To clip or not to clip? (Fun, pointless poll)

[b0ss]

Just a poll to see how others design their crafts.

Edited August 22, 2016 by b0ss

[Columbia]

My title says all.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

How about yes as long as it doesn't result in horrible z fighting,  which is the case with a lot of the replica aircraft craft files I've downloaded

Spoiler

Z-fighting, also called stitching, is a phenomenon in 3D rendering that occurs when two or more primitives have similar or identical values in the z-buffer. It is particularly prevalent with coplanar polygons, where two faces occupy essentially the same space, with neither in front.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-fighting

 

[klgraham1013]

I'll clip a bit, mainly for aesthetic reasons.  I won't clip a part into another, such as a reaction wheel completely into a pod.

[magnemoe]

Just now, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

How about yes as long as it doesn't result in horrible z fighting,  which is the case with a lot of the replica aircraft craft files I've downloaded

  Hide contents

 

Z-fighting, also called stitching, is a phenomenon in 3D rendering that occurs when two or more primitives have similar or identical values in the z-buffer. It is particularly prevalent with coplanar polygons, where two faces occupy essentially the same space, with neither in front.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-fighting

 

Is this not more about them having the same coordinates? z-buffer is something I associate with 2d like web pages. 
This can be seen in all sort of 3d programs and games and give flickering effects, 

I don't use clipping much myself except some ssto designs. think its more common on planes than rockets and spaceships. 

[ZooNamedGames]

Yes

[eddiew]

I tend not to clip tanks into tanks, but I will clip girders into stuff, or tuck decouplers tighter against heatshields for aesthetic reasons. Basically if it's a structural part, I can't see a reason not to saw the end off if it's too big  

That said, I don't object to part clipping in general, since some of this forum's prettiest builds come from people merging surfaces in unusual ways ^^

[DualDesertEagle]

I mostly use it for stuff like getting radially attached batteries out of the air stream when I don't have any axial batteries yet or I use it to improve the looks of my craft.

[pandaman]

I've not voted as I don't know which one applies, but generally I try to avoid it though I do clip parts on occasion if it feels appropriate.

[Curveball Anders]

I don't clip because I'm an engineer focussed on function and don't give a flying duck about how a construction looks.

(Well actually I do, but not to the point of clipping).

 

[storm_soldier2377]

I never clip stiff into fuel tanks, but structural component are fair game. No idea why I dislike clipping though, because I don't see it as cheating because the same drag and mass values apply regardless of whether it is clipped into something or not.

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

If it's something like the Stayputnik, I'll clip batteries and science instruments into it (Sputnik had stuff inside it, no sense ruining the look by attaching outer parts)

[Corona688]

You forgot the 'other' option, so I cannot vote.

I clip depending on whether it seems like something "should be" clippable.

Fuel tanks inside fuel tanks?  That seems unlikely.

Stuff inside nosecones or other such structural parts with large volumes?  Sure, why not.

Stuff inside the rover probe core, a probe core with 90x the volume of the probodyne and 25% the functionality?  Pretty sure it's designed for clipping.

And if the game gives me a solid 'no' by exploding, I don't try and work around that, just take the answer and move on.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Corona688

[DualDesertEagle]

Just now, Corona688 said:

Stuff inside nosecones or other such structural parts with large volumes?  Sure, why not.

And the same goes for batteries placed inside a fuel tank I'd say coz irl u could easily have some separate area at the top or the bottom of the hull around the fuel tank and place them there.

[septemberWaves]

I'm someone who builds for aesthetic purposes, so whether or not I clip parts is generally dependant on the look I'm trying to achieve. Most of the time I tend to limit my part clipping to that which is permitted within the rules of the Jool 5 challenge (clipping anything into structural or wing parts is fine, but not clipping functional parts into each other), but unless I'm designing a vessel specifically for a Jool 5 mission I generally don't impose that upon myself as an unbreakable rule.

[Frozen_Heart]

I'm ok with most clipping but refuse to clip engines and fuel tanks.

