Stevincent

yeah its only 1 foot difference. But if its going to be a true scale (.64) model in the KSP game world itd have to be 5.37M core stage. It seems like everyone is pretty torn, but I will not be making the core 3m.

Good point, lol

Sounds good to me.

Agreed. They only reason I am considering something other than the 5.37m scaled core is compatibility with other mods.

Yeah I think ill be doing that. And over the top NEVER! lol Im still considering my options I think its the artist in me that demands the higher poly of the low poly, lol. true. true. thats what she said =P

Haha thanks I'm working on converting things to low poly right now, and Ill be posting that info, I want to get the core stage in unity and hopefully KSP this week. Texturing will probably start once all the low poly versions are complete. I was thinking 3.75 and 5M but I am open to suggestions. So I finished the low poly "re-conversion" of the RS-25 if you dont recall this is what I had before. (HIGH POLY ON THE LEFT) and here is the normal map applied to it I think the poly count on that low poly is somewhere around 200 polys Well I talked to bobcat about his american pack and the poly count on his engines and his RS-25 and J-2X he said had about 2500+ polygons. Here is his model I made my target for my low poly of the RS-25 the same and managed to get about 2100 polys down from 7700 of the high poly. So what do you guys think should I go the higher poly route or stick to the 200 poly model and rely heavily on Normal Maps? Here is the new low poly model

I was having issues finding references showing them facing the other way, and I assumed that they were not designed to fight an active SRB but to redirect it away from the space craft. The only time I saw them facing towards the core stage was when a spacecraft or cargo was mounted ontop of an SRB. Now Im more than willing to fix this but just wasnt sure if it was right or not, because most of my references had the facing the way I modeled them. But yes, I was thinking of making them their own part, and along with the nosecone. and here is one going the other way when the payload is ontop.

Didnt get too much time to work on much with midterms this week. But I was able to complete an animation for my 3D camera techniques class that show cases my models. So just a teaser for those who like to be titillated lol. Enjoy. I should have time this week to start getting some work done on getting things in Unity.

I will be working on a payload delivery next week. I will also building the quad RL-10 and Dual J-2X interim cryo stages to assist in your extreme payload needs, so dont worry we will put the whole world in space.

Yeah I think they said they had 15 RS-25's left over from the Space Shuttle program. And thanks for the compliment! Sounds like Ill have to work on the F-1 too, its such a beautiful piece of engineering artwork that beast.

Yeah I am not sure which route Ill be going, it will most likely be an open beta so I can get as much input as possible. Yeah I discovered BobCats American Pack after the fact, and was actually a bit discouraged and almost scrapped the entire project. The quality of his work is just awesome. His J-2X Model is awesome, just take a look at it, even his updated SRB model is amazing. With that said I think the ESA variant is enough to separate it from BobCat, and the texture continuity should be very pleasing to the eye. The ESA and the Cryo Stage Im modeling should look super duper sexy when its all textured and done.

Yeah, I do like the circular panels too, Ill get it done eventually lol. And when I get to that point of testing ill drop you a line.

Ok reworked it for the ESA, let me know what you think.

Looks sexy.

you may need to freeze transforms, in max i believe its xform modifier. Try that and export.

I got asked how I created pipes for my SLS models that Im working on for an upcoming mod so I wrote this quick tutorial describing my methods. First off the tips Im going to give you are related to what I know which is Maya though the concepts should work in other applications. So they're two ways I made the pipes. The method I liked most is the simple extrusion method. Id take a pipe extrude it. Where I would want to put a bend in the pipe Id put 4 edge loops, so I'd have 5 including the edge loop on the end of the pipe. Id grab the last 4, thats including the one on the end, and Id rotate it just about 10 degrees and adjust position, then Id deselect one edge and rotate the 3 remaining and adjust position, and deselect another and rotate the 2 remaining and adjust position, and the final one should be end in the direction I want to pipe to go and then I'd extrude again and repeat the steps till I was done with the pipe. The second method is using curves. I dont know how to do this in other programs but if they deal in nurb surfaces this should be possible in those applications. Essentially what I do is draw a CV curve in an orthographic view to the shape I want the pipe. Once I have that, I create a circle curve and scale it to the diameter I want the pipe. Next select the circle and than the curve. And go to your surfaces menu set and and got to Surfaces>Extrude Options Box and setup the settings like the ones I have and hit extrude. Now you can adjust how many divisions in the pipe after you have extruded you can even adjust the shape of your pipe by manipilating the the control vertexes on the curve. Imn the channel box you can adjust the settings under the inputs Nurbs Tesselate you want to adjust the U and V numbers to change the division ammounts till you get the pipe profile you want, dont make it too high more polys isnt always the best. U Number V Number Once you get the pipe the way you want you can delete history and the curve will no longer be attached to the geometry.

Both will probably make into the mod, but the ESA will be priority when it comes to texturing and what not.

Yeah, I will be converting what I have to the ESA SM its not too much work. Thanks for pointing it out guys its easier to deal with changes at this stage.

You know whats funny I originally was using the ESA as my reference and it still has a couple elements, but its some minor changes, and shoulnt take too long to correct I may even have the layer that has that geometry still on it... lol. Id just have to move around some of the nozzles and make those solar panels which will make my life easier. The other solar panels were a tight fit. Thanks for the compliments and the link, I appreciate it. Oh and the cryo stage was a lot of fun to make and hopefully it will look even better when I texture it. you can see the ESA reference in this render lol, should have stuck to it. Oh well it shouldnt take long

Ok finished the High poly version of the ORION. Im going to try and get everything UV'd and ready for bringing into Unity, I want to test some of this stuff out. But once again if anyone has any good resources for unity please shoot me a link. Thanks

I dont think a great deal of gimbling isnt necesarry and on the space shuttle only the engine nozzle is visible the engine elements are on the interior of the craft. As for your question I am not sure. Also this is a damn impressive model, love the texture job, look forward to seeing it in game!

Ok just finished the Cryogenic stage high poly version and I'm fairly satisfied I think this is my favorite part that I have built, I think its because those support struts look so freaking sexy. So now onto the Orion portion now. I will try to get those finished tomorrow. I have midterms next week so Im not sure how much progress Ill be making next week, but once I have the low poly versions of everything hammered out I am going to try and to get them into Unity. I've never used Unity before so if anyone knows any good resources that would be greatly appreciated. Im going to be doing some tutorials this weekend if I have the time.

here are couple from you tube that I've used. The first one you may need NDO2 but its a good walk through of the process This video is very useful for texturing. Its a two parter. And I am glad I could inspire you!

I just started in max and Im enjoying the UV unrap tool in there, much better than what Maya has to offer, but Ill check out the textools script.

Nice UV's what do you use for UVing?