[WIP] Universal Storage

[Rakh]

I was thinking just a science storage wedge...

Seconding this request. I've always wanted a sort of "Mobile Processing Lab Lite" thing that can clean experiments and store an infinite number of them like the MPL but can't analyze data for better transmission returns (a feature I never use).

[Daishi]

FYI. A Hayabusa re-entry capsule was requested a few times. It would surely be good to reduce the part count. My solution for orbital sample return was a cluster of tiny rockets, each with two of talisars science containers. Two containers would be good to allow you to return full science value of e.g. Minmus soil samples. Anyway, my cluster caused some lag when I docked it to my science station, because it's made of lots small parts.

I was thinking just a science storage wedge, but a complete return capsule would be a really nice low-partscount solution. A two-part design might make sense. Use a capsule with a heatshield, one (or two, as Cpt. Kipard suggests) sample storage spaces and a small parachute. Add a backshell with a decoupler built into the top, 50-100 M/S RCS fuel/motors and an hour or so of battery power. By itself it could get down from LKO. Pop the backshell off when the parachute opens. Use the backshell for attach points for whatever motors and such are needed to get the capsule back from further out, Remotetech antennas, and whatever else someone might want to stick on. Should be a fairly simple to use system that can be pretty much glued onto an existing vehicle and separated without leaving any parts laying around. It's probably a separate project all by itself, But would be nice to have around.

Seconding this request. I've always wanted a sort of "Mobile Processing Lab Lite" thing that can clean experiments and store an infinite number of them like the MPL but can't analyze data for better transmission returns (a feature I never use).

I'll give it a shot after US is finished, a dedicated sample drop pod is a bit out of scope for Universal Storage. Had a chat with Paul and we feel having a surface sample wedge would be a bit redundant, considering you can fit unlimited samples in a capsule and kerbals generally arrive via the capsules to collect samples in the first place. Doesn't make too much sense :| Advanced sample processing might be a job for Dmagic, but its totally up to him

And Captain Kipard, it's your lucky day! The longer I played around with that water tank, the less I liked it. I know you said transparent materials have no place in space, but looking around at the other stock assets I realised they don't actually belong in the game altogether. Looked totally out of place - even Bac9's hanger and VAB refreshes use flat diffuse for the observation room and vehicle glass. Didn't help that Unity's shaders are so limited and I needed to duplicate the model, scale it down, and invert the normals just so it could render the inside surface.

So I've re-purposed the water tank into a greywater tank, and used the alpha for specular instead of transparency. I've got a few more ideas about the shape of the water tank, I'll be hopefully knocking out tonight.

[CaptainKipard]

That looks excellent. Spec shaders really add a lot.

[Daishi]

Gave the water tank a miss, and decided instead to model a mockup of the water purifier, blocking in its basic shapes and colors as a base to work on.

[CaptainKipard]

Daishi are you making your pipes with bezier curves? It looks like you're doing it the hard way.

[Daishi]

Daishi are you making your pipes with bezier curves? It looks like you're doing it the hard way.

The hard way has perks

My method is far easier to unwrap and texture (plus its very UV space conservative) where I only start with a single non-subdivided cylindrical rod. You unwrap this into a no-frills square UV island, and texture it before you add subdivisions and bend it into a pipe. This way, as long as your post-UV'd edgeloops are topologically consistent, the loops and buckles in your texturework will follow the pipe's direction perfectly.

If you run out of pipe and your textures start stretching too much, you just duplicate another section of the original rod (using the same UV space), merge it onto the end of the last, and keep bending. The only downside is that you can't really have any variations in shadowing or occlusion along its length, as the variation in texture would appear on every section.

Compare my oldest model (the o2 tanks) with a semi-recent one (the hydrogen tanks)...

You get exactly the same texel density (or even greater if you want to compress a section of pipe into a small space), while using a much smaller fraction of the texture map in the process. When i only have 256px for the entire central tank\part\generator, it really saves a lot

[Daishi]

Progress on the water purifer, mucking around with UV morph tools in Zbrush.

[CaptainKipard]

http://youtu.be/4Y8pur0FBI8UV morph tools in Zbrush.

I can't find anything like that on the first page of google. What is this?

[Daishi]

I can't find anything like that on the first page of google. What is this?

Nothing that makes it easier to unwrap, unfortunately, i just realised how deceptive that video is :| The UV morph function in zbrush is useful for quickly checking an already unwrapped map against its 3D counterpart, showing you what each 2D UV island represents and where it is on the 3D model in a dynamic way.

