stubbles

Yeah, I've been using nDo2 for my normals, which is a plugin for Photoshop. Then I'll generate cavity maps using either nDo2 or Knald, then bake out a low poly AO from xNormal. All of those get overlayed on top of the base texture to create the shadow effect on the mesh.

How indepth are you going into the config stuff? I'm interested in that part Lots of changes since I started my mod last August and I'm just coming back to it after being gone for like 6 months.

Haha, it's not so dense, vert-wise. The textures are pretty small for the most part. As mentioned, the RD-58M uses just a single texture, so it's just one draw call for the engine to make (much cheaper). I'll probably also be releasing the parts with 512x512 textures instead of 1024x1024, so no worries for really low end systems Here's a downsized view of the texture sheet. In hindsight, I should have done the gold foil differently. 8( Live and learn!

If you choose the shader KSP > Bumped Specular, you can put a spec map into the alpha channel of the diffuse and it works just fine Really amazing project overall man, great work.

Just a single 1024 for both diff/norm, but will likely get knocked down to 512x512 for packaging.

Thanks, Darth! Got another update for ya'll RD-58M (BlockDM Engine)

Looking at the example in part tools, it seems like your internal is fine. Have you checked the position/orientation of the "internal" and "parttools_GameObject" parent nodes? If those are not centered out in pos/rot, you could have issues. Otherwise I'm not sure, it looks correct.

Good point! I'll make sure I get that in the next update after this. Thanks! Small update:

Starting to work a bit on the normal maps and textures for the RD-58M in the blockDM section.

Yeah, probably a continuation of Russian space tech. The Vostok-1 capsule will likely be next. I don't know any programming, I'm just an artist, so I can't do any real fancy mod type stuff.

Spoiler tags no longer seem to work? Was nice to compact image posts. Oh well. I managed to finish up the Stage2 Decoupler texture.

nDo2 is totally worth the money. It does way more than Crazybump, or the Photoshop conversion filter. It's an indispensable tool, I've been using it for years. As far as low poly modeling, it's really just just that - use less triangles. Most of the detail you have there for instance, could be in a normal map. You could even use the geometry you have right there as the high poly, to bake out the normal map and ambient occlusion. The nozzels should be like 12-18 sides at most really, with a few horizontal slices on the way up, to model the bell curve. Basically, use a little geometry as possible, to get the shape you want. Any small details can usually be added in via a normal map. Here's an example of low poly engines: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2355669/horizon19.jpg *EDIT* Nova is right on the money there.

Those nozzles are absolutely sublime! I'd have to say they are a bit poly heavy though. What's the tri/vert count on those suckers? I'm guessing at least 50-60k for all of them? They look like turbosmoothed objects. Although it's drop dead sexy, it's going to run like a dog in the game

Too kind! Finished up the ASAS: And the textures, for those interested: I authored them at 256x256, but I'll probably package it at 128x128

@Kommitz - thanks man I checked our your nuclear rocket dev thread and gotta say that's some sweet stuff as well. I decided to redo some of the old modules like the ASAS and stage 1/2 decouplers, since they were sharing textures with the larger fairing texture. Since textures are exported per model, it was exporting a huge texture for a tiny mesh, even though it was only using a small part of the texture Here's the redone normals/AO for the ASAS module and the normal texture itself, in case anyone wanted to see it:

Awesome, thanks so much for the link, Cerverus! I made some tweaks and additions to the BlockDM engine component and Primary stage one engine (RD-171):

Just looked it up..it's rad! Visually, it's extremely intricate and looks like it would be a blast to create. I think there are similar rockets out there, so I probably won't make the Soyuz rocket, but I'll definitely make the Vostok module & interior. Thanks for the suggestion!

Thanks for the kind words, all; glad to see there's still interest in the project. I redid some details on the second stage motor. Tweaking a lot of the art right now, getting ready to texture some other components as well. Still don't have all of the parts operating correctly in game, with all the changes in the system it's been hard going. Soon @killer420 haha yeah, I'm just an env artist on the project though.

