LLL - Lack Luster Labs - Development Thread

[Lack]

Thanks Lack, you're the best!!

I was using the Jool V parts and the skinny and thin separator had trouble decoupling (read: didn't decouple at all). Do you know the cause of this? It's quite a heavily modded install, but mostly with parts. No Kerbal Joint Reinforcement or Ferram Aerospace Research or anything.

The nodes are very close together, I suspect you've accidentally attached the top to the bottom and the bottom to the top. I've done it quite a few times.

@ SchildConstruct,

The taking it out, yes. The not putting it back in, not so much. I've added a link to the OP.

@Mach, NathanKell,

That's the plan. Blackheart's re-texturing might have some odd results; I'm trying to follow what Squad have done in their UV mapping, but their layouts are certainly not how I would have done it. I suspect that the earlier models just used whatever the software threw out, with little attempt to organise it (The most recent ones are far better in this regard, the extra experience shows).

I couldn't get the .mu importer for Blender to work either, so I'm having to re-make them by eye (and screenshot). It perhaps doesn't help that I know sweet fanny adams about how rocket engines actually work, so the piping and those sort of details will almost certainly be wrong.

I don't suppose someone who does know would be willing to provide slightly 'kerbalised' sketches of how they might conceivably look under there.

Actually, while I'm asking for assistance, don't suppose anyone knows any nifty ways to simplify a cylinder in Blender. I realised I was using 24 sided cylinders for the piping, rather than something simpler, so the tri count is about 7k (although that's about the same as the Mainsail) and I can't be bothered to re-do them all and then re-do the UVs.

[landeTLS]

The Decimate modifier in blender does a semi good job in reducing tri counts. But there are some times where i get wierd results. Sometimes one needs to manually adjust after decimating. I used the circle transformation tool to fix each loop. I usually remake the mesh rather than decimating since i find its faster. But im sure someone with more experience can lend more advice.

About the .mu importer i can lend my limited experience with it. Iwe been able to import most of squads models into blender with it but its far from bug free. A few things to remember is to always have the .mu referenced textures in the same folder as the .mu. sometimes squad has renamed or removed some textures from the folder even tho they are still referenced by the .mu. this confuses the mu importer. What you can do is open the .mu in notepad++ and eather remove the texture reference or just create a blank texture with that name in the folder(youll find it in the last few lines in the mu). The console log in blender will also tell you where the issue is.

Edited April 27, 2014 by landeTLS

[Lack]

The Decimate modifier in blender does a semi good job in reducing tri counts. But there are some times where i get wierd results. Sometimes one needs to manually adjust after decimating. I used the circle transformation tool to fix each loop. I usually remake the mesh rather than decimating since i find its faster. But im sure someone with more experience can lend more advice.

Thanks, I saw that suggested when I googled it, can't find where the tool is in Blender though. I'll have to have a look around for it.

Edit: Found it.

Edited April 27, 2014 by Lack

[landeTLS]

Thanks, I saw that suggested when I googled it, can't find where the tool is in Blender though. I'll have to have a look around for it.

Its in the object modifier tab below the outliner. Same place as the edgesplit and the other goodies

[blackheart612]

The nodes are very close together, I suspect you've accidentally attached the top to the bottom and the bottom to the top. I've done it quite a few times.

@ SchildConstruct,

The taking it out, yes. The not putting it back in, not so much. I've added a link to the OP.

@Mach, NathanKell,

That's the plan. Blackheart's re-texturing might have some odd results; I'm trying to follow what Squad have done in their UV mapping, but their layouts are certainly not how I would have done it. I suspect that the earlier models just used whatever the software threw out, with little attempt to organise it (The most recent ones are far better in this regard, the extra experience shows).

I couldn't get the .mu importer for Blender to work either, so I'm having to re-make them by eye (and screenshot). It perhaps doesn't help that I know sweet fanny adams about how rocket engines actually work, so the piping and those sort of details will almost certainly be wrong.

I don't suppose someone who does know would be willing to provide slightly 'kerbalised' sketches of how they might conceivably look under there.

Actually, while I'm asking for assistance, don't suppose anyone knows any nifty ways to simplify a cylinder in Blender. I realised I was using 24 sided cylinders for the piping, rather than something simpler, so the tri count is about 7k (although that's about the same as the Mainsail) and I can't be bothered to re-do them all and then re-do the UVs.

Hey lack, don't worry about it, I'll see if I can revisit it to match your model.

[Lack]

Its in the object modifier tab below the outliner. Same place as the edgesplit and the other goodies

Thanks, I've always stuck to shortcuts so hadn't noticed that area.

With the .mu I normally get a trace-back error about materials, nodes and shaders. I'll try that out.

@blackheart,

Thanks. I'll send you a copy later.

Edit:

Cut it down to about 5.5k tris without any appreciable loss of quality. The other areas don't like it so much.

