noonespecial

And... the requisite high quality render

The standard SRB and the ATK Black Knight SRB

Finished redoing the SRB. I'm much happier with this one that my previous one. Now, to make the ATK Black Knight SRB.

So... decisions decisions decisions. I'm reading the DevNotes and it looks like the Unity 5 upgrade for KSP is coming along nicely. Bug Fix/Balance is being worked on for 1.0.3 in paralelle, but it looks like release 1.1 is not to far away. I can't say how excited this makes me. The Unity 5 PBR shader is VASTLY superior to the shaders in Unity 4 (and KSP) and will actually enable me to produce models that look closer to the renders I love to make. Currently, this SLS is for the most part finished. The meshes are 100%. I'm working on textures and normals currently (more on normals, the textures are easy). After texturing, pumping them through Unity for the full preview release (aka I have balanced anything release) will be rather quick. The question is... I don't want to create all these textures for a Unity 4 shader, only to have to recreate proper PBR textures when KSP 1.1 drops? Or do I just want to wait for KSP 1.1? Decisions decisions decisions. Le Sigh.

Okay okay okay! I give up. The peer pressure is too much. I concede, I concede. Isn't she beautiful?

Don't misunderstand. I don't have anything against discussion. However, this particular topic has been beaten to death on pretty much every forum on the internet that is even remotely related to SLS. I simply have no desire to further beat an already well beaten dead horse. This particular topic has been repeatedly discussed ad nauseum on every space related forum on the net. So don't mistake that with "discussion isn't welcome".

Like I said, and this should be the end of this particular discussion, I will not engage in, nor adhere to, speculation. All official material, official websites and press releases, show the SLS as painted black and white. Yes, it is possible that in the future, they will not paint the tank. One could argue, that the painted version is simply for it to look attractive for press releases. Irrelevant. Opinion of which one looks better is irrelevant. I will be creating the mod using the most up to date official material. I will not deviate from official material for reasons that are purely speculative. If you disagree, you can make a custom texture once I release the mod and release it as your own mod. That's all.

I'm pretty sure that the model was created in Zbrush, which would also explain it's ridiculous size (and dirty topology). I can't disagree more. There are no current official sources to suggest it will be orange. The only places I've seen orange tanks are from early artist concept pictures from unofficial sources (nasaspaceflight.com for example). There have been forums upon forums and threads upon threads and threads in forums and so on discussing this. Some speculate that the tank will be left unpainted (like the shuttle ET) for weight purposes. Some speculate that the tank will be painted black and white (like the Ares) for roll control and better thermal management. However, I'm not in the department of adhering to speculations. There is but one answer to the will it be orange or white question, and that is.... wait for the launch in 2018. I personally don't want to wait until 2018 to release this mod, so I will be adhering to the most up to date official source material, which all display the SLS as painted black and white. If, in three years, the SLS launches with an orange tank. Then I'll change the texture

If anyone is interested.... There is a MASSIVE model of the SLS Block1 on the NASA website. What I mean by massive, is that it's over 5 million triangles. Good luck opening it. Even my i7 4770k / 32G DDR3 computer chokes when trying to open it. My god. http://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/sls-block1-obj Here's a render of that SLS super mesh. I'm going to love combing over every detail of this thing looking for details to add to mine.

THAT looks a great deal like this model I have right here. Closer examination also looks like your UV map matches the model's topology exactly. Model Source is NASA 3D Model Repository. Here

Service Module(s) Original from concept art + ESA Model from 2014 (the default option when downloaded) SLS Orion Service Module by noonespecial on Sketchfab

RL-10 base model finished. Textured + Emissive RL10 Engine by noonespecial on Sketchfab

This has been, by far, the most difficult model I've ever made. The UV unwrapping, while fun, was hellish. I don't think I'll make an engine this detailed again. Haha.

From left to right... 12,508... 6,727... 3,154... 15,652... 26,803 Far right (26k) is the original model. Pink one (15k) is one I manually retop'd. The others were decimated in MeshLab from the original model.

An interesting study in poly count and visual appearance. These models range from 26k to 3k triangles.

I actually haven't touched this recently. I've been working on (in order of priority): Chaka Monkey, SLS, and something from the Launchers Pack. I expect to be finished with SLS this within the next few weeks, at which time this will take priority. FYI: This will be in the JAXA release

That is hot.

That definately seems to be the problem. I had it setup as a command module for testing purposes, but when I removed that, the issue resolved itself. Thanks!

I didn't notice anything unusual in the debug log. And, unfortunately, setting the thrustProdiverModuleIndex to 1 (it was originally 0) had no affect. I think I'll just disable the ModuleSurfaceFX for the time being until I can figure out the problem. Thanks

Interesting problem with a new model. Here is a screencap of the model on the launch pad before the engine is turned on. Here is a screencap of the model after take off and landing. Engines are throttled all the way down. The engines continually generate dust as if they are active, regardless if they are active or even on. Any ideas?

Sweet! Can you release more SLS and Orion parts soon though? See quote - - - Updated - - - You guessed it!

A little teaser about something coming in the near future, after SLS (which, I'm happy to announce, should be later this month)

Another render. The stage 1 engine cluster for SLS (Kerbal not to scale)