CobaltWolf

Yeah, the bolt heads could actually probably just be done with normals too. Not that you need to worry about polygons that much in KSP. You actually could maybe get away with a few more polygons on the black knob if you wanted to make it smoother. Also, check the yellow on your batteries if you're going for stockalike (I assume you are, looks like it!) - the one on the stock batteries is less orange I think. Best to just find a good patch of it on one of the bigger battery textures and sample the color. This is still looking awesome. I love how functional everything looks - not just identical faceplates with only a different symbol or anything. You might want to look into hand drawing additional grayscale height maps to turn into normals. No need to bake from high poly or anything, just make a duplicate sheet. For example, on the SAS module that dark gray plate's layer can just be copied and adjusted to be recessed slightly.

Hrmm... I could, but the new 2.5m and truss interstages need to go on the Atlas V texture sheet (there's a lot of room that would be wasted otherwise). I could redo the textures for the Centaur interstage on that texture sheet (which would mean the whole extra centaur texture sheet with the interstages could be gotten rid of) but it would mean that the Atlas V part set, with the single big 4K texture, would be required for Centaur I'll loop back to it... eventually! Been waiting for 'inspiration' on the missing parts. sorry

So... y'all are going to be so mad at me... but the LEM ladder issues have been about 80-90% fixed for months now. Like, I want to adjust them a bit still but you can easily EVA > climb down the ladder > hop to the ground > come back > grab the ladder > climb back up > board the ascent stage. I just keep forgetting to upload it to Github... I've been busier-than-normal with IRL stuff recently, so apologies for what feels like (to me) slow progress. That trend will likely continue for a bit longer... actually, in general, my free time won't really return to normal until June. Remember when we used to have monthly releases for this mod? But, small consolation, here's an early WIP of the Atlas V 5xx fairing base. How does the Centaur fit in you say? Well, its not pictured but the generally idea is that there is going to be a 'truss' version of the existing 1.875m Centaur Interstage, that fits down inside. The 'attachment plane' (where the Centaur interstages connect) is a bit below the flare of this fairing. By using this arrangement, the player gets two separate staging icons (meaning the fairings have time to get out of the way before you separate the Centaur) and the truss can be used separately for Titan-Centaur or any other conceivable stack where the Centaur is wrapped in a fairing. I am somewhat dismayed by how 'single use' some of these parts are lately, especially the Atlas V ones, but I'm sort of adopting a 'if you want cool IRL functions, you'll have to accept the occasional single-use part' attitude. How do people feel about that?

No need Everything I described is doable easily using stock tools. I try to avoid dependencies - just healthier. Do you have any really good pictures of the nosecone manufacturing? I am not sure how I'd go about making it invisible. The front and back UV shells aren't the same shape or something. If anyone actually knows, this is something about texturing that has alluded me. I know how to get around it on say a 3D painting program like Mari but I don't use those for making KSP mods. Atlas V 551 can throw 5,000 kg to Mars. An M02 can throw 9,000 kg. Hmmm, I haven't had a chance to check the experiments yet. If you can't figure it out, log an issue on the Github so we don't forget to look into it I don't have any intentions of releasing multiple versions of the textures. However, everyone, feel free to speak up. If people have feelings on it we could start a straw poll and see. I started doing it just because I thought it was amusing. If people really don't like it (I've had a couple people mention it to me in passing before) I'd be willing to stop putting it in and switch existing cyrillic back to english whenever I'm passing through those texture files. As for the 'why', I like having the writing be vaguely gibberish. When I started making BDB, Tantares already existed and that mod's flavortexts portrayed the parts as being made by slightly bumbling corporations, despite being Russian parts. When I started BDB I didn't have any clear plan for the mod past a couple of parts, but I always thought 'Design Bureau' was a cool name. As the focus crystalized on American parts, I started playing up the fact that this was a mirror of Tantares - American parts being made by Russian-style design bureaus. Like I said, it amuses me, especially since the words aren't even actually translated, just transliterated (meaning every third letter or so doesn't even exist in cyrillic and just uses a latin character .

Oh man that's awesome.

FASA is a dependency of 1.4.3, yes.

Yeah they felt a little crisp. It really comes down to the author's choice, though it's worth remembering that chasing fine detail also requires correspondingly high resolution texture sheets and performance is always (unfortunately!) something that must be kept in mind. The question, IMO, is 'how much time will the player spend zoomed in enough to read it?'. I imagine not more than a small fraction of the time these parts are being used - the VAB for instance simply won't zoom in that far, most probes are zoomed out to fit within the screen... If I understand right the face plates are 200 px across. How much time do you imagine players will spend with more than 1/5 their screen (Y axis) being taken up with the faceplate? Something of an inverse example, but I often let my larger rockets slip below 200 px/m to reduce the texture overhead, and because quite frankly the player will usually be zoomed fairly far out. I have to ask, and I feel comfortable saying I'm probably not the only one, but could/will the probe component of this represent a spiritual successor to Boxsat?

