Daemoria

Right, thanks for the advice everyone. I managed to shave off the tris a bit. It now sits at 5688 triangles, with minimal changes to silhouette. Also...progress! Hot off the manufacturing macro-lathes from our contractors at Green Skull Inc.

The grill is going to stay, that's my main holding point. Without the mesh detail you wouldn't have the level of lighting detail like in the render. It can still be optimized further tho. I'll try to shave off a couple thousand tris somehow, the areas mentioned are good starting points, I should've handled that before I uploaded the file... I guess lack of sleep is affecting my ability to optimize meshes. I keep forgetting how much detail I can add in normal maps. Now if there were only a LOD (Level of Detail) system in KSP, all of this argument would be pointless. le'sigh. ÈÂÆ«ÈÂ

I cast resurrection! Arise from the bottom of the forums where you slumber in electric dreams. I suppose creating a mod is my personal method of fan art.

testestestest. is this thing on? Wow, that's a pain to get embedded. Does anyone know a good target triangle count for parts like this? I'm sitting at approximately 7600 tris. Is that too much for a 2.5 meter engine part? Edit; just an example of adding more rocket. Click me. Because more thrust is always better.

http://www.blendernation.com/2007/04/16/maya-3ds-max-layout-with-icons/ or http://www.daniel3d.com/pepeland/misc/3dstuff/blender/maxmayainterface/maxmayainterface.htm For max/Maya-alike configurations. Although I heartily recommend customizing your software to do what you want it to. There is a good run thru of the process on this page My c4d doesn't resemble the default basic ui at all, and i love it like that. Half of the fight against these programs is against the terrible UI decisions the programmers made. Edit: and if you are not a fan of the default color scheme, try this repository. I hope it'll work for the version you're using, it's a bit old.

Aaaawwww, those tiny tracks are so cute. <3 In a serious note, I am looking forward to this revival. Have you considered making a track that has dual functionality, if the entire vehicle flips over? http://www.j-man.nl/images/models/large_battlebot.jpg Yes, I did just link an image of a battle-bot.

Because I assume that was the first place he looked for tutorials on how to use blender. Instead I present the alternate as ways to learn the workflow for real-time modeling, and there is no better place than Polycount for that. Industry professionals regularly post their workflows for their projects, which would be perfect for someone transitioning from drafting software to an entire new way of modeling.

Such is the cost of 'pro' tools. You pay for what you use to make money, seems reasonable to me. -- Blender has spline tools that allow similar functionality to drafting programs such as CAD, but you are not going to have the entire workflow transfer over. For one thing, the parametric modeling where you can adjust bevels across the entire surface at any point in the modeling history just doesn't exist. Instead of looking at Blender for what it isn't (A drafting tool), look at the features it offers. Namely, polygon based and subdivision modeling. This is the technique used for real-time development applications like games. If you truly wish to learn this method of modeling, there are lots of resources available, but I'll link you some of the best ones. http://wiki.polycount.com/SubdivisionSurfaceModeling http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryTopology http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryPropsModeling?highlight=%28\bCategoryProps\b%29 There are several techniques commonly used to maintain a certain degree of control over your surfaces, but they are mostly based on utilizing your parametric tools for extrusions and bevels and keeping the values a certain factor. I use powers of 2 for my grid sizes, in order to create a surface to snap to, although that is a hold-over from using the Unreal engine, it is still a good base to use.

CptRichardson, do you suggest I deliberately put invisible poisonous explosive gas on my rockets? I like the cut of your jib matey. As to all the other points you bring up, yea the radial modules would be perfect for breaking up the shape language even more. If you go a few pages back or look at the concept gallery, you'll find an image for 'carapace modules'. The plan is there for the radial mounts, but it still needs some thinking on. Specifically to cut down the permutations of pieces down to something reasonable so as to not fill the VAB parts list. Yea, I thought about IVA, and it made my head hurt. The IVA is a whole new can of worms, for the amount of effort versus the return (most players don't ever go into IVA in my understanding) I don't think I should focus too much effort on it on this first release pass. But since you posed the question, I figured I'd have a try and see what the t1 pod ( the glowing heatfin/soyuz wannabe) would look like on the inside.

Ack, sorry about that Green Skull. I keep picturing your name and your logo, and the black being primary color... At least you're not in the same situation as Lack, he's stuck in the mothership as its about to be eaten by the Kraken.

AntiMatter001/LostElement/all others, soon. At the very least, it'll be out before Half Life 2 Episode 3 releases. I'm working with everyone to ensure a quality release. The people who volunteered earlier will get first crack at breaking the beta/their graphics cards. Pictured here are some of my team. The very latest in fashion from Black Skull, and the Space Kraken providing on-site 'tech support'. :] Yay for random doodles.

