RLA Stockalike v10 released 11th August

[LaydeeDem]

Look at stock textures and copy them! That's how I started out at least, fumbling about with a mouse, poor UV maps and no idea what I was doing. There's a huge increase in quality between the textures that will be coming out in future compared to what I have out already since I've been UV unwrapping things differently, and I invested in a tablet. I'll go over things in a bit more detail using the Cutter as an example, but take everything with a grain of salt, I barely know what I'm doing. If you compare my work to that of say helldivers, you can really see how much of an amateur I really am!

Everything is done using many many layers, although I probably don't use them to their fullest potential. I tend to use a "fuzzy" brush for much of what I do with the tablet too.

Step zero

Examine related stock parts to see how they look. The idea here is to get a feel for how I should do the latter stages, as well as taking the same colours for use, like the orange paint used on Rockomax parts, or the shade of yellow some pipes use.

Step one

After UV unwrap, the first thing I do is to play around with block colours, getting the shades as close to the stock ones as I can manage. I also move colours around, seeing what works where. If you compare the first version of the Cutter to it's current iteration, you can see the pipe was originally dull flat grey and the orange was too bright. I think changing those really improves the look of it, and I hope you do as well!

Step two

Edge highlights! If you look at the stock parts, you see the edges of parts are a different shade of colour. This makes the edges appear worn, and helps make each face distinct from those around it. If you look closely at Bac9's parts you can see he takes this to another level of detail. The stock artstyle isn't quite the same as that though, which is why I don't take my highlights that far. If anything my highlights are still wrong because they're too thin.

Step three

After highlights I start fiddling around with other layers on the main colour blocks. Stock parts almost never have a simple flat face of one colour, they all vary a little bit. I try to emulate this by taking the original colour and making it brighter and darker by a few steps and carefully applying that. On the Cutter you can see that I went around the edges of the orange, and added some strips to the flat grey face of the nozzle.

Step four

The hardest part to do, faking shading. The goal of this is to add depth to the part by carefully darkening places that would be shaded almost all the time. Every change I make here I immediately go and see how it looks on the model in Blender, and I often totally scrap various areas in order to redo them. As you can see on the Cutter, there are areas that still don't look quite right. I also don't hand paint every part of these, sometimes it's easier to draw a straight line and blur it out. The 0.625m monopropellent rocket above uses this in a few places.

Step five

On top of everything else I add details, like the little warning sticker and the design that sits on the top that you don't see most of the time. Each detail usually takes a few steps of it's own, and almost always requires plenty of fiddling around to place right, or to get looking how I want it. As always, take design pointers from stock parts!

Step six

At the end of all that, I make a specular map of texture and stick that in the alpha channel of the one I'll use in Unity. If the part has an emissive, I'll do that at this stage, along with making a normal map if I feel the part could be improved with one.

If the forums weren't broken I would give you some rep! Thanks for the tutorial!

[Gryphorim]

Cheers Gaius.

Were it so simple...

Everything is in the right folders, double checked and confirmed that all parts that use only one mesh per part.cfg work fine. it's only those that have several meshes/models in the part's individual folder and the part.cfg uses a specific MODEL{} identifier to call up the model for each of several different in-game parts. Only those ones won't load.

edit... On second reading of my post, I come across kinda snarky. Unintended. Genuinely appreciate the help Gaius, even though it didn't fix the problem, thanks for trying.

Edited September 6, 2013 by Gryphorim

[Mihara]

The one thing I don't like about the new stack extender, which is otherwise an improvement, is that like some, but not all stock parts, it has an unsightly indentation on both top and bottom sides. On your original stack extender, you could put things on top that were smaller than the extender caliber, and they didn't appear floating in the air, on this one, they do.

[hoojiwana]

You just can't unpack the archive as it's currently structured and have it work correctly (without further file management), since the top-level folder shouldn't exist at all (it's at the level that KSP_win should be at, if you were packing from that level... which you shouldn't, since it's named differently on different OS versions of KSP)

Thanks for pointing that out, future releases will have a better folder structure, as well as improved installation instructions.

Is there a plugin dependancy, or any known mod clashes?

Stockalike has no plugin dependencies or clashes with other mods that I know of.