[Guest]

For aesthetics (particularly when it comes to aircraft wings) and if it seems reasonable from an engineering perspective. I'll clip things into hollow structural parts to fill them with avionics or fuel or something, but not fuel tanks or command modules. I don't like clipping things all the way inside other parts since I tend to forget they parts exist and it makes them troublesome to select (have to zoom so far in the camera clips into the outer part), but I've got nothing against the practice going to this extent and would probably do it more myself if I had a better memory.

 

Below: Engines and docking lights set inside a skeletal adapter, flush with the fuel tank itself. The SAS module the docking port it's attached to is also set inside to an extent to minimise the length of the landing legs.

 

And my favourite: Thud powered lifters with quite a Soviet look.

 

 

12 hours ago, DualDesertEagle said:

And the same goes for batteries placed inside a fuel tank I'd say coz irl u could easily have some separate area at the top or the bottom of the hull around the fuel tank and place them there.

Like how the tanks themselves (not their casings) are rounded on their tops and bottoms, and real rocks have 'intertanks' where hey put electrics and avionics, right?

 

Edited August 23, 2016 by Guest

[Corona688]

7 minutes ago, Frozen_Heart said:

I'm ok with most clipping but refuse to clip engines and fuel tanks.

not even the ant engine with its ludicrous midair snap-point?

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

I'll clip anything that I believe to be empty (or combinable) space.

99% of a nosecone or a wing, all of a girder segment or structural tube, the very edges of a fueltank. 20 % of a crewcabin, none of an engine  etc.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Brainlord Mesomorph

[CaelumEtAstra]

Before 0.90, I didn't do part clipping all too often because it was quite hard to do. Now with the advent of the offset and rotation gizmos in 1.0, I do it all the time, mostly for aesthetic purposes. The only utilitarian use I have is clipping batteries and monoprop tanks into a big Mk2 decoupler so I don't need a big service bay to store them.

Edited August 22, 2016 by Mrsupersonic8

[Alshain]

I vote Splunge.

 

[regex]

3 hours ago, b0ss said:

Just a poll to see how others design their crafts.

However I want.

[fourfa]

If I empty the oxidizer out of fuel tanks (this happens a lot in spaceplanes and nuke-powered ships) I will definitely clip into the "empty" half.  Hollow structural and aero parts - anything goes.

More important than "clip or no" should be "NoOffsetLimit or no" as that enables even more creative construction techniques

[TheDestroyer111]

I clip only when it's not selfish to do so. Simple as that.

Expanation: Basically, I don't clip two parts completely into each other (I especially hate crafts which clip parts in such a way that it causes Z-fighting), because this is being cheap  (such crap can avoid lots of CoMTL and structural issues, which could otherwise be a lot of fun to troubleshoot) and because this makes the Deep Space Kraken much more dangerous. However, I'm totally OK with clipping when a structural part used as a radial attachment point is inside another part, of course as long as there is some point in it at all (I do that sometimes myself, for example when I want to put a BDArmory radar onto a Firespitter Huey cockpit for things like the F-111). Another thing I recently used clipping for is actually no clipping. Basically, after doing some tests with long-range air-launch missiles, I found out that radial decouplers have an unusually high drag making my missiles 2 times slower than otherwise. Then I got annoyed a bit by the fact that airbreathers have no attachment point on the back, but I figured out that you can select the part clipping thing in debug menu, and offset the missile forward so that it's not totally visually clipped into the decoupler.

Edited August 22, 2016 by TheDestroyer111

[DualDesertEagle]

Another good example where excessive clipping makes sense is when u wanna make good-looking split-elevons type airbrakes. I mostly make them by placing both straight up and straight down elevons that I set up to deploy in opposite directions and then clip them into each other by pointing them straight backwards. Then I deploy them all, set up the action groups and then test the plane, mostly with the result that split-elevon airbrakes are very effective. If the game would allow us to do that I could even get rid of the vertical stabilizers and make the outer airbrakes open according to the yaw input, but that's a little too far offtopic to further explain.