I often use it in tandem with a texel density map, working out the ideal resolution each segment of the model needs to be in the UV space. I can then jump back into the UV editor and rescale each island to match the detail I need to represent, and then create a new density map to examine it. It's a long process but zbrush has a very flexible workflow, you can even texture first before UV unwrapping if you want.

[Daishi]

Almost done! Just got the rest of the piping to add, the bottom domes to paint, the rear of the part to finish, and maybe add a specular map for this release.

[CaptainCrunch]

Looks great! Pro work Daishi.

[Daishi]

Looks great! Pro work Daishi.

Thank you, I aim to please! Turntable time

[Tommygun]

I really like the well worn look of the parts. It's much more interesting.

[CaptainKipard]

I really like the well worn look of the parts. It's much more interesting.

Agreed. Excellent work.

[Daishi]

I really like the well worn look of the parts. It's much more interesting.

Agreed. Excellent work.

Thanks guys!

[Tommygun]

Has anyone suggested a stand by mode for the fuel cells?

I seen other mods, Kethane and maybe one other, that let you place the fuel cell in a stand by mode.

In this mode it will not produce electricity until the ship's battery is completely drained.

Once the batteries are fully recharged the fuel cell goes back to stand by mode.

[Daishi]

Has anyone suggested a stand by mode for the fuel cells?

I seen other mods, Kethane and maybe one other, that let you place the fuel cell in a stand by mode.

In this mode it will not produce electricity until the ship's battery is completely drained.

Once the batteries are fully recharged the fuel cell goes back to stand by mode.

That would be cool, but probably a little OP with its current run time, especially if the craft has no heavy electrical demands. In any case, it's probably up to OkBilly to tweak her plugin to allow for that kind of behaviour. If she thinks it's possible:)

[okbillybunnyface]

That would be cool, but probably a little OP with its current run time, especially if the craft has no heavy electrical demands. In any case, it's probably up to OkBilly to tweak her plugin to allow for that kind of behaviour. If she thinks it's possible:)

Well, I tried to make it as general-purpose as possible. All the resources are handled identically at the moment (in fact, the module doesn't even require electricity to be one of the inputs/outputs), so a feature of that sort that is specific to electricity would be outside the scope of what I did. There should be a way to include it as an option that would simply check if an output is deprived, though.

[Climberfx]

http://i.imgur.com/thqmNr6.jpg

Almost done! Just got the rest of the piping to add, the bottom domes to paint, the rear of the part to finish, and maybe add a specular map for this release.

Viewport 2.0 for textures is a must have to Maya. I see you are using it pretty well.

[Daishi]

Viewport 2.0 for textures is a must have to Maya. I see you are using it pretty well.

It does seem to render things darker than they are... but it is a neat nonetheless

Progress on the water tanks, and upgrades of the external textures. Now that Spaceplane+ is the new standard of "stockalike", I needed to up my game.

[Climberfx]

That's getting cooler every day. You have the gift.

For the darker preview, you can use 1.8 of Gamma correction.

My render in work here are in Mental ray, so, the Final Gather and Radiance make it lighter on final render too. For me the gamma fix that.

This are new containers for TAC LS?

I like the darker too Daishi.

Edited August 24, 2014 by Climberfx

[Chris_Pi]

Very nice. The rounded one Looks a very much like a blow-molded plastic tank, right down to the screw-on cap on the top. Is it the tank for "slightly-used" water?

[Daishi]

That's getting cooler every day. You have the gift.

For the darker preview, you den use 1.8 of Gama correction.

My render in work here are in Mental ray, so, the Final Gather and Radiance make it lighter on final render too. For me the game fix that in preview.

This are new containers for TAC LS?

I like the darker too Daishi.

Yep these are the new water and greywater tanks for TAC. Thanks for the info!

Very nice. The rounded one Looks a very much like a blow-molded plastic tank, right down to the screw-on cap on the top. Is it the tank for "slightly-used" water?

And here I am painting it to look like lightweight aluminium >_>

Cheers, I'm making the lighter tank for the drinkable water, seeing as i've popped out the top and bottom into domes to increase its holding capacity. The darker tank is getting designed to seem heavier and more reinforced for greywater, I figured perhaps double-walled as a safeguard against contaminants or unhygienic leakage or something. Ew.

The solid waste tanks are going to share its darkish theme too. So at a glance, you can tell where the important lifesupport is on the craft, with food and water sharing a cleaner appearance and a lighter palette

[Chris_Pi]

And here I am painting it to look like lightweight aluminium >_>

Aluminum components, Plastic components, All made with duct tape!

It still looks good.

[CaptainKipard]

The curvature of that model makes it look like it's made of some thick fabric.

Everything else looks great, thought I'm a little worried about the size of those textures.