The Art of Part Design - A Thread

[Damon]

The Art of Part Design.

My modding history began in 2017 were I came across a mod from Tygoo7. I instantly fell in love with the mod and after some time I approached him asking if I could continue his fine work.
Back in those days, the modding community was still relatively young and while I had some knowledge in Unity and Photoshop, my art design wasn't the greatest.

During the years I have come across a lot of good people who dedicated their free time in making amazing part mods for KSP. They guided me through the appreciation of Porkjet's style and eventually to work in tandem with styles from other authors such as Nertea, Cineboxandrew and Beale, to name a few.

To this day I am still critical on what I make and how it is represented in the game. I made the Tundra's Space Center mod to add new and exciting launchpads to launch from. Following the strict rules Bac9 made here:

I set out to make one of the best looking pads in KSP.

Fast forward to today. I am overwhelmed with how KSP2 looks. The graphics are amazing and the sounds are beautiful! KSP2 will be a good base for a whole new generation of people playing, learning and modding the game.
However, things are looking a bit messy regarding the art style of parts. Specifically, the ' errors' .

I know KSP2 is in a very Early Access state. I am confident that these parts will get a nice overhaul once the base systems are stable enough. But I have encountered many errors/problems with these new parts.
I have made a list with all the things I have noticed. I hope these things will be addressed at some point during EA.

Firstly, I'd like to address part quality assurance and standardization.
As you can see here, these two parts (FL-T800 and the VL-T30 Engine) doesn't seem to align properly. This problem exists because the 1.25m fuel tank is made of 24 sides and the engine sits at 36.
These inconsistencies are a problem. Many of the current 1.25m engine plates are 36 sides were as the fuel tanks are 24 sides. Command pods are at least 48 sides which isn't that big of a deal.
48 does match a little bit with 24. But I don't understand the 36 side choice. I hope this problem will be fixed in future updates. Inconsistency is key to many of the errors we will encounter in this thread. 



Part clipping occurs when a node is too low regarding the surface of the part. As you can see here, the TVR-1180C clips through the FL-T800 fuel tank.
The height of the node from the TVR-1180C should be increased so both seams are matching and we have a flush part!


Another problem is that the Bi-coupler version (TVR-200) doesn't match the dimensions of the fuel tank. Resulting in the ring being bigger.


These are just some of the findings from the first hour of playing the game. Many of these imperfections are easy to fix and should be addressed. However, there is more!

Taking a closer look at the end caps for the adapters, one in particular stands out. The 1.25m to 2.5m adapter's end cap seems to be rotated at an odd angle:


There seems to be a gap when attaching a part under the MK1 Explorer:


The MK2 Tuna Can top node is not centered:


Good textures are key to many parts success. When we take a look at a lot of popular, larger part mods, every single part is carefully crafted with consistent texel density, ranging from 300ppm to 600ppm for really detailed parts. When I take a look at KSP2, many parts are inconsistent regarding texel density.

I simply don't understand why some of these are higher quality than others. I have a feeling that there doesn't seem to be a standard in many of these design choices.

If I was an art director, I would have had a list with checkboxes that every single part needs to meet in order to be in the game. I know, for example, when ReStock was developed a rigorous testing process was made against each part to ensure that it met a high quality. These areas included:

• Localization Tags
• Holes in Mesh
• Model Mesh Issue (Missing structure etc.)
• Collider Issue
• Model Orientation in VAB
• Node Placement
• Part attachment to other parts (stack/radial)
• Texture Issue (Diffuse/Normals/Mirroring etc.)
• Model/Texture Alignment Issue
• Emissives Issue
• Animation Issue
• FX Issue
• Sound Issue
• Thrust Transforms (Torque)
• Shroud/Fairing Issue
• Gimbal (Animation and Structure)
• Variants Working (Resources, Model etc)
• Specific PartModule Issue
• Aesthetical Design Issue
• Generic Improvement Comment
• IVA Issue
• Balance Issue (RS+)

The texture files can use some optimization too. I noticed a lot of UV maps that could be stacked and reducing the space needed on a sheet. For example, the FL-T800 uses two textures for the top and bottom half of the tank.
This is a great example of stacking the UV maps on top of each other so they use 1 texture for both sides.

I hope that the community will list more down in this thread. That so we can keep everything neat in one place regarding the aesthetics  of parts.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Damon

[Rodger]

Part side count is definitely inconsistent, some other examples I've seen:

The mk1 cockpits actually have two different side counts (and different cap textures), both higher than the rest in the size category, the in-line is *very* high res:

The Reliant and Swivel have 32 sides, which doesn't match sm sized tanks, and also doesn't match their own shrouds:

The Terrier has a 'mount ring' which adapts it to the standard 24 sides of it's appropriate tanks and it's shroud, this works pretty well:

The md size fl1 monoprop tank has 24 sides instead of 36 (and the md pod has 64 sides). It seems like an old ksp1 asset not updated yet.

And the Kickback is rotated 7.5 degrees so there's a flat side at the sides of the part, instead of a point:

The mk7a nose cone might just be a KSP1 model too, with 24 sides, instead of 36:

And the mk2 lander can flare are the base is a lot bigger than 2.5m:

[Damon]

3 hours ago, Rodger said:

The Terrier has a 'mount ring' which adapts it to the standard 24 sides of it's appropriate tanks and it's shroud, this works pretty well:

Still looks a bit odd. I guess they had to choose between the ring or the part itself being 24 sides.