Alternis Kerbol - Development thread

[NovaSilisko]

You better not release that before mine, jerk

[djnattyd]

Not to sound noobish (even though I am...) but how would I start doing this for myself? (explain it to me in an "Me lurrning fings" level) I'm guessing I need Unity (have it) and the PartTools (those too) but I'm stuck as to where to go from there.

[NovaSilisko]

Not to sound noobish (even though I am...) but how would I start doing this for myself? (explain it to me in an "Me lurrning fings" level) I'm guessing I need Unity (have it) and the PartTools (those too) but I'm stuck as to where to go from there.

It's all done via plugin, so programming. I'll be releasing the source for everyone to poke through when I do release this though, so that should help.

[CoriW]

Well, recently I was considering getting Krag's planet factory, and I don't know why, but for some reason it doesn't seem super appealing to me.

However, right when I seen this, I was immediately captivated by the awesomeness that is this mod.

Now I'm not saying that Krag's Planet Factory is bad or anything, I'm just saying that it doesn't seem to suit me, this on the other hand I'm now super excited about.

[djnattyd]

It's all done via plugin, so programming. I'll be releasing the source for everyone to poke through when I do release this though, so that should help.

Cheers Nova. I've a feeling my KSP isn't going to like me after this, I've not got much experience with C# save poking around at stuff and then panicking when it breaks

[NovaSilisko]

Okay, less teasing. I've been trying to make comet tails, but KSP's coordinate system is a nightmare, so the dust tails aren't pointing the right direction (the velocity vector doesn't actually point to the velocity vector and I cannot figure out why)

To be honest though, even if they pointed the right way, they'd still look pretty bad considering they're just meshes

Was expecting it to look much less crap than this. And the dust tail aiming off randomly into space is just insult to injury.

Edited December 16, 2013 by NovaSilisko

[ferram4]

I found this in the link to Anatid's XML Documentation for the Orbit class:

NOTE: All Vector3d's returned by Orbit class functions have their y and z axes flipped. You have

/// to flip these back to get the vectors in world coordinates.

Could that be the problem? Maybe transforming them to worldspace?

Would it be possible to hijack the shader used for reentry and mach effects and use that on a scaled space mesh to give you the effect you want?

All this looks really cool, honestly I want to take it and scale it up to real sizes and just make the entire thing an exercise in difficult fun.

[NovaSilisko]

I found this in the link to Anatid's XML Documentation for the Orbit class:

Could that be the problem?

Would it be possible to hijack the shader used for reentry and mach effects and use that on a scaled space mesh to give you the effect you want?

All this looks really cool, honestly I want to take it and scale it up to real sizes and just make the entire thing an exercise in difficult fun.

r4m0n told me about the XZY thing, but that doesn't seem to be the problem. It's something to do with krakensbane, because I realized that the offset changes with my ship's position...

In an ideal world, for visuals, I'd do this with particles. But, I tried making comets over a weekend ages ago for the game proper, and particle systems simply do not function correctly in scaled space, there's too much strangeness with coordinates (and don't even think about having them in anything but local space, and you pretty much have to have particles in world space for a realistic comet)

Also, this is going well

Edited December 16, 2013 by NovaSilisko

[ferram4]

Ah, the frame velocity. You could access Krakensbane.GetFrameVel() and that should give you a Vector3 that you can add to the vector you already have. Does it work properly if your ship isn't moving above 750 m/s, since you're below the velocity where Krakensbane kicks in?

[NovaSilisko]

Ah, the frame velocity. You could access Krakensbane.GetFrameVel() and that should give you a Vector3 that you can add to the vector you already have. Does it work properly if your ship isn't moving above 750 m/s, since you're below the velocity where Krakensbane kicks in?

Tried that, no dice. Now I'm just EVA'd on the comet's surface and it just absolutely goes insane when I timewarp (as the gif shows). Nothing to do with krakensbane I guess...

[ferram4]

Convert it into scaledspace local space? What happens if you set the body so it doesn't rotate, just for the purpose of tests?

[NovaSilisko]

Convert it into scaledspace local space? What happens if you set the body so it doesn't rotate, just for the purpose of tests?

Originally it was parented to the body, but did the weird rotation thing still. So, I unparented it... and it still did the weird rotation thing, so presumably it's not actually linked to the celestialbody rotation and is instead some other weirdness. I've reverted it back to just being parented now, and it still does the weird rotation but no twitching. So that's something, I guess.

Edit: Finally got it. The magic code:

Vector3.Normalize(cometOrbit.getPositionAtUT(Planetarium.GetUniversalTime()) - cometOrbit.getPositionAtUT(Planetarium.GetUniversalTime() + 10)) * -1;

Edit2: The dust tail is now for some reason absolutely determined to be an antitail, no matter the cost

Edit3: It now is absolutely determined to be a dog

Edited December 16, 2013 by NovaSilisko

[rasheed]

Supernova is doing it! Great job.

[LaydeeDem]

You must be getting some serious PTSD Nova.

[djnattyd]

Slightly off-topic but, after digging through the Assembly-cSharp.dll I've come across ProceduralAsteroid, anybody know if this actually works to create asteroids? (Sorry for the hijack Nova)

[Captain_Party]

Nova, I'd love to do some bug-testing for you, just give me a bell if need be.

[Gojira]

A dog tail is better than no tail! It means progress! Damn impressive, Nova, great work on this so far.

Nova, I'd love to do some bug-testing for you, just give me a bell if need be.

I'll sign up for this too

[LaydeeDem]

Haha. "Testers".

So nova, any advice for planet texture making? The textures I make don't have the right feel to it.

[NovaSilisko]

Gentlemen... behold

[TimMartland]

You must be getting some serious PTSD Nova.

"Mr Jeb! Activate the trip-shield!"

"But my eyes canna take ane more captain!"

[djnattyd]

Gentlemen... behold

God damn it Nova, you sure know how to make someone feel inadequate. I'm still trying to figure out how to simply change the ambient light levels (I have zero C# experience) and here you are making a working comet. Superb work!

(Honestly, I've spent the last 4 or so hours looking through the both the KSP API docs & the Planet Factory source with glazed eyes.)

[Lack]

Gentlemen... behold

*snip*

Bravo, looks great. I take that the tail is actually behaving itself now.

[Gojira]

Is Kerbin tidally locked to Jool now?

[DisarmingBaton5]

What does the tail look like from within? It looks great from Kerbin.

[NovaSilisko]

What does the tail look like from within? It looks great from Kerbin.

Doesn't look like anything special, just a big glowy sky

Eventually I want to make the comets react to current ambient light levels, as well as sun angle - that way you can't see them during the day unless they're very bright.

Edit: Going to switch around Ike and Gilly. Gilly is now a comet too, but a small one, that shows up more frequently, while Ike is fairly long-period, but is enormous.

Edited December 16, 2013 by NovaSilisko