[WIP] Dangerously Shaded Stock Refresh

[cfds]

17 hours ago, DangerouslyDave said:

 

Somehow this does not look like a vacuum engine any more. Engine bells for vacuum use are narrow and long (and SQUAD is currently ruining the next generation of rocket scientists with their depictions of vacuum engines).

[NathanKell]

...until Porkjet finishes remaking them, of course.

[sashan]

Yep, that looks like small first-stage atmospheric engine. Give it a thrust of around 100 and it'll be really useful.

[Whirligig Girl]

36 minutes ago, cfds said:

Somehow this does not look like a vacuum engine any more. Engine bells for vacuum use are narrow and long (and SQUAD is currently ruining the next generation of rocket scientists with their depictions of vacuum engines).

Agreed. I recommend shortening the combustion chamber and severely lengthening the nozzle.

[DangerouslyDave]

Finally got some time to do a little more work on the LV909 refresh part. As suggested by @cfds and @GregroxMun, the nozzle has been extended and the combustion chamber has been shortened slightly to compensate. This is about as far as I want to push it, as I still want it to stay as close as possible to the form factor of the stock 909 below the mounting ring. 

Also took the opportunity to do a revised material pass, and the results are much closer to my target for these. All that's left is adding some hand-painted overlays to match the stock look closer.

I'm sure once 1.1 is out, I'll have to re-calibrate everything again for the actual in-game appearance. The KSP shaders are night and day in how they look between the game and the Unity editor. Does anyone have an idea of how close things will look for the Unity standard shader?

I'm calling this one complete for now. Behind the scenes, 1m fuel tanks are in progress as well as an optional shroud for the Redstone engine. Wings should be mountable on it, allowing for a rough approximation of the Mercury Redstone rocket. Once these are finished, I'm going to try to get all the parts finished so far into KSP. At that point I'd love to get some help bug testing if anyone's able to spare time.

Edited January 31, 2016 by DangerouslyDave

[*Aqua*]

29 minutes ago, DangerouslyDave said:

Does anyone have an idea of how close things will look for the Unity standard shader?

Afaik they want to use the standard shader and abandon the old KSP shaders.

 

Nice work! I like it!
Did you make a tank too? I would like to see it combined with this engine.

[Whirligig Girl]

3 hours ago, DangerouslyDave said:

Finally got some time to do a little more work on the LV909 refresh part. As suggested by @cfds and @GregroxMun, the nozzle has been extended and the combustion chamber has been shortened slightly to compensate. This is about as far as I want to push it, as I still want it to stay as close as possible to the form factor of the stock 909 below the mounting ring. 

Also took the opportunity to do a revised material pass, and the results are much closer to my target for these. All that's left is adding some hand-painted overlays to match the stock look closer.

I'm sure once 1.1 is out, I'll have to re-calibrate everything again for the actual in-game appearance. The KSP shaders are night and day in how they look between the game and the Unity editor. Does anyone have an idea of how close things will look for the Unity standard shader?

I'm calling this one complete for now. Behind the scenes, 1m fuel tanks are in progress as well as an optional shroud for the Redstone engine. Wings should be mountable on it, allowing for a rough approximation of the Mercury Redstone rocket. Once these are finished, I'm going to try to get all the parts finished so far into KSP. At that point I'd love to get some help bug testing if anyone's able to spare time.

That looks quite a bit better, but I have to say I'm not sold on the vertical grid-lines/coolant-pipes/radiators/greeble on the engine's nozzle extension.

 

This certainly is going a new direction for a stock revamp. Directly taking the models for real space stuff, but redesigning their textures to look more like Kerbals built them. I like it. If it turns out well, I might switch it for Ven's Stock Revamp after 1.1 comes out. I'm sure the Realism Overhaul people will love it.

 

Will you make a second version where the mounting point is on top of the rocket engine instead of inside of it? Perhaps have two nodes, one to place it on the top (with a shroud or structural truss thing to attach to the lower attachment point) and one to place on the bottom?

Edited January 31, 2016 by GregroxMun

[DangerouslyDave]

1 hour ago, GregroxMun said:

That looks quite a bit better, but I have to say I'm not sold on the vertical grid-lines/coolant-pipes/radiators/greeble on the engine's nozzle extension.

I was basing the design off of the reference I found for the 8096 with a vacuum nozzle. Most places that showed one in use on an Agena D has this style. Eg:

I'm not sure what it's utility is though.

1 hour ago, GregroxMun said:

Will you make a second version where the mounting point is on top of the rocket engine instead of inside of it? Perhaps have two nodes, one to place it on the top (with a shroud or structural truss thing to attach to the lower attachment point) and one to place on the bottom?

I was thinking about doing just this! The mounting ring will probably be a second .mu (along with some sort of cover just above the Pistons), toggled on only if you use the lower attachment node. Question to the gallery, is it possible to have more than 2 nodes on a part? 

[Probus]

Whoa!!!  That's amazing!! Great job!  We need to get the word out.

[_Augustus_]

Awesome. I want that Dragon doe!

[Whirligig Girl]

28 minutes ago, DangerouslyDave said:

 Question to the gallery, is it possible to have more than 2 nodes on a part? 

Definitely. It's used in quite a few mods, in fact.

