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Great Grey Aerospace Parts

GDMick17

By GDMick17
in KSP1 Mod Development

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GDMick17

GDMick17

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I'm not much of a scientist, or an engineer for that matter, by nature and profession I am a designer.

I like my aerospace contraptions to look pretty. I like cool moving bits and things that light up, and although in reality my kerbal creations may have the lift of a weighted house brick, or my rockets may have the thrust to weight ratio of an Aircraft carrier being powered by two double-A batteries...I will make sure they look damn pretty as they sit on the launchpad overheating.

I really wanted to get involved in a mod, and have been teaching myself little bits and pieces about working in 3D

and I have designed the first set of parts I'm going to be working on.

The problem: Orange tanks trapped to a yellow RCS tank, maybe a lander can thrown in for good measure. You call this a station module?! Here at Great Grey Aerospace we believe in the sleek, the compact and the customisable, which is why we are introducing the now in development Modular Station Construction pack (MSCP) This pack seeks to allow users to build slimline, well supplied station modules which can be launched into kerbin orbit, and docked together to build a station we can all be proud of.

GGA.jpg

This will be the first of what will hopefully be many packs I develop, please comment, suggest, etc, any advice is greatly appreciated :)

P.S If you would like to get involved with the development of this pack please PM me.

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trekkie_

trekkie_

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the hardpoints and docking port seem like they'd be the most difficult thing to model without adding too many polygons. keep in mind, you can always change the center of the object so that they clip into the side of something, which will give the conforming look with much less work and much easier on performance.

I felt up for a challenge, so I gave it a try. I got it pretty smooth and clean at 964 faces (I later lowered it down to 461 faces with no visual change). pretty much an exact replica of the one in the sketch. not fully textured, but can be textured appropriately easily.

ucrr.png

kp0h.png

izjg.png

although, hardpoints attached radially, aren't exactly hard points. it's just a hard point on a non hard point. might be remedied by upping the breaking force. another limiting factor is that without clipping, you'd really only be able to put 2 of these at a given height on whatever you're attaching it to.

performance optimized version

ty9y.png

the beauty is, you can take this bottom segment and re-use that to make both hardpoints and the docking port.

here's for example, the docking port.

io62.png

and here's an example of how it would look conforming to a cylinder. for a part with a curved surface like this, it's going to need part clipping either way just so that it looks flush against round objects that have a varied amount of smoothness to them. it only needs to clip slightly.

7e83.png

Edited by trekkie_
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BLUAV8R

BLUAV8R

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Cant wait for this :) If i may make a recommendation for textures, using a color palette that conforms with the stock parts yet follows your look you're striving forward would be FANTASTIC. The color white (i'm guessing it's probably ivory or something) that the stock parts (such as the Mark 1-2 pod or the science lab) would make a great base and any addition pastel colors would blend very well with them. :) A great example of this is are the boxes in the KAS (kerbal attachment system) mod and how they share a similar white with a pastel yellow detail marking. Again, just a recommendation as i've seen many mods with great potential become ruined due to bad texture work or parts that don't necessarily fit well with stock :) so anyways can't wait for release and am excited to see final outcome! :D

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ZobrAA

ZobrAA

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Aesthetically it's pretty nice, but it's a bit too much on poly count, IMHO. And why that strange curved cut instead of simple cylinder that clips perfectly into ANY hull diameter, not just only 1.25? If all pack parts will be like that, it will drain sys resources as hell on big structures! -_-"

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trekkie_

trekkie_

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Aesthetically it's pretty nice, but it's a bit too much on poly count, IMHO. And why that strange curved cut instead of simple cylinder that clips perfectly into ANY hull diameter, not just only 1.25? If all pack parts will be like that, it will drain sys resources as hell on big structures! -_-"

the curve actually only adds 27 poly's....the point was to see how few poly's I could do it in while still maintaining a decent smoothness. it would still clip perfectly into any hull diameter larger than itself. the rounded edge at the top where the hardpoint will go can be reduced, at cost of quality. the part itself is only 32 faces around...so that's quite a conservative amount as it is. KSP stock parts generally go a bit lower, but not by much, somewhere in the mid 20's. the least I could reduce it to without it being too un-smooth is 275 polys.....but keep in mind, a single character model from HL2 is about 5,000 polys...and that's a pretty old game. at those poly counts, you'll run into performance issues with part count first.

