still in its infancy stages though so it may be unstable or buggy (unless I misunderstood the KSP announcement on that). I will be downloading the 64-bit version myself and playing around with it to see if anything leaps off the page at me but, again, there is no inherent reason to suggest it wont work just fine.

Well... I did it AGAIN. The latest iteration of the First Light just wasn't coming together. The detail features I was adding just weren't looking like they belonged and the whole ship seemed cobbled together. The other problem I started having was that it wasn't aesthetically compatible with the rest of KSP. I had initially dismissed that concern and decided to forge ahead because this was MY work and I wasn't going to let Squad's art direction influence me on this particular project. However, it just wasn't working and the artistic disconnect was distracting and taking away from my efforts. I won't say that I dislike my work because I don't its just that what I came up wasn't compatible with what is already there. There were also technical issues arising from all of the tiny detail parts I had included. This last iteration of the First Light pre-dates me learning how to apply Normal maps properly. There were also a lot of other lessons learned while I was refreshing the Anvil that I suddenly was inspired to apply to the First Light. So, I started over. The results thus far are quite significant. The old First Light was pushing 40k polygons which isn't the end of the world but the new iteration (seen below) so far only has 13k. I feel like I've gotten a heck of a lot more out of those 13k than I did with the previous 40k. Also, I've gotten very far in the design in a very short period of time. The WIP image below represents about 3 days of work. I do stress the "WIP" but based on how far I've come thus far in such a short period of time I am very encouraged I can get a working model operational very soon. Thoughts?

Actually, I was thinking I was going to release parts one by one as I develop them fully to allow anyone who is willing to to test them out and dream up feature requests. You'd think that a box that floats in space would be easy to drum up but there's just so many tiny little details and I am likely to miss many. Of course, with a one-by-one release schedule you wouldn't get a functional ship for some time but it's a way of getting community input in real time during development.

Thanks for the replies! Instead of answering individual concerns how about I outline my current, informal, schedule and plan? First Light: This is my main focus for the time being. I've never left Kerbin SOI despite playing this game little by little since it first came out. I want to do it "my way" and that means the First Light. It's a quirk of mine; just run with it. Second Generation Anvil IV: Work has already started on updating the Anvil IV with the new methods I've learned on the Gen 2 Anvil V. Even though my main energy will be spent on the First Light I suspect this project will make it out first. I've gotten pretty good at modeling simple rocket shapes and I wont be doing any major redesigns so it should go relatively quick. The biggest pain in the rear will be all the different payload fairings and that's just because it's so tedious. Blah. Dune Raider: Work has also already started on refreshing the wheels of the Dune Raider. I am adding knobby tires and smooth shading to make them extra sweet looking. That's the easy part. I also, of course, need to fix that bouncing issue and who knows how successful I will be at that. My first plan is to add simple colliders outside of the tires to act as guards. I suspect that the wheel colliders don't like being on their sides which may explain the goofy behavior. Next, I am going to give the instrument panel a refresh and incorporate a normal map and emmissives. The plan is to give it a 3D look and to make the instruments glow. Also, I've long planned to add a means of refueling the Dune Raider during a mission and that means a docking mechanism of some kind. I have an idea to add a custom one to the roof of the chassis which will allow the Dune Raider to drive under a refueling point and "hook up". That's just brainstorming, though, so maybe it won't work out that way. Lastly on the Dune Raider I plan to add thrusters pointing in a "Y" shape about the chassis. This *should* allow the Dune Raider to "jump", "squat" and "barrel roll". Of particular interest is the "barrel roll" because I hope to allow players to flip the Dune Raider back onto its wheels after a rollover. Picture the drilling machine from "Armageddon" and you'll get the idea. All of that work will trickle in over time as I focus and the first two projects. Fire Hawk: Way down at the bottom of my list in the Fire Hawk. Simply put I hate the way it looks and works now. It's not bad and I could salvage the design as is but honestly it was always a stop-gap measure to get the Dune Raider from point A to B and never an honest design effort on my part. The future Fire Hawk will be a drop ship type design (think Aliens or Halo) with the Dune Raider or other payload riding under the "belly". I've got a hundred different reference images of different designs I want to incorporate and hopefully the final product will turn out as I hope. The biggest challenge for the new Fire Hawk will be the VTOL capabilities and the aerodynamics; neither of which I have touched before. For the VTOL I would like to design a system that relies on a single set of engines that can vector thrust where its needed; there's a few ways I think I can accomplish that. Plan B is to put in two sets of engines (one for forward thrust and one for downward thrust). Aerodynamics shouldn't be too hard to figure out but I imagine there will be a LOT of testing to get it right. The Fire Hawk will stay a concept in the back of my head until I can get at least two of the above 3 projects released but I am excited and eager to get to it. It should pose an entertaining challenge to overcome. Stay Tuned!

