[1.12.X] Tantares - Stockalike Soyuz and MIR [16.1][28.05.2024][Mars Expedition WIP]

[curtquarquesso]

11 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

I think you could have gotten away with just using the smooth rendering option on the edges, rather than adding all those extra loops. The corners might need a single bevel but not more.
EDIT: Curt can you send me an OBJ of that so I can play with it? I'd like to try a couple different ways of reducing that polycount.

I'd be happy to. Give me a little bit here. OBJ, or just the Wings file?

[CobaltWolf]

Just now, curtquarquesso said:

I'd be happy to. Give me a little bit here. OBJ, or just the Wings file?

OBJ. I don't use Wings

[InsaneDruid]

@curtquarquesso

Heres a shot of the top node in unity, and all nodes in blender.

and the code:

	NODE
	{
		name = top
		transform = Briz_NodeTop
		size = 1
		method = FIXED_JOINT
	}
	NODE
	{
		name = top00
		transform = Briz_NodeMiddle
		size = 1
		method = FIXED_JOINT
	}
	NODE
	{
		name = bottom
		transform = Briz_NodeBottom
		size = 1
		method = FIXED_JOINT
	}

 

[Deimos Rast]

Greetings! I come to you with dire tidings - it would seem the hatch on my A541A Ballistic Capsule is stuck in the closed position, and there is no IVA portrait. Working as intended? She still flies true and is keeping Bob safe and sound in orbit, it's just...I wouldn't mind doing a my first EVA, yeah know? I also could have sworn I've used the hatch in previous play throughs... Looking through the log, nothing specific to Tantares/LV jumped out at me, but I have a lot of mods installed (and a lot of other null refs and exceptions as well), so it could just be that. If this is the first you've heard of it, then it's probably an issue on my end. Otherwise, love the mod, especially all the communication devices (but why so many docking ports ). Really love what you've managed to do with the color grey.

Cheers.

Oh, Linux, x64 bit and such.

[Zoltar98]

So after having this mod for a month now I have to say that I am blown away, adds so much more to the game. Though I would like to ask a question. How do you guys put together your N1-L3 rockets? Mine ended up being rather unstable resulting in the thing going ass over tea kettle, once at the second stage. I added some fins to counter act this, but I wonder if there is a way to fly, and not have the fins.

[curtquarquesso]

Did a third pass at Cygnus with reduced vert count, and less beveling. It's much neater, but the down side is that it's less round. Hardly noticeable to some I suppose, but I did prefer the roundedness of the previous version. I only have to model one section with each pass, as I just stack and bridge their faces. Still have to do the front paneling somehow. 

Old vs New:

The old version looks nice, because the panels themselves look more smoothed and rounded. It has horrible plane tangents though when transitioning from the extruded panel to the 24 sided core cylinder. The newer one though will be simpler to work with, simpler to texture, and will have less performance hit. I'm still thinking of beveling the panels like I did before, but I need to do the edge transitions better somehow to avoid weird tangents. Oddly enough, the don't show at all when smooth shaded. 

An annoying problem spot for me is here:

I think I might take this to modeling and texturing discussion, and ask how people would handle this. Can anyone think of a better way to model that edge?

 

SketchFab WIP v3.0 Cygnus Segment with reduced verts.

SketchFab WIP V2.0 Cygnus PCM

 

Edited February 21, 2016 by curtquarquesso

[InsaneDruid]

Connect it right to the corners. No need for that fancy tree to avoid 6+ sided poles. Its hard surface modelling, we can get away with such things here and there on flat(er) surfaces. The edge to the bevelled part should (will? be edgesplit to be sharp anyway.)

 

Green: my gruesome 1000 edge-pole producing, but poly saving corner, blue: sharpened edges.

 

EDIT: can be combined with some normal tweaking like in the how to cut a window thread.

Edited February 21, 2016 by InsaneDruid

[hoojiwana]

42 minutes ago, curtquarquesso said:

Can anyone think of a better way to model that edge?

If the panels aren't inset then why have them attached at all? Unless you're doing AO baking you can skip attaching them altogether. Then you can either change the faces of the core cylinder that the panels are attached to into either one big quad-per-cylinder-section and deal with having texture space that won't be visible (by sticking something else in it) or have the top/bottom/sides be a quad that the panel slightly overlaps. In this thread (for a quick example), the "big quad" approach would be blue, the edge-quads approach would be closest to green. It's not perfect but hopefully illustrates what I mean.

