Where is my barn?

[CaptainKipard]

Yes thankyou! I've seen your work. You're 100% correct.

[The Jedi Master]

We were going to get a barn that needed a little work on the textures (which it was going to get, by the way), but was otherwise fine. You yelled and moaned and groaned and whined, and we got ugly, generic office buildings. Good job, everybody!

[klgraham1013]

We were going to get a barn that needed a little work on the textures (which it was going to get, by the way), but was otherwise fine. You yelled and moaned and groaned and whined, and we got ugly, generic office buildings. Good job, everybody!

Can we dislike both? Anyway, I don't think the causation you claim is in anyway fact. Complaining about the barn did not bring about generic office buildings.

[Ippo]

but was otherwise fine.

#hecknope

You yelled and moaned and groaned and whined, and we got ugly, generic office buildings. Good job, everybody!

You probably didn't follow the events correctly. They only scrapped the first tier, they did not replace it. The current tier 1 was just supposed to be tier 2. You would have gotten these ugly generic office buildings because squad had decided to make ugly generic office buildings, barn or no barn.

Also, don't fret: I understand that we are still doomed to see the barn in the game in the future, much to my disappointment. Be patient, that abomination is still coming eventually.

[CaptainKipard]

We were going to get a barn that needed a little work on the textures (which it was going to get, by the way), but was otherwise fine. You yelled and moaned and groaned and whined, and we got ugly, generic office buildings. Good job, everybody!

Those buildings look industrial to me, which is exactly what I hoped.

[ElJugador]

We were going to get a barn that needed a little work on the textures (which it was going to get, by the way), but was otherwise fine. You yelled and moaned and groaned and whined, and we got ugly, generic office buildings. Good job, everybody!

... Otherwise fine? OTHERWISE FINE? Heckno.jpg

(http://i.imgur.com/onpH9fp.jpg for more details)

The Barn as it was was a horrible, uncoordinated mess of a Tier 1 appearance. You can't tell which building is which. Because of the really haphazard way in which Squad went about creating these, we ended up with a... uh... fertilizer container thingy next to a... disused trailerpark place ... which lies behind a ... vaguely barn looking-thing. It was ugly as FRICK and I'm glad we didn't get it. Okay, you could argue the 'Tier 1' we have now is just as horrid, but the level of badness is not really comparable. Everything is reasonably recognizable as what it is, everything has a sense of fitting together, which is really satisfying to me. It has a 'low-tech but not amateurish' feel to it that I really like. Could use with some polishing, though.

Edited December 18, 2014 by ElJugador

[CaptainKipard]

... Otherwise fine? OTHERWISE FINE? Heckno.jpg

(http://i.imgur.com/onpH9fp.jpg for more details)

That's a really good analysis.

What's really weird to me is that iirc Daniel himself said that he's still learning.... This game is a commercial success unlike any other public alpha (with the exception of one other maybe) and they have a newbie creating complex models.

Having said that tier 1 and 2 don't look too bad, so maybe he's a quick learner. I hope he pulls it together.

[Carmoldu]

Ok, we can addmit that the modeling wasn't the best and the textures were not a piece of art (maybe even for a work in progress). My question is: is our Tier1 buildings better than that Barn? I'd prefered a bad modelled Barn for Tier1 than a boring tier1 like the one we have now (which, let's addmit it, is not really super better done than the barn in what modelling and textures refer...)

[Pthigrivi]

Just for reference, I'm an architect professionally. I do modelling. I also, more importantly, do design, which I can tell you isnt a matter of banging .... out first shot. You do everything in iterations. For most buildings I'll do 30 iterations or more before I get something that's really strong, and I can tell you, every one has place-holder graphics. If they were at 20% as they claim there were weeks and weeks for them to refine things. What happened was they came up with an idea that was so great they just got excited and wanted to share it with us, but many of you just couldnt handle it and you lost your ever loving minds tweezing apart every little texture. Effing RELAX. If you have constructive criticism thats fine but keep some perspective for christ sake.

[John FX]

I have no idea what the new buildings look like as I won't be playing 0.90 for at least a month.

But in my opinion, nothing can be worse than a barn.

You wait until you see them if you thought the barn was bad.

It`s remarkably prescient that you say that nothing can be worse than a barn, they look very much like nothing...

