[Released] Free IVA Alpha v0.2.1 [1.12.x] (2022-11-24)

[JPLRepo]

Thanks for the heads up. I'll have to check out what's getting confused there.

You are positioning a cylinder inside the internal I assume to do your rendering trick through hatches etc...

RPM makes the internal visible from the outside... so the cylinder becomes visible.

You probably can fix this by not rendering your cylinder if the camera is in flight mode.

EDIT: Actually your cylinder is also clearly visible in internal mode as well.. would have to look more at what your code is doing to understand what is going on but clearly not currently compatible with RPM

- - - Updated - - -

Unless I'm mistaken, would this be similar to the JSITransparentPod feature from JSI RPM?

Yes it is. I would recommend looking at using RPM transparent pod feature to rotate your internals to match the external and incorporate that into this mod.

Edited September 1, 2015 by JPLRepo

[rbray89]

Yes it is. I would recommend looking at using RPM transparent pod feature to rotate your internals to match the external and incorporate that into this mod.

I guess like all good ideas, someone else had it first

[pizzaoverhead]

You are positioning a cylinder inside the internal I assume to do your rendering trick through hatches etc...

RPM makes the internal visible from the outside... so the cylinder becomes visible.

You probably can fix this by not rendering your cylinder if the camera is in flight mode.

That setup is hard-coded for the technical demonstration, so I expect it to show up all sorts of places uninvited. There's plenty of configuration and cleanup still to be done at this point, but testing with RPM will be on the list.

[Shurikeeen]

Could a interior like this be done with this mod?

http://esamultimedia.esa.int/multimedia/virtual-tour-iss/

[pizzaoverhead]

Could a interior like this be done with this mod?

http://esamultimedia.esa.int/multimedia/virtual-tour-iss/

Wide open spaces that you're free to roam about in? That's the plan! Check out cxg2827's post on the first page for some appropriate parts to use with it! The minimap of your link would be useful too, something similar to Vessel Viewer.

[nikokespprfan]

i just noticed that with this "mod" the Rockomax HUBmax multi-point connector should have a IVA as well.

[Capt Snuggler]

You are the greatest human alive for doing this!

Pay attention Squad, this is how IVAs should be done!

[GorillaZilla]

This mod has mind blowing potential to boost the game's immersion factor, and absolutely belongs in a future "ultimate Build of KSP" I'd love to put together some day once the base game has settled down into a more solid foundation.

Sent a well deserved donation your way :-)

I love most of your mods by the way Pizza, WheelSounds being another favorite, as anything that adds quality sound that fits well into the game is a big Plus ;-)

(Only issue I've found with that, is that when wheels are not touching the ground they spin up to ridiculous speed, and the mod follows suit with the sound effect, increasing the pitch to silly levels, Though that's squad's fault really for having wheels that have no RPM limits, no point updating it for that little issue though, as KSP 1.1 unity 5 is comming with reworked much more realistic wheels)

Hopefully you can find time to update wheelsounds to work with the new KSP 1.1 wheel system (That is if Squad have not implemented good wheel sound themselves yet)

Collision FX too, really love the effects from that, and all the little sound effects it adds too! (also love the oof sound kerbals make when they fall, its just right, not over done and not cringeworthy at all to hear and just fits nicely into the game) Though the light effects from the collision sparks could use toning down a little (is there a number in a line in the mod I can edit to tweak that myself?)

So thanks for being an awesome modder, and making this game so much better for everyone :-)

Edited September 6, 2015 by GorillaZilla

[montyben101]

This mod is what I have been waiting for since I made my first space station. I hope Squad consider to put it into the game if it turns out good

[GorillaZilla]

Depends if Pizza would want it that way, He's the one who is putting all the effort into making it. I don't mind either way though, the standalone Mods often tend to be better than squads implementation of them, Not saying squad isn't good, but squad often has to compromise on a lot of things to make it fit into the stock game, wheres the modders can make their mods as sophisticated as they please.

I like to see good will and collaboration between the modders and the chaps at squad though. I'd love it If the fellows at squad work with, and listen to the people modding the game more, and make it easier for the modders to do their thing by tweaking the base game's workings to remove hindrances and problems the modding community run into...

[BLUESTREAK]

As an idea for the gameplay mechanic, would it be possible to only be able to use the WASDQE etc keys whilst at or near the part model? In effect, the player is controlling themselves by pushing off the walls. Away from the walls (i.e. in the middle of the model) you are unable to input any control over where you're going (or how fast you travel) until you reach the next wall - you're still able to look about using the mouse, but unable to do anything else until you get to the next wall. Allow a "grab" function to stop yourself (in the same way that you can grab handholds on EVA) to stop yourself, kill rotation, etc. In effect, the player will have to think about were it is that they want to go and how fast, just like in real life!

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

Dangit, you stole part of MY idea for an IVA mod. I guess that's a good thing, because I couldn't really do it, but now you HAVE to make the command pod windows transparent so you can see the IVA inside! Please?

[MK3424]

Dangit, you stole part of MY idea for an IVA mod. I guess that's a good thing, because I couldn't really do it, but now you HAVE to make the command pod windows transparent so you can see the IVA inside! Please?