It's only those that have several meshes/models in the part's individual folder and the part.cfg uses a specific MODEL{} identifier to call up the model for each of several different in-game parts. Only those ones won't load.

Could a post a screenshot of the full folder layout of your installation please? Below is what it should look like, ignore the green ticks, thats Dropbox.

The one thing I don't like about the new stack extender, which is otherwise an improvement, is that like some, but not all stock parts, it has an unsightly indentation on both top and bottom sides.

Hmm, the indentation could potentially be removed, but generally the parts intended to fit on it are ones that would completely cover the indentation anyway, since they can only be stack attached.

[Gaius]

Cheers Gaius.

Were it so simple...

Everything is in the right folders, double checked and confirmed that all parts that use only one mesh per part.cfg work fine. it's only those that have several meshes/models in the part's individual folder and the part.cfg uses a specific MODEL{} identifier to call up the model for each of several different in-game parts. Only those ones won't load.

edit... On second reading of my post, I come across kinda snarky. Unintended. Genuinely appreciate the help Gaius, even though it didn't fix the problem, thanks for trying.

yw... sorry I couldn't be of more help. The symptoms you describe were exactly the ones I was experiencing before I noticed the file structure as I'd installed the mod was wrong, with some parts loading fine and only those particular parts failing to load, so I figured it must be the same issue. Have you checked the error log? That often gives clues as to why some parts won't load -- it will say something along the lines of "failed to compile part" for each one that doesn't load. Clip out the dozen or so lines around the error and post it here, maybe we can figure out what's happening...

[hoojiwana]

Stockalike 0.7 is now available on Spaceport and includes some new probe scale parts.

I've also cut the unnessecary folder from the download, thanks to Gaius for pointing that out.

[Gaius]

0.7

- Switched all PNG textures to TGA

- Rescaled many textures down

- Condensed RCS block textures down to one

- Added new Small Radial Stack Extender

- Added new Small Radial Decoupler

- Added four new Small Fuel Tanks

- Added new Small Atomic Engine

- Added new Small Midrange Engine

This may be too much awesome for one update. Handle with care, folks...

[Nutter]

Excellent! I see many uses for the small radial decoupler. Yeeees.

And the LV-T5 doesn't seem like a bad addition either.

By the by, am I the only thinking that the monopropellant engines sound slightly like they're powered by the souls of the damned?

Edit: Completely forgot about he small fuel tanks. Ooooh, I am so building an altar for you once I...finish playing with them...okay, maybe you aren't getting that altar after all.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Nutter

[hoojiwana]

Haha, glad you like it guys. I just did a very minor update that slightly changed the sounds on the two new little engines, hopefully they're slightly less annoying now.

The monopropellent engines use the same sound as the Arcjets from Electric Engines, and thats essentially just the jet engine noise with the high pitch section removed.

[M5000]

Just got a look at the new parts in Stockalike 0.7, and I must say that I really appreciate all the work you're putting in to this pack, hoojiwana. This, combined with several other stockalike parts packs, really rounds out the part selection and allows me to not just build my rockets, but engineer them with the BEST possible engine for the job.

Not only Stockalike, but your other parts packs are well done, too. They all fit in with the stock game very well. I find myself using your big SRGs from the power generation pack very often, they have quite a good range of uses, as well as the electric engines pack, I'm using to design a resistojet-based Mun/similar worlds surface rover that can be used to transit between bases quickly, and the larger Xenon supply tanks and higher thrust electric engines really make it worth my while.

I first found out about your work when I saw the electric engines pack, before you added the Xenon tanks. Used it quite a bit, decided to hold off on stockalike until it got rounded out a bit more, and this recent update is really something spectacular. If I had to choose a favorite part in any of the packs, it'd have to be the LV-NC or the array of the four resistojets. The LV-NC is just.. It's just adorable, I mean look at it. Like, it makes me squeal. The four resistojet array lets me use non-nuke power to get nuke-like performance. It's just something that makes ion/electric engines valid in another context. Though, it is awful power hungry, but I suppose that's to be expected.