Itsdavyjones, Hey, it's alright. You're rocking the Cthulhu mustache, no one will notice missing jaw sections. I'm currently working on the low poly mesh for this rocket, and blocking in the geometry for the Tug. Thank you all who responded for our request for help. As of now SRI will be contracting work with Lack Luster Labs and Green Skull Inc. I hope this can be the start of a very profitable relationship, with quality rockets delivered to consumers in a timely and safe fashion.

How2FoldSoup: Yea, I plan on developing spaceplanes. They are a bit more difficult to make a universal system of shapes for. The lifting body is kinda difficult to split down into modular parts that can be shared by multiple constructions. Greenskull, I like it! skykooler, Don't fight it, you know you love it. cziken20, Nah man, I'm A'murikan. I just love vodka and the soviet space program. And now for the art. Final component for the first rocket, the second stage motor. Anyone want to offer their skills for importing this mess into unity? :C I added a pair of Imagur galleries to the first post, they will be updated as I post images in this thread. I figured I've reached a point where it's a pain to search through the entire thread for images.

Tekto looks really cool for exploration, that north pole has some very nice hill forms! As a side note, do you know if it's possible to add additional meshes to the ground scatter formula?

Green Skull, awesome work. Can you PM me the texture files when you're done with them? Electronicfox, sorry I didn't realize. Your title should've given it away now that i look at it. I will most definitely contact you when I get to that part of development. Seshins, the parts' functionality would be broken If they were to be welded together. Their fold animations + internal docking ports ( 3 of them) would not play nicely with that weld system. The parts themselves are fairly long, 7m to be exact. Just 2 of them stacked length wise should be fine for even sticking small ( or large) vessels inside. Because of their recursive stacking, if you stack the 3 edge to edge like in my example, you will have a massive internal space to mess around with. Not sure what exactly you're trying to transport that will require even larger pieces. weekend means vodka fueled spaceship development. i mean, wot...drinking is bad kids, don't do it... I shall return with shiny pictures as soon as i can.

Would you mind sharing your method to achieving this?

electronicfox, yea I've been watching the progress on that mod. It looks like they are doing a crawler platform base plate set as well. When I get to my crawler, I'll see what I can borrow from that it. As the first rocket nears completion, I'm starting to do some more detailed sketches for the other half of the release. That being the unmanned Tug hinted at in the smaller doodle I posted a little while ago. Proportions have been scaled to fit into a more modular system. The UCA (universal container assembly) is designed to fit 3.75 meter components, those being the most common interplanetary ship /exo-planet base building size. The UCA type 2 is designed to fold into a much smaller surface area, enabling the Tug to launch empty, ditch the launch vehicle fairings and expand the bays while in orbit. The Tug is designed to ferry the cargo launched from SSTOs to either Munar locations, or to provide extended cargo maneuvering to stations and/or larger vessels. Not pictured is the arm needed to facilitate actual module transfer between the UCA of the tug, and that of the target. I might have to look into the Robotics mod that's floating around, and see what needs remodeling to fit in my style.

So, essentially a kerbal re-entry coffin?

Hey Green Skull, sent you a PM.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/71661-0-23-PLUGIN-RoverScience-ALPHA-3-Open-for-Playtesting! and http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/64972-DMagic-Orbital-Science-New-Science-Parts-V0-7-1-%283-12-14%29 both have what you might be looking for.

I'm working on a mod currently. Some of the parts are going to be quite futuristic. It's still in development, with no downloads yet, but you can check out the Dev thread to see what I'm working on. Link is my signature Image.

I'll put you all down for alpha testing. Right now I'm working with Kraken to get a rough config setup for the SRB and the associated rocket. Development is likely going to be slow during the week, and pickup towards the weekend. the plan still remains for 2 rockets to be in the first release, so it might take a while before I can get anything to you testers.

For colors of the patch, I think something along these lines would work nicely. http://colorschemedesigner.com/#3p61Ew0w0w0w0 A triangle shape would work best, with the circular element and the two radiating lines coming from the top and bottom. Also, hurrah for spacebacon!

A bit of thread-necromancy going on in here. I was wondering why the space-plane hanger looked so strange...

Can I request a custom suit /patch texture? for the patch it would be up to you, but I'd like some sort of combination of and As for the suit, i've noticed you've not made a blue colored theme. If i'm throwing out too much, just tell me to go soak my head in a river or something.