Chaka Monkey - Closed Development Thread

[YANFRET]

Too bad, you have to wait a few weeks until YANFRET can return to working on this

Hey guys!

Things are still on freeze at the Chaka Monkey Research Lab however I have a few fun pictures for you. First, someone has asked for more info about a system you have already seen so here's some diagrammatic pictures to show the staging of the ALCOR Chaka Rover System.

And just to let you know we have continued to work on the Large Upper Stage project with Talisar, who has done an awesome job with the 3D model, the packaging and working out little issues as we get closer to a release of that part. I decided to share with you guys some images that have arisen from testing, as long as you promise to understand that these are not final config of the upper stage and there are a lot of core properties such as textures, lower basket and engine config, attach points, fairings etc etc... which are incomplete. For example, the images below where it's scaled to match the Orion model I had to use a really small upper stage nozzle because the shroud is not ready and I had to cram the whole thing into the KW Decoupler shroud from the old system. Also that scale of the model will have a totally different lower basket... you're just seeing the large scale one reduced to fit Orion. Also the small scale version will have different textures.

For complete updates on the TALUS project see Talisar's WIP thread here http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/65862-WIP-Talisar-Aerospace-Current-project-Large-Upper-Stage-coop-with-Chaka-Monkey-ES

Edited January 21, 2014 by YANFRET

[likke_A_boss]

-Snip of Prettyness-

*Chokes on banana* OH MH GAWD IS DAT A BLACK ALCOR POD ROVER WITH DA BMW LOGO!?! ITS SO PRETTY IMA GONNA DIE! No, but really, that is ABSOLUTELY amazing work. So much approval.

[YANFRET]

*Chokes on banana* OH MH GAWD IS DAT A BLACK ALCOR POD ROVER WITH DA BMW LOGO!?! ITS SO PRETTY IMA GONNA DIE! No, but really, that is ABSOLUTELY amazing work. So much approval.

Yeah well like it all started when I downloaded the awesome ALCOR part from the WIP thread and then I thought, hmm this thing would look great in CF, so then the next thing you're supposed to do after you wrap something in CF is put a BMW logo on it so I did that, and then I thought hmm this would be a way better rover than the one I was using so there it is. Next thing you know there are three of them sitting on Duna, properly flown there using the the heavy lift system. It works really well they landed with fuel to spare. The first few pages of this thread have more pics of them sitting there with the Monkey Activity Landers and Rover Support Landers. You can also see the other rover system based on Bobcat's LER, also wrapped in CF of course.

[OrbitalSolutionsLtd]

Yeah, great pack. But I'm not so responsive to the BMW logo.

[YANFRET]

Yeah, great pack. But I'm not so responsive to the BMW logo.

It's kind of a running gag where I put it in places it doesn't belong more than anything

[Nibb31]

Yeah, great pack. But I'm not so responsive to the BMW logo.

Me too, it kind of ruins it for me...

[TheCardinal]

Yeah, great pack. But I'm not so responsive to the BMW logo.

Well, i can see the humor in it.

[jfull]

I forgot to ask this before, but will all the parts be distributed on the tech tree in a sensical manner?

[YANFRET]

I forgot to ask this before, but will all the parts be distributed on the tech tree in a sensical manner?

That's a great question and something we should discuss.

As the system is designed it's really a sandbox space program. An important part is the design of the spacecraft IE the craft files that will come with it. I've always thought of the parts as "all-in", you would need everything at once to conduct the final mission. I've never messed with the tech tree, but I can see merit in adding that functionality to it. Once we get into testing, it would be great if I got some input on what that should be like, and then we can include the results in the release.

* Upper stage example not final config *

Edited January 22, 2014 by YANFRET

[YANFRET]

Me too, it kind of ruins it for me...

I would say that I had done that texture before the idea of sharing this with anyone had occurred to me, so it's kind of a personal flourish. There are lots of reasons why the final version will not have Bavarian propaganda all over it and I do respect the difference of opinion.

[jfull]

That's a great question and something we should discuss.

