[WIP] Universal Storage

[Daishi]

It looks great, but what happens when you put two of these next to each other? The doors look like they will overlap.

They shouldn't, but if clipping does occur I can always tweak the opening arc.

I think it needs more of a "coasting to a gentle stop" motion on the last door swing, it seems too harsh at the moment. But I really like the little elements "unlocking" as the door slides on the hinge.

Noted

That's pretty but totally wasted on people who just want to get at what's inside, i.e. most people. In any case most of that mechanism wont even be visible from the outside.

I agree it'll be essentially wasted detail for most people, but the doors need something to swing on. If I could simplify this down I would, but im not sure what else I could remove while keeping this looking functional.

[Chris_Pi]

Having part of those sliding hinge/locking blocks flush with the outer skin of the door and maybe popping out a bit when they slide out would make some of the interior-only stuff more visible. Sensible when the mechanism has to fit in a really thin space, and it's not like they would be airtight or anything. No bugs to keep out either. Anything even slightly plausible is going to look a lot better than "Must be a hinge there - The door swings right around that little empty space." Maybe add a couple of locking pins that would be pushed out into the doorframe/other door when closed? Wouldn't even have to move - It's only visible on the interior side of the door when it's open.

[Daishi]

Having part of those sliding hinge/locking blocks flush with the outer skin of the door and maybe popping out a bit when they slide out would make some of the interior-only stuff more visible. Sensible when the mechanism has to fit in a really thin space, and it's not like they would be airtight or anything. No bugs to keep out either. Anything even slightly plausible is going to look a lot better than "Must be a hinge there - The door swings right around that little empty space." Maybe add a couple of locking pins that would be pushed out into the doorframe/other door when closed? Wouldn't even have to move - It's only visible on the interior side of the door when it's open.

We had little notches in the door for hinges when we first started (you can see it in the old OP images) but we decided to remove them to keep things seamless when the wedges are stacked. Not sure if adding them back, or having things jutting through the structure would look very good. Might try those locking pins, and beefing up the thickness of this mechanism. Its easy to forget these wedges are only the size of a Kerbal.

[enneract]

TAC compatibility soon, aff?

[Daishi]

TAC compatibility soon, aff?

Sooon :| I'm being annoyed by this door mechanism and life is getting in the way a bit (yay wisdom teeth removal), but yeah its getting there.

[Railgunner2160]

Ugh, hope you don't have as bad a time as i did, First time they tried they used Versed and I literally went berserk, took the dentist and 4 others to hold me down and I broke the chair, ofcourse I don't actually remember a thing. Had to go to the hospital and have them removed under complete sedation...

Decent food as far as the lunch I got there went, here's hoping it doesn't go as bad as all that.....

You may wish to do a little research prior to your visit, my case was one of those who suffered from the paradoxical effects, meant to knock me out instead caused me to completely flip-out..... (In my case due to a combination of certain aspects of my asperger's syndrome and the Versed.... I think....)

Edited May 12, 2014 by Railgunner2160

[Paul Kingtiger]

When I had mine out one of the teeth broke up during removal. The dentist had to fish the bits out with dental pliers.

Apart from that it wasn't too bad, I only had a local (lots of it) and apart from not being able to talk or eat anything for 24 hours afterwards I was fine.

[Daishi]

Ouch on both counts >< Regarding the anaesthetic, i'm not too concerned. I've had four teeth removed before back in highschool by the same guy for braces, and that went fine. Pulling teeth still makes me cringe, no matter how many drugs you're on. Pre-op examinations are done and dusted now, the surgery is in early june.

[Daishi]

Had to drop the piston thing - realised i'd probably run into severe keyframe lag with all the animation I had to do on either arm just to keep them rotating in the correct way relative to each other. With twelve moving arms per bay (each with 16+ keys each to keep things in the right place), plus Dmagics science equipment animation, would probably mean KSP would crawl when the parts were active. I've followed a few threads around here with people and cargo bays lagging the game due to excessive keyframing, so i think it pays to simplify.

Its been boiled down to locking bolts and a flexible segmented band thing that is fed out of that box and pushes\pulls against the doors. I think it looks better and is certainly more solid, i felt the previous mechanism was a little on the flimsy side. Textures are just blocking in ones for rough colors, i'll start unwrapping and texturing this properly tomorrow and get things moving again

(Ignore the polycount in the second image, there's a ton of junk in that scene. Proper model should be about about 1000 tris, which is 300 less than the current bay)

[oniontrain]

Nice work on the modeling and textures, I just started using this when it was linked by dmagic. Looking forward to the KAS containers. Will it be dependent on TAC in the future? Because I don't use it and don't particularly plan to, I kill enough kerbals as it is.

[DMagic]

That's looking really nice, I like that the door actually has a working mechanism.

Are you planning on putting in any internal structure for the wedges, or will those be added on a case-by-case basis?

[Daishi]

Nice work on the modeling and textures, I just started using this when it was linked by dmagic. Looking forward to the KAS containers. Will it be dependent on TAC in the future? Because I don't use it and don't particularly plan to, I kill enough kerbals as it is.