Edited April 27, 2014 by Lack

[Arcamean]

I registered just to post here because... my god I can barely get off Kerbin but I see these ships and my fingers get all "gimmie gimmie!" lol. IF I can ever get reliable circular orbits I'd love to start building ships with this.

[blackheart612]

You just have to understand the Function of Delta-V and get a thingy to calculate it, Mechjeb and Engineer does a good job for it. You won't have those problems again

[biohazard15]

Lack, looks like there is a bug with SXT 13: 2.5m girders and inflatable fuel tanks (and 3.75m orange inflatable tank) doesn't appear in VAB\SPH, although they appear (and can be purchased) in R&D lab.

[Lack]

Lack, looks like there is a bug with SXT 13: 2.5m girders and inflatable fuel tanks (and 3.75m orange inflatable tank) doesn't appear in VAB\SPH, although they appear (and can be purchased) in R&D lab.

No, that's quite intended. It's so not to clutter the menu up with re-sizes. If you go to their config files you can change the 'category = -1' to 'category = structural' or 'category = propulsion'.

They're in SXT/Parts/Hull/inflatableTank/2-5m

I was going to write a MM config for it, but haven't got round to it yet.

[hieywiey]

Can you please re-add the craft files?

[Lack]

Can you please re-add the craft files?

Yeah, that was just an over-sight. If you scroll down the OP there's links to SXT-12 and 11. They still have the craft-files in.

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I think the supports probably need beefing up a bit.

Edited April 27, 2014 by Lack

[biohazard15]

No, that's quite intended. It's so not to clutter the menu up with re-sizes. If you go to their config files you can change the 'category = -1' to 'category = structural' or 'category = propulsion'.

They're in SXT/Parts/Hull/inflatableTank/2-5m

I was going to write a MM config for it, but haven't got round to it yet.

OK, but that's a strange logic - NovaPunch has quite a lot resized parts and no one is complaining.

[Lack]

OK, but that's a strange logic - NovaPunch has quite a lot resized parts and no one is complaining.

Primarily I just wanted to re-size to 3.75m, it was a better fit than the 2.5m and I didn't want to break old saves. The general dislike of straight resizing is that they're not visually distinct and easily identifiable from the icon. I have a lot in LLL, and that's something that gets on my nerves with the whole 2x1, 4x2, ad infinitum deal.

The configs are still there and it's a minute's work to re-enable them.

Edit:

Should have a MM config to re-enable them up shortly, just testing it actually works.

Edited April 27, 2014 by Lack

[NathanKell]

Awesome!

This just became a required mod for Realism Overhaul

The LV-T30 and -45 are open cycle / gas generator engines. You can tell because of the exhaust pipe. For ductwork you could model them on the Merlin (you could even import the KerbX or LazTek Merlin mu for reference), or the Atlas sustainer (LR-105) for an old-tech gas generator engine. (Also the H-1 of Saturn IB, the RS-27A derivative used on Deltas...)

It's considerably less clear what the LV-909 is. You could make a case it's expander cycle, like the RL-10, same for Poodle. The 909 could also be closed cycle / staged combustion (like, say, the Russian RD-0124). It's also possible the Poodle is pressure fed (like SPS, indeed any of the AJ10 line). Incredibly important for these, however, would be if you could vastly extend the nozzle lengths; vacuum engines have far larger nozzles than sea-level engines for their thrust (consider the Apollo SPS's nozzle: at 90kN it was twice as wide at the base as the H-1 which developed over ten times that thrust). The 909's nozzle should end up probably a full 1.25m wide (and the Poodle a full 2.5m wide), though maintaining the narrow throats...

[sharpspoonful]

Hey Lack, just wanted to thank you for including the parts you helped me with a while back. Just as a head's up, the 2x1 Life support container seems to be borrowing the Oxygen box's texture. Was it meant to?

[Lack]

Awesome!

This just became a required mod for Realism Overhaul

The LV-T30 and -45 are open cycle / gas generator engines. You can tell because of the exhaust pipe. For ductwork you could model them on the Merlin (you could even import the KerbX or LazTek Merlin mu for reference), or the Atlas sustainer (LR-105) for an old-tech gas generator engine. (Also the H-1 of Saturn IB, the RS-27A derivative used on Deltas...)

It's considerably less clear what the LV-909 is. You could make a case it's expander cycle, like the RL-10, same for Poodle. The 909 could also be closed cycle / staged combustion (like, say, the Russian RD-0124). It's also possible the Poodle is pressure fed (like SPS, indeed any of the AJ10 line). Incredibly important for these, however, would be if you could vastly extend the nozzle lengths; vacuum engines have far larger nozzles than sea-level engines for their thrust (consider the Apollo SPS's nozzle: at 90kN it was twice as wide at the base as the H-1 which developed over ten times that thrust). The 909's nozzle should end up probably a full 1.25m wide (and the Poodle a full 2.5m wide), though maintaining the narrow throats...

