[WIP][1.8.x] SSTULabs - Low Part Count Solutions (Orbiters, Landers, Lifters) - Dev Thread [11-18-18]

[tater]

The craft is what, 20 parts? 24 with the struts I think.

Soyuz orbital, a new LC tank (hollow), an engine, 8 RCS parts, 4 legs, 2 fuel tanks, a decoupler, 2 different ladders, and 4 struts.

 

5 hours ago, Abpilot said:

Is there gonna be a craft download,cuz HOLY COW!!!! EPIC!!

 

Edited November 13, 2017 by tater

[Jimbodiah]

Stock legs? 

Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!

[tater]

Before one of the KSP updates broke it, my fave legs ended up being the ones on the LC tanks  

A blast from the SSTU past:

I still like the old LC tanks, BTW, even while I also like the new one.

[Jimbodiah]

@Shadowmage  Will the RCS units get the recoloring option at some point? Blue bodies with silver reflective nozzles.... aaaaahhhhh.... my precious! Must have more bling!

 

 

@tater   Yeah, I think we need to lobby Mage to add some excellent stand-alone leg variations for the eventual rework of the lander core. The stock ones are so yugh, the foundries ones are a lot better already. Also, auto-leveling :)))  Just sayin'...

- SpaceX type legs
- Original LC legs like in tater's photo
- Something like the KerbodynePlus legs

 

[Pappystein]

1 hour ago, Jimbodiah said:

 

Yeah, I think we need to lobby Mage to add some excellent stand-alone leg variations for the eventual rework of the lander core. The stock ones are so yugh, the foundries ones are a lot better already. Also, auto-leveling :)))  Just sayin'...

 

 

Or find someone else who is a competent modeler looking for a challenge and wants to work within the SSTU mod family.  Shadowmage is doing an awful lot for us already after all

 

Edited November 13, 2017 by Pappystein

[Jimbodiah]

I really wish I could, it would be so awesome to make your own parts. No idea where to start.

[Shadowmage]

Updated release is available:

https://github.com/shadowmage45/SSTULabs/releases/tag/0.7.39.145

Please completely remove any previous SSTU installation (folders/etc) before installing this update.

See the link above for downloads and full change-log.  Lots of minor tweaks, a few fairly substantial ones.  Should not be anything craft/save-breaking... but you should probably back things up just in case.

 

Also available is the PBR expansion set (mostly patches):

https://github.com/shadowmage45/SSTULabs/releases/tag/PBR-0.1.0.3

Please completely remove any previous SSTU-PBR installation (folders/etc) before installing this update.

See the link above for downloads and change-log.

[Jimbodiah]

urmuhgurd!!!!!

 

Edited November 14, 2017 by Jimbodiah

[tater]

Regular texture with metallic (top CM)and PBR (bottom CM):

 

A craft around the Mun:

Landed:

 

(That lander would work easily on an upscale like 3.2 or 4, staged. Way overkill for stock)

Edited November 14, 2017 by tater

[Jimbodiah]

 

I'm having a blast with the new tanks and with the metallic options. Trying to figure out the best combination for specular vs metallic as they all tend to be quite dark vs the non-metallic "stock" finishes. Is there any way to improve this?

Edited November 14, 2017 by Jimbodiah

[Shadowmage]

7 minutes ago, Jimbodiah said:

Is there any way to improve this?

Are you referring to the metallic-presets, or using stuff set to metallic in general?

What I've done for the 'bright metallic' stuff in the screenshots so far, is to recolor it to 'white paint', set the metallic slider all the way to full metallic, and then increase the specular to ~200 or so.  Should give it a clean silver look with not-so-sharp ambient reflections.  Higher specular levels will actually give a darker looking metal, but give sharper reflections.  Very low specular levels on metallics will also make it appear darker.. and give no reflections.

(tip:  there should very seldom be anything but 0 or 255 for metal values, it is more of a black/white input than a grayscale;  nothing in the real-world is 'semi-metallic'.. it is either a metal, or not.... but do with it what you will...)

 

For the color presets, I intend on including a patch with SSTU-PBR that increases the brightness on the silver and steel metallics.  The other metallics were already specified with PBR in mind.  I didn't want to adjust the existing colors as it would make things seem a bit off with the non-pbr-recoloring shaders (as the silver ends up looking like really shiny white).

 

Technical:

Metals will almost always look darker than a non-metal surface if given the same base input color. The metal slider controls how the light is simulated to interact with the surface... through some methods that I haven't fully wrapped my head around, but the results of it can be more or less summed up:

• When set to not-metal, the brightness of a reflection depends mostly on the specular/smoothness/gloss.  Reflections are of the color of the light source (generally white).
• When set to non-metal, the albedo brightness depends mostly on color of the object and lighting level.
• When set to metal, the brightness of a reflection depends upon both the color of the diffuse texture, and on the smoothness.  Reflections are the color of the light source * the color of the diffuse texture.  This is where you get colored reflections, e.g. solar panels.
• When set to metal the albedo brightness depends upon the color of the object, smoothness/specular, and light level.

