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B9 5.0 pre-release (with download)

K3-Chris

By K3-Chris
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K3-Chris

K3-Chris

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Quick UV/texture pass on the HL pod:

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It's very early and has some stuff I know is an issue still, but I think it's slowly getting there, some more stuff from b9's paint-over to implement like the beveled rear window corners etc, and I've used just black outlines in place of proper bevel/emboss effects for now just to draw shapes on the texture around the model and getting the UVs to line up.

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K3-Chris

K3-Chris

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Man it's humbling at times to realize how much I have yet to learn about 3D modeling, but at least I learned some important tools today, figured out how to turn a simple flat exterior shape into a 3d shape much more simply than I have in the past, modo has some really powerful tools that lets you work a lot faster if you know how to use them, like the bevel tool that lets you shrink or blow up selected polygons and inset them or push them out from the adjacent material, can be used to quickly turn a flat shape into a 3D volume even if it's at a weird angle etc, even if it's a compound curve, resulting shape can then be used to "solid drill" with, where volumes that intersect remove one another with priority set to one mesh over the other, I removed the window boxes from the 3D exterior shell:

AdML7E7.png

Window glass that "hides" the IVA hidden, it will fit between the dark gray and slighty less dark gray segments in the windows, transparent version will fit on the inside for you to look through inside the IVA.

Using those tools efficiently I can do it in 5mins or less, took a lot longer for me to do the crew tanks manually and they're nice and square and fit on a grid, that curved shape doesn't fit on a grid at all.

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falken

falken

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Really appreciating this candid look into your progress. What would you consider a good start for modelling? I want to try making some simple parts for KSP.

Also, as far as the interior goes, Will you be putting a heads up display in the pilot/copilot windows?

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K3-Chris

K3-Chris

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Not really sure, I got my start ages ago making maps for UT99, UT2k#, unreal editor was very intuitive for me (or my teenage brain was good at learning it) and it was kinda 3d modeling if pretty simple rectilinear shapes, (boxes) all this curved stuff is new territory for me.

To get started with KSP modding you need a 3d applications, sadly because blender is free almost all KSP tutorials are for blender, but it's horrible, it was designed by a blind person to be used by people with 3 arms, Unity, KSP parttools: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/34013?p=423632&viewfull=1#post423632 and there are a lot of tutorials: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/25013-Compilation-of-modding-information-links-for-0-19-20-21-22-23-Last-update-24th-Jan

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K3-Chris

K3-Chris

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Exterior shells turned into 3D volumes with a hollow interior and walls with volume:

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Jeb and chairs for scale, kerbal in the chair won't wear a helmet and the helmet already clears the ceiling.

Kerbal's POV is above the bottom edge of the windows meaning you'll be able to see forwards, you will be able to see the horizon when flying level or the end of the runway when sitting on the start of it level, compared to S2 cockpit where you're a fair distance bellow the bottom edge of the windows thus your field of view is moved upwards, you can't see what's directly in-front but you can see a bit more above you (plan on fixing that down the line).

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K3-Chris

K3-Chris

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Bac9 is actually back, he tav and I are working on the next version of B9, rolling in fan-fixes, adding some additional parts and implementing FS texture and model switcher to cut down on the needed number of parts (ex: would only need one HL sized tank, set lenght and texture/fuel type using tweakabes etc).

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HL tank behind it to show how they line up, line between them is because they're different meshes, they line up exactly, tried merging the meshes and the line went away, but obviously I don't want to work with it like that.

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Taverius

Taverius

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Not sure how much part reduction we'll be able to do - more values change in our different fuselage types than are usually supported ... changing connection strengths with fuselage lengths is necessary for the B9 fuselages to work correctly, and crash tolerances change for structural (empty) fuselages vs fuel-carrying ones.

The HL is even worse, different sizes have more/less attach nodes.

We'll certainly be conflating all the separate tank types of a size into a single part, that should take out over 50 parts from the count, the rest may come later as plugins provide more functionality.

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K3-Chris

K3-Chris

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Pre-release version of the HL pod: http://www./download/573r77kgembaand/Aero_HL_Cockpit_PreRelease.rar the name and structure of the files is final thus release version will be compatible with saves/craft files using this version.

Cuieuqu.png

What it has: near final texture, near final external model, seats 5, working RCS thrusters, character, size.

What it doesn't:

Door(s) on the texture it has one airlock/hatch/door and ladder but the texture doesn't help you locate it yet:

5CVsUZw.png

You can eva crew from the part by hovering the model near where the kerbal is attached in that picture (only on that side) and kerbals can enter there as well obviously, no IVA means no portraits you can click eva on though.

No specular map/normal map tuning, it's all evenly shiny and looks a bit weird, I'll bake a proper specular map after I finalize the texture.

No emissives yet for the window lighting.

No IVA, I'll start on that now, why there isn't a proper door yet because I want to line up an interior door with the exterior model.

