Happy with the quality of new buildings?

[JackGruff]

Are you happy with the quality of the new 0.90 buildings?

[Marshymallow]

Long time player, first time (in a long time, anyways, whoops I didn't remember posting before) poster here.

To be honest? No, they really don't satisfy me. As somebody who has spent a decent amount of time learning about art theory, it really doesn't feel like the new buildings have been thought out in a way that allows them to both be consistent throughout tiers and visually striking and memorable within the tier itself. For one, the colorscheme stays exactly the same for the first two then radically changes for the last, which is honestly really jarring and not what you'd expect from a progression system. Secondly, the buildings themselves are markedly lower quality in terms of both pure technique and concept than what we had before - a lot of previously iconic buildings are made up almost entirely of primitives in a not particularly aesthetically pleasing way. Something meant to look poor or cheap can still look really cool, and I don't think Squad pulled that off this time around.

Here's to hoping they improve it at some point.

[MKI]

I feel the textures just need upgrading. I'm fine with the level of detail put into them.

I understand squad is strapped for time and manpower regarding modeling which is one of the reasons they just pulled out from the original tier 1 stuff.

But what we have now will do.

[One Wheeled Panda]

It wasn't that long ago that tier 1 was pushed back and it's quite obvious that upgradeable buildings aren't done just yet.

There was a lot of work to be done on MK3 parts in the same release and I for one am glad they were a priority.

Not having to wait for .90 till well into January might have required cutting some corners.

So, at this point I don't mind.

[Captain Sierra]

Panda has a point. Personally I think the tier 1's are pretty good but the tier 2's just feel out of place for me. the tier 2's don't feel like they were thought out as part of the flow of progression, but rather as separate entities.

[PDCWolf]

The models themselves are ok. Can't really check them polygon by polygon though but the shapes are mostly correct, the problem is the textures: They have absolutely no idea about or refuse to follow the art style that's already in the game, you just have to look at the huge difference between the level 2 VAB and the level 3 VAB, it goes 180º palette-wise, and don't even get me started on those decal-looking metal-bolted-together-patch-things with huge bolts on them, whether fitting the theme or not (protip: they don't) they are horrible to look at. And that's just the VAB.

TL;DR: KSP didn't use to look like someone's first unity game, now it does, even if this is a huge improvement compared to the barn.

[hazens1]

My only complaint is now as you add complexity to the buildings, the FPS drops when within view of KSC or while you are viewing your craft at an angle in the hangars that show outdoors. FPS drops 50% when looking out the door compared to looking at the back wall when all buildings are fully upgraded. Does not matter how many parts the craft has. Does not make any sense to render buildings that you cannot actually see while inside the VAB or SPH.

[shadowfax]

If anything, the first tier buildings should look more ghetto than they do now. That level 1 VAB looks very nice, sleek, and professional. By contrast, here's the NACA high energy propellant facility, built about a decade before the VAB went live: http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4404/p86.jpg

It looks like a crappy collection of tin sheds, and still looks better than I would imagine a Kerbal early rocketry building would look.

[cantab]

Quality, yes. Expert 3D artists like Bac9 could nitpick stuff, but in general they're OK.

Style, less so. The cancelled farmyard KSP was bad quality but inspired and interesting. These go the other way, they've been done nicely but they're just a bit boring. With the possible exception of the SPH, which has variation in the roof to add some interest.

They have absolutely no idea about or refuse to follow the art style that's already in the game, you just have to look at the huge difference between the level 2 VAB and the level 3 VAB, it goes 180º palette-wise

IMHO the architectural style should change, the same way real architecture changes over the decades. For me it's not the level 2 VAB using different stuff to the level 3 I object to but using the same stuff as the level 1. I want something more than just "Make it Bigger", which is what I feel a lot of at the moment.

And yes it means a mixed tier space centre will be a mishmash of styles, but so what!? Real places are!

[Franklin]

I know this'll be the third re-post but,

Gotta love the new buildings!

http://i.imgur.com/iKUp13Il.jpg

Didn't somebody in the QA team see that? Or just didn't care?

I mean, seriously:

See-through backface on the roof underside.

http://puu.sh/cI4H2/e70bc56fb0.jpg

Small textures stretched over a massive object.

http://puu.sh/cI4HA/30eb873f7d.jpg

Weird cartoonish plank texture stretched across the terrain with no model.

http://puu.sh/cI4JW/31ae1556c0.jpg

This stuff.

http://puu.sh/cI4NW/967d9f4ac9.jpg

No ambient occlusion, anywhere.

http://puu.sh/cI525/9d05686301.jpg

After bac9's amazing work, it honestly feels like a step back into the art style of version 0.18 .