Sorry... but that feature has been on the planned features list for a long time.

[pizzaoverhead]

This mod has mind blowing potential to boost the game's immersion factor, and absolutely belongs in a future "ultimate Build of KSP" I'd love to put together some day once the base game has settled down into a more solid foundation.

Sent a well deserved donation your way :-)

I love most of your mods by the way Pizza, WheelSounds being another favorite, as anything that adds quality sound that fits well into the game is a big Plus ;-)

(Only issue I've found with that, is that when wheels are not touching the ground they spin up to ridiculous speed, and the mod follows suit with the sound effect, increasing the pitch to silly levels, Though that's squad's fault really for having wheels that have no RPM limits, no point updating it for that little issue though, as KSP 1.1 unity 5 is comming with reworked much more realistic wheels)

Hopefully you can find time to update wheelsounds to work with the new KSP 1.1 wheel system (That is if Squad have not implemented good wheel sound themselves yet)

Collision FX too, really love the effects from that, and all the little sound effects it adds too! (also love the oof sound kerbals make when they fall, its just right, not over done and not cringeworthy at all to hear and just fits nicely into the game) Though the light effects from the collision sparks could use toning down a little (is there a number in a line in the mod I can edit to tweak that myself?)

So thanks for being an awesome modder, and making this game so much better for everyone :-)

Thanks! Yeah, I spotted the issue with ungrounded wheels. I considered fixing it, but I'm not sure if everyone would be happy about a sound mod that changed their game physics. I think it's a great example of the strength of sound as an extra information stream. The wheel spinning is something that happens in stock that you might not notice beyond having your power drained to no effect, but the sounds leave you with no doubt as to what's happening. It also highlights that wheels never lose speed to bearing friction when left spinning without ground contact.

Given the amount of work that was put into wheels for Unity 5, and the fact that Squad mentioned they had many sound effects ready for use in the game for a long time now, I wouldn't be surprised if we get wheels with sounds in stock in future.

With CollisionFX, yes, the light is too bright right now, and it annoys me every time I see it in a screenshot. It'll have to be adjusted and made configurable in the next release, which will also be bringing customisable dust colours for all biomes on all bodies.

This mod is what I have been waiting for since I made my first space station. I hope Squad consider to put it into the game if it turns out good

Depends if Pizza would want it that way, He's the one who is putting all the effort into making it. I don't mind either way though, the standalone Mods often tend to be better than squads implementation of them, Not saying squad isn't good, but squad often has to compromise on a lot of things to make it fit into the stock game, wheres the modders can make their mods as sophisticated as they please.

I like to see good will and collaboration between the modders and the chaps at squad though. I'd love it If the fellows at squad work with, and listen to the people modding the game more, and make it easier for the modders to do their thing by tweaking the base game's workings to remove hindrances and problems the modding community run into...

How this mod is made is very different from the way Squad would do it if they were making such a feature stock, so there would be little reason for them to want this mod's code. I'm hoping it can give Squad and everyone else a feel for what a more in-depth IVA could be, and let them see what works, what doesn't work, and what ideas this could be used as a foundation for. This thread is full of these ideas and has made for a very interesting read.

As an idea for the gameplay mechanic, would it be possible to only be able to use the WASDQE etc keys whilst at or near the part model? In effect, the player is controlling themselves by pushing off the walls. Away from the walls (i.e. in the middle of the model) you are unable to input any control over where you're going (or how fast you travel) until you reach the next wall - you're still able to look about using the mouse, but unable to do anything else until you get to the next wall. Allow a "grab" function to stop yourself (in the same way that you can grab handholds on EVA) to stop yourself, kill rotation, etc. In effect, the player will have to think about were it is that they want to go and how fast, just like in real life!

Part of my motivation for making this mod is as a chance to experiment with different movement schemes under varying levels of gravity. KSP has broken new ground for making real-world orbital physics accessible and fun, and I'd like to see how the same could be done for movement inside a space station. I spent a lot of time figuring out how to get the free mouse movement working for just this reason. It'll be interesting to see what kind of a balance can be struck between fun, performance (colliders for each part you want to bounce from), and gameplay ("Game Over: All your crew members are stuck floating away from walls/at the bottom of the craft due to Eve's gravity").

Dangit, you stole part of MY idea for an IVA mod. I guess that's a good thing, because I couldn't really do it, but now you HAVE to make the command pod windows transparent so you can see the IVA inside! Please?

Whoops, guess I'll leave it in your hands now, enjoy! The opaque windows have always bothered me too. I might do something about it in future, but in the meantime check out RPM's pod transparency, and WindowShine to pretty them up.

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

Whoops, guess I'll leave it in your hands now, enjoy! The opaque windows have always bothered me too. I might do something about it in future, but in the meantime check out RPM's pod transparency, and WindowShine to pretty them up.

No, you have it! I don't want that thing! I don't have time, school has started! And actually I was using RPM for it. But I was so bad at modeling that I couldn't make the windows transparent without removing them. I am not good at modeling.

