AMA 3 - Art Director Kristina Ness Answers

[Clayel]

thanks for the additional info!

[ChadDude]

Glad to see more questions Ness! Personally love your robot-laika!

[stephensmat]

Talk about colony parts and other star systems has me excited. It means they aren't going "We all work on Stage One, then we all work on Stage Two". I know we've been told that already, but finding out about progress on the Roadmap gives me hope that the delays are in bugfixing the 'Foundation', so that the rest of the Roadmap will be faster.

[S_Coriolis]

I wanted answers about snack art 

[Spicat]

Those new questions are bonkers, thank you for taking the time! (and I don't say that because two of my questions got answered)

1 hour ago, Nesses said:

Are there any planet concepts that the team has stumbled on and loved but are technically/mechanically/etc unfeasible at the current moment? (cutwithapaperknife, Discord)

Quote

Unfortunately, our PQS terrain system doesn’t like non-spherical bodies  This limits how weird we can make the shapes of our celestial bodies, but above a certain mass all planets coalesce into spheres so physics works in our favor here (thank you, physics).

I'm curious now, how have you implemented Skutt? Is it possible because it's a smaller body or did you use something else than the PQS system? Or maybe the new system will help some problems you might have had with it?

It's THE non-spherical body and I love the look:

Spoiler

 

[The Space Peacock]

1 hour ago, Nesses said:

How does the team feel about giving players more options to make their own 'art' in the game? (thespacepeacock, Discord)

Quote

I would love more creative or versatile parts for this purpose! I use a lot of panels, lights, fairings, and wings in my own builds, but I want to see even more eventually—please refer again to my beloved and doomed Turkey-Sat

Thanks for taking the time to answer some additional questions! i'm exited to see what new parts will get added in the future that can be misused to make  more silly builds Absolutely love your Robo-Laika and Turkey-Sat, btw!

[Dakitess]

On 6/30/2023 at 3:00 AM, Dakota said:

Are you satisfied by the way the game look so far? (Dakitess, Forums)

Quote

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is a good question. And it's also kind of like a larger game dev question. Like, I think the key word is "satisfied." Like, we still have a lot of stuff to add in early access. We've got tons of updates to tackle. You know, we've got big ones on the horizon. We've talked about CBT, we've talked about HDRP, there's additional parts and features on the way.

So, while maybe satisfied isn't the right word, you know, like, because we're building it in front of you guys. And that is a very vulnerable place to be as an artist, right? Art is already very, very, very close to our hearts and our egos. And so showing it, showing it off to tons of people, while it's still kind of a work in progress can be hard.

But am I proud of what the team has done? Absolutely. I already gushed about the team earlier, but like this is a Herculean effort. Our team is incredibly talented, absolutely punching above their weight. I'm very, very proud of what we've accomplished.

Thanks for the answer. I feel it quite concerning, actually, like most would have guess based on my dissatisfaction about how the game look so far. I could (barely) quite understand that it's WIP and prone to change with the promised (yes, announced) graphics overhaul being written in the upcoming updates, but I can read here that this is something like 80% of what the team would expect the final product to be. To me, it's really really really not enough, it's not up to date technically speaking, by a BIG margin, and even the (subjective) aesthetic choices are very questionable, but that's a matter of taste.

I came here because i've just read this exact quote in the "Blablabla optimized ?" thread :

Quote

Yes, the easiest answer is visual fidelity, it needs to feel epic, and there've been a number of visual mods for KSP that have raised the bar regarding what's possible. [...] Eve and Scatterer [...] at least show what the minimum should be and we want to exceed that drastically.

And... Wow. I mean, "Epic". Haha.

Yup, we're quite far away the objective. Finger crossed, maybe this is indeed very WIP so far and we'll end up with a OK-Ish modern KPS2, maybe !... But I would not bet on that, communication did not suggest this at all.

Edited July 10, 2023 by Dakitess

[Spicat]

25 minutes ago, Dakitess said:

And... Wow. I mean, "Epic". Haha.

Yup, we're quite far away the objective. Finger crossed, maybe this is indeed very WIP so far and we'll end up with a OK-Ish modern KPS2, maybe !... But I would not bet on that, communication did not suggest this at all.