I really hope these are heavy works in progress...

On the other hand, I do really like the "patchwork" rough roads, it's just the stuff that is filling them.

http://puu.sh/cI4Mg/73d68d1aee.jpg

Yeah, I kinda saw this coming after the admin centre. The current centre was modeled by bac9, who did a great job and understands atlas standardization and is a great modeller. When the admin centre dropped a number of modellers noticed it didn't seem to be made with the same standardization, and bac9 actually responded before the patch with change recommendations, but they were ignored. So some of us didn't have hope that the new models would be up to the same standard.

I wish Squad would contract bac9 more, he raised the bar high enough that the new models being produced (SP+ notwithstanding, that's not Squad) are amateur in comparison.

edit: We can look forward to similar recommendations being ignored this time around,

On a less facetious note, I have no problem with the idea of starting in a barn and having trailers, but the texture and model work is, to put it mildly, sloppy. I would elaborate, but i'd just make the thread sound like an echo chamber so I'll just link the excellent critiques posted on Reddit and imgur.

http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/2lpao5/my_thoughts_on_the_kerbal_space_program/

http://i.imgur.com/onpH9fp.jpg

I mean, it's not like they've baked the models, they have the working files. The tweaks the community has already pointed out take an nth of time than re-building them all from scratch, which nobody's asking.

[katateochi]

If anything, the first tier buildings should look more ghetto than they do now. That level 1 VAB looks very nice, sleek, and professional. By contrast, here's the NACA high energy propellant facility, built about a decade before the VAB went live: http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4404/p86.jpg

It looks like a crappy collection of tin sheds, and still looks better than I would imagine a Kerbal early rocketry building would look.

I don't know, as you say that was 10 years pre having a VAB and we've already got a VAB. Remember when they showed us the earlier design?

We basically grabbed pitch-forks and torched it!!

Overall I'm pretty pleased with the new 1st tier buildings. I've not upgrade that many so I don't really know about T2 yet. I'd like to see some texture improvements but I think they are pretty good. What I really don't like is the grass, it looks particularly bad when viewed from inside the VAB, that texture needs love, badly.

[Marshymallow]

Quality, yes. Expert 3D artists like Bac9 could nitpick stuff, but in general they're OK.

Style, less so. The cancelled farmyard KSP was bad quality but inspired and interesting. These go the other way, they've been done nicely but they're just a bit boring. With the possible exception of the SPH, which has variation in the roof to add some interest.

IMHO the architectural style should change, the same way real architecture changes over the decades. For me it's not the level 2 VAB using different stuff to the level 3 I object to but using the same stuff as the level 1. I want something more than just "Make it Bigger", which is what I feel a lot of at the moment.

And yes it means a mixed tier space centre will be a mishmash of styles, but so what!? Real places are!

I think you can have tiers both feel unique but not be completely different to the point where seeing two together makes you scratch your head. For one, the color scheme change going from tiers 1 and 2 to the final, Bac9 space center is really ridiculous and should not be a thing. If they wanted to make a progression, at least in my opinion the way to do it would be to have the primary color of the base start off as red-orange (say, painted wood and orange bricks) then slowly move the color towards yellow and add more grey (ie concrete and other building materials) in order to finish off with Bac9's space center and have it feel natural.

That way, each tier looks sorta unique while not having this massive, confusing stylistic change that will make the between tier look be completely jumbled.

Remember when they showed us the earlier design?

I don't think the farm was bad in terms of concept to be honest, it was more execution. Stylistically it was all over the place and it didn't have a solid core to make it feel like a single, cohesive project - instead it felt like assets were dragged from dozens of other projects and popped into a single game (which is not the feeling you want for a professional title).

Edited December 16, 2014 by Marshymallow

[mattinoz]

There are only two things that irk me about the new buildings?

- I don't get why some buildings have the full perimeter road from tier 1 but others don't.

-Admin Building - The only reason to spend money upgrading seems to be that it looks out of place if left tier 1.

It would be good if there was a tier 0 so this building could be left un-built.

[pizzaoverhead]

TL;DR: KSP didn't use to look like someone's first unity game, now it does, even if this is a huge improvement compared to the barn.