I did use WindowShine for a while though, its really nice.

[pizzaoverhead]

Today's progress: Multiple hatches can be added to each part, defined in its cfg file. Props such as handles can also be set to be hidden when a hatch is opened. The masks now use a custom mesh which better fits the hatches, allowing for more shapes in future.

[HafCoJoe]

Today's progress: Multiple hatches can be added to each part, defined in its cfg file. Props such as handles can also be set to be hidden when a hatch is opened. The masks now use a custom mesh which better fits the hatches, allowing for more shapes in future.

Great progress! It sounds as though this could be a step towards being able to add square hatches such as for space-plane parts?

EDIT:

but in the meantime check out RPM's pod transparency, and WindowShine to pretty them up.

I did use WindowShine for a while though, its really nice.

Thanks for the inadvertent compliments!

Edited September 8, 2015 by Avera9eJoe

[pizzaoverhead]

Great progress! It sounds as though this could be a step towards being able to add square hatches such as for space-plane parts?

Yes! All that needs to be done now is to create a simple 2D mesh for the square hatches and add some configuration file options to allow people to choose which one to use. IVA designers can also just model the hatch as a separate prop, and set it as the prop to be hidden when the hatch is open, without the need for a hole-cutter mesh at all.

[KandoKris]

This mod is awesome, just thought you should know

[nikokespprfan]

The other day I thought of the folowing scenario:

I have a space station in orbit with a docking node placed at a crewable module, This was by design of course, so I would be able to dock a what-should-we-say a vehicle for changing crew, to my station and have my kerbals be able to, you know, enter and leave it.

However, I was unable to put said docking port exactly on the hatches.

Regarding this scenario I have a few questions:

-will docking ports have IVA's (maybe not so important now, but if you add in colliders, how would I be able to move through the docking port.)

-How will the IVA of said crewable module look like, scince I could not place the docking node at the hatch. I might be cutting an ugly hole in my snacks container because of an docking port. Let's say my kerbals would not be amused.

- how will you be able to move through parts that cant hold crew (again, those colliders), yet are the ways of the crew to transport themselves from one part of the ship to another? (without connected living space, this would be just any part connecting two crewable modules, but with CLS, there is still parts like docking ports, separators and the rockomax Multi-hub.)

[HafCoJoe]

-snip-

I'm not sure if he plans on doing anything related to that :/. I think the best way to compensate for placing docking ports on parts with internals would be to generate a "cylinder" on the interior sticking out of the wall where the docking port is and then cutting a hole through it and the regular internals where it hits the side. Sure it would be placed right over your snacks container but at least it would still look like a hatch lol.

[nikokespprfan]

Sure it would be placed right over your snacks container but at least it would still look like a hatch lol.

Jeb:0.0:, Bill:0.0:, Bob:0.0: and Val:0.0:: NO SNACKS!!??, NOOOOooooo​oooooo....;.;;.;

...

besides that joke, I just wondered how that would play out. I mean, having part of the base not accesseble because of IVA colliders beiing in the way, altough it wouldn't be a big deal, as I can transfer crew, it would destroy a little bit of the fun. I was just wonderin'.

[cxg2827]

-How will the IVA of said crewable module look like, scince I could not place the docking node at the hatch. I might be cutting an ugly hole in my snacks container because of an docking port. Let's say my kerbals would not be amused.

I'm not sure if he plans on doing anything related to that :/

You are correct. From an earlier post:

I would consider externally mounted docking ports to be clamping points rather than crew transfer ports, until they're mounted over a crew hatch. You can't bore through all of the science equipment in the Mobile Processing Lab and still have it usable The code will be available if anyone wants to create such behaviour however.

[pizzaoverhead]

Update: I've been experimenting with several possible methods of dealing with character-craft collisions, but have had little success as of yet.

One important element I've been working on this week is determining which part the player is inside at any given time. This is important for setting up the hatch shader and interacting with parts. To do this, we can leverage the parts' colliders. A collider an invisible 3D model which objects use for physics interactions. The more detailed a collider is, the slower the physics calculations for it are, so colliders are usually less detailed than an object's graphical model:

For a very quick check against a collider, we can use the collider's bounds. This is a box that collider fits inside which is an even simpler and faster shape to evaluate with than KSP's cylindrical and conical parts. We can use it to rule out most of the parts on the craft as containing the player. The bounds cover a larger area than the part itself, so it's possible for multiple parts to overlap, particularly when you're near the point where two parts connect. As we can't be in more than one part at the same time, we have more work to do.

After using the bounds method to narrow down the number of potential parts we could be inside, a slower and more accurate method can be used to determine the final result. Due to all KSP requiring parts to only use convex colliders, we can raycast from the player's position to the centre of the collider to determine whether we are inside it or not. If the ray hits the collider, we are outside the collider. If it hits it, we are inside. Were KSP to use concave colliders, we could take extra steps to find our result:

Now that we know what part we're in, we can use that information to better interact with that part. Next up: using your kerbal to open and close hatches!

[skykooler]

Hmm...so what would that method do if you have two parts clipped inside each other? Wouldn't you end up "in" both of them?