As the system is designed it's really a sandbox space program. An important part is the design of the spacecraft IE the craft files that will come with it. I've always thought of the parts as "all-in", you would need everything at once to conduct the final mission. I've never messed with the tech tree, but I can see merit in adding that functionality to it. Once we get into testing, it would be great if I got some input on what that should be like, and then we can include the results in the release.

I can understand that you've only really thought of this pack in terms of sandbox mode, the complete systems are pretty fantastic. However, I do think it should be relatively simple to integrate them into the tech tree in a way that allows people to use them in their own ways before everything for a system is unlocked.

[YANFRET]

I can understand that you've only really thought of this pack in terms of sandbox mode, the complete systems are pretty fantastic. However, I do think it should be relatively simple to integrate them into the tech tree in a way that allows people to use them in their own ways before everything for a system is unlocked.

Yeah and it's a good suggestion because that might be a fun way to explore it. Like at first you can get Orion to orbit to dock with a small hab module, then you can put the hab module in lunar orbit, then land on the moon, then go to mars. I like the concept!

[YANFRET]

Roving Duna Special

Nothing new just pretty pictures for you

Do you know that I've never actually tested those "return to orbit" Orion landers on Duna? They work on paper and they were tested at KSC of course but I've never actually tried to use them to leave. We need to do that soon. Of course it would be nice for the MTV to be in orbit at the time which at present it is not. = 0

Edited January 23, 2014 by YANFRET

[landeTLS]

Yanfret if you are interested i made some retextures of sumgai's optimized dev version of the fustek parts. It allows for some lower ram use as all parts share a common texture map. So one could add more of the fustek parts in chakamonkey flavour without the associated memory drain. Not sure if you are already using those yet but in looking at the textures it doesnt look like it. I made mine with the normalmap and diffuse from nothke's retextures.and they almost look like the ones you made tho im not happy with them yet tho. I did tho make the white "tiles" symmetric so they cut off aatwhere the black rim starts. I also made a chaka monkey-like kw titan engine retexture. On my phone now. I could post the pics later

[YANFRET]

Yanfret if you are interested i made some retextures of sumgai's optimized dev version of the fustek parts. It allows for some lower ram use as all parts share a common texture map. So one could add more of the fustek parts in chakamonkey flavour without the associated memory drain. Not sure if you are already using those yet but in looking at the textures it doesnt look like it. I made mine with the normalmap and diffuse from nothke's retextures.and they almost look like the ones you made tho im not happy with them yet tho. I did tho make the white "tiles" symmetric so they cut off aatwhere the black rim starts. I also made a chaka monkey-like kw titan engine retexture. On my phone now. I could post the pics later

Yeah I'd like to see that all free memory is good memory

[jfull]

I can't think of any reason why those wouldn't be able to get to orbit. I've gotten to orbit with less on Duna

[YANFRET]

I can't think of any reason why those wouldn't be able to get to orbit. I've gotten to orbit with less on Duna

Yeah I'm pretty confident but you know how first tries go in KSP eh?

By the way the Dragon motors and parachutes on the capsules are some kind of highly optimistic launch abort system, the theory being that if it all went wrong the capsule could return to the base and use the other ascent vehicle. Also they have four engines to accommodate the engine-out factor after cold storage on the surface.

[landeTLS]

here are my fustek retextures that i talked about before and the kw titan engine

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.

sorry about the a little lowres pics. there are some places i need to fix the textures(white line near the bottom, white dockports that should be black, remaining sumgai test textures, too dark off-black textures, normalmap on the 3.75m components need some work etc.) i also havent resized the 3.75m components but thats a small task. the tiles on the 2.5m components need a seperate diffuse and normalmap but total texture memory use is still only about 8mb compressed,12mb uncompressed total no matter how many components reference the models/textures via MODEL nodes, the titan engine takes about 8/10mb. i also made a quick mockup of that beemer rover with the alcor pod you can see in the back there, but it doesnt look finished at all. I just made that to try how this type of overlay would look ingame. the 3.75m kopula is only half done. thats also a slightly custom kw long tank there with the red ksp logo removed, and a more custom retexture of the longest kw tank. I dont have the artistic sense yanfret has heheh.