[TyrannoFan]

Oh my god. I can already see some of the beautiful things that could be made thanks to PBR shaders in the next version, these parts being some of them. KSP mods will look amazing this year. I like Ven's Stock Revamp, but I gotta say, I really like this look. Its realistic, while simultaneously Kerbal. Can't wait for 1.1 to hit if this is the quality of stuff that can be expected from future mods (and of course stock parts once Squad gets round to that in a year or however long it takes).

[TheEcoSystem]

*bump*!

How's this going so far? I see everything's looking rather lovely, especially the Mercury capsule, gonna love that. Is that a 1.25m capsule replacement?

[CobaltWolf]

13 hours ago, TheEcoSystem said:

*bump*!

How's this going so far? I see everything's looking rather lovely, especially the Mercury capsule, gonna love that. Is that a 1.25m capsule replacement?

I can't speak for @DangerouslyDave, but the Physical Based Rendering that this mod would depend on has been delayed to 1.2 and will not be included in 1.1.

[blackrack]

On 3/29/2016 at 9:21 PM, CobaltWolf said:

I can't speak for @DangerouslyDave, but the Physical Based Rendering that this mod would depend on has been delayed to 1.2 and will not be included in 1.1.

I could be wrong but I think the PBR shaders are already there, just the stock parts haven't been redone for them, so this mod should work fine before 1.2

[CobaltWolf]

2 hours ago, blackrack said:

I could be wrong but I think the PBR shaders are already there, just the stock parts haven't been redone for them, so this mod should work fine before 1.2

Really? I thought the PBR and the new antenna system were firmly delayed. Would be awesome if I could start using the PBR stuff.

[Zarbizaure]

@DangerouslyDave Amazing! Your models are gorgeous  

As a mod developper I would like to know how you created the gimballing system (apparently Ven's folder link is broken), thanks!

EDIT: Figured out how to do this. Damn it was hard.

Edited April 4, 2016 by Zarbizaure

[Billy_Is_Dead]

This is so cool! Can't wait for it to come out.

[blacsky33]

Can you make a small tuto of ur technique ? it's really impressive.

[Billy_Is_Dead]

How's everything going with the mod? I'm excited for when it comes out.

[DangerouslyDave]

Hello again. Sorry for the long absence, but things are back in action. The 1m fuel tanks and 1m decoupler are now complete. The design of the decoupler loosely pulls from the separation points (excuse my ignorance of the correct terminology) on the Falcon 9 (see their official Flickr account for reference).

I'm still working out the kinks in the materials, but I've finally landed on a 'space grey' with the right amount of specular breakup. This, and different shades of the same material, will be the backbone of future texturing endeavors. Please note that I'm using a new rendering engine that's a bit more noisy- it might be obscuring some of the detail in the shadows.

In case you haven't been keeping track, with these parts complete there's finally a complete set that could put you in orbit and beyond (with no way of safely landed quite yet).

Please excuse the tall image here, but I wanted to give a preview of what an assembled rocket might look like:

On April 4, 2016 at 8:17 AM, Zarbizaure said:

@DangerouslyDave Amazing! Your models are gorgeous  

As a mod developper I would like to know how you created the gimballing system (apparently Ven's folder link is broken), thanks!

EDIT: Figured out how to do this. Damn it was hard.

On April 5, 2016 at 1:34 PM, blacsky33 said:

Can you make a small tuto of ur technique ? it's really impressive.

@Zarbizaure Glad you figured it out! Sorry I didn't get back quick enough. I might make a longer post elsewhere about this and other workflow things if the other resources are well and truly gone.

On March 31, 2016 at 7:36 AM, CobaltWolf said:

Really? I thought the PBR and the new antenna system were firmly delayed. Would be awesome if I could start using the PBR stuff.

@CobaltWolf Is there a definitive answer on this now that 1.1 is out? I'd love to start getting these parts in engine.

 

On another note, here's a question to anyone with experience writing shaders: Is there a way to get a normal decal shader working within KSP? Something like what's presented here: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/how-do-i-write-a-normal-decal-shader-using-a-newly-added-unity-5-2-finalgbuffer-modifier.356644/

I know work has been done to bring other shaders into KSP in the past, but I have no idea what version of Unity 5 KSP is running on (I assume it's not as recent as 5.2). The benefits of a shader like this could be tremendous. Here's what I envision- a single normal map referenced by every part in the game. Details would all be handled as decals in this normal map, and all other shading would be handled by vertex normals. All of my parts already use vertex normals for 95% of their shading, but they still require giant, costly normal maps just for 1 or 2 details. It seems like a waste that could completely offset.

Thanks for any information you can provide!

Edited May 1, 2016 by DangerouslyDave

[Zarbizaure]

@DangerouslyDave apparently KSP runs on Unity 5.2.4f1. I don't have any informations for the new shaders system (for now I still use the old KSP part tools with specular maps). KSP part tools had been updated for Unity 5, maybe it includes what you're searching for. Also, really cool news parts! I love your fuels tanks  would you consider doing them procedural?

Edited May 1, 2016 by Zarbizaure

[Genolution]

If this is ever finished and the final product looks this good. The bricks! Oh my god the bricks! My back side hurts just thinking about it.

[TyrannoFan]

Those are absolutely beautiful. Wow.

[liquidhype]

Dang, this is what the stock parts should look like. Not that I ever use any of the stock parts as they look terrible, but if they looked like your parts, I'd give them a second chance.

Really nice work!