Just for reference, I'm an architect professionally. I do modelling. I also, more importantly, do design, which I can tell you isnt a matter of banging .... out first shot. You do everything in iterations. For most buildings I'll do 30 iterations or more before I get something that's really strong, and I can tell you, every one has place-holder graphics. If they were at 20% as they claim there were weeks and weeks for them to refine things. What happened was they came up with an idea that was so great they just got excited and wanted to share it with us, but many of you just couldnt handle it and you lost your ever loving minds tweezing apart every little texture. Effing RELAX. If you have constructive criticism thats fine but keep some perspective for christ sake.

It seems this topic has a few people really bothered. For some reason they think it very important to get the design right the first time.I make films myself and during the process there aer the daily rushes, then a first draft where you are just trying to get the story to make sense then you edit it again, strengthen the plot and make it a bit more snappy then you polish everything off in the final cut. After that you add all the pretties.

It takes about four edits to get it nailed. The main thing you learn is that `good enough is good enough` and the point where extra work produces no benefit in the end.

You learn to ignore people who complain about quality until you are at the point where you are polishing, then you take it all on board but even then, only half of what they say unless it is an obvious error rather than a style choice. People ask for this and that and say how exciting it would be to have the other and then you make the film the way you want anyway. They then watch the film and say how good it is because they can always see something that was their idea and that`s enough. They are happy.

Design is an iterative process. This game is being designed. It`s just not good for the design process to criticize too harshly as that just leads to withdrawal of the idea.

Constructive criticism keeps ideas alive and helps them become better ideas. Slating things just kills them.

Edited December 18, 2014 by John FX

[GusTurbo]

You wait until you see them if you thought the barn was bad...

No way. It may be "boring," but you can't honestly say they're worse quality.

[Pthigrivi]

*Puts on sock puppet*

It. Was. Progress. Work.

[Dooz]

They could paint the barn white to go better with the theme.

[razark]

They could paint the barn white to go better with the theme.

But then they'd still have the awful trailer park stuff.

[Esme]

I loved the pics that were released of the barn with the caravans. I really, really, really want that in my experience of KSP. It said to me 'crazy kerbals trying to go well beyond what they ought to be capable of' - which is very KSP. If the purpose of bits of it were hard to identify, then surely the model is tweakble? Add a larger freestanding dish in the tracking station area, paint the caravans bright colurs and include a mobile fast-food caravan at the recruiting centre, make the caravans dull grey and very orderly in the Admin part, etc. And that sandbagged launchpad - brilliant!

[John FX]

No way. It may be "boring," but you can't honestly say they're worse quality.

I`m not talking about the finer points of modelling when I say they are bad, they are bland, boring, not good for a game. They are as close to nothing as could be put there and still have something. The barn at least had an identity so in my eyes it was a world away from the generic boxes we have now and ten times better.

Unlike some people it seems I don`t take a kerbal right to the front door of a building and try to enter then complain the front step does not have a collider or search for the limited angle where you can see that an edge is a single pixel away from another edge, or even complain that the textures are too realistic (people complain about that?). I look at them from craft and in the control centre screen and if there are not features that can be seen from that level of zoom they look like all the same boxes. That`s just not good.

Good art has features distinguishable at many scales, not just close up. The barn could be looked at from a long way away and still had unique features to identify each building.

I`m not saying it was perfect but it was good enough, not so bad it needed pulling. From the distance I see it from? It looked fine. Much better than what we have now.

I don`t want the buildings taking up any more ram or CPU than they have to. I see them for a small amount of time at the start of a mission.

I would prefer less detailed buildings up to a point. It is very plain that some people would like to see more detailed buildings.

As the mostly the same people are posting pretty much the same things making the thread look very busy, it might be an idea to have a poll or similar where people can say if they liked or disliked the barn concept, liked or disliked the barn execution, similar questions about the current buildings and how much time people spend looking closely at the buildings.

If only a very few people look closely at the buildings it is a waste of dev time, RAM and CPU to put the extra detail there. If most people liked the barn execution then similar arguments apply.

If many people do look closely at the buildings then it obviously is worth it.

I`d be interested to see how many people think the barn was OK and how many did not.

EDIT :

Someone posted a youtube video which has given me the word I am looking for GENERIC. Bland, boring soulless buildings...

It pains me knowing that I'll need to rely on mods to play the space flight simulator I thought I was buying.

I'm fine with a low budget space facility, but that's not what the barn tier felt like. It felt like a joke about those wacky Kerbals. Don't get me wrong. The Kerbals add a lighthearted air to the game that I quite like, but at it's core, this should be a game about exploring the solar system with physics that reflect (if not duplicate) reality.

If you actually want to duplicate reality then the barn looks closer to the reality humans had at the start of rocketry than the generic buildings we look at now.