Finally, after several months of revisions and lessons learned I present to you the first release of the second generation of Anvil Rockets. Why "Release 17"? Because this marks the 17th release of the Anvil rockets and it is part of my new version scheme. The "1.7.2" type system doesn't really tell you anything so I decided to go with a simple linear numbering. In the event of a small bug fix I will use letters; for example "Release 17a". What's so great about this new release and why did it take me so long to figure it all out? 1) Smooth shading A staple for all designers since just about the dawn of 3D graphics. Instead of shading every edge and giving the shapes a faceted look those edges are now smoothly shaded and it produces a nice, you guessed it, smooth appearance for rounded objects. Anvil now appears to be a true cylinder and I was able to give the appearance of a more realistic rounded shape in a variety of areas; in particular the fairings. It took me a while to get it all right and learn all the little tricks to make everything show correctly. In early test parts the shading just looked like awful and, for example, when you put two fairings together they wouldn't appear to be one continuous part like they do in the release. 2) Normal Mapping Also a must for 3D designers. This gives the appearance of bumps and ridges on an otherwise flat surface. Done right you can make a very simple object look like a very complex 3D one. The trouble I had was the whole "done right" part. Even now you can see that my parts are much more simple appearing than they used to and that is because I have a great deal yet to learn about normals and implementing them right. This occupied most of my trial and error time as I tried to navigate my way into this world of "painting" 3D features. Yeah, I know it looks really simple, and it is, but that's the cost of doing something new. You start small and work your way up. 3) Specular Shading This determines how shiny a material is. This was a really simple feature to implement since there are pre-set shaders that include specular highlights in the KSP part tools. It was just a matter of finding it and tweaking it to look right. Many rockets have a nice shiny paint job that makes them very glossy so this was a nice little touch that I think makes my new rocket designs pop. See below and on the opening post for full details and download links. I had plans on making a video but maybe Imagur does the job well enough... still on the fence on that one. Maybe I will save it for the release of the second generation Anvil IV. If you are looking for the old parts then look no further than the LEGACY release link in the opening post. It contains all of my first generation parts just in case you still want to incorporate them into your rocket designs. ENJOY! Anvil Series Rockets Release 17 - Second Generation Anvil V 15JUN14 DOWNLOAD LINK: Release 17 https://mega.co.nz/#!SNQUWLwI!WOH1H_rBYAUr1ylMB9TzNpPXifoIxIvmBAZFmiYuBBI SCREENSHOTS:

Ran into a small problem during part testing today. When I started putting things together I noticed there was some very goofy shading that made the parts look horrible. Hard to describe but it was easy enough to fix. The new release is very quickly approaching and I expect it to come out this weekend. Just need some last minute fixes and some solid testing to get it ready. I can genuinely say that I am quite proud of what I've managed to come up with. I appreciate that there are plenty of far better mods out there by far more talented people but this new stuff really is next level for me and I look forward to sharing it with the community.

I know I've been doing a crud job at keeping this thread updated with my progress. I don't just play Engineer on the internet; I play one in real life too. I spend my working days designing the heck out of stuff and it saps all of my creative energy leaving me struggling to find motivation after I get home. Bad excuse but it is what it is. However, there is light on the horizon. I am very close to the next release. So close, in fact, I've decided not to upload my currently released mods to the internet (since Spaceport no longer exists). I will get everything sorted in the next week and release a fresh version then. Although the next release does not include anything about Dune Raider I do plan on revisiting it very soon. I've got some sweet ideas I want to try out. I also, of course, want to solve that bouncing bug. Stay tuned.

I used the Saturn V mass fractions to base mine on. Saturn V: Payload = 4% Stage 3 = 4% Stage 2 = 16% Stage 1 = 76% Anvil IV: Payload = 9.3% Stage 2 = 12.3% Stage 1 = 78.4% Not perfect but in the ballpark. @M3Man03 I'm not sure what to tell you. I am stumped. Physics interactions are a fickle beast in KSP and I am not very skilled at working with them. That rover was my first attempt at such a craft. I fear the rover is lost.

SRB-050A-1 and SRB-065A-1 were both removed. After redoing the math on the rockets they became redundant. What is wrong with the rocket balance specifically? Can you have them back? Maybe. As for the rover bouncing... Did you download the latest version? I know that was a problem a while ago but I think I mostly solved it with the last update.

