[1.8.x] Kerbal Foundries -- Continued - Tracks, Wheels, and Gear

[Shadowmage]

6 hours ago, banditsan said:

Nice to see active mod development but i see one issue with stock wheel patch and i think it should be updated first.

At the moment numbers for stock wheels are a bit od.

Agood example small landing gear has bigger load limit then huge industrial wheel  

You are certainly titled to your opinion; but there is a reason those patches are 'unsupported' and not included in the normal downloads.  I asked for feedback on them multiple times (esp. in regards to balance), and got...well.... not much useful data.  So I stopped trying to work on them.  The patches worked well enough for the craft I design, and I never use stock craft files (don't even have them enabled; often delete the files entirely)

If you really want to see them fixed -- the PR button is right here -> https://github.com/shadowmage45/KerbalFoundries2/pull/new/master

Or, open up a new issue ticket if you would like to discuss the balance changes -> https://github.com/shadowmage45/KerbalFoundries2/issues/new
 

[lo-fi]

On 10/2/2018 at 12:31 AM, Shadowmage said:

managed to locate some (most? all?) of the original authors' project files that he had passed on to me at some point (including what appear to be quite a few dev projects / unfinished / prototype / unreleased parts),

Thought I'd sent it all over to you. Shout if you need a hand untangling anything. 

Yep, I always had more ideas than I had time to complete

[Shadowmage]

39 minutes ago, lo-fi said:

Thought I'd sent it all over to you. Shout if you need a hand untangling anything.

Nice to see you stop by once in awhile    Thanks, and will do.

Yeah, you did send me quite a bit, quite possibly everything.  Apparently there was a Unity .package that I hadn't unpacked before that contained most of the models and scene files (IDK, I must have thought it was a single scene or something).  Been spending the past few evenings going through it all, importing models into blender, verifying rigging, getting the models cleaned up for (re) export through PartTools. 

Been wanting to update the models for the changes to Unity and plugin code for a long time... and figured I might try working through some updated textures while I was at it.

39 minutes ago, lo-fi said:

Yep, I always had more ideas than I had time to complete

I'm getting to know that feeling    Only so many hours in the day, and can only be in one place/do one thing at a time...

[JH4C]

10 hours ago, banditsan said:

Hi @Shadowmage,

Nice to see active mod development but i see one issue with stock wheel patch and i think it should be updated first.

At the moment numbers for stock wheels are a bit od.

Agood example small landing gear has bigger load limit then huge industrial wheel  

Similar problem with LY-60 and LY-99 gear. LY-60 simply breakes after 30s or so just standing on runway on stock Stearwing A300 craft

You're comparing apples and oranges. Landing gear needs to be able to handle heavier loads at higher speeds than any rover wheel, because aircraft travel so much faster and create much greater stresses on landing. Try using any stock rover wheel as landing gear and see how well (or how badly) it handles it.

[Shadowmage]

13 hours ago, 0111narwhalz said:

I'm not entirely sure how that's supposed to be read, what with the arm in the way. Perhaps if you rotated the top by 90° it would be more clear.

Its not intended to be read -- this is more of a prototype so that I can figure out the workflow and material settings for specific effects than anything else.  The finished product likely won't even have any text on it (not a fan of text decals for many reasons...).

But... noted... if I put text on it.... erm.. nvm.  I'm jut not putting text on stuff

Edited October 5, 2018 by Shadowmage

[lo-fi]

I drop by now and then, it's nice to see it still going. I must fire KSP up and have a play with all the latest goodies, it's literally been years now. 

Keep up the great work :)

[damerell]

On 10/4/2018 at 5:47 PM, Shadowmage said:

If there are any model/texture related issues with the existing parts that anyone would like to see fixed -- either report them immediately, or they will not be fixed.

I've not been playing much - I dunno if the old issue with the mole tracks where the rear wheel droops was fixed. I reported it a long time ago, I'm afraid - IIRC we found the problem but it needed some of the source files for the part to fix.

5 hours ago, JH4C said:

You're comparing apples and oranges. Landing gear needs to be able to handle heavier loads at higher speeds than any rover wheel, because aircraft travel so much faster and create much greater stresses on landing. Try using any stock rover wheel as landing gear and see how well (or how badly) it handles it.

Landing gear certainly needs to do that, but I'm not sure that quite explains why a part weighing one tenth as much as the rover wheel _can_ do that. What's all the mass in the rover wheel do?

[banditsan]

5 hours ago, JH4C said:

You're comparing apples and oranges. Landing gear needs to be able to handle heavier loads at higher speeds than any rover wheel, because aircraft travel so much faster and create much greater stresses on landing. Try using any stock rover wheel as landing gear and see how well (or how badly) it handles it.

True rover wheels and landing gear different thing, but my point was that max load on landing gear is to low or some issue with plugin. If it breaks just by standing on runway Mk3 hull plane how it can handle landing impact?

