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Procedural Wings Development

Crzyrndm

By Crzyrndm
in KSP1 Mod Development

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Crzyrndm

Crzyrndm

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Stable PWings downloads are available here

So the story goes, here I am maintaining two different Procedural Wing mods and porting features in both directions. The level of duplicated effort was getting annoyingly high so I started a new plugin with a common core. Then life happened and something like 4-5 months later (now) I realise I still haven't finished even a prototype. Long story short, I'm getting reasonably close to having a working implementation that can be used by someone other than me.

Initial Feature List

  • All existing functionality from my fork of B9PW, and the fork of the original including
    • Support for existing parts
    • Editing via mouse movement (orginal editing method)
    • Editing via GUI (B9 editing method)
    • Fuel switching
    • B9PW will retain all colour/material editing capabilities
  • A new editing GUI (that will look very similar to the B9PW one) built on Unity 4.6 UI that works with any procedural wing model (obviously somewhat stripped down when the appearance cant be modified...)

The new UI in particular presents a few opportunities for some new features, so don't expect the list to stay that uninspiring >.> (only once that's all ticked off though)

Source on Github like always

DO NOT USE WITH EITHER EXISTING PLUGIN INSTALLED

Edited by Crzyrndm
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Crzyrndm

Crzyrndm

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First flight achieved :D, some pictures to commemorate the event (probably not all that exciting for anyone other than me >.>)

First Flight: (still need to fix the stock lift position being in the wrong place...)

Spoiler

ivMdbnz.png

WIP Editor UI (before you ask about how much is missing, the UI is procedurally generated from 4 template objects so I can very quickly add more editable properties now that the basics are working)

Spoiler

rLFsXAK.png

Next on the list, making it work for the other three wing types (original models and control surface variants x2)

Edited by Crzyrndm
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Crzyrndm

Crzyrndm

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The project continues. Almost to the point where I can focus on bug fixing for a release.

Have been making some investigations into how the upgrade scripts work to support current vehicles but it is likely the first public versions will require building craft from scratch.

The shift from the original plugins to the merged version will not happen perfectly smoothly. There is very little remaining of the original plugins so there will be a slew of new bugs to start with.

I have yet to work out how the UI will support unlmited sizes, suggestions are welcomed on this topic. The cursor drag based modification is so far unlimited so it is not a barrier on implementing original functionality.

I also have plans for how I will add a text input box for sliders, but again its not a core feature so it remains in the planning stages

I haven't used @01010101lzy's fork yet (but I plan to) to see how the extra options he added work. Which features of that fork were most useful?

Edited by Crzyrndm
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SpaceCommanderNemo

SpaceCommanderNemo

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I'm a big fan of the B9PW's and their editor, so to see that sticking around is huge. I'd only suggest keeping its UI as it was already quite readable and well laid out.

On 8/6/2016 at 2:08 AM, Crzyrndm said:

Something completely new this time

  Hide contents

6kwuelk.png

Yep, thats an original being edited via the same GUI

 

Do you mean a stock part? Or an old PW? Cause if this gets into modifying *all the wings*, I'm going to lose my mind. That would be amazing. Better yet would be if they could get the B9-style fuel capacity option.

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White Owl

White Owl

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3 hours ago, Crzyrndm said:

I haven't used @01010101lzy's fork yet (but I plan to) to see how the extra options he added work. Which features of that fork were most useful?

Without a doubt, the option to select wing shape by precise angle of leading and trailing edges is great. Makes it easy to put different wing pieces together so the edges line up perfectly.

That said, I see you mentioned a possible text entry field alongside the sliders! :D Been wanting that ever since the very first iteration of the first version of Procedural Wings.

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Crzyrndm

Crzyrndm

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7 hours ago, SpaceCommanderNemo said:

Or an old PW?

This^^. If I could modify a stock part I'd be making a whole lot more noise about it :D. The B9 editor UI is an integral part of this plugin, it's just being rebuilt using the new Unity UI system which should end up making it easier to modify and extend

7 hours ago, White Owl said:

That said, I see you mentioned a possible text entry field alongside the sliders! :D Been wanting that ever since the very first iteration of the first version of Procedural Wings.

