KSP Weekly: The Orbiters!

[Well]

I am also not a fan of the helmet, the texture look really strange.  I like the classic helmet blank with red stripe

But the new suit look great. Nice work 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Well

[Galileo]

Anyone can render clouds in photoshop and slap it on a helmet...I know people have been clamoring for an art pass, but something isn’t always better than nothing. The helmets seem lazily done imo and should be left alone, or made to be entirely white, as to stick with the aesthetic of KSP.

the suits look nice, but it looks like KSP is taking a cartoonish approach to its art style with them. They are significantly more simple than the suits we have now. Not a bad thing, it’s fits KSP, I guess, but it leaves a little to be desired.

Edited August 17, 2018 by Galileo

[RealKerbal3x]

I mostly like the new suit. Still not sure about the helmet though

[Snark]

I love the new suits, though I think I prefer the old helmets.  Seeing kerbals in the dark (e.g. when they're EVA, clambering around a ship, etc.) can be tricky, sometimes-- the high-contrast stripes on the big helmet have always helped me spot them.  Plus it shows up nicely even when zoomed out a fair amount.

I'm fine with either the two-color or the three-color variant... but you know what I'd really like?  If there were some visible distinction between pilot / engineer / scientist.  One simple way to do that would be if they got different "secondary" colors, i.e. they're all white, but the helmet-stripe color and trim color is different per profession (e.g. red = pilot, green = engineer, blue = scientist, or whatever).  Having two tones would be more amenable to that than three.

Moddability:  I think lots of players would probably want to be able to distinguish the professions, but not everyone's going to agree on which color should be which, and no matter what you pick it would be "wrong" for someone.  So making it nicely tweakable/moddable would help a lot with this.  Here's a thought:

• Have a set of N textures to choose from.  Ideally the stock textures would differ only in some minor detail like "stripe color", so having N suits doesn't mean it'll take N times the artist's time, since they're mostly just copies of each other.
• Have some config somewhere that maps texture to profession.
• Have a moddable module somewhere that has a function which is basically, "given <crew member>, pick <texture ID>".  The default implementation is to read it from the aforementioned config.

Now it's really easy and flexible at different levels depending on how much effort modders want to put into it.  Some sample scenarios:

1. You like all the textures, but just want to switch which profession is which because "Nooooo, I'm a Trekkie and engineers are supposed to be RED!" or whatever?  Easy, just tweak the config with a ModuleManager patch.
2. You want to add additional textures to the game and give an alternate choice for engineer?  Just create your own texture, put it somewhere so that the game knows about it, and add config to point "engineer" at the new texture.
3. You're writing a mod that adds additional profession types to the game?  No problem, it's the same deal as #2 above.
4. You're getting fancy-shmancy and you want to do something really custom like make some procedural decision at run time which suit they get, based on some state that your mod adds to the game?  You just add some code that overrides the ""given <crew member>, pick <texture ID>" function, so that instead of following the config file, you can do whatever custom decision-making code you like in order to pick which texture you want.

 

[EDIT] Judging from the number of "likes" thus far, looks like this post has gotten a fair amount of attention.  Just wanted to give a shout-out to @DMagic's alternate suggestion in his post below, to make sure it's not overlooked.

Edited August 18, 2018 by Snark
Make sure to check out DMagic's suggestion, too!

[53miner53]

I like the RWB better, but I think the old helmet should stay instead of the new ones. It seems the art on the suits were made cleaner everywhere except the helmet, which makes it look a little weird. 

[purpleivan]

On the plus side, it looks like the normals on the male suit models will finally be fixed

[Vexillar]

The new suits (and kerbal body models) are a step in the right direction.  Along with many above, I prefer the slightly muted appearance of the RWB over the red, and agree that the helmet should be white with darker "bumps".  As a consequence of the new body model, the old male kerbal normal map issue is fixed, it seems (hooray!).

The EVA pack is generally better, though I'm not too enamoured of the rivets.  A more subtle effect (e.g. normal mapping of panelwork?) would look better, IMHO.

Model-wise, to my eye, the edge of the gloves and boots looks rather too pronounced.  Is it too late to revise that?

[klesh]

I like the red + blue suit. 

Why did you make the poll on a site where you must use a signed-in google account? 

 

 

I am wary of putting this faux noise on helmets.  It is hard to tell from your example, but the helmets you included in Making History have a very noticeable seam on their noise texture, and I would definitely not want the same thing on this suit revamp:

 

[Angelo Kerman]

Interesting suit designs. Nice cleaner look. I like the original helmet best with its red stripe. It would also be great to have a suit without helmet and collar for those who like telling stories with kerbals that wear normal outfits instead of space suits. 

[klgraham1013]

54 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

On the poll, why can't I vote to have all the suits in the game? You've already gone to the trouble to make them, so why not give players an in-game choice? More options are always better. 

While they're at it, give us the option of using the brown new suit.  The poll was close enough.  Why not give the people who wanted it the option to use it?  You already made it.  Let us use it.

[Deddly]

Overlapping threads merged for your viewing pleasure.

[StarStreak2109]

Original helmets with the red, white and blue design. I do not like the noise on the helmets as well. The helmet looks like a Falcon 9 after reentry. So yeah, I suggest, loose the noise on the helmets and keep the RWB design.