If you want to explore the solar system with physics that reflect reality then I assume you use KIDS, FAR, DRE, MJ, KCT (the list goes on) all of which are needed to make the stock game even approximate reality.

If you are saying that just changing the look of the buildings makes or breaks physics reality for you and how you would use a mod to do that but would not use the mods I have mentioned which would attain your purpose better then I`m just at a loss for words...

You might do better campaigning for physics mods like those mentioned to be included in stock before complaining about models and textures.

Edited December 19, 2014 by John FX

[KrazyKrl]

The barn was obviously unfinished, and should not have been RC.

But as a game-play standpoint, the barn would have easily worked into a tutorial/starter area. With Jeb/Bob/Bill at the helm, under the tutelage of Werner Von Kerman on speed dial.

Something like make it halfway around Kerbin and above 70km, and you get government approval for a space center.

Of course science would need to tie into this, maybe mandatory, contracted, launch testing for the most basic SRBs/T30s, 100/200 fuel tanks, Stayputnick.

[Superfluous J]

When the barn does make it back in the game, I'll install the mod (that I'm sure someone will make) that makes the farm what you get in tier 5.

[KrazyKrl]

When the barn does make it back in the game, I'll install the mod (that I'm sure someone will make) that makes the farm what you get in tier 5.

I'm sure someone will make a Kerbostrophic Kermageddon mod for space-based weaponry.

Upgrade your civilization to tier zero today!

[CaptainKipard]

Just for reference, I'm an architect professionally. I do modelling. I also, more importantly, do design, which I can tell you isnt a matter of banging .... out first shot. You do everything in iterations. For most buildings I'll do 30 iterations or more before I get something that's really strong, and I can tell you, every one has place-holder graphics. If they were at 20% as they claim there were weeks and weeks for them to refine things. What happened was they came up with an idea that was so great they just got excited and wanted to share it with us, but many of you just couldnt handle it and you lost your ever loving minds tweezing apart every little texture. Effing RELAX. If you have constructive criticism thats fine but keep some perspective for christ sake.

What makes you think that your experience translates well to game asset design?

Good art has features distinguishable at many scales, not just close up. The barn could be looked at from a long way away and still had unique features to identify each building.

...

I would prefer less detailed buildings up to a point. It is very plain that some people would like to see more detailed buildings.

...

If only a very few people look closely at the buildings it is a waste of dev time, RAM and CPU to put the extra detail there. If most people liked the barn execution then similar arguments apply.

If many people do look closely at the buildings then it obviously is worth it.

Well they do. They land on buildings, they make movies around them, they get the little bits science from all the mini biomes at KSC...

What is so difficult about asking for some consistency in all these graphics? The final tier KSC is already what it is. Do you think it should be made less detailed? Or do you think the barn should be made more detailed? There's no reasonable middle ground :/ The middle ground is the game screaming at you "Look I'm a piece of software", rather then letting you be immersed.

I keep repeating this point whenever people defend Squad for doing something half heartedly. Demand an immersive experience. That's what a game IS. This isn't up for debate.

Honestly the blind loyalty and rationalisations, and excuses in this community are soooooo tiresome. Demand a better product. Keep Squad on their toes. Don't tolerate poor or even mediocre work. They can do better. They HAVE done better.

And if anyone comes back with "Well that was a WIP" well they really don't understand the process of creating 3d art assets for games. The farm may have been unfinished, but it looked almost finished in the sense that everything was upwrapped and textured. This is done towards the end, unless you decide to waste time redoing things. They thought they were finishing. And that's the strangest thing about all of this.

Edited December 19, 2014 by Cpt. Kipard

[klgraham1013]

Demand a better product. Don't tolerate poor or even mediocre work. They can do better.

Can this just be a general rule of everything?

[Pthigrivi]

What makes you think that your experience translates well to game asset design

Because that's how design works. You try out as many ideas as you can in the time allotted. You learn from each, you discover new things from each, and as you burrow down and refine the good and eliminate the bad you hopefully arrive at something really well considered and rich. Texture mapping is trivial. Finding and moulding an idea that has real spirit and creativity is not.

[CaptainKipard]

Because that's how design works. You try out as many ideas as you can in the time allotted. You learn from each, you discover new things from each, and as you burrow down and refine the good and eliminate the bad you hopefully arrive at something really well considered and rich. Texture mapping is trivial. Finding and moulding an idea that has real spirit and creativity is not.

You didn't answer the question.

[Vanamonde]

Let's keep the barn discussion all in one place, please.