EDIT: Quick and dirty mock-up of the second idea, with slightly exaggerated inset on green to show what I mean. Blue is entirely detached from the core cylinder:

Edited February 21, 2016 by hoojiwana

[InsaneDruid]

Due to the small depth of the panels your method begs for zfighting.

[hoojiwana]

3 minutes ago, InsaneDruid said:

Due to the small depth of the panels your method begs for zfighting.

In my experience with KSP, quads have to literally be in the same space for visible z-fighting. A huge gap of a millimeter isn't noticeable in game (e.g. flag decals) and completely stops it, so those big chunky panels on Cygnus should be absolutely fine.

Edited February 21, 2016 by hoojiwana

[InsaneDruid]

No, flag decals produce clipping, even when several mm away from the surface. It's especially visible with flags that don't have larger invisible areas. Even comically insane distances still produce zfighting when viewed from a distance.

Here is a screenshot. Its the probodobodyne-flag (full color, no transparent areas) on my proton and a stock part. The flag decal is 1cm off the surface (.61 scale, so well over half a cm ingame). Its clearly visible and due to the nature of zfighting (temporal effect) even worse ingame. Ingame, also the smaller flag on the stock part can be seen flickering, which is annoying as hell. And I currently don't even have a 1440p or 4K monitor attached.

Edited February 21, 2016 by InsaneDruid

[hoojiwana]

3 minutes ago, InsaneDruid said:

No, flag decals produce clipping, even when several mm away from the surface. It's especially visible with flags that dont have larger invisible areas. Even comically insane distances still produce zfighting when vieded from a distance.

Here is a screenshot. Its the probodobodyne-flag (full color, no transparent areas) on my proton and a stock part. The flag decal is 1cm off the surface (.61 scale, so well over half a cm ingame). Its clearly visible and due to the nature of zfighting (temporal effect) even worse ingame. Ingame, also the smaller flag on the stock part can be seen flickering, which is annying as hell. And I currently even dont have a 1440p or 4K monitor attached.

I went and checked for myself with the same flag on one of my parts and you're right, it was a bad example. On the Cygnus where the quads would be in the same mesh, the same material and the same draw call I don't think it would happen, unlike the flag example.

[InsaneDruid]

Yea probably, it's more than a cm. And just to be clear, I am completely on par that there are locations where I would just clip a part into another. Where I even would not think of any other solution, because it would be a waste. But on the cygnus? For these few polygons? And considering the texture space needed and the uv aligning to let the surface be easilly paintable.. personally, I would not do it.

[curtquarquesso]

53 minutes ago, InsaneDruid said:

Connect it right to the corners. No need for that fancy tree to avoid 6+ sided poles. Its hard surface modelling, we can get away with such things here and there on flat(er) surfaces. The edge to the bevelled part should (will? be edgesplit to be sharp anyway.)

Green: my gruesome 1000 edge-pole producing, but poly saving corner, blue: sharpened edges.

EDIT: can be combined with some normal tweaking like in the how to cut a window thread.

The edges you see there, I didn't intentionally create. They were just a result of the beveling, and how Wings handles that. When I did this the first time, I recall there being a reason I didn't do what you showed me, which is the obvious way to do it. With the way the model was at the time, I got some weird tangent planes and deformations. When I tried it on this pass, I didn't get any weirdness. It worked fine, so that's the way I'm going. Thanks for the help.

45 minutes ago, hoojiwana said:

If the panels aren't inset then why have them attached at all? Unless you're doing AO baking you can skip attaching them altogether. Then you can either change the faces of the core cylinder that the panels are attached to into either one big quad-per-cylinder-section and deal with having texture space that won't be visible (by sticking something else in it) or have the top/bottom/sides be a quad that the panel slightly overlaps. In this thread (for a quick example), the "big quad" approach would be blue, the edge-quads approach would be closest to green. It's not perfect but hopefully illustrates what I mean.

41 minutes ago, InsaneDruid said:

Due to the small depth of the panels your method begs for zfighting.

38 minutes ago, hoojiwana said:

In my experience with KSP, quads have to literally be in the same space for visible z-fighting. A huge gap of a millimeter isn't noticeable in game (e.g. flag decals) and completely stops it, so those big chunky panels on Cygnus should be absolutely fine.