[Jimbodiah]

I will play with those combinations some more.

 

Now all that remains is those engine parts on the PDC and my dream of an all-gold Saturn V has been realised 

 

 

This feeling is better than christmas morning... Thanks, Mage!  You are awesomeness personified!!!!!!

 

And just wow... Stainless steel with brass accents...

 

 

Edited November 14, 2017 by Jimbodiah

[tater]

Regarding landing legs... What if they worked a little like the new RCS part that has a few kinds of stand-off?

I used that Altair mod I linked upstream for the legs here:

There are a few things possible. One is a simple scaling. You scale a leg like this until it lands about right on the tank model.

Another idea might be to have the final leg part (the pad and the main shaft) be a certain size, and have the upper part change in some fashion like the RCS stand offs. So you have a flush mount leg (most of the ones we see in game, including stock and foundries) as default, but a slider allows one with crossbars, or some other additions that make it take up more room laterally, or vertically, so it looks like it's attached to something. Another might add a "blade" of material, but the node is such that it intentionally buries. Such a leg part would then go between these tanks, and visually fill the gap.

[Pappystein]

5 hours ago, Jimbodiah said:

I will play with those combinations some more.

 

Now all that remains is those engine parts on the PDC and my dream of an all-gold Saturn V has been realised 

 

Err, Umm.  I knew you had expensive tastes but WOW!   I don't see any parachutes so you can recover those expensive stages either!

Pretty rockets   Amazing release Shadowmage!

Edited November 14, 2017 by Pappystein

[Sudragon]

This may be a silly question...why do all the 2.5m Apollo style command modules have fixed small docking ports, and all the LC class lander modules have fixed medium ports? They don't lock together, making Apollo style missions a little frustrating.

[Shadowmage]

3 hours ago, Sudragon said:

This may be a silly question...why do all the 2.5m Apollo style command modules have fixed small docking ports, and all the LC class lander modules have fixed medium ports? They don't lock together, making Apollo style missions a little frustrating.

Because the LC pods were based on the Altair/LSAM concepts which featured a larger docking port for docking with Orion.  Different eras, different standards...

(Orion and LC were the first parts that I released; so naturally, I made sure that they fit together;  the Apollo stuff came later, and I had intended to make a lander pod for them... but the shape of the LEM was too disgusting for me to work with)

[Temeter]

I know someone already did the golden/brass rocket, but just look at that stuff...   (somehow the imgur album doesn't work?)

 

 

Edited November 14, 2017 by Temeter

[Shadowmage]

7 minutes ago, Temeter said:

(somehow the imgur album doesn't work?)

Yeah, they somehow keep breaking them (I think it is partially on Imgur's end of things).  I mostly gave up and move to single images.

[Temeter]

Too bad, makes it hard to post pictures without spamming the thread. Here two more pictures showing night and day difference:

Spoiler

I noticed that the craft in sunlight can look a bit 'white-ish' when in full reflection (see upper picture). Not really a problem, just noticeable.

Edited November 14, 2017 by Temeter

[Shadowmage]

26 minutes ago, Temeter said:

Not really a problem, just noticeable.

Hehe.. yep; shiny things are now actually shiny.  Just like they should have been the whole time.  (I bet if you slapped a real giant metallic rocket out in full sunlight... it would cast a crazy glare as well.)

It helps if you keep the values used for the colors within plausible ranges; nothing in real life is fully smooth, or fully rough; the specular slider should generally be between 20 and 225 depending on just how smooth the surface is supposed to be, with a few very special mirror-like surfaces having even higher smoothness.  I would bet most common 'shiny' metals are in the 150-200 range.  Non metallics have a much wider range of specular/smoothness, easily using the 20-225 range depending on the surface (concrete = ~50, glossy plastic = ~220)

 

See the 'roughness' info from the image below

(only invert the value; as roughness is the inverse of smoothness, and Unity uses smoothness in its shaders/textures, and then convert from 0-1 to 0-255)

Edited November 14, 2017 by Shadowmage

[tater]

[Jimbodiah]

@Sudragon  Are you sure they don't dock? In the past I have used the LC2 for my Saturn V replica and it worked just fine. Maybe something was changed in the last few patches; I've not tried it for a while to be honest.

[tater]

I think he means they don't visually work together.

I know that the HUB parts are the only ones left with docking, is it possible not to have the ports switch on/off, but to have all the ports, but of either size, or do those need to be unique parts?

[Theysen]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

Just because we can make shiny stuff we shouldn’t make everything shiny it looks like a slimey rusty tube 

[Temeter]

You mean like a giant...