KSP most certainly did look like someone's first Unity game originally. It was one of the reasons I delayed buying it, graphics being one of the few readily visible indicators of the production quality of a game before purchasing it.

It stayed in this placeholder state for quite some time while other basic elements of the game were being polished, but we finally got something worthy of KSP in version 0.21:

It's disappointing to see a return to the previous placeholder art and design styles, but I hope that they'll receive some polish in future.

[Alguien]

I don't think the farm was bad in terms of concept to be honest, it was more execution.

The execution problems don't stop just at how the assets were all over the place

the rocket/plane parts also crash with the aestetic, is one thing having "primitive" rockets like goddard style and biplanes build in a farm, but the KSP part are Saturn V like, that isn't just stuff from a farm

[Marshymallow]

The execution problems don't stop just at how the assets were all over the place

the rocket/plane parts also crash with the aestetic, is one thing having "primitive" rockets like goddard style and biplanes build in a farm, but the KSP part are Saturn V like, that isn't just stuff from a farm

I agree with that as well, there's obvious problems with the parts being all designed around the 0.21 aesthetic (aka the Bac9 base) which makes all older bases feel... well, distinctly out of place. But I'm not really sure if there's a way for them to deal with that while having progression without either having textures update with bases upgrading or (god forbid) bring back the old textures for parts. Remember these tanks?

[CaptainKipard]

The buildings could do a little bit of a touch up. They're not the same quality as the top tier buildings, but they're ok.

[zekes]

I love them! They're so detailed

[Alguien]

While the old parts have a nostalgic charm, i am not sure if the will be up to the today expected quality from the game, but opinions

i do think Squad picked the worst way to make the whole progression in general, upgrading buildings is totally unattached to the techtree, and upgrading individuality while it helps "customize the experience" it can create situations when you have a Tier3 next to a Tier 1 building with all the aestetic class it comes with. I think a better solution would be Tier 1->small part of the techtree with T1 parts->T2->it upgrades the whole KSC and T1 parts to T2->T2 tree->T3 upgrade for KSC/Parts->Final part of the techtree, but again, opinions

also my "favorite" parts of the new buildings is Tier 2, particulary the tracking station (which has absolute NOTHING to do with the other parts of the tier and is a Tier 3 touched up "in building") and the mindblowing number of doors per building (do they really need up to 6 doors per side?)

[PDCWolf]

KSP most certainly did look like someone's first Unity game originally. It was one of the reasons I delayed buying it, graphics being one of the few readily visible indicators of the production quality of a game before purchasing it.

I got the game after they removed the lakes, palms and roads (.13 being my first version) and although the shapes and such didn't make any sense except for the launch tower, it definitely didn't look like someone's first game. In fact, if you look at the first picture, you'll see that only the lakes and roads seem out of place, and while the rest of the models are not the best, they show consistence to a point. One of the first things that broke consistency and wasn't fixed until some months ago was the spaceplane parts, and that's really frightening because they have been in the game since 0.15 and they were already inconsistent, so one can only think that the same will happen with these buildings.

I'll also add that the admin building added not long ago already sticks like a sore thumb, and it doesn't follow the existent style to certain extents like not keeping the hexagon (triangle?) based grid for building layout, inconsistencies in the roads, textures being used in ways they are not supposed to, etc.

Edited December 16, 2014 by PDCWolf

[Pthigrivi]

Ugh people here can be so booorrrinngggg. Bring back the barn!

[AlphaAsh]

Can't vote in the poll for some reason.

My opinion has been jaded by recent developments with some mod projects but regardless.

The new buildings are bloody awful. I know the stuff I do for KerbinSide isn't something to write home about... but still. Awful.

The tier 1 runway being bumpier than the ground off it - ridiculous. You're better off getting off the runway to take off.

[rodion]

so, can we have an option added to the poll that says "hire bac9"? barring that, maybe we could get a community cash pool going towards the same end. i know that i'd put money in it.

[Marshymallow]

so, can we have an option added to the poll that says "hire bac9"? barring that, maybe we could get a community cash pool going towards the same end. i know that i'd put money in it.

Bac9 is sadly busy with other stuff, but it's not like he's the only modeller in the world capable of making consistent, interesting designs. Heck, I think that even Squad's in-house team could get similar results if they considered some of the same workflow and methodology (for one, working out concept art