[WIP] Strutted nukes.

[mouzfun]

So, while messing around with engine clusters made from thrust plates and interstages from Procedural fairings, i realised it's not really convient and/or aestetecaly pleasant.

And so the idea was born. The engine itself is inspired by both LV-N and Nerva. I wan't to do a bunch of 2.5 m clustered nukes, in the range from 2 to 6, i guess. Ideally it would be one part where you can change the number of engines in the VAB, but i don't think something like this exists yet.

Sadly, i do not have any experience with 3d modeling and texturing whatsoever, first time i opened blender (or any 3d editor for that matter) was 5 days ago.

I'm here to listen to your tips and suggestions. I'm especially struggling with texturing.

Here is what i have so far:

To do list:

Learn about specular and AO maps

Find out how to make my engine glow

Revisit attachment to the base

Be awesome at modeling

Edited September 20, 2014 by mouzfun

[longbyte1]

Wow. That looks a lot like the LV-N rocket motor.

[mouzfun]

That is the point I like to have clustered nukes instead of just bigger versions, but don't like the fact that they have no fairings and are tedious to set up.

[SiliconPyro]

Looking forward to your progress.

[Scarsz]

For only 5 days experience thats is ver impressive. You texturing while bland is quite well executed, so you clearly got good uv maps.

AO maps:

Create a new image in blender.

Go into rdit mode on your model and select every vertice. Then make sure your UV image editor is set as the new image(this sets the image as the models viewport texture and means it will baked on)

Go to the render settings and scroll down to baking. Select Ambient Occlusion and press bake. Save the image. Hope this helps!

[CaptainKipard]

Hey. Can you say exactly what you've done so far and what you're planning to do, and how you'll be doing it. I don't want to tell you things that you already know.

[mouzfun]

For only 5 days experience thats is ver impressive. You texturing while bland is quite well executed, so you clearly got good uv maps.

I just realised that i lied, i opened Zbrush when i was 12 or something, realised that isn't a peace of cake and closed it after 5 mins

Thanks for the tip, definetely will check it out when i got time.

Bland is spot on, but the one thing i can't wrap my head around, what else is this suppose to look? It's the brand new painted peace from the factory, right?

I'm fairly sure that even now i could add rust/scratching and other impurities if i wanted, but there isn't suppose to be any, so i can't really understand where should i take that 'richness' that you see in other models.

Cheers and thanks for replying.

[mouzfun]

Hey. Can you say exactly what you've done so far and what you're planning to do, and how you'll be doing it. I don't want to tell you things that you already know.

The main thing, as i described in the post just above this one, is texturing. I think my model is pretty good at this point (i may be wrong though), just need to figure out how do you attach the engine aesthetically, and revisit struts.

As stated above, i wan't to make a bunch of clustered-looking nukes. So, this one is just a template. I'll then radially place them, like 2/3/4/5 etc. I don't understand what exactly do you mean by "How you will be doing it" though.

Thanks for the reply, i really appreciate this.

Oh, and i'm going to look at that OpenPart thread about texturing, i totally forgot about that.

Edited September 20, 2014 by mouzfun

[CaptainKipard]

Oh, and i'm going to look at that OpenPart thread about texturing, i totally forgot about that.

Ok cool. that's a good place to start. I don't remember whether or not I said this in that thread, but if you're planning on duplicating those exhausts, and baking AO, then you really need to duplicate them first, and make sure none of the UVs overlap. The exhausts need to be separate on your UV layout, otherwise baking will give you unpredictable results.

Baking AO for overlapping UVs only works if the mesh is exactly the same and has exactly the same surroundings.

I'll subscribe to this thread, and help out one step at a time.

Edited September 20, 2014 by Cpt. Kipard

[Scarsz]

I always use an AO map set to overlay on top of my textures. I find it makes complex models like the piping on your engine really stand out, just look at kw rocketry. The main thing you might need to do is try and match the materials. You've got nice base colours, but real engines look metal. That might mean just getting a seamless textue from a website like cgtextures and messjng around with the blending settings. Experiment!

[mouzfun]

Ok cool. that's a good place to start.

Did i understand you correctly, do i need to join all of my objects and unwrap them together in order to use AO? If so, damn. i started to think modelling was easy

Also, baked AO map for my engine, overlayed it on the texture, and it looked like 1000x better, nice.

I'm going to sleep now, in 8-9 hours i'll start my day with reading that thread.

[CaptainKipard]

That might mean just getting a seamless textue from a website like cgtextures and messjng around with the blending settings. Experiment!

It doesn't need to be seamless, but yes: that's good advice. Don't be afraid of using photos for textures from CG sites. That's why they're there.