Possible? No, it's going to happen :cool:. That, save upgrading, and a few other things (*cough* procedural panels *cough*) will be immediate public v2 priorities methinks

Edited by Crzyrndm
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Crzyrndm

Crzyrndm

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Possible, but would require someone with more expertise than I have to setup the part model I imagine (I write code, modelling just looks like **** when I do it :D. Nvm animations)

Edited by Crzyrndm
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Van Disaster

Van Disaster

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Not much to a current pWing part ( this is why I stuck that note up on github :P ), I'm not sure the B9 ones are even closed boxes technically. That might be better as a "perhaps later" when the model manipulation code is more defined, because more detailed wing models requires different handling too, especially if you want to start warping the things.

I have a paintable shader which can handle multiple colour areas ( alá KerbPaint, except potentially *way* more areas ) seperately from any pattern overlay which I'm quite happy to throw at this project, does anyone have any feature ideas shader-wise?

Edited by Van Disaster
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Crzyrndm

Crzyrndm

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So, while I'm not ready to declare a first public release (some issues with the original wings still to iron out), I believe I've got the B9 side of things functional enough for a preview. Drop in the GameData folder from Github and see what you think

Known Issues:

  • EXISTING CRAFT WILL NOT WORK!!! An upgrade script is an intended feature but doesn't yet exist
  • Several issues with original style PWings still to be resolved. Control surfaces are particularly non-functional
  • The released pwings plugins need to be deleted prior to starting ksp. (This only applies to the .dll files, all required model and config files should be included in the github repo so you can delete folders)
  • The window position is fixed at the center, so expanding categories moves the top of the window upwards. All header values are currently static
  • Fuel switching isn't available. It's relatively easy to add so I'm leaving it out until I nail down more core functionality
  • I appear to have accidentally linked (/not removed) the UI min/max into the geometry somewhere so limits are still applied occasionaly even when not using the text/slider editing

New features

  • Text input for numeric properties (yup, it's here...)
  • A structural panel module (which is just a B9PW with all aero aspects disabled so it has all the colourisation and shape editing you'd expect)
    • At the moment it's still very basic, just removed lifting components and increased impact resistance.

Other stuff

  • I have done no testing with FAR and only the most basic testing of stock aero parameters so if you happen to notice anything there please sing out
Edited by Crzyrndm
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Van Disaster

Van Disaster

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11 hours ago, White Owl said:

I have always been a fan of polished bare metal.

The biggest problem with metal isn't the surface setup so much as the reflections - Lilleman has been messing around with a shader with a live environment map & it's pretty heavy on performance. I'm also a fan of polished metal & I'd like to see it work too. The current specular shaders don't have any reflections at all other than the sun. The one I have you can certainly play around with the tightness & amount of reflection of that. Will see anyway. Using a static cubemap might work for Kerbin aircraft but it'd look really wierd on Eve or Duna or just in space.

RE: alternate font, needs a little more space around top/bottom of lettering. I'd consider using orange for the fill colour, something like the orange on the floor.

Edited by Van Disaster
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Crzyrndm

Crzyrndm

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Latest github commit should render the Procedural Dynamics PWings fully functional (pending further testing with some sleep)

For my feature list for public release, I believe that leaves only fuel switching and testing

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AccidentalDisassembly

AccidentalDisassembly

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FWIW - this is what I get when pointing at a B9 Pwing and pressing "J":

MergedPwings.png

The copy of KSP I tried this on has:

1. B9 PartSwitch
2. Community Resource Pack
3. Firespitter (just the DLL and resource def)
4. IFS
5. Engineer redux
6. KSP-AVC
7. VesselMover
8. ModuleManager
9. The 3 Pwing folders included in the ZIP from GitHub

Loggery: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59567837/output_log_pwings.txt

Edited by AccidentalDisassembly
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WereCat

WereCat

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3 hours ago, AccidentalDisassembly said:

FWIW - this is what I get when pointing at a B9 Pwing and pressing "J":

MergedPwings.png

The copy of KSP I tried this on has:

1. B9 PartSwitch
2. Community Resource Pack
3. Firespitter (just the DLL and resource def)
4. IFS
5. Engineer redux
6. KSP-AVC
7. VesselMover
8. ModuleManager
9. The 3 Pwing folders included in the ZIP from GitHub

Loggery: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59567837/output_log_pwings.txt

Yea, that happens to me too, but its still usable.

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