Thanks!

Nah it wont be, the packs are totally independent from each other (except the core pack, cause you kinda need the hubs). But you could always install the TAC pack without installing TAC, and the parts will still appear and work in game. They'd just lose their specific functions, and would really only suit imitation supply runs and eyecandy

[Daishi]

That's looking really nice, I like that the door actually has a working mechanism.

Are you planning on putting in any internal structure for the wedges, or will those be added on a case-by-case basis?

I've used this SIM bay \empty wedge thing as an excuse to remodel the internals on my wedge template, so yep these door mechanisms will translate into every current piece (the SIM bay will be the only part that has multi-segmented doors though). Because i'm keeping each part of the wedge separate now, i can tailor each crossbrace to each part and make easier modifications as parts develop without having to cut and re-weld the mesh and botch the UVs like i was doing before

[NoMrBond]

Had to drop the piston thing -snip-

You don't need to specifically animate everything like that, pistons can be handled via the look constraint module where the two elements automatically point at each others origin

[Daishi]

You don't need to specifically animate everything like that, pistons can be handled via the look constraint module where the two elements automatically point at each others origin

Within Unity? Or Maya (point\aim\orient\parent constraint instead)? Basic parented animation seems to do the job for me, at least that way its simple and imports into Unity and KSP painlessly. Animation was never my strength :|

Do you have any good tutorials i can look at for future things, i need to learn to animate in Unity too for emissives and rocket gimbals, and secret future projects...

Edited May 14, 2014 by Daishi

[NoMrBond]

Within Unity? Or Maya (point\aim\orient\parent constraint instead)? Basic parented animation seems to do the job for me, at least that way its simple and imports into Unity and KSP painlessly. Animation was never my strength :|

Do you have any good tutorials i can look at for future things, i need to learn to animate in Unity too for emissives and rocket gimbals, and secret future projects...

I'm not sure if it's part of stock Unity, but within KSP you can specify pairs of objects (like the suspension elements of the wheels), and these pairs (via the constrainlookfx module) always point at each other, although it does require some setup under Unity to work properly

In Unity you set these elements to be pointing straight up (Z+, no rotation), but once loaded in game they'll be rotated (by the module, set in the part.cfg) to be facing each other even while moving (via engine gimbal, shock traverse or wheel turning etc)

Actually I'm not sure if it'll work with animations like this though because the modules points to the part origins, which aren't moved by animations like they are by some of the other part modules

[Daishi]

Interesting, will have to experiment with that, cheers! It's a shame Squad hasn't released an official doc for the various types of modules so we have a better idea of what we can do with our parts.

[Daishi]

Just some evidence i'm doing stuff ><

Old internal structure bay texture map vs new, and with that comes a 200 tri reduction on each wedge.

[Daishi]

Progress shot of the double-door variant, with teaser internals (new Sabatier reactor). For the sake of not melting peoples computers (its a couple of hundred more polys than the stock single door wedge) the double door bay is only going to be used for the SIM cargo bay, and Dmagic's science parts. You won't need more than a few of those, compared to a typical couple of stacks of resources.

Still texturing and working out stuff. Taking much longer than i had hoped ><

[Chris_Pi]

Wonderful looking work. I'm inclined to quote Jayne Cobb. The extra-wide door is going to be really nice for a cargo bay. if this is the quality of what you do, Please take as much time as you need. It's well worth the wait.

[CaptainKipard]

Looking great as always. Do you have plans for specular maps?

[Daishi]

Wonderful looking work. I'm inclined to quote Jayne Cobb. The extra-wide door is going to be really nice for a cargo bay. if this is the quality of what you do, Please take as much time as you need. It's well worth the wait.

+1

Looking great as always. Do you have plans for specular maps?

Cheers! I'm not too keen on adding extra maps at this stage (mainly to scrimp on RAM) but certain sections of future models will be set up in Unity with the Specular shader to compensate. It'll more or less do the same thing (just more of a generalised shininess), but share the diffuse and keep memory usage down. The EVA-X and the Sabatier revision use it on the tops of the pistons, the small spherical tank, and the small cylinders.

[DMagic]

Cheers! I'm not too keen on adding extra maps at this stage (mainly to scrimp on RAM) but certain sections of future models will be set up in Unity with the Specular shader to compensate. It'll more or less do the same thing (just more of a generalised shininess), but share the diffuse and keep memory usage down. The EVA-X and the Sabatier revision use it on the tops of the pistons, the small spherical tank, and the small cylinders.

There's no need to use additional uv maps or textures to get a specular map. You can use the alpha channel of your diffuse to texture to set the specular map.

[Daishi]

There's no need to use additional uv maps or textures to get a specular map. You can use the alpha channel of your diffuse to texture to set the specular map.

Really? You just made my day

[cy-one]

I started using this, because I like the idea a lot. But I don't use life support systems, so I'm mainly waiting for the Kethane pack.

What would also be really cool: Containers for RCS and LFO, as well as a small engine. Would be perfect for compact probes or the like.