CobaltWolf

Again, shoutouts to @JoseEduardo for that amazing LPT!

That's a lot of Blender modeling.

Got frustrated trying to work on part of the Skylab texture, decided to throw it in game. I'm committed to making sure it is finished some time in the near future - of course, ATM still needs to finish being modeled... What does everyone think? There's still some rough parts of the texture. Anyone wanna take a whack at identifying what still needs work?

Very cool, but I think the idea of redocking multiple times during the burn is not... viable. Similar proposals either would just keep the tankage the whole burn (and thus require that the lander be stacked underneath the orbiter) or entire stages burned serially (such as the real life S-IVC proposal)

Ho honestly as a mod author I prefer seeing that sort of due diligence and responsibility rather than some vague demand for help after it all crashes down.

Sorry I haven't been participating much, today is more busy/stressful than usual! The parts are balanced against the stock parts - engines have comparable thrusts, weights, ISPs. Tanks use the same dry mass and fuel amount ratios for a given tank volume, etc. The problem is that, as an easy way to think about it, the rockets are at 2/3 scale while the solar system is at 1/3 (not exactly but...). So rather than nerf the rockets to the system (making them very underpowered compared to stock parts and other mods) we keep them consistent with everything else, and let the user balance as they see fit. I think a lot of people prefer how OP the lifters are, I personally don't but the issue is somewhat outside of our pay grade. Small correction - the LES attaches directly to the docking module, the node is up inside the protective cover. There is no secret node. @lovec1990 make sure you're not staging the parachute mount decoupler, that's for jettisoning the docking module.

Those are looking good, I'd just go more intense on the white highlights and underlying dark layers - make it a touch more cartoony (or, the word I like, iconized) and stylized. I generate my bump maps and specular maps by making new documents, and duplicating the layers over to them. That way I can work in a full layer system. Then it's as easy as Ctrl+Shift+C to copy the entire image (thanks to @JoseEduardo for teaching me that! ) and then go into the alpha channel of your diffuse texture, Ctrl+Shift+V to paste it in. I tend to like doubling the contrast on my grunge in my alpha, especially for shiny metal pieces.

@Beale I personally would still like a periscope and the little cupola that @curtquarquesso made way back. And I believe you're still missing some antennas.

Well, I was hoping to have the first WIP part for the new release up tonight, but I wound up spending 12 hours in a color correction suite today and my eyes/head are killing me from looking at a dark screen all day. But here you can see it, modeling and UV unwrapping courtesy of @IronCretin, for whom I see a bright future in modding. I know it's not exactly going to be the most useful part, but it only will take maybe an hour total to texture using space leftover on the Explorer 1's texture sheet, and it is SUPER CUTE.

Another great mod @Well! This is really awesome!

Fixed! Thanks for the heads up.

All my 1.2.2 peoples! Rejoice! The last release for 1.2.2 is up, leaving the 1.3 release in @Jso's capable hands. Unfortunately, I messed up! And accidentally marked it as being for 1.3 on Spacedock... sooooo.... yeah. If anyone has an issue with that, I'm not helping. The proper 1.3 release should be very soon... https://github.com/CobaltWolf/Bluedog-Design-Bureau/releases/tag/v1.1.5

Oh, yeah go for it!

Wait what?

I updated DMagicScienceAnimate yesterday because we were preparing for 1.3 release. I didn't realize that Jso wanted to do one last 1.2 release. On another note, I posted something of a tutorial for how I texture my panels.

Alright, a month or two ago I made this sort of guide to texturing a basic panel in Photoshop and shared it with a couple people. If I'm honest, I didn't share it here out of laziness but I figure I really should. This is more or less copied directly from those chat messages, so if something is unclear let me know and I'll edit more info in. ok so here's a basic panel, with dark lines (I paint them black then adjust them up with an adjustment layer). After that, create another layer and take a 2px white brush (1px if you're working at a lower texel density - no shame in it if you can get away with it!), and just loosely follow the panel lines to create a bunch of white scratches along the panel edges. Doing this by hand makes them seem 'real' since they're going to be a bit random. Generally speaking, for all these detail layers you're doing, you want to change the blend mode. For push (darken) layers, use multiply blend mode. For pull/lightening layers, use screen if you're weak and frail, Linear Dodge (Add) if you have hair on your chest. now I've added some scratches with an even smaller brush, on another layer but they're sort of hard to see, right? putting a very slight, soft layer of dark under it brings them out a little you could brighten the middle slightly (this is a little too much) just kinda keep adding little stuff... as a rule of thumb, keep each 'thought' on a separate layer. It's real helpful to just slap Ctrl+Shift+N as soon as you finish painting an effect, and just hit enter to start a new layer an keep going with another layer of detail. Just make sure you name them all eventually, and keep them organized! can add a layer mask to the edge smudges, and then scratch away at that too. When you can, try and work 'non destructively'. If you use a mask instead of erasing, then you can just paint on the mask to control how much of the layer is visible and where, without actually getting rid of the layer. Think of it as an eraser tool whose effect can be toggled on and off as you work. Drop in some grunge maps real subtle if you'd like (these are at 2% opacity, multiply). I tend to blur these slightly, otherwise they clash a bit with the otherwise hand painted look. (You can see at this point I was getting lazy with my naming. adjusted the opacities a little... Ta da! A finished panel. Now, this isn't perfect - I probably would add some more really soft dark layers around the edges, and maybe a slightly harsher one in a couple spots underneath the bright edge wear. But you should be able to get a general idea of how this works.

*!nice'd'st

Oh dear - those are two of the things that need our plugin to function correctly. That might require more testing then! My and @Jso are trying to put out a release this weekend, I just converted all the textures back to DDS this morning and then I will have to do some more cleanup of the files to get rid of misc stuff floating around the Github. He has to wait until tonight (my timezone! ) to take another look at the plugin and ensure it's working. And you have to blame him and @Kurld for the awesome LES; I just threw together the textures.

Whoa! Decent amount of stuff done tonight: New Titan radial decoupler, the mini radial decoupler, and the new (aka slightly different model...) J-2-SL were added! And the new Titan textures were uploaded!

Oh dear, ok. So me and Jso talked, we think it might be that you still have a 1.2.2 plugin kicking around. Can you confirm whether or not that's the case? And thank you for providing those - a lot of people that ask for help don't. In any case, I'm doing a dev stream tonight! Swing by, seems like there'll be a good crowd for the 'Rocket Nerd Talk Show while Cobalt paints in Photoshop'. https://www.twitch.tv/cobaltwolfy

Hrmmm... yeah, can you upload the file to Dropbox or something, along with a screenshot of your gamedata folder?

Can you post your KSP.log?

!nice