The standard that we've typically been using is 200px/m for most parts, I often jump to 300px/m for tiny stuff which I suppose is what you're using... It's a trade off to make at this point. You could increase the resolution, but run the risk of making things look noticeably out of place next to other parts with lower texel density. Personally I think they are perfectly legible at present.

Oh goodness I hope not! It's not even noon!

Yup! Actually, this is a good time to get some public feedback on my plan for how players will attach the SRBs. We had some internal discussions on the use of nodes, and I personally dislike the idea. Now, KSP surface attach, with snapping, work in increments of 15 degrees. If the player holds shift, it goes to a finer 5 degrees - this is sufficient for the two-side SRB mounts, which are offset +/- 20 degrees from cardinal (can't remember if that is X or Z - doesn't really matter since I can just rotate the models...). Also, remember that 'R' switches from radial symmetry to mirror symmetry, so you only need to place 3 boosters. The mounting brackets in the model of the Atlas V's version of the RD-180 help show where they attach. Now, that solves the 'where to put around the circumference' question, but what about the vertical? See the image below (view image in new tab to see full size) Note the 'bottom' booster, where, even with the SRB mount on the core stage, there is that little 'trapezoid' shape that comes out. That is meant to line up with the SRB mount on the RD-180 skirt. The SRB mounts already have a hole cut out in them. I propose just adding a cylindrical peg sticking out of the trapezoid block, and that will allow the user to confirm that the vertical alignment is correct. Sound good to everyone? We're definitely out of stockalike territory here (and I've honestly made my peace with 'having to break a few eggs' if it allows something cool), but I feel this compromise allows the boosters to be used elsewhere without issue (since they do not attach via nodes). I wish I could, but where else would I put the UV seam?

Does this work in 1.4.3?

I'm drooling!

Thanks guys! I was a bit worried when I sat down to work on it, since I wasn't sure what I wanted from it. I could kind of picture it, 'out of my peripheral vision', but couldn't see the direction clearly enough to know exactly what I had to do to achieve the look I wanted. I'm not 100% happy with it yet but it's pretty much there.

I've seen it once but that was before they added all the new space installations. I am seeing how doable a second trip this summer would be just to go there.

Naw, not enough time. We had one day to do it and that included a minimum of 8 hours travel time. Going to U-H would have added at least 3 more. Not to mention the window we'd have to do it in - they aren't open 24/7!

Yes, my intent is to revamp the textures used on the two extended length Centaur tanks to bring them in line with BDB's art style, and make them available in both white and orange.

first (this looks hekkin amazing)

KSP parts should be 24 sided

Been busy the last 48 hours or so, planning and then executing a dash down to DC for an afternoon. I took a lot of blurry pictures. But, here are pics of Thor-Delta, the LM, and Apollo (CobaltWolf for scale)

The issue is that a proper PBR workflow requires two separate specular components, while the blinnphongs that are currently used in KSP only have a texture map for one. More info here. Now, with that in mind, I have a love/hate relationship with TU, which more has to do with my own personal frustrations with my art. One the one hand, if I were to see my parts PBR'd, I'd want them to be perfect! But, I do not have time to create the new/improved maps to extract the most benefit from TU. Which leaves poor @Electrocutor struggling with the maps currently in the textures - and, as he noted before, the quality of the BDB parts varies widely, because it represents 2 1/2 years of shifting art styles and improving skills. As I said, this is more to do with me being an artist that looks on their projects and only sees the problems that I wish I had time to solve - if users desire to have TU configs for BDB, I absolutely want them to have access. @Electrocutor I thought you had made at least a boilerplate config set for BDB? I know that @HooHungLow has also been experimenting with TU configs. If you feel that it is best to have them be kept with BDB, then I am certainly interested in hosting them on my Github as I do with many other compatibility patches. That has the added benefit of other contributors being able to build on the work without your input. Does TU accept proper PBR maps? I know that some parts - thinking in particular of the Apollo since that is the 'flagship' of the mod, and also would benefit most substantially from TU due to its material - could stand to have true PBR maps made for them. Again, particularly the Apollo because it has reflective metal and windows in a single mesh, so controlling the different materials needs to be done through texture (the hatch window is only textured so I can't just separate the mesh)

Careful though... Mark Wade is very much a 'the grass is greener' type writer. Remember the North American design wound up being much heavier and more complicated than was originally proposed. The problem with 'What Ifs', especially in aerospace, is the legacy they leave consists entirely of marketing documents trying to sell the idea in the first place.

idk wandering around

(it's not)

god now I can't unsee it