Anyhow, really appreciate the work that you're putting into this pack in that you're releasing parts in small doses, but they look basically finished and well done, rather than trying to push a bunch of ugly parts in a pack. I can really enjoy that development style. Hope to see this pack live on till it's either in KSP 1.0 or it's a mod for KSP 1.0, because you certainly have a talent.

[Morrigi]

Welp, looks like I'm going to get back into KSP this afternoon. Between this, Kethane, and KSP Interstellar or whatever it's called...

[Absolute Human]

New update! These things are great!

I think, we really have the new KSPX right here!

Be prepared to repeat the history and make it stock!

[TimothyC]

I try to keep the number of part mods I fly with down, but like KSPX, this is one of the few mods that I enjoy having. Thank you for making it.

[astropapi1]

This has become the succesor of KSPX for me. Thanks!

[BubbleWrap]

I love the new fuel tanks They make such cute little rockets...

[Nutter]

They do. Could do with a .625 version of the LV-T30 for some more efficient boosting but for all intents and purposes, the R48-7S does the job nicely anyway.

Edited September 15, 2013 by Nutter

[Moon Goddess]

I made an Icon for PartCatalog for your mods if anyone is interested.

[CrazyIvan]

Could we have a WIP VASIMR model :3

[Captain Sierra]

I offered him one earlier. Just some eye candy of my rendition of an RLA VASIMR.

[CrazyIvan]

I offered him one earlier. Just some eye candy of my rendition of an RLA VASIMR.

Yeah it does fit the style but my idea is that it is the length of NERVA with radiator vanes around the core of the engine.

[Absolute Human]

Hm... Probe RCS thrusters have the same exhaust animation as normal ones

Does this mean that you can't make it look weaker?

Btw they are only four times weaker than normal, but look ten times smaller. Kinda overpowered...

Edited September 27, 2013 by Absolute Human

[Gaius]

Hm... Probe RCS thrusters have the same exhaust animation as normal ones

Does this mean that you can't make it look weaker?

Btw they are only four times weaker than normal, but look ten times smaller. Kinda overpowered...

lolwut? They're precisely one quarter the thrust of standard, and precisely one quarter the mass. That's perfectly balanced -- exactly, precisely identical balance to stock. Did you really just call them "overpowered" because of how they *look*?! lol... you can certainly complain about not liking their visual size, sure, but "overpowered"? Yes, indeed, their thrust to weight ratio is standard, but look at that thrust to pixel ratio!

Edited September 28, 2013 by Gaius

[Absolute Human]

lolwut? They're precisely one quarter the thrust of standard, and precisely one quarter the mass. That's perfectly balanced -- exactly, precisely identical balance to stock. Did you really just call them "overpowered" because of how they *look*?! lol... you can certainly complain about not liking their visual size, sure, but "overpowered"? Yes, indeed, their thrust to weight ratio is standard, but look at that thrust to pixel ratio!

Okey, okey! they just look overpowered for their visual size.

The point is that the exhaust animation doesn't match their size and power

[CrazyIvan]

I offered him one earlier. Just some eye candy of my rendition of an RLA VASIMR.

Actually He should use this! As a MPD thruster instead of a VASIMR thruster since they are different yours looks exactly like a MPD thruster!

[hoojiwana]

Oh wow that's a lot of positive feedback! I love that you all love my work!

The little RCS blocks use the same size effect as the full size one simply because that's the only option I have available. Until there is an easy way to change the size of the particle effect, or even create my own, the little RCS will be stuck with the huge-by-comparison effect. Not much I can do about that I'm afraid!

On the topic of VASIMR/MPDs, they are barely in the concept stage at the moment. I've got plans for a full overhaul of the Electric Engines pack to bring the artwork in line with Stockalike 0.7 quality, as well as a change in the aim of the pack in general. Many parts will be gone, and there will be new parts to play with. I do need some feedback on how people use the pack as it stand right now though to help me! Mainly on how often people use the different sizes and types of engines. Many people mention how useful the Resistojets are, and those are definitely staying. But the small radial engines and all sizes of Arcjets I'm not sure about. So tell me what you use the most, and what you think just clutters up the place.

Before that update comes out though, there will be a long-overdue addition of solar panels to Power Generation, as well as perhaps more things for Stockalike.