Ah excellent, thanks. Thinking of having this as a separate download and having it actually replace the models for the stock engines.

@sharpspoonful,

Ah yes, I was going to ask if you were okay with bundling them but I'd cleared out all my old PMs.

The life-support using the oxygen container is just laziness on my part.

Here's the MM config to re-enable the 2.5m Copernicus parts.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39086055/SXTCorpunicus2-5m.zip

[sharpspoonful]

Just so you know, those parts were borrowing artwork from Sombalic's resource containers. I had never intended on distributing them, so I figured it wan't a big deal to use them.

[NathanKell]

Ah, cool! That sounds great! Let me know if I can help with anything else.

Aaaand...whoops, forgot about the others: Mainsail is gas generator (the giveaway is the exhaust manifold around the nozzle; see this image of the J-2 engine (F-1 did the same). This (ducting the turbopump exhaust into the nozzle) is slightly more efficient than a separate exhaust, but still nowhere near efficient as a closed-cycle engine. Though given that nothing actually *flows to* that ring, maybe it's just for show and the Mainsail is actually staged combustion (RftS treats it as such.)

It could also use a nozzle rework (the nozzle just looks *weird* IMO; probably would look best with the shape of the F-1).

The Skipper appears to be closed cycle / staged combustion. Your best bet here would be model the tubing of the NK-33, I'd say. Also maybe thin out the nozzle curvature a bit to match the NK-33 (although the Skipper, like the LV-T30/45, is the *closest* to a realistic-shaped nozzle stock KSP has...barring the ARM parts obviously).

Speaking of ARM: they're real engines: F-1B x2, J-2X, RS-25 x4.

[Naf5000]

Here's a minor request; A hexagonal structural plate with sides 1m long. The current plate has a diameter of 1m, but that means it only works with other hexagonal plates.

[CyberFoxx]

Well, updated to LLL 12 (Kept a backup of my previous LLL install thankfully), and ran into several ships that didn't load. Just wanted to confirm the new names for some of the parts before I go mucking in my save file.

2x2to25m -> 2to2-5Adaptor ?

2to1Adaptor -> 2to1Adaptor0 ?

1x1newcargo -> Seems the 1x1 cargo parts are missing?

Anyway, I'll roll back to my previous LLL install for now. I tend to use the 1x1 cargo pieces a lot. (They're great for sticking Interstellar's tiny fission/fusion reactors in)

[Catullus]

Apologies if this has already been answered, but is there anything in LLL-lite that isn't in LLL-full? The front page isn't entirely clear on the difference.

Great parts btw, I'm enjoying them so far.

[Lack]

Well, updated to LLL 12 (Kept a backup of my previous LLL install thankfully), and ran into several ships that didn't load. Just wanted to confirm the new names for some of the parts before I go mucking in my save file.

2x2to25m -> 2to2-5Adaptor ?

2to1Adaptor -> 2to1Adaptor0 ?

1x1newcargo -> Seems the 1x1 cargo parts are missing?

Anyway, I'll roll back to my previous LLL install for now. I tend to use the 1x1 cargo pieces a lot. (They're great for sticking Interstellar's tiny fission/fusion reactors in)

Thanks, that's the sort of thing I was worried about, but none of the testers caught them. I'll have a look into it.

@Naf5000,

That should be easy enough. Just remember the formula for the side of a hexagon and do the rescale. So you'll need a rescale of 1.732 in two of the axis.

So change the line 'scale = 1, 1, 1' to 'scale = 1.732, 1.732 , 1'.

If you want both, make a copy of the config and also change 'name ='

@Catullus,

LLL-Lite is designed for circular hulls and people not wanting to faff around too much with the 1x1, 2x1, etc stuff, so the things that are different are things like the Sparrow being shrunk down and a circular adaptor lobbed on the end, or the 2x1 Nuclear engine having a circular adaptor glued to the top. The CBMs were also shrunk down to fit 1.25m hulls.

Any actual additional parts (rather than the above sort of thing) should have been folded into LLL-12.

@sharpspoonful,

Ah, thanks, I wasn't aware. I think I had to re-do the textures from scratch anyway, but it'd certainly be good form to change them, what with the actual text reading the same.

[CharlieDeBeadle]

Great mod, it's really useful for making bases with the radars and the vehicles!

Would you be able to add a 1x1 to 1.25m adapter? It would really help for transitioning from Docking to Berthing ports!

[Lack]

Great mod, it's really useful for making bases with the radars and the vehicles!

Would you be able to add a 1x1 to 1.25m adapter? It would really help for transitioning from Docking to Berthing ports!

Thanks,

There should be one in there already, check under structural (at least in LLL-Full).

Edit: Yep, it's there.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Lack