I tried just separating the panels one time, and it did result in some z-fighting, shading weirdness, and ugliness. I didn't think it'd be a problem either, but it was. Lots of tiny little jagged edges. If the edges intersect, I see jagged edges. Plus, if their curvature doesn't match, there are gaps, and weirdness. 

Extruding the panels out of the cylinder mesh isn't hard anyways. I've got the process documented. Just inset 0.025m, inset again, move planes normal, and then harden edges and bevel. Not all that bad. You just have to know how to use inset in Wings properly. If you inset wrong, you'll inset EVERY face, not just the groups of 4. 

 

Any advice on how to bevel the panels here would be helpful, or if I even should.

Spoiler

      V.S.      

      V.S.       

 

 

 

4 hours ago, Deimos Rast said:

Greetings! I come to you with dire tidings - it would seem the hatch on my A541A Ballistic Capsule is stuck in the closed position, and there is no IVA portrait. Working as intended? She still flies true and is keeping Bob safe and sound in orbit, it's just...I wouldn't mind doing a my first EVA, yeah know? I also could have sworn I've used the hatch in previous play throughs... Looking through the log, nothing specific to Tantares/LV jumped out at me, but I have a lot of mods installed (and a lot of other null refs and exceptions as well), so it could just be that. If this is the first you've heard of it, then it's probably an issue on my end. Otherwise, love the mod, especially all the communication devices (but why so many docking ports ). Really love what you've managed to do with the color grey.

Cheers.

Oh, Linux, x64 bit and such.

Perhaps you haven't unlocked EVA in career mode or something? Seems to be working fine for me. Also make sure you're clicking on the hatch. There are portholes on both sides of the capsule.

Edited February 21, 2016 by curtquarquesso

[hoojiwana]

6 minutes ago, curtquarquesso said:

Any advice on how to bevel the panels here would be helpful, or if I even should.

Wouldn't that 8-face-per-panel option just lead to even more triangles than the original version? All those extra edges have to join up somewhere if you're not detaching the panel mesh.

I can't help all that much beyond what I've already suggested since I have no idea on how Wings works.

[curtquarquesso]

8 minutes ago, hoojiwana said:

Wouldn't that 8-face-per-panel option just lead to even more triangles than the original version? All those extra edges have to join up somewhere if you're not detaching the panel mesh.

I can't help all that much beyond what I've already suggested since I have no idea on how Wings works.

The original had that as well, but I think I found a way to make each panel into 6 faces, as opposed to 8. I guess the question is, are the verts/tris worth it? Is the 4 faced panel to jagged?

[davidy12]

5 hours ago, InsaneDruid said:

@curtquarquesso

Heres a shot of the top node in unity, and all nodes in blender.

May I ask, what is that?

[InsaneDruid]

It's the core of my Breeze-M (Briz-M / Бриз-М) upper stage of my Proton-M / Breeze-M.

Edited February 22, 2016 by InsaneDruid

[Delta_8930]

8 minutes ago, davidy12 said:

May I ask, what is that?

That looks like a Breeze-KM upper stage, used on the Rokot launch vehicle. It also forms the "core" like InsaneDruid mentioned, of the Breeze-M upper stage. 

[Deimos Rast]

7 hours ago, curtquarquesso said:

Perhaps you haven't unlocked EVA in career mode or something? Seems to be working fine for me. Also make sure you're clicking on the hatch. There are portholes on both sides of the capsule.

...

You know, when I posted, I think you might have been right, I didn't have it unlocked.

However, I just tested it again now, and it still doesn't work. Also, that doesn't explain the lack of an IVA or Kerbal Portrait.

I checked the OP and there doesn't seem to be any dependency I'm missing (or any dependencies at all?).

I looked again through the log and every mention of the capsule is benign, best I can tell. I suppose I can try a reinstall of the mod and see if that works (maybe a RASTER Prop conflict?), no idea really. Not the end of the world, I'm just fond of the little capsule.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

[CobaltWolf]

7 hours ago, Deimos Rast said:

...

You know, when I posted, I think you might have been right, I didn't have it unlocked.

However, I just tested it again now, and it still doesn't work. Also, that doesn't explain the lack of an IVA or Kerbal Portrait.

I checked the OP and there doesn't seem to be any dependency I'm missing (or any dependencies at all?).

I looked again through the log and every mention of the capsule is benign, best I can tell. I suppose I can try a reinstall of the mod and see if that works (maybe a RASTER Prop conflict?), no idea really. Not the end of the world, I'm just fond of the little capsule.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

It's because the IVA for the capsule is missing. Either on your end, or it simply didn't ever have one.

