Volunteering modeler

[matttay99]

Hi there KSP modders!

I'd love to help out with any modeling requirements you might have for your projects, and i'm offering my services!

My day job is motion design, so it involves a fair bit of modeling and animating, but not much in the way of texturing and I haven't a clue about unity! but i'm willing to learn!

A recent model from a personal project detailing the unfolding of some solar panels http://imgur.com/a/ag37k

Please let me know if I can help with anything!

[team.leit]

Hi there KSP modders!

I'd love to help out with any modeling requirements you might have for your projects, and i'm offering my services!

My day job is motion design, so it involves a fair bit of modeling and animating, but not much in the way of texturing and I haven't a clue about unity! but i'm willing to learn!

A recent model from a personal project detailing the unfolding of some solar panels http://imgur.com/a/ag37k

Please let me know if I can help with anything!

I know that JDLENL is looking for a modeler to make some parts I hope that helped

[tom1499]

Hoooly those are some nice panels. Pretty sure you'll get some requests from plugin makers and the like. Also, part creation isn't that hard once you've wrapped your head around it, there are many tutorials and a whole subforum dedicated to asking questions about part making.

[trekkie_]

best bet is browsing the addon request forum.

if you're good at animating things, you could probably be of more use to other modelers too.

while those panels are nice, the extending frame might not be all that visible in game unless viewed from unreasonably close up, or cause jaggys/shimmering, or make it look like the panels are held together by nothing at a normal viewing distance.

modding in KSP is kind of a balance between quality and efficiency. it's good to keep in mind that some details may be a lot of extra work for very little difference in what people will notice or care about, so plan around it.

another few common elements of KSP modding are

1) edgewear: make your parts look used with wear and tear wherever applicable when texturing. you can see examples in some stock parts like engines.

2) size your textures as small as possible, when possible, to cut down on its memory footprint.

3) keep models at a reasonable amount of polygons. I personally set the limit at around 5000, since that is about the amount in a single half life 2 character model. people are going to be loading tons of parts at once, so requirements can jump sharply. if they say for example, use a 5000 poly model 8 times, they've suddenly got 40,000 poly's on the screen in just that one part. while GPU's are more accurately limited by vertices, that by proxy limits the number of polygons.

these visually identical cylinders are a good example of keeping faces down on parts.

Edited November 14, 2013 by trekkie_

[Guest]

TAC Life Support could use some good container models:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/40667-0-21-1-WIP-TAC-Life-Support-28Jul

You'd really only need to do three or four models: two stack sizes and two radial sizss would do the trick, and just vary the texture.

BTW, that solar panel is awesome, I'd love to see that in a mod somewhere.

[matttay99]

Thankyou very much!

The panels in those renders are not to be imported into KSP... those assets are for an animation i'm working on, but I appreciate that very thin elements wouldn't render all that well in game. I hadn't really though about it!

As for efficiency and poly count, that is the main reason for my post. I'm looking to improve my modeling and texturing where efficiency is concerned. Usually my work has few restraints on poly count or texture size as nothing is rendered real time and is usually being sent to a farm!

Will check the addon request forum! I'd very much like to help out on a project and see my assets in a game that I love.

[Helix935]

i know this is about the solar panels which are some by the way but what is the thing that it is attached to because it looks a lot like the warp gate that frizzank is making....

[Kerbal01]

There are two huge gaps in modern Russian/'Murican rocketry: OSC's antares rocket and the yuzhnoye design bureaus zenit 3 rocket. Either of those would be appreciated.

[NathanKell]

We desperately need more probe parts IMO--what about basing something on those solar panels you already have, and releasing a solar panels set?

Especially for the realism rebalance (where even the Gigantor only generates 1.32EC) we need more panels.

Other probe parts: scientific instruments, especially cameras.

As kerbtrek says, KSP is CPU-limited and RAM-limited, not GPU-limited, so while normally you'd do fine detail with a normal map, in KSP right now it makes sense to do it as geometry and use smaller and fewer textures.

[matttay99]

i know this is about the solar panels which are some by the way but what is the thing that it is attached to because it looks a lot like the warp gate that frizzank is making....

In the animation I'm producing, the device at the back of the ship creates a wormhole which surrounds the ship and allows the ship to travel FTL. I haven't given much though as to exactly how it works. Its largely based on the wormhole machine from Contact but moves the whole ship instead of just a small pod.

The model is still largely a WIP, but the art style is final. Another still: http://i.imgur.com/zQpQGtz.jpg

We desperately need more probe parts IMO--what about basing something on those solar panels you already have, and releasing a solar panels set?

Especially for the realism rebalance (where even the Gigantor only generates 1.32EC) we need more panels.

Other probe parts: scientific instruments, especially cameras.

As kerbtrek says, KSP is CPU-limited and RAM-limited, not GPU-limited, so while normally you'd do fine detail with a normal map, in KSP right now it makes sense to do it as geometry and use smaller and fewer textures.

I'd happily produce a solar panel pack if I can find someone who knows how to give them the right attributes and get my animations working within Unity. I've also found the Gigantors to be a touch weak considering their weight! Same for other instruments, would be great to make them if someone could get them integrated.

[MedievalNerd]

Yes, if you could work a series of near sub 0.625 parts that would be amazing. Maybe look at early pioneer probes, and the likes.

It's hard to do sub 300kg probes as it stands right now. I'm sure Nathan, mostly , and I would love to help with the whole 'balancing' aspect of these parts. Weight/power etcs.

AIES has some decent sized probe parts, maybe use those as a base of inspiration? I personally had done some resizing of them, ~50% size or so. And it was getting interesting, albeit I was having trouble setting the connection nodes to the right spot. I studidly deleted all of them when I purged by 'test' KSP directory. Shame on me.

Cheers,

[Camacha]

I would personally love to see some sensors for kOS, but unfortunately I only know how to make CAD-models, which are hardly useful for use in a game. I do not know how to write plugins either, but when it comes to making coffee, man, I rock.

[TheSuperintendnt]

If you want you can use some of the concepts in my signature, I can only use Sketchup at this point so I'm not really in a position to model them.(Though if you model them I might have to try my hand at the coding to get them to work, cause I think I can do that!)