I was also thinking i could add portholes on each side to the fustek short components, its done via model nodes.

Edited January 23, 2014 by landeTLS

[jpinard]

I would really like to see tech tree integration. I would add them in separate trees that extend from the end of the current tech tree. So for the engines, just add one more path (more science) than the current final engine spot. Do the same for rover parts, tanks, etc.

[Chestburster]

Those are some really good looking textures. I wonder how i could have missed this thread for so long.

would it be possible to get the procedural fairing and kw interstage textures as a download? I tried to do it myself but editing diffuse map textures (i think they are diffuse maps, I'm no real texture artist xD ) with gimp is difficult.

[kyle.mk.howard]

I'd hate to say it, but those textures look better than the current fustek textures. Especially that cupola module, wow!

I think these surpass nothke's retextures in terms of quality. Nice work!

[landeTLS]

testing some completely alternate normalmaps on the fustek components, the diffuse map on the "crumpled paper/foil" one is actually the same as the other 3.75m textures i posted before so almost all of the details you see there are from the normalmap. the other use a custom diffuse map too. i think they look a little too much tho even tho the crumpled one creates a completly seamless map. temporarily removed the black stuff to see better

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the transition at the top where the black edges start are a bit difficult to get visually pleasing i think, especcialy on the koupula, i cant do the same as yanfret has done because the common texture map basically uses a smaller tile which is repeated over and over again around the rim. this makes me unsure if this is the way to go and maybe its better to keep using seperate maps, what does chaka think?

i could use a repeating seamless texture around the rim instead of seperating it as tiles

Edited January 23, 2014 by landeTLS

[YANFRET]

I'd hate to say it, but those textures look better than the current fustek textures. Especially that cupola module, wow!

I think these surpass nothke's retextures in terms of quality. Nice work!

Both landeTLS and I are working with Nothke's textures, remixed. They are excellent so I asked Nothke for permission to use them in a release of this pack and he agreed. What we're talking about here is memory efficiency and re use within the modified framework that I proposed. landeTLS is looking for ways to optimize and research texture memory shortcuts which could lead to more parts being included in the pack if we work properly throughout.

Soo back to that I'm lookin at 9.32 mb total size for the short hab module (textures re used for three sizes, Small lander, Large Lander, and MTV). Another 9.32 for Versions B and C of the same, and 4.06 for the observation module. Skip to the very bottom of this tome to see what I think we could do about that.

The cupola here is also textured with a photo of Shuttle Endeavor's right wing (same image from chaka logo page 1). I think it's important to use photos of the shuttle as texture sources when possible as a remembrance to the sacrifices and triumphs which defined that program. The Chaka Monkey Orion textures, for example, are from photos the nose of Atlantis docked with ISS, and I use shuttle wing images often as colour and texture bases.

If you've noticed those two full size landers at our base, like the one in the background here with it's solar arms surrendering to the sun, I see those as supply landers, and the main rover complex as the living module. What if we wrote "BEER" on one supply lander and "PIZZA" on the other in giant black shuttle font letters?? yeah? oh come on lets do it. ** Delivery charges may apply **

And I think for me the quilted parts have reached the end of development however I would like to improve these two (above and below here)

The reason for the white ring at the top of the module dockport area is because the fustek modules have a little gap there which you can see when they are viewed end facing. The white area there masks it because the gap appears white since what you see is the inside of the part.

The quilted texture has been infused with subtle blues and reds to emphasize the results of outer space light. I couldn't be happier with Nothke's work which led to these results. His quilted texture and NRM is precise and bold.

---------------------------------

My current texture preference for foil is a larger version of this image:

Which I haven't had the chance to run through crazy bump to create the NRM but that will happen soon for TALUS.