[Shadowmage]

13 minutes ago, banditsan said:

If it breaks just by standing on runway Mk3 hull plane how it can handle landing impact?

It really shouldn't, and you have a valid point.  That is why I suggested either putting in a PR, or opening an issue ticket with specific suggestions for the values.  I'm more than willing to adjust and change values in places where the balance seems off. 

There is actually a ticket open already with some balance related feedback that will be taken into consideration before the next release;  feel free to put your suggestions there, and I'll give them the same consideration -- https://github.com/shadowmage45/KerbalFoundries2/issues/36

Please be as specific as possible, both in what parts you are referring to, on what values need adjusted, and on what you suggest might be a good new value.  The more detailed info I have, the better.  Providing comparisons from stock/other mods is acceptable and welcome.

 

37 minutes ago, damerell said:

What's all the mass in the rover wheel do?

I always assumed it was made with solid construction of the same super-dense materials that some of the other parts are seemingly made of

 

47 minutes ago, damerell said:

I've not been playing much - I dunno if the old issue with the mole tracks where the rear wheel droops was fixed. I reported it a long time ago, I'm afraid - IIRC we found the problem but it needed some of the source files for the part to fix.

I don't remember seeing that as a problem when I was first updating them for the new plugin, or if it was I fudged it in the configs.  Will keep an eye out for it when I'm verifying/re-rigging and redoing the model exports though.

 

 

 

[Drew Kerman]

Quote

Bug fixing was included in this week’s agenda and among this final sweep, we implemented an auto spring/damper to the wheel suspension system in order to diminish involuntary bouncing. We also adjusted the wheel friction and suspension parameters to tackle this problem. We expect that this will improve the behavior of the wheels and legs in the game.

From the latest dev log. Not sure if it affects anything but figured I'd give a heads up just in case

[Shadowmage]

12 hours ago, Drew Kerman said:

From the latest dev log. Not sure if it affects anything but figured I'd give a heads up just in case

Good for stock players, but shouldn't effect KF parts in the slightest.  We don't use any of that stock black magic wheel module stuff around here

 

More playing around with model updates and such.  Mostly just verifying that the models are ready for texturing -  I'm literally just slapping layers and effects on these things with default settings, and not really taking any time on them.... yet.  But I like showing things off, and so far the textures seem like they are off to a good start, and will work out well when I get to really working on them. 

Here is today's reworked model --

 

Edit:  Because I'm sure a few were wondering how well this stuff actually transfers to in-game -- pretty darned well (and easily too...):

Edited October 6, 2018 by Shadowmage

[theonegalen]

13 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

Good for stock players, but shouldn't effect KF parts in the slightest.  We don't use any of that stock black magic wheel module stuff around here

 

More playing around with model updates and such.  Mostly just verifying that the models are ready for texturing -  I'm literally just slapping layers and effects on these things with default settings, and not really taking any time on them.... yet.  But I like showing things off, and so far the textures seem like they are off to a good start, and will work out well when I get to really working on them. 

 Here is today's reworked model --



 

Edit:  Because I'm sure a few were wondering how well this stuff actually transfers to in-game -- pretty darned well (and easily too...):

hmmmmmm.

It looks great.

I mean, it looks great on it's own.

But to me, it looks like it doesn't belong in the same universe as the Mk2 Spaceplane parts. The difference in detail and shininess is very great

Edited October 6, 2018 by theonegalen

[Shadowmage]

43 minutes ago, theonegalen said:

But to me, it looks like it doesn't belong in the same universe as the Mk2 Spaceplane parts. The difference in detail and shininess is very great

Very true -- they look out of place compared to the parts using the legacy (stock) texturing.  Not much I can am willing to do about stock parts sadly.... (others are working on the problem though).

Which is why the PBR textures, if I even release them, will be as an optional extension to Kerbal Foundries.  I fully realize that most players don't use TexturesUnlimited, that many actively don't want the change in shader/graphics for various reasons, and I'm not here to push an agenda for the shader changes.

[Shadowmage]

More playing around with Substance Painter --

(the black circles are counter-sunk black-oxide bolt-heads; sadly they don't come across the best in the image, but have a bit more detail when viewing the model in 3d)

 

Before I start working on these textures in earnest I'm going to take some time to set up the specific materials that I'll be using across all of the parts.  Should result in some extremely consistent coloring and texturing; the only thing that might be off a bit would be texel density, due to the UV map setup for the parts and the limited selection of usable texture sizes (^2 only....).

And... once this is all said and done, I currently intend to host all of the model and art -development assets- online so as to provide examples for others wanting to do wheels/tracks/SP textures.  This would be all of the .blend, .spp, and resource files used in the development of the models.  Perhaps even include some documentation on some of the less-obvious quirks of working with this stuff in KSP.

