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Should SQUAD make parts shiny and reflective?


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I'm personally not hyper concerned about reflections, but "shiny" at least implies "not looking godawful," which is what we have now (except spaceplanes, because things that actually get refused, and sit around on the tarmac are magically clean.

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On 3/3/2016 at 0:31 PM, Edax said:

I'd only want this after they solve the framerate issue on all 200+ part spacecraft.  Otherwise, this game would devolve into a power point presentation.

1.1 Is going to solve that, actually.

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PBR doesn't make it easier, it's just a unified way of doing the render calculations. For the artist it actually makes it harder, there're more texture maps to wrangle, more time to make high poly base models and bake masks and base maps. Tools are getting much better, but things still take more time and effort for current gen graphics. Hope the new official x64 is stable enough to game on, and the new load on demand works out, cuz PBR and 2x to 4x 2k/4k texture maps on half to all the parts is going to make the current ram problem look like childs play... and KSP will be a much bigger download.

Edited by nli2work
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  • 2 weeks later...

Shiny makes the most sense in space. Usually the biggest problem is heat rejection, not heat loss. Making a surface reflective helps with heat rejection.

Most metals are naturally shiny. Most composites are not. So for realism, metal parts probably should be shiny, and composite parts should not.

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I doubt it will happen. We know it's not a technical issue, because the game handles specular maps, normal maps and emissive maps just fine and several stock parts take advantage of these. The effects are just very subtle, which to me would imply an artistic choice, not a technical one. In other words, the parts look they way they look because SQUAD wanted them to look that way, not because they were unable to include all the specularity they wanted.

What we're left with is a matter of opinion on the player side. Do you like shiny parts or do you prefer matte parts. I personally prefer the matte look. I think it's less "GUYS! GUYS! LOOK AT ME! GUYS, HEY GUYS! LOOK!", but I would be fine if they made a few parts stand out with really high specularity I guess. Would be kinda cool as long as it was only a few parts.

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34 minutes ago, StarStreak2109 said:

I'm impartial to shiny parts. Albeit being nice, I'd rather have parts that look less like being from the junk yard. I much prefer the looks of KW Rocketry (or similar...).

KW rocketry actually has a very clean design, so making it slightly shinier would make a lot of sense.

On 3.3.2016 at 8:55 PM, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

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I can give just as many reasons of un-shiny rockets. It just doesn't seem like a priority to add that effect.

Old post, but just saying: Most of that smoke is vapor from the water used to cool the platform. H2 rockets even have nothing but vapor as exhaust.

And look at the stuff falling from the rocket. That's Ice, which has built up on the cold upper H2 tanks. Should keep the rocket rather clean.

The black things flying around are birds. I do not think rocket fuel containts birds.

Edited by Temeter
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