Horizon Aeronautics - Development Thread

[Boamere]

Finished up the meshes.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1482056/horizon67.jpg

Making the nozzles separate engine parts is going to add more complexity and annoyance to the whole project I think. The engine mount clusters will have all to be barren, then you'll have to snap the engines on. Is that something all of you would like?

Yeah I really like that idea, customization is the key but keeping it simple is very important too!

(can we have them in your awesome art style?)

Edited March 6, 2014 by Boamere

[specs]

Finished up the meshes.

I'm gone for one second, and now this!?

Jesus Christ, stubbles! You are a machine!

Although, I will say that Boamere hit the nail on the head with: "customization is the key but keeping it simple is very important too!" I know it's vague, but it's probably best to keep this little phrase rolling around your head during the dev process.

Though, given your track record, I'm sure you won't disappoint...

[Daemoria]

Very impressive. These look like the final low-res meshes, would you mind me asking how many segments are on each SRB cylinder as per their radius? It looks like a huge improvement over the default 12-for the 1m. radius.

I'll have to repeat the you are a machine statement, because it's true. From start to finish, this all took less than a week...

[Boamere]

Very true specs and daemoria!

(also found out that the retro-fire thrusters are not in tech tree, that's why I couldn't load the craft file)

[stubbles]

Right now it seems pretty split on the engine thing =\ The engines can still have gimbal without being their own objects, too. On the Zenit, the third stage blockDM has a 1º gimbal on the booster, even though the whole thing is one mesh.

@Specs: Haha, thanks! Yeah the low poly meshes are the easy part. My most hated part (uv mapping) takes a while, then texturing and config work (ugh).

@Daemoria: Thanks man Yeah I haven't been making high res assets for any of my KSP stuff. I'm not exactly the most experienced with high poly modeling yet so thus I'm a bit slow at it right now. I've been using nDo2 to create all of my normals. It's basically an addon for Photoshop. It allows you to realtime paint normals in Photoshop that are of the same quality as fully modeled normals. I've done high poly stuff for my actual job, but I like keeping this KSP stuff a bit simpler. That's what makes it fun

Oh, the cylinders are standard 24 sides. The side boosters are actually from the Zenit, as they are in real life. Do you guys know if the larger 5m frames have more than 24 sides? I suppose I should have looked into that first, heh.

found out that the retro-fire thrusters are not in tech tree

Yeah, none of it is in the tech tree, actually. That'll be added in the next update. Just need to find some info on it.

Edited March 6, 2014 by stubbles

[landeTLS]

I usually do 32 sides for 5m cylinders and then 48 for 6.25m+. but im not an expert. You can probably have big parts look nice with just 24 sides with cleaver use of normals.

Edited March 6, 2014 by landeTLS

[Boamere]

Yeah, none of it is in the tech tree, actually. That'll be added in the next update. Just need to find some info on it.

HAHAHAHAH....aggghh damn

So your saying I automatically went through the files like a zombie and added them to the tech tree and then FORGOT about doing it, causing me to blame you for not adding the part to the tech tree ? (yeah...)

Man I am STUPID, sorry about that, I think I'm too used to looking through configs every day

[kiwiak]

Stubbles, can you add attachment node to bottom of biggest engine?

It has only top node and thanks to that i cant use FASA launch clamps (or use it as middle stage engine in biggest rockets).

[stubbles]

Stubbles, can you add attachment node to bottom of biggest engine?

It has only top node and thanks to that i cant use FASA launch clamps (or use it as middle stage engine in biggest rockets).

Ah, sure thing!

[stubbles]

I see the advantage now for having the RD-0120 engines be their own modules now. They can't gimbal without the core reaction wheel, which means if you launch with certain control modules, it wouldn't work. I think I'll go down that route then.

[stubbles]

Is this acceptable?

The diameter of the engine mount is right about 0.8m in Max. That would make it exactly 1m in the game. I could make the engine mounts of the quad and triple engine setup, then make these large RD-0120 engines as their own modules that can be snapped into place. That way if people configure this setup without a reaction wheel on their craft, these could still gimbal with that plugin you guys were talking about.

The RD-171 engines on the side boosters will not be their own modules, however. I don't see much a point in that. I'll just have them as one mesh with the tanks.

[NoMrBond]

Wouldn't 3DSMax 1m = ingame 1.25m, the scale there is different vs. the others?

[NathanKell]

Right now it seems pretty split on the engine thing =\ The engines can still have gimbal without being their own objects, too. On the Zenit, the third stage blockDM has a 1º gimbal on the booster, even though the whole thing is one mesh.

It's not that you can't get yaw/pitch control from a cluster-engine part. It's that you can't get *roll* control from it. Roll via gimbal requires multiple engine parts. Now admittedly the stock KSP gimbal doesn't give you engine roll control, but if you use a gimbal mod (as you should!) they do. And also your rocket won't randomly roll from the stock gimbal module messing up.

[stubbles]

Wouldn't 3DSMax 1m = ingame 1.25m, the scale there is different vs. the others?

Hah yeah, brainspasm there It was 1m in max, so 1.25m ingame

@NathanKell - thanks! Yeah I think I'll definitely split the RD-0120's up into modules then. I'll have to give one of those gimbal mods a shot as well.

[stubbles]

Updated the download to [v1.1]

Changes:

- Career tech tree integration

- SmokeScreen FX plugin

- Attach node was added to bottom of RD-171

[Thourion]

Another mod that i didnt know existed. Found it like yesterday. But after that day, i cant seem to look at any other rocket, this has got to be the best visualy appealing set (mesh-textures) for a launch rocket in ksp yet.. (i wanna make love to it ..erm no wait that sounds wrong)

Only thing i would like is 1 more piece of fairing, 2x times taller than the small one, and maybe a bit fatter (just a tad bit), for the times you want to launch something with landing legs or solar panels, dishes and whatnot.

Did i say THANKS ?

[stubbles]

Only thing i would like is 1 more piece of fairing, 2x times taller than the small one, and maybe a bit fatter

Smells like a task for v1.2!

Thanks so much for the kind words, I'm glad you're enjoying it.

[The Space Man]

Any chance you could make the fuel tanks surface attachable? They'd work great as side boosters too.

Clipping

[Boamere]

Only thing i would like is 1 more piece of fairing, 2x times taller than the small one, and maybe a bit fatter (just a tad bit), for the times you want to launch something with landing legs or solar panels, dishes and whatnot.

Yeah I need a larger size fairing for my relays! Glad that you are planning it stubbles!

[techstepman]

the rocket you released is awesome! God knows how many launches I made today. And the particle effects...omg!thanks for the awesome rocket.

[NathanKell]

@NathanKell - thanks! Yeah I think I'll definitely split the RD-0120's up into modules then. I'll have to give one of those gimbal mods a shot as well.

Awesome, thanks!

[BLUAV8R]

Hey stubbles,

The latest version doesn't have a readme.txt file

[stubbles]

Still working on these Zenit updates, but I wanted to get the Energia parts exported to the game today, with some rough configs.

[stubbles]

Adding launchpad smoke for the 1.2 zenit release tomorrow. (not to mention the oversized fairing)

Edited March 9, 2014 by stubbles

[Thourion]

Whoa, i wonder how many cigarettes ill smoke till i have this smoking baby on KSP