I disagree, planets from orbit are epic, it's even more reinforced by the amazing music. The first time I went to Eve in ksp2 I was really amazed.

But obviously, orbits are nice but when the ground is pixelated, it's diminished the epictness. That's why I asked that:

On 6/30/2023 at 3:00 AM, Dakota said:

I found that the ground texture is sometimes pixelated or blurry, do you plan to improve this system? (spicat, Discord)

Quote

That is concurrent binary trees. That's what we're working towards right now.

 

I mean, the team seems to agree with me:

On 3/10/2023 at 10:00 PM, Intercept Games said:

I might be biased, but from orbit, Kerbol’s planets look incredible. Our art team did a fantastic job. From the surface the game is still quite pretty, but the terrain itself just doesn’t have the consistent visual quality we want yet.

And this ama have talked about my main problem with graphics so far:

On 6/30/2023 at 3:00 AM, Dakota said:

Right now, some of the parts like the fuel tanks look "plasticky" when painted. If I remember correctly, Kavaeric also pointed out that the grass texture on the terrain, when lit a certain way, reflects light unnaturally. Is the team aware of this? (astro648, Discord)

Quote

We're very aware of it. Most visual stuff that gets called out on the forums are things like the grass terrain that we've been staring at for years. So yes, we're working on it.

So I find that the communication so far has suggested this.

[Dakitess]

It shows they acknowledge these issues, but not that they aim for something actually more beautiful. Fixing issues is clearly something we are waiting for, but is part if bug fixing, it's not about making the game more beautiful, technically more up to date, etc.

In other words, when all bugs related to aesthetic will be fix, it won't make the game beautiful, just "less ugly", less visually buggy.

Planets from orbit look okay, I would say, nothing epic to me. Clouds are not particularly beautiful, colors are still quite wrong to me and terrain topology looks odd very often, with local lack of details, especially the shores, for instance. There is nothing stellar nor epic here... KSP1 modded is still far better to my eyes, and devs actually said that it was the bare standard to make at least as beautiful as the KSP1 full modded. Not equal, the bare minimum. 

[Scarecrow71]

Question for @Dakota:  are there going to be more AMA's?  If so, can we get one with one of the devs instead of another with the art department?

[whatsEJstandfor]

On 7/10/2023 at 6:05 AM, Scarecrow71 said:

Question for @Dakota:  are there going to be more AMA's?  If so, can we get one with one of the devs instead of another with the art department?

Also, to clarify, I think @Scarecrow71 means "engineers", as in, the people digging deep into the code to make the clockwork run; Dakota has previously said that everyone at IG are considered devs, so I wanted to preempt that one.

[rockjonn]

On 7/2/2023 at 3:46 AM, TwoCalories said:

  Reveal hidden contents

The EA Artwork concepts are very interesting. There's ones that have a movie poster-vibe to it, some humorous ones, and few ones that are just Kerbal. C4 is my personal favorite. it's like the EA art, but with more Kerbonauts. B3 is also nostalgic of that one KSP1 loading screen. Some of that artwork also implies lore, like Kerbals have cellphones now. I'd love to see more concept art in the future.

Absolutely agree! The EA Artwork concepts in KSP are truly captivating. The variety of styles, from movie poster vibes to humorous ones, adds a unique charm. C4 with more Kerbonauts is fantastic, and B3's nostalgia is heartwarming. The artwork hinting at lore, like Kerbals with cellphones, sparks curiosity. Looking forward to more exciting concept art in the future!

[TwoCalories]

On 7/7/2023 at 5:27 PM, Spicat said:

Those new questions are bonkers, thank you for taking the time! (and I don't say that because two of my questions got answered)

I'm curious now, how have you implemented Skutt? Is it possible because it's a smaller body or did you use something else than the PQS system? Or maybe the new system will help some problems you might have had with it?

It's THE non-spherical body and I love the look:

  Hide contents

 

Skutt looks like a humongous pinecone! I really wonder what those huge mountain/rock formations are on the lower part.

Edited July 29, 2023 by TwoCalories