[Delay]

6 minutes ago, StarStreak2109 said:

Original helmets with the red, white and blue design. I do not like the noise on the helmets as well. The helmet looks like a Falcon 9 after reentry. So yeah, I suggest, loose the noise on the helmets and keep the RWB design. 

Agreed. The white-red helmet looks far better, but they can keep the new suits.

[lajoswinkler]

Cool. I really like the new suits (preferably red&white variety), although I'd make them more white instead of gray. But this is an improvement over the old design, no question there.

While you're at it, it would be really nice to something about the really ugly skybox and, if it's not too much to ask, Kerbol. It really needs a simple overhaul. No need for lens flares, just something that makes it look better than a crumpled yellow ball up close.

[DMagic]

1 hour ago, Snark said:

Have a set of N textures to choose from.  Ideally the stock textures would differ only in some minor detail like "stripe color", so having N suits doesn't mean it'll take N times the artist's time, since they're mostly just copies of each other.

I agree with the idea of class based identifiers, but there is no need to have duplicate textures used for every possible variant.

It would be far simpler and more flexible to apply a different texture to the stripe areas. Then make that texture entirely white (except for whatever details you want like the scratches and dings on the preview) and apply a tint to it. You could define the tint in the class definition configs so that it would be super easy to modify.

You end up with an extremely minor performance trade off (as in, if you had 100 Kerbals on screen with a potato computer you would likely not have a measurable difference), but save space on textures and make it more flexible.

[Jarin]

If the helmet texture were more than just unpatterned noise, it would probably look better. Body and pack look great though. 

[TiktaalikDreaming]

If people don't have the idea that the suits are good but the new helmet ain't, I doubt adding my voice is going to change anything. That's some pretty unanimous critique going on there.

My personal preference would be the white and red suit with the white and red helmet. Mostly because that would make it easy to change the red to colour code the Kerbals. As a standalone, the white with red and blue features does look nice though.

Take a red marked kerbal on away missions when it looks dangerous.

[NoMrBond]

How about instead of fixed variants, have the detailing stripe colour for the suits be customisable, like the RGB sliders for the lights.

Everyone could do what they want, orange stripes for the vets? sure, colour coding for your professions? gotcha

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

I prefer the red+white suits, and agree that aside from the helmets it looks much better than the old ones (the helmet ring particularly has always stood out as weird looking on the old suits). As to the helmets, I think the new exterior looks worse but the new interior looks much better.

[Tonka Crash]

I'd like to see user selectable variant colors so we could color code Kerbals to their profession. And, the helmet is awful, it needs color, grayscale is boring to look at.

[Elthy]

Wasnt there a HD version of the old suit that was supposed to be used in animations? I remember something like that...

But seriosly, why dont you leave the asthetics the same, just remodel it with (way) higher quality?

[Ger_space]

4 hours ago, hieywiey said:

The new suit looks nice! I do think that the helmet needs some more work though, as it looks kinda...sooty. Would it be possible to add stock support for additional suit textures? I think the same would be good for the new launch sites, as we would no longer have to depend on mods like KerbalKonstructs (sorry, @Ger_space!).

No offense taken. 

A sane way of adding launchsites into the stock game would be very welcome, but i fear is not going to happen soon.

 

[theJesuit]

@SQUAD thanks for the update. Maybe a career mode for the suits to upgrade from the old to the new?

Also if you are playing around with the models can you please make that helmet ring part of the helmet itself so that mods that remove the helmet in a breathable atmosphere can remove the ring too.  This could mean we have kerbals in proper tuxedos* at the promotional dinners.

Peace.

*modder dependent.

EDIT looked at the high resolution image. Suit yes.  Helmet NOOOOO!

Edited August 17, 2018 by theJesuit
Suit yes.  Helmet NOOOOO!

[Dark Lion]

5 hours ago, Snark said:

I love the new suits, though I think I prefer the old helmets.  Seeing kerbals in the dark (e.g. when they're EVA, clambering around a ship, etc.) can be tricky, sometimes-- the high-contrast stripes on the big helmet have always helped me spot them.  Plus it shows up nicely even when zoomed out a fair amount.

I'm fine with either the two-color or the three-color variant... but you know what I'd really like?  If there were some visible distinction between pilot / engineer / scientist.  One simple way to do that would be if they got different "secondary" colors, i.e. they're all white, but the helmet-stripe color and trim color is different per profession (e.g. red = pilot, green = engineer, blue = scientist, or whatever).  Having two tones would be more amenable to that than three.

All of this.
I second this.

I'm not even voting on the other suits. Both look fine to me, but the helmet color is a serious clash. Otherwise, I like the simpler textures. Very practical. The jetpack was a particularly nice touch, but I also miss the mission patches on the chest and shoulder.

[panzer1b]

I like the new suit, and honestly, i PREFER the lack of red stripes on the sides which may look kerbally, but doesnt fit my own personal space program (which is more sci-fiy and the new suit texture looks better).

 

It may not be a popular opinion, but i really do like them as is (although id be ok with red stripes on the sides if we must).  And if given a choice (cant vote on poll as i dont have a google accnt and i refuse to get a google accnt), i prefer the combo of red/blu vs pure red which looks a bit awkward.