How the heck do I keep losing entire months at a time? At least this time I have some teaser information to throw out there. I have set aside the First Light project and moved on to the "other" project that I've hinted at a while ago. This was a planned switch in priorities because I've learned a lot about advanced modeling techniques and this "other" project is meant to allow me an opportunity to practice them in full scale. Once I nail this new stuff down I will switch back to the First Light and implement what I've learned. I certainly wont be turning any heads since there are far better modders than I running around here but compared to what I've produced before I hope to illicit at least a few "wows". Over the last month I've gone through at least a dozen iterations of one part trying to get things right. Just today I feel like this one part is 95% complete. I've put it into KSP and tested it and it looks and works great. I just need to tweak some stuff and it will be good to go. The bad news is that this is just one part of about a dozen. The good news is that now that I've gotten confident with this design direction I can start cranking out parts quickly. None of them are terribly complicated. Hopefully I'll have something to show off soon. Stay tuned!

No matter how many faces I add to a rocket body I can never eliminate the faceted effect the faces cause. I know it's bad practice to add more faces so I was wondering if there were any flags or settings I can set up to tell KSP to smooth out the render of a given shape?

Without giving a definitive answer I say "the fewer the better". Sure, polygons are relatively cheap to produce on low end machines but you have to consider the bigger picture. You can easily get away with a single part with 40k triangles but what happens when you put a dozen of those parts together? It can really add up quickly. For my mods I put an upper limit of 4k on most parts and only go above that for extremely fancy parts (like an engine). You'd be surprised just how nice a part can look with so "few" polygons. In my experience the texture has a much more profound impact on how good the part looks (unfortunately I suck at texturing ). If you add in Normal maps you got yourself a recipe for some really nice stuff with relatively few polygons.

Thanks a lot for this thread! I've always understood the theory behind normal maps but never understood how to make them work. Now I do. My first try at making a panel by normal map worked out okay. However, I noticed that the "gap" between panels are quite subtle. I can only tell that it's there because I know it's supposed to be but a casual observer probably cant tell the difference between the normally mapped texture and a plain one. I am using a 2048x map as suggested above but I am not really sure how big to make the "gap". At the moment its only 3 pixels wide which, in retrospect, is quite tiny. I will, of course, experiment on my own to find something that works for me but I was wondering if there was a "best practice" or "rule of thumb" people have come up with when it comes to good execution of a normal map? Any tips? (Sorry to bring back a relatively old thread but it's a good one and deserves more discussion.)

Glad you found my addon useful! --- Has it really been a month since my last update? I been slacking! What has been going on is... nothing. I have a bad habit of burning out on projects and moving on to others to keep myself motivated. The problem recently has been that I've gone through that cycle too much and I now have half a dozen projects laying around in various states of completion. It's untenable. In an effort to actually complete some of these I've regrouped and made myself a list of priority projects to work on. I will only be working on 2 at a time from here on out. First Light has been my white whale for far, far, too long so it is one of the two projects I am dedicating myself too for the near future. My goals for the First Light is to get a simple, functional, addon out as soon as I can and not worry about it being "perfect". I just need to put out something that will give me that sense of accomplishment. Not that I will intentionally release garbage but I'm talking about releasing something with basic textures and will be feature light. I'm pretty close to that now, actually. I am only missing the engines and a means of constructing the thing in orbit. More on that as it develops. Here's hoping I can finally bring this one home. Good luck and have fun!

The reason why the CSBs have such a goofy CoM is because Anvil did not fly straight with a more realistic CoM. Has that changed? I won't compromise the functionality of Anvil in a vanilla environment to make it work better with other mods. I can look into adding fairing to the DCMs.

I don't use Mechjeb myself but there shouldn't be any reason why it wouldn't work. What are the problems you are observing?

"a couple of days"... "12 hours" whatever. Anvil Update 1.7.2 is now live: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/anvil-rockets/ See change log below and, as always, I suggest deleting the old content before installing the new revision (just to be safe). Due to the size and power of my rockets compared to the stock options I decided to put Anvil at the very tail end of rocket research. However, I don't have any serious experience with the career or the tech tree in general so that might not be the right place for my rockets. If anyone has a better idea I'd love to hear it. Change Log: ---1.7.1--- (18JAN14) -Anvil V (including 2m fairings) added to tech tree under "Heavier Rocketry" -Anvil IV (including 4m fairings) added to tech tree under "Very Heavy Rocketry" -SRBs added to tech tree under "Heavy Rocketry" Have fun. Be safe.

I had completely forgotten about that. Thanks for the reminder! I've got some spare time this weekend. Give me a day or two to work something out. I already have a plan in place so all I need to do is add some extra lines of code and we should be good to go. Standby.