[1.2.x] Structural Tubing

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

3 hours ago, BureauJaeger said:

A chrome look with a sort of faux reflection would be nice, but it really only works if the texture wraps around the cylinder the same way in all the pieces, I think. Similarly a copper pipe could be useful for fuel lines and such. Perhaps a couple of solid colours with a bit of sheen for sporty rovers; a snazzy racing red and a hi-vis kerbal green.

I'm not quite sure how chrome would be done.  At least in respect to reflections. And the downside of doing fake reflection ( like a muddy horizon, green below, blue above, random streaks for realism) is it only works in one place. That would look pretty goofy on Eve. But I'll look into it, see what can be done. It's gonna be a shader thing, and I'm just barely dipping my toes into that sort of thing. Perhaps @SpannerMonkey(smce) Would be able to 'shine some light'  on that. 

Copper and various sporty colors? Hell yeah. I'm game. I'll see what I can whip up. Unless you already have something in mind, then send me some links.

 In the meantime, I've been working on something to use instead of the stock pieces, for the root piece of the rover. Here's a sneak peak at one:

Spoiler

1x.625m, and of course will be scale able. Gonna do expanded metal in the middle, like this:

Spoiler

 

Edited December 5, 2016 by DrunkenKerbalnaut

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

HIya, re the shiny yes it's a shader thing as you guessed, although i've used a specular shader on the tubes to get that satin effect, it;'s turned right down on the shiny scale and with the specular color greyed out a bit  which all serves to reduce the shine,  I can make shiny BUT it's either or on one part, one material per part,  with the texture switch we just swap textures but the material and the uv map stay the same.  You can though create metallic textures and depending on shader values they'd reflect/shine accordingly. In the past there've been some very cool reflective shaders but I'm not aware of any that still function. See below for long past project example of very shiny

Spoiler

 

[BureauJaeger]

Yeah, the fake chrome would have to be quite monochromatic to look reasonable, something like the colour of a kitchen faucet in a brochure.  But of course a proper material would look infinitely better, the metallic look is hard to fake when the lighting changes.

I'll fire up photoshop tomorrow (past 1 a.m. here right now) and try some ideas for the solids at least. I'll send the good ones your way, see if you can use some of them as is.

The root piece looks good too! RLA Stockalike also has a couple of construction frames like that but more variety never hurts.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

Spoiler

Spanner, that's a shiny spaceship, you got there    I wonder if anybody has written a shader swap module....

 

12 minutes ago, BureauJaeger said:

...The root piece looks good too! RLA Stockalike also has a couple of construction frames like that but more variety never hurts.

Yeah, I've seen a few. The one that folds is cool, not sure who makes it. But ours will match the rest of your tubes: 

Spoiler

Should be waiting for you to DL in the A.M.

Edited December 5, 2016 by DrunkenKerbalnaut

[BureauJaeger]

Procedural parts have a different kind of texture switch going on which makes different bumps, shininess and speculars possible for every texture, but I'm not familiar with the history and restrictions of that module.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

1 minute ago, BureauJaeger said:

Procedural parts 

I'll take a look, see what kind of license and all that. Thanks!

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

There's a new X hub, and a tubular platform. Check OP for the link. Enjoy!

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

New stuff! Check OP

More textures, 4 new tube sections, and a ball valve for those that use these for plumbing. 

EDIT: I left out the chrome and copper, BJ. We would need to re wrap all the models to get those particular textures to not look like @$$. 

Edited December 9, 2016 by DrunkenKerbalnaut

[BureauJaeger]

8 hours ago, DrunkenKerbalnaut said:

New stuff! Check OP

More textures, 4 new tube sections, and a ball valve for those that use these for plumbing. 

EDIT: I left out the chrome and copper, BJ. We would need to re wrap all the models to get those particular textures to not look like @$$. 

Cool beans! Yeah, that's what I thought too.

Here's something I've been tinkering with. Now 75% more orange! As an aside, I wish there was some easily hideable lead weights, getting the CoM and CoT to match in a thing like this made me lose some hair.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

28 minutes ago, BureauJaeger said:

Cool beans! Yeah, that's what I thought too.

Here's something I've been tinkering with. Now 75% more orange! As an aside, I wish there was some easily hideable lead weights, getting the CoM and CoT to match in a thing like this made me lose some hair.

Aww man. What a great idea. Now I want to revisit my hang-glider thing. Mind if I put that up in the OP? 

Is that Firespitter gas jugs? I was gonna try to make some, forgot they already existed. My nearly-forgotten Elcano truck needs those. 

Anyways, it might be a double-update day. I've got some sweet torus tube things I want you guys to have. Like tank/lander/pod end caps with nodes... I'll just upload them when I get a chance, easier than explaining. 

Edit:lead weights. You sure someone hasn't done a ballast mod? If not, that's low hanging fruit. Easily remedied.  

Edited December 9, 2016 by DrunkenKerbalnaut

[BureauJaeger]

On 9.12.2016 at 7:24 PM, DrunkenKerbalnaut said:

Mind if I put that up in the OP? 

Go ahead! Yeah, I think the jerrycans are Firespitter. 

Edit, missed the edit: I did come across some dedicated weight mods and there's for example some counterweights in Infernal Robotics I think (I don't have that installed atm), but something really small and inconspicuous with the density of a neutron star would be very useful, especially for building realistic looking planes.

Edited December 10, 2016 by BureauJaeger

[ZobrAA]

Cool idea! But:

1) Far not optimal colliders - simple boxes are preferable for hight part count craft instead of spline based pills.

2) Need colliders size and nodes (to size0) unification.