A lot has happened since I left off, heh. My Boston contract was at Irrational Games, where I did some work on Bioshock Infinite. After returning home to Timegate Studios in Texas, we had issues with Aliens Colonial Marines and I was part of a layoff in December. In February, I got a job back at Turn10, working on Forza 5. Haven't had a ton of spare time as a result, but I have managed to complete the stage 3 engine cover and an extended payload fairing for the default station module. Seems there have been some great mods out there like the dynamic fairings mod, which kinda renders mine moot, but I'll be releasing it anyways. Working long hours at the office right now and having issues with all of the new KSP changes for part scripting, but I'll try to get this done soon. Thanks all.

Hey all, I've been out of the addon biz since November, but I've recently come back to finish up my first release. I've run into a bunch of issues with parts not working, due to a great many changes in the game. Trying to find out what has changed and what needs to be done has become increasingly frustrating. The wiki is horribly out of date, with a lot of sections as old as early 2012. Every time I try to search for topics, I get led (via a terrible forum search) to a 40+ page thread, in which ONE of those pages has what I searched for. Alternatively, I get told to "look at other configs" to see how things work. Again, this is a pretty bad solution. Looking at a config tells me nothing of specifics or how/why it works. I'd be relegated to copying/pasting and then testing over and over again to see what does what. It's a HUGE time waste for someone with limited free time. Things I'm personally finding little info on are part types (why are some fairings listed as module "DecouplerGUI", "Decoupler" and others just "Part", for example), or what the heck part modules are that are nestled in the MODULE{} parts of configs. All I know is, my addons worked prior to December and now they're kaput. I've slowly been getting them working again, but it's taking way longer than it should and there are sooo many new problems that I can't find information on. I don't mean to sound bitchy, I'm just frustrated. I've spent several weeks trying to get my stuff working again and it's in nowhere near proper working order. If anybody has the time, please, update the wiki documentation. I'm going crazy over here. :sticktongue: Thanks!

Just a heads up that this project is on hold for juuust a few weeks (about 5 more ). I'm currently on a contract job in Boston (I live in Texas), and I'm working a lot of overtime right now. I won't have much spare time to do anything on this. When I get back though, I'll be cranking out the rest of the textures and getting this out to the public

Absolutely not! Definitely some things to point out. First, I'm not going for photo-real on this project, more more of a middle ground stylized realism. Secondly, there's a lot of wasted texture space there. That's not good. The game still loads the entire texture, so texture space that isn't used is just being wasted. Initially I had some more mesh details on the model so that could have used the space, but I decided to show it with the normal map instead. Normally in game dev, this entire rocket would be textured on a single texture sheet, like a 2048x2048 or 4096x4096. KSP doesn't work like that though. If I unwrapped all of the pieces to a single texture and saved that out for each part, every model piece would be loading a new instance of that texture, which is a huuuuuuuge memory drain. I really should add some mesh elements to the SAS module though, and fill in some of that texture space. About 1/5th of it is not being used Thirdly, I'm sure you're thinking the wireframe looks wonky on the inner edge of the module. That's true. The reason for that is that I needed the extra edge loops around the main circumference of the mesh in order to smooth the silhouette, but that inner area didn't need as many edges since the silhouette isn't as visible. So to save about 100 triangles, those inner edges were merged. Hope that helps! Thanks Pwner! Glad you're liking it so far.

Heya Nutt, since this is all pretty simple stuff, I haven't been doing any highres modeling. I didn't see the point in it. I've been using a program called NDo2: http://www.quixel.se/ It's linked to Photoshop, so you paint full 3d normals within Photoshop. There are some things it can't do that you need a high res mesh for, but for most of what people do in KSP, it's more than enough

Thanks! Had a little bit of time, got the SAS module textured.

Here's the normals for the SAS module.