here's a version I squeezed down into 113 faces. if you notice the curve is very sharp and it's a little blocky. you see those lines? think of them as a supporting structure.....you can't add more faces or smoother curves without it correlating to another line as a reference point. you for example, can't attach a 32 sided cylinder to a 20 sided cylinder.....well you can....it just won't look right and the vertex normals will be completely distorted when displayed. this same principle holds true for all objects. the roundness of the object is actually fine at just 20 faces around, but you can't get the curve you want without having more sides.

nvja.png

now compare that to the previous versions, and you'll see the extra quality is well worth the extra poly's....I mean you'd probably have to run 200 of these parts just to reach the typical GPU's max vertex load.....and most peoples machines start lagging at 100+ parts regardless of their polycount.

now here's a version I would find somewhat acceptable with 111 faces, I just clipped off the sharp edges....

xmpc.png

-

oete.png

but it doesn't look as much like the sketch now does it.

Edited by trekkie_
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GDMick17

GDMick17

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Hey guys, apologies I've been away from this thread for a few days, I've been spending a few days teaching myself about texturing, so I've been burrowed into photoshop and some tutorials trying to teach myself how to produce great textures, as the models themselves will be quite simple the textures/lighting/animations will be carrying them to an extent.

At this point the texturing will use a similar look to B9/LLL/Interstellar sort of stuff, however I would like to create a duplicate pack that uses stock alike textures as well.

In regards to the Hardpoints,it will just cylinder that clips into whatever you are attaching it to, the arced/curvy ends are a reference that you use in graphic sketches to say that something is either infinite or doesn't have a designated end. I used it in this just to remind myself that those ends clip through. It will have the slightly rounded edge at the top, but most of the curve will be faked with the texture ;)

However thanks to kerb trek for doing a bit of a modelling there, some really nice work.

Anyway as I say I am very new to this, and teaching myself how to texture has become my own personal vietnam for now, but the battle draws to a close, only a few little things to cover, the basic models are completed (the cylinders), and I'm working on a couple of animated radial parts that aren't in the sketch.

A proper update with some pictures and a look at the first textures is on the way soon but for now I'm on my way back to photoshop.

Because the Treetops just aren't High enough.

Regards to you all.

Mick

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Talisar

Talisar

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In regards to the Hardpoints,it will just cylinder that clips into whatever you are attaching it to, the arced/curvy ends are a reference that you use in graphic sketches to say that something is either infinite or doesn't have a designated end. I used it in this just to remind myself that those ends clip through. It will have the slightly rounded edge at the top, but most of the curve will be faked with the texture ;)

I was just dropping in to give my two cents about the hardpoints, as I went through the same design issues with the radial mounts in my spherical pack. The basic design is very similar, and I was going to suggest you go with exactly what you posted above :)

Also, you can get away with much more geometry in the part if you use a separate (and simpler) collider. For example, my radial mounts are basically a cylindrical collider where you mount the objects to, and the part that clips inside (including the sides) are visual only.

I also wanted to suggest a variation of adapter for the 2.5m -> 1.25m parts that was offset in one direction horizontally... Kind of a bicoupler with only one smaller attachment point.

Anyhow, I love the ideas you have come up with and look forward to this pack's release. And I feel your pain on texturing ;)

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GDMick17

GDMick17

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Hey guys.

Quick update, Modelling is going really well, all the 2.5 Meter Parts are done. The 1.25 Meter have a couple of finishing touches, a couple of animated radial parts are just about finished (just polishing the animation)

In terms of texturing I'm having to really experiment, Ive been working with some bump mapping and its kind of trial and error as I'd never attempted 3D Texturing before, so its taking a little while to teach myself how to get the maps looking nice and fine. If anyone has any tips or advice for texturing do feel free to contact me. However Once I can get 1 part looking the way I want to the whole lot should just feed off of that.

Thanks for all your interest. Another update soon :)

Regards

Michael

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