This "Pre-release" is for testing purposes and to tide over falken while I spend some days on the IVA, if you encounter a problem not covered by the missing things list above or have other feedback please tell here, the 400 monoprop might be excessive but my idea is to make the IVA 2 floors, when it could easily fit 3, primarily because I don't want a large crew compliment in there, IVAs are kinda crude and the more kerbals you add to an IVA the lower your FPS gets, the 28 man crew tank is pretty slow because of it, I could easily fit a lot more than 5 kerbals in the pod but 5 seems a good balance between FPS and it's size, and it's a pod/cockpit, it will be used by people making planes that are for cargo transport purposes etc as well as kerbal transport, dictating a high crew count doesn't make a lot of sense, if you want more crew on your craft add some crew tanks.

Low FPS in a crew tank isn't a big deal, but low FPS in a cockpit is, you're supposed to be able to fly the plane from there, low FPS makes that tricky.

Top floor will have 3 crew, 2 facing forwards next to each other in the normal airliner fashion the pilot and the commander, one crew-member behind them rotated 90 degrees to look at the side-wall with a large set of MDFs and buttons/switches etc, he's the flight engineer, behind his chair is a ladder/staircase (if it fits) going down to the floor bellow with 2 crew with similar MFD + buttons and levers setups, they're the mission specialists.

On the floor with 2 kerbals is the airlock pretty close to where the stand-in currently is I'm thinking, this layout is similar to how the actual space-shuttle was laid out

Both floors will have doors "going to" the adjacent HL crew tank I'll make down the line with doors lining up with an exterior texture, and the exterior and interior doors of the HL crew tanks.

The "missing" third floor will have storage, high amount of KAS storage, MonoProp, I don't think I'll add LF and LOX, no stock or b9 cockpit does that.

Edited by K3|Chris
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K3-Chris

K3-Chris

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Yeah I'm willing to release stuff early because I've been in that same boat where a mod-dev I like holds on to new stuff for months and months and possibly never releases, the HL Cockpit isn't finished, but what's missing on the outside isn't major and I can just slot that in later, it doesn't affect your savegame or require removing the old version, new files just replace old ones, biggest missing part is the IVA which doesn't affect the external model really except the internal door and external texture/model of the same door that need to line up.

Please give me your feedback on the near-final stuff like the texture, model, RCS and general feel/use of it etc.

Edited by K3|Chris
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falken

falken

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It's looking very good. My only concern is getting landing gear to line up on it is a pain due to surface attaching on sloped surfaces being a ****. Maybe a slot section for B9 landing gear to fold into? Otherwise I'll just move the LG further back.

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Here's how it looks with my (still very not airworthy) HL shuttle.

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K3-Chris

K3-Chris

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Set the snapping angle to 90? or yeah move it to the fuselage behind, though yeah I should perhaps make the bottom of the collision mesh flat, it's currently an edge between 2 surfaces.

Edited by K3|Chris
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Javster

Javster

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Wow that looks AMAZING!!!! just one more thing on the list of reasons I wish we could move around in IVA.

I was thinking that! Walking around and double clicking a seat would be so cool!!

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K3-Chris

K3-Chris

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Very early WIP of the IVA, untextured, unlit, all props are stand-ins, the HUDs will have frames and will fold up and turn off and the model is just the external shell and seats, will have floors, dashboard, internal walls etc obviously, it's primarily to test the visibility and overall layout, already fixed the head clipping issue.

At first I wanted the HUDs to be "projected" onto the windscreen by putting the actual HUD behind the windscreen out side the plane, looks just fine with no windscreen texture, looks horrible with a windscreen texture, and your co-pilot can see your HUD to the side, I thought I could fix that by using unity's rendering masking system (put a plane/box between the 2 windows extending to the HUD that hides the HUD if you see it through the box) works fine in unity editor, doesn't work in KSP, not sure what's going on there, next best option is a framed HUD, I'll need to figure out how to trigger animations in IVA first though, I've asked the few people I know to have done it and they haven't answered me yet (it's undocumented, shocking right?).

I'm thinking the HUDs will be off by default and have a very visible button for each of the 2 forward facing crew to toggle their HUD.

Pilot and commander up front, engineer behind them, 2 more seats below them on another floor that aren't in yet, I'll model that part after I figure out the top floor.

Will have joysticks and pedals that animate as you control the plane cutesy of FireSpitter and more buttons and switches and generally random greeble.

Been flying around some test ships around KSC and into orbit and back, really liking the visibility, you can see fairly well, only real problem is approach, you can see a bit bellow you but you can't see that well bellow you, you have to rely on instruments the last bit or use external view, or use the RPM cameras and RPM MFDs.

u8sSBR2.png

This is how I scorch-mark the cockpits before shipments btw, no I don't have a huge grin on my face doing it, it's srsbizniz. "wrooooooom swish"

Edited by K3|Chris
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Sufficient Anonymity

Sufficient Anonymity

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What do you mean?

I think @Joshwoo69 is asking about the HUDs (which, as I understand, will eventually have some borders and will flip up and down).

EDIT: Also, that is one beautiful cockpit.

Edited by SufficientAnonymity
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