Did i understand you correctly, do i need to join all of my objects and unwrap them together in order to use AO? If so, damn. i started to think modelling was easy

Also, baked AO map for my engine, overlayed it on the texture, and it looked like 1000x better, nice.

I'm going to sleep now, in 8-9 hours i'll start my day with reading that thread.

Ok this is why I asked you to explain your whole plan. I don't know what advice to give if I don't know what you're planning to do.

When you get up, please explain precisely what parts you're planning to make. Everything depends on this.

[mouzfun]

Okay, let's do one at a time. First part will look like this (i'll work on a model a bit more, but it still will look like this. symmetrical etc):

Now i really have to go though.

[CaptainKipard]

Alright I think I understand. You want to have a series of clustered engines, each with a different number of exhausts. If you want to have very good looking AO, you'll need to have separate textures for each part, (even though they will look very similar) because the shading will be different each time.

Because this doesn't look like a gimballed engine, you can join all your meshes for each part into one object, and export it whole when the time comes.

For now unwrap a single exhaust(together with all the bits that will be duplicated), and the base. When you've done that I'd duplicate the whole object for each part you plan to make, and then start duplicating the exhaust, for each part, while at the same time moving the UVs of the new duplicated faces aside so there's no overlap. You might be able to fit the smaller engines on a smaller texture.

Keep pixel density at about 256 pixels per meter.

[mouzfun]

What is the best way to unwrap multiple objects on a single texture? Also, what is the pixel dencity in this context, and how do i keep it? I think i got the rest, will be working on it today.

Thanks for your help, i appreciate it.

EDIT: Is it okay for meshes to intersect? Or should i cut them with boolean modifier?

Edited September 21, 2014 by mouzfun

[CaptainKipard]

What is the best way to unwrap multiple objects on a single texture?

Here

Also, what is the pixel dencity in this contextt, and how do i keep it?

You can make a 1 meter cube, unwrap, apply a colour grid map to it, and just make it so there's 256 pixels per meter. The built in colour grid image in blender shows all the pixels individually very well.

Is it okay for meshes to intersect? Or should i cut them with boolean modifier?

Why would you want to cut them?

[mouzfun]

Why would you want to cut them?

Because that way they won't intersect?.. English is not my native language, sorry.

basically, i did what you said, unwrapped the whole model, though i suspect my mapping sucks.

I think i'll just send you the whole file, so i don't need to post screenshots etc. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qcpkbg2434rjxbn/AABjK_h5h0xVD2chjR799Lv1a?dl=0

Could you elaborate a bit more on pixel density? Is this like average number of pixels inside the UV faces?

Edited September 21, 2014 by mouzfun

[CaptainKipard]

-Yes they can intersect. Boolean operators increase the mesh complexity, and that's just crazy.

-Yes it's about number of pixels inside a face. Use the colour grid to unwrap, and make that cube I talked about before (it can just be a square plane actually). The pixel density on a 1m² should be 256px by 256px, then just keep at least that same density on all your UV islands when you unwrap.

-You filled the map with UVs almost completely. What do you think is going to happen when you make the next part with 3 or 4 exhausts?

-All your pipes and struts are unnecessarily detailed. 12-face cylinders is enough.

-You split up your meshes. There is no reason to keep them separate, and all it does is make it more difficult to unwrap and import into Unity. I don't like repeating myself.

Edited September 21, 2014 by Cpt. Kipard

[mouzfun]

Thanks for the tips. In other news, i realised that i don't understand unwrapping enough, and i need to read up on that other stuff. So i put my nukes on a shelf for a moment. But i don't like to just sit on my ass, i decided to make some easy parts, like this 0.65 m stack monoprop engine.

Gonna slap a couple of hazard stickers on it, and figure out specular and normal finally. Man, painting textures is frustraighting.

Edited September 22, 2014 by mouzfun

[mouzfun]

I think at last i made something decent, couple of faces near the circles are messed up, and normal isn't perfectly aligned but it's something.

[ximrm]

I don't use blender, so I'm not sure how it works, but there are alternatives to texturing than just using a map and pushing and pulling the uvs around.

You could for example add separate materials to polygon selections and bake them together to a final map(you should at least unwrap the uv map a bit)

or directly paint(in 3D space) on the model and bake it then.

Blender should support these methods.(if not by default, I bet you'll find some plugins though I'm sure every state of the art application can do that)

Most parts in ksp are basically cylinders or other primitives and doing a loop/ring selection of the polygons and adding a texture to certain parts is often a lot easier.

Edited September 25, 2014 by ximrm

[CaptainKipard]

Mouzfun have a look at this post. It looks like the same problem.

[mouzfun]

Thanks, i'll check it out

[CaptainKipard]

How's it going?