[Shadowmage]

Hmm... thinking I might rework the mesh on these wheels a bit -- they are 3.5k tris each.  If I bake the normals on to a standard 24 sided cylinder, I can get them down to ~400 each...  The original just seems a bit excessive for such a tiny part.

Testing playing around with normals baking a bit..  left is original mesh, right is baked normals on a simplified mesh.  Obviously there are notable differences due to how extruded the original geometry was, but I think it still conveys the intended impression quite well. (note I have not fixed the inset center hub on the baked version; it too could/would have an inset, as that geometry is fairly cheap)

[Shadowmage]

Actually a bit of work from last night, but had to take another pass at it today to figure out the radially-wrapped text...  Will also be a few more details/colors on this in its final configuration.  Current text is just for testing... will likely have different wording/etc when done.

... Actually had to break out Substance Designer today to make new math functions to wrap that text around    Yay for configurability in the tools I use (although it boggles my mind that a radial wrap function didn't already exist....).

Edited October 7, 2018 by Shadowmage

[Shadowmage]

Working on setting up some of the materials that I'll be using on the parts.  Once I get the materials configured, should only take 20-30 minutes per model to get the textures done -- set up the masks for the main materials and effects (what parts of the model they effect), setup any part-specific details such as bolts or decals, and hit the export button.  Should give extremely consistent results across parts as far as colors and any other effects applied to them... as well as being easy to setup.

This is the new base rubber material to replace the placeholder that I was using, with configurable age-wear (enabled in image) (zoom to see details):

Also experimenting with various masking and weathering effects, such as rusting... (can see some in the image above as well)

Not sure how weathered the finished parts will be, so I'm building the weathering effects into the material stacks as toggle-enabled and configurable for different levels of wear. 

 

[lo-fi]

Loving your texture work

I'd forgotten quite how mad my wheel designs were! Too many late nights hacking code had clearly addled my brain  

You should find a "high def" version of the large wheel that you might like to play with, by the way. I modelled it with tread like the floatation tyres you see on monster trucks. 

[theonegalen]

Great news all around!

[Shadowmage]

One more model imported and updated and with basic textures applied.  Had to redo the vertex weights on this one for the skinned meshes, but now that I'm getting used to the tools it isn't taking too long.

 

[Shadowmage]

20 hours ago, lo-fi said:

You should find a "high def" version of the large wheel that you might like to play with, by the way. I modelled it with tread like the floatation tyres you see on monster trucks. 

Indeed I did.  Baked the surface out to a set of normals... and now have it as another option for tracks   (I'll investigate using it for a wheel as well at some point)

Also unified all of the tracks UV mappings, so that they can use a shared set of track textures.  So should be able to use texture-switching to change textures in the editor.... Might be viable for wheel texture as well?  Four sets of textures so far... might be able to come up with another 1-2 from the assets I have.

 

 

[Apaseall]

It would be fun to have differing frictions for those tracks. Never going to happen but a fun idea. I would love the tracks to grip more if that is at all possible.

[Shadowmage]

6 hours ago, Apaseall said:

It would be fun to have differing frictions for those tracks. Never going to happen but a fun idea. I would love the tracks to grip more if that is at all possible.

I think the difference in grip between two different tread types, on a typical tracked vehicle, would be minimal.  Also, at the physics simulation level, the friction is already set to 'max' for all wheels/tracks -- there really is no more friction that can be added without 'adding energy' to the system (although, the current simulation would work better/be more accurate/appear to have higher friction if the code were run at a higher update frequency -- the discrete time-steps limit the friction output so as to not cause jitter issues).

[Apaseall]

oooo. So my slow PC makes me all slippy. LOL!

[Shadowmage]

37 minutes ago, Apaseall said:

oooo. So my slow PC makes me all slippy. LOL!

Not really -- KSP 'slows down' physics to make sure it is processed with the same number of 'steps' per simulated in-game second.

It is actually Unity's/KSPs 50hz physics simulation (and lack of low-level PhysX access) that result in the current maxima for friction outputs.  If I could crank it up to 500hz (with integration of access PhysX sub-stepping), or 1000hz (ideal minimum for spring/damper simulation), the simulation could be much more accurate.  Basically due to limitations in Unity, the simulation is 1/20th as accurate as it could be.

References:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/wheelcollider-substeps.466617/

https://forum.unity.com/threads/whats-a-good-way-to-integrate-custom-substeps.326926/

If you look at this graph -- I need hooks into the 'Internal Physics Update' block, with the ability to manipulate the forces applied the rigidbody, and apply specific force inputs immediately.

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/ExecutionOrder.html

Sadly, Unity does not support that.

There are options for integration that do not rely on substeps (e.g RK4), but I would still need discrete access to the RigidBody along with 'immediate physics updates' for the forces I apply, as well as some way to 'rewind' those forces (as I need to check rigidbody position for four force inputs to calculate the four derivatives to use for calculating the actual spring value and damper values).

Edited October 9, 2018 by Shadowmage