Also, @Beale, tentative list...

Spoiler

    EUROPA PROJECT (CONTRACT FOR TANTARES)
        Coralie

            >Vexin A engine

            >Coralie fuel tank

        Astris

            >Astris engine

            >Astris fuel tank

        Aurore-B (From Eyes Turned Skywards)

            >HM-7B (3x thrust chambers)

            >Aurore-B fuel tank (2.5m)

        Misc

            >Black Diamant strap on boosters (ETS)

 

[Beale]

On 2/21/2016 at 6:02 PM, curtquarquesso said:

Antares:  On texel density, I agree. It could stand for a lot more detail. I'm just working on part layout, and integration. Gotta find a way for all the parts to go together conveniently.  Not sure what you mean by relying on stock parts. Clarification needed.
Manual: Holy crap, that's awesome. That's perfect. I love it. So many advantages over .craft files. 

@Beale, I think now might be a good time to develop another development road-map. There seems to be a lot of different projects in motion at the moment, certainly, through much fault of my own.

Antares: I think you need to use stock decouplers to get a working vehicle currently? Not sure.

Manual: Thanks! 

Roadmap: I can cook something up.

 

On 2/21/2016 at 6:18 PM, InsaneDruid said:

@curtquarquesso

Heres a shot of the top node in unity, and all nodes in blender.

and the code:

	NODE
	{
		name = top
		transform = Briz_NodeTop
		size = 1
		method = FIXED_JOINT
	}
	NODE
	{
		name = top00
		transform = Briz_NodeMiddle
		size = 1
		method = FIXED_JOINT
	}
	NODE
	{
		name = bottom
		transform = Briz_NodeBottom
		size = 1
		method = FIXED_JOINT
	}

 

Very useful, thanks!

 

13 hours ago, Deimos Rast said:

...

You know, when I posted, I think you might have been right, I didn't have it unlocked.

However, I just tested it again now, and it still doesn't work. Also, that doesn't explain the lack of an IVA or Kerbal Portrait.

I checked the OP and there doesn't seem to be any dependency I'm missing (or any dependencies at all?).

It doesn't have an IVA. Have you tried right clicking the part (transfer crew?), or try clicking on the hatch.

 

5 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

    EUROPA PROJECT (CONTRACT FOR TANTARES)
        Coralie

            >Vexin A engine

            >Coralie fuel tank

        Astris

            >Astris engine

            >Astris fuel tank

        Aurore-B (From Eyes Turned Skywards)

            >HM-7B (3x thrust chambers)

            >Aurore-B fuel tank (2.5m)

        Misc

            >Black Diamant strap on boosters (ETS)

Very exciting!  

[CobaltWolf]

1 hour ago, Beale said:

Roadmap: I can cook something up.

@tygoo7 liked the way I formatted mine if you're interested.

[Deimos Rast]

2 hours ago, Beale said:

It doesn't have an IVA. Have you tried right clicking the part (transfer crew?), or try clicking on the hatch.

No IVA? Welp, that explains that mystery.

I get the option to transfer crew just fine (and I'm assuming it works just fine too, haven't tested it), but I'm using it as a stand alone capsule and I'm trying to do an EVA report (which is now unlocked) but the only two ways I can currently get my guy out of the capsule are either through a docking port (untested) or through recovering it on Kerbin. I mean, it's fine if we just want to call it a 'safety feature' and call it a day, I just want to make sure something more isn't at work here. I'll do a fresh install of the mod and see if that works. Much obliged, either way.

[Beale]

53 minutes ago, Deimos Rast said:

No IVA? Welp, that explains that mystery.

I get the option to transfer crew just fine (and I'm assuming it works just fine too, haven't tested it), but I'm using it as a stand alone capsule and I'm trying to do an EVA report (which is now unlocked) but the only two ways I can currently get my guy out of the capsule are either through a docking port (untested) or through recovering it on Kerbin. I mean, it's fine if we just want to call it a 'safety feature' and call it a day, I just want to make sure something more isn't at work here. I'll do a fresh install of the mod and see if that works. Much obliged, either way.

I think you need to be a little more descriptive of what you are trying. I have a test just to make sure and there are zero problems (apart from lack of IVA).

You can not do this? (left-click hatch).

 

Edited February 23, 2016 by Beale