This is what that texture looks like on the end of the Talus tank

testing some completely alternate normalmaps on the fustek components, the diffuse map on the "crumpled paper/foil" one is actually the same as the other 3.75m textures i posted before so almost all of the details you see there are from the normalmap. the other use a custom diffuse map too. i think they look a little too much tho even tho the crumpled one creates a completly seamless map. temporarily removed the black stuff to see better

http://imgur.com/a/YzzaS

the transition at the top where the black edges start are a bit difficult to get visually pleasing i think, especcialy on the koupula, i cant do the same as yanfret has done because the common texture map basically uses a smaller tile which is repeated over and over again around the rim. this makes me unsure if this is the way to go and maybe its better to keep using seperate maps, what does chaka think?

i could use a repeating seamless texture around the rim instead of seperating it as tiles

I think... that the parts we're talking about right now get a lot of visual attention or time on screen. I dont think we should repeat the hab textures themselves any further than they already are ( 4x around the sides ) but where I do think we can save space is the area beyond the module texture. Look at this;

The hab texture is 1/4 of it and the rest is just filler in Chaka Monkey configuration. Sumghai re organized this for his current version by making the modules share a common texture, but for this system we could eliminate maybe 50% of the texture area without any further repeat of the hab texture itself eh?

Edited January 24, 2014 by YANFRET

[landeTLS]

The hab texture is 1/4 of it and the rest is just filler in Chaka Monkey configuration. Sumghai re organized this for his current version by making the modules share a common texture, but for this system we could eliminate maybe 50% of the texture area without any further repeat of the hab texture itself eh?

Thats the main issue with this new dev texture map. All the tiles are actually repeated. Thats why i had to change the scale of the tiles themselves to make things line up properly. If you look closely Youll see that two tiles are repeated over and over again. Ill look over things later but it looks like the things sumgai has done to optimize the map makes it impossible to get the dev texture map to the same nice quality level as the ones you already made

Edit : that koupula texture you made looks soo damn good

Edit2: im thinking for the small modules it might be possible to use the dev common map without detail degradation(since the tiles are all the same anyway) tho we would need to change up the black rim a bit.

Could you send me the kopula and both modules maps with normals and ill have a look at what can be integrated into the dev map?

Edited January 24, 2014 by landeTLS

[YANFRET]

Thats the main issue with this new dev texture map. All the tiles are actually repeated. Thats why i had to change the scale of the tiles themselves to make things line up properly. If you look closely Youll see that two tiles are repeated over and over again. Ill look over things later but it looks like the things sumgai has done to optimize the map makes it impossible to get the dev texture map to the same nice quality level as the ones you already made

Edit : that koupula texture you made looks soo damn good

Edit2: im thinking for the small modules it might be possible to use the dev common map without detail degradation(since the tiles are all the same anyway) tho we would need to change up the black rim a bit.

Could you send me the kopula and both modules maps with normals and ill have a look at what can be integrated into the dev map?

Okie

Oh look downloadable content!

Some of these have extra texture versions in the folders n such. These are a variety of sizes, I just picked an example from each group for the textures not for it's place in the system so if you're grabbing these to do something other than texture research, well, batteries not included.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/smg76nuxslmyf9q/KupolaObsModule%20SMALL.zip

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mgw6bwikub7ziva/Monkey%20Pod%20Orion%20S.zip

https://www.dropbox.com/s/y4hiun1n4oikbq7/TEST%20MODULE%20ADAPTER.zip

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0nc3cm1ye300icp/MonkeyPod%20LANDER%20PARTICLE%20SHIELD.zip

Citation; Download items available on this page contain modified content from the following authors, who's original works are linked below

Sumghai / Fusty - FusTek Station Parts Expansion http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/sdhi-service-module-system/

Nothke - FusTek skin pack for 0.3.5 version http://www./download/fl16ym2029tx4on/FusTekXX.rar

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LICENSE

All media items available for download on this forum thread are copyrighted by their respective original authors and released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. You can read the full terms of the license on the Creative Commons webpage here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Edited January 24, 2014 by YANFRET