What makes mods "Stockalike?"

[tater]

i don't see a very consistent style in rockets compared to the porkjet spaceplane parts. The stock 2 capsules are ok, and the mk1 landercan is ok, too (though it begs for 45 degree rcs). The small and large tanks are ok. Aside from the jumbo, the rest of the 2.5m tanks are objectively ugly  .

most of the separators are less than nice looking.

If they were to announce a rocket rework, with a call for suggestions, I'd suggest a document that describes stock sensibilities, including making sure Kerbal anatomy is paramount (sized for them with helmets where required, etc).

[Van Disaster]

I should bring up here that quite a lot of the original models were *more* colourful than the current lot - blurry grey seems the aesthetic choice for current parts. Have you ever seen *any* real space ( or even aircraft ) parts which look blurry grey? I don't mind the chunky exaggerated model look because it does fit the game given Kerbals are chunky with exaggerated features, but there's no excuse for lack of colour or even shiny white.

Polycount doesn't matter. There's been various tests & odd comments from developers that polycount for visual models these days doesn't make any real difference to performance, so it comes down to matching looks - texel size is arguably more important, but a detailed model with a high poly budget next to a low-poly blocky thing still looks wierd.

Perhaps we should knock up a style guide & submit it to Squad?

[MaxwellsDemon]

I like the "I know it when I see it" answer...   I know I've installed some parts mods where the new parts, much as I like their capabilities, just stick out like a sore thumb visually (or, for those of you not so keen on the stock "look," fail to stick out like a sore thumb where everything else does), and have regretfully uninstalled them.  

(I groove on the 'kerbality' of the stock look and think the underlying humor of much of it is part of its charm, but I totally understand the desire of others to try to replicate a real-world vessel or part.)

[fusioncore]

To me, stock alike parts are basically low-medium poly parts, with most of the details in blurry textures  of varying degree's of gray palette, with some noise designed to keep from looking like a single solid color, and a lot of 'edge wear' along edges, which is essentially just a lighter color than the main color of the body.  You can do a lot of details in textures and that can be good enough, but I like the idea of fine details made out of models rather than textures.  Certain things are more practical than others....depending on how many instances there will be of a given part.  Obviously you want a part where there might be 20 of them to not be ultra details, but for parts that might only be used once or a couple times across a ship build, it's ok to give it some extra model detail.  It does make it a little hard though, because soo many mods follow low poly that when you mix them, they can look odd side by side.  That's partially why stock alike became soo popular, it was easy for a lot of low poly mods to mesh together.  The truth is though, low poly with good texturing is going to look better than high poly with bad texturing.  But a high poly model with even just minimal texturing, can look better than a low poly model with good texturing.   But KSP does sort of need a better shadow pass lighting to make edges of models more defined and visible, that would make edge wear a little less relevant.  

Another problem with high poly is aliasing, if your resolution isn't high enough you end up with tons of lost details that show up as a bunch of sharp dots and lines.  So details are lost there that wouldn't be lost if it was just a texture rather than actual features.  It's a bit of a balancing act.....at some distance, all things will exhibit these aliasing issues, even low poly ones.  So that's something to take into account to consider how high poly something should be.....based on how close it will typically be viewed from.  For example, a wheel could be quite a bit more high poly than a fuel tank needs to be, because wheels are a larger part of vehicles design than a fuel tank is. You have to zoom out quite a bit to see a whole large space craft of potentially dozens of fuel tanks, while a vehicle will only have 4 wheel or so on average.  But that also depends on the size of the vehicle.  A small rover is typically going to be viewed from further away than a large one, mostly because of terrain features.  

Another thing to consider is not just how things look standing still, but rather, in motion.  An all texture object might look great as a static image, but pan around it and it doesn't interact with light quite like true modelled details do.    Bump maps help, but they can only do soo much.  

But a lot of people also don't do edge wear like it's intended.  When edgewear is literally a separate texture/model, it can be much more visually appealing.   If you for example, make the body of a model a flat matte texture setting, while making the edge wear a reflective shiny texture setting in unity, the edge wear will actually give off a nice sheen like what you would expect from something that has been worn smooth or where paint has been worn away to expose metal.....which is kind of what edge wear effects are supposed to be conveying.   Most however, don't do this, because well, it's a lot simpler to simply cover the border of a texture in a lighter color and call it a day.  So even though edge wear is nice, KSP modders typically aren't even using it to its full potential.  

Edited August 22, 2016 by fusioncore

[Van Disaster]

A lot of KSP is in near darkness, which isn't the best environment for bump maps anyway - it's why I started poking around with modelling more detail in the first place ( plus losing the bumpmap saves draw calls ). Edge wear is odd, for most space stuff there shouldn't *be* any wear on edges, where's it going to come from? the problem is, as you brought up, the lighting which needs a bunch of unnecessary panel work or weathering just so the part doesn't look flat - well, actually it doesn't, we're just so used to KSP parts being like that now that a less weathered part looks like it's missing something.

A seperate surface map with more control than just basic gloss level might go a long way. Very easy thing to knock up too.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Van Disaster

[passinglurker]

3 hours ago, fusioncore said:

If you for example, make the body of a model a flat matte texture setting, while making the edge wear a reflective shiny texture setting in unity, the edge wear will actually give off a nice sheen like what you would expect from something that has been worn smooth or where paint has been worn away to expose metal.....which is kind of what edge wear effects are supposed to be conveying.

last I checked stock doesn't have truly reflective shading (though mods like window shine can add it) so the closest we have is specular maps which as I've said before are actually used extensively by many modders to highlight the edges and details of paneling when held up to the light though granted most probably call it "good enough" when the edges get brighter in the light and the seams don't.

[KerikBalm]

And on a completely different subject, what makes a world stock-alike?

People describe OPM as stock-alike... but I get the sense that my planet derived from mars height and color maps is certainly not stockalike