3) Need more accurate mass ratings, based on real volume to be comparable with stock structural beams/gurders

All above is IMHO 

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

3 minutes ago, ZobrAA said:

Cool idea! But:

1) Far not optimal colliders - simple boxes are preferable for hight part count craft instead of spline based pills.

2) Need colliders size and nodes (to size0) unification.

3) Need more accurate mass ratings, based on real volume to be comparable with stock structural beams/gurders

All above is IMHO 

Don't forget shader inconsistency, texture file spam, and lack of uniformity in measurement (the latest parts are getting better with that).

We will reach a point of fine tuning the performance and appearance, but we haven't yet. This mod will remain humble. Structural parts. They are the duct tape, not the laser welder  .  And the last thing I want to do is break .craft files so soon. So pretty much all the optimization will hit at once. 

And don't refer to my version numbering for hints on that. The only thing you can count on there is that they will mostly be in numerical order . 

But thanks for the constructive criticism. It's welcome, for sure. 

What have you been using the tubes for? 

[ZobrAA]

6 hours ago, DrunkenKerbalnaut said:

We will reach a point of fine tuning the performance and appearance, but we haven't yet. This mod will remain humble. Structural parts. They are the duct tape, not the laser welder  .  And the last thing I want to do is break .craft files so soon. So pretty much all the optimization will hit at once. 

Good to hear! I look forward for that

6 hours ago, DrunkenKerbalnaut said:

What have you been using the tubes for?

Just tried at the moment, but for a long time (years actually) there was some thoughts about more light and versatile alternative of stock beams... Definitely rollcages, also as KrakenTech(tm) components and whatever But for all of that mod parts must be good optimised and finalized, because partcount and real time cost for complex crafts is usually huge and it's a pity to lose engineering progress after craft braking update...

"Time not important. Only life quality important" (c)

[Mark Kerbin]

For how new this mod is, i have to say its pretty damned good.

I was even able to get Jeb into a buggy again. 

He says he feels "safer"

Wait until he finds out we just painted some old fuel lines.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

3 hours ago, Mark Kerbin said:

For how new this mod is, i have to say its pretty damned good.

I was even able to get Jeb into a buggy again. 

He says he feels "safer"

Wait until he finds out we just painted some old fuel lines.

Hah! Is your Jeb a little trigger shy? I guess a few rides on Escape Tower-powered pod racers will do that to even the most BadS Kerbal  . Glad you like the mod. 

Hey @ZobrAA, what are you using to see colliders in SPH/VAB? Is that an AltF12 thing?

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

1 hour ago, DrunkenKerbalnaut said:

Hah! Is your Jeb a little trigger shy? I guess a few rides on Escape Tower-powered pod racers will do that to even the most BadS Kerbal  . Glad you like the mod. 

Hey @ZobrAA, what are you using to see colliders in SPH/VAB? Is that an AltF12 thing?

It is likely to be sarbians DebugStuff

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

I trust you'll be entering? seems like an ideal venue to demonstrate the product

Ill be running a mix of parts from this mod and other dev projects, 56 parts only 5 stock

 

Spoiler

 

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

Update: check OP for new DL link. 3 new parts, some tech tree stuff...

if you are using these in a career mode, please refer to the latest entry in the change log. It can be found in README.txt

 @SpannerMonkey(smce)

You, good sir, have tempted me with a good time. I have some pics to upload to the OP, and then I will delve deeper  .

 

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

On December 9, 2016 at 11:33 AM, BureauJaeger said:

Go ahead! Yeah, I think the jerrycans are Firespitter. 

Edit, missed the edit: I did come across some dedicated weight mods and there's for example some counterweights in Infernal Robotics I think (I don't have that installed atm), but something really small and inconspicuous with the density of a neutron star would be very useful, especially for building realistic looking planes.

Edit: just saw your edit

let me see if I can find a mass tweak-able module, and we can make a plutonium container, or something goofy. 

[ZobrAA]

8 hours ago, DrunkenKerbalnaut said:

Hey @ZobrAA, what are you using to see colliders in SPH/VAB? Is that an AltF12 thing?

 

6 hours ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

It is likely to be sarbians DebugStuff

It's a Collide-o-Scope - the musthave mod for precise engineering

[BureauJaeger]

11 minutes ago, DrunkenKerbalnaut said:

Edit: just saw your edit

let me see if I can find a mass tweak-able module, and we can make a plutonium container, or something goofy. 

Oo, plutonium! Well, kerbals are already green so I doubt anyone notices if they start glowing too.

Tweakable would be fancy. I'd imagine there's a module for that somewhere. But if it's not easily achievable maybe something like a bunch of stackable coins you could hide between parts would work too.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

Just now, BureauJaeger said:

Oo, plutonium! Well, kerbals are already green so I doubt anyone notices if they start glowing too.

Tweakable would be fancy. I'd imagine there's a module for that somewhere. But if it's not easily achievable maybe something like a bunch of stackable coins you could hide between parts would work too.

I just made you an impossibly small ore container. Will PM a link in a sec. Testing. 

[Fireheart318]

Some parts are in a suboptimal spin when placing and symmetry has all sorts of weirdness going on: Sometimes it doesn't work, other times it's on the same part of the craft, and other times it rotates wrong when using the rotate tool

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

7 minutes ago, Fireheart318 said:

Some parts are in a suboptimal spin when placing and symmetry has all sorts of weirdness going on: Sometimes it doesn't work, other times it's on the same part of the craft, and other times it rotates wrong when using the rotate tool

Thanks Fireheart. Yeah there's plenty to be ironed out. I've begun to do so, should have a more efficient, presentable version out before Christmas.