[WIP] US Probes - Old and New - Dev Thread

[NathanKell]

Woot!

Per Gunter's page it's coated with a gold wash then painted with white and black. So...white-gold? (As the photo at Gunter's confirms.)

Sorry I can't help you with the animation issue...

[raidernick]

Actually I will need to update the colors. I think the museum is also wrong, well not exactly wrong, but mistaken about what color goes where. Looking at this picture of the actual probe(although it is in black and white) you can see that it has black stripes on bottom and white stripes on top. In between the stripes is unpainted metal. This metal I believe is the gold metal. So the museum and wiki aren't exactly wrong but misinformed about where the stripes were.

[raidernick]

So based on that black and white photo here is how I think the color should be. So as per the wording it is still painted with black and white stripes and a gold undercoat.

Edited September 7, 2014 by raidernick

[NathanKell]

That...doesn't seem to make sense, IMO, with their stated purpose as thermal control; like Explorer 1, the black and white should be alternating, not on separate areas, I think...

[Guest]

Looks nice, the gold could perhaps be... "golder", but we'll see how it looks when reflections are added. The black stripes might be a bit narrow, too.

I think that the reason for black and white not alternating would be that different compartments required different temperatures. On the earliest Pioneers they painted a complex pattern just to keep everything at the right temperature.

Edited September 7, 2014 by Guest

[raidernick]

That...doesn't seem to make sense, IMO, with their stated purpose as thermal control; like Explorer 1, the black and white should be alternating, not on separate areas, I think...

If you look at the black and white picture of the real life used probe you can clearly see the top stripes are white and the alternating striped between them are NOT black, while the ones are the bottom are black and between those again are NOT white. This is the only scheme that makes sense.

Looks nice, the gold could perhaps be... "golder", but we'll see how it looks when reflections are added. The black stripes might be a bit narrow, too.

I think that the reason for black and white not alternating would be that different compartments required different temperatures. On the earliest Pioneers they painted a complex pattern just to keep everything at the right temperature.

Reflections are already added and on 4x high magnitude than pioneer 1. The probe is just SO tiny that it doesn't reflect well. In those pictures I have ksp zoomed in as far as it will go and the probe still doesn't take up the whole screen. However since those pictures I have added a "speckle" to the gold color to give it a more metallic color, again its barely noticeable at that size.

[raidernick]

Here is my progress on pioneer 5. Still needs the solar arrays and arms, plus all of the little details. Then to be textured.

I am waiting to finish this before making an initial release of this mod.

[Kerbal01]

great work!

[raidernick]

Pioneer 5 is done. Expect an initial release of this pack soon.

[sirkut]

_awesome_ keep this up!

[raidernick]

This has been released, visit the release thread here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/93389

[raidernick]

For my next release I am going to be focusing on newer satellites/probes. This time it will be the earth observing system. The three satellites included in this will be Aura, Aqua and Terra.

[TMBakeNaut]

Really enjoying all your new additions and will be looking forward to this one also. Any plans to add in the other Older US Probes such as the Mariner, Ranger, and Surveyor?

[raidernick]

I have mariner meshes I plan to work on. I may or may not work on ranger. I most likely won't do surveyors.

[TMBakeNaut]

Great! I thought I had seen a starter mesh of an impactor in your development of the Soviet Probes so was hopeful. Too bad about the Surveyor, although I have managed to make a fairly good one with the FASA pack. Thanks and keep up the great work.

[raidernick]

Great! I thought I had seen a starter mesh of an impactor in your development of the Soviet Probes so was hopeful. Too bad about the Surveyor, although I have managed to make a fairly good one with the FASA pack. Thanks and keep up the great work.

The only reason I wouldn't work on surveyor is that most of the probes and ships are just a "shell" with parts on the inside. I don't need to model the inside parts since you can't see them anyway and reference for the outside is usually lacking and i have to guess. Since surveyor has no outside and it's inside IS it's outside, modeling this with the available reference material will be very difficult. If I do decide to do it it'll be at the end of this packs development.

The impactor you saw in the soviet probes pack was the polyot anti-satellite probe. It was designed to be crashed into other satellites. I will finish that before the pack reaches version 1.0.

[Tommygun]

I really like the newer satellites, you don't see many mods like this.

Will you be doing any of NASA's TDRSS Satellites?

[raidernick]

I really like the newer satellites, you don't see many mods like this.

Will you be doing any of NASA's TDRSS Satellites?

yes i will

[Tommygun]

That's great, I have been wanting one to use with RemotTech.

[raidernick]

Aura is done.

[Guest]

Looks nice, though wouldn't be better to use the same gold foil as Pioneer 10/11? It looks more realistic, I think, this one is too yellow. Otherwise, looks fine.

[raidernick]

Looks nice, though wouldn't be better to use the same gold foil as Pioneer 10/11? It looks more realistic, I think, this one is too yellow. Otherwise, looks fine.

I probably have the specular set too yellow. I'll make it more grey. I tried the other foil but I didn't really like how it looked on this, it works well on small parts but this one is large. The lines seem too "pronounced", although maybe I'll try using the other foil texture with the normal map from this one.

Edited September 13, 2014 by raidernick

[raidernick]

Ok here is the new texture with the same normal map to soften the lines. I'm not sure I like this though.

Edited September 13, 2014 by raidernick

[raidernick]

Aqua is done.

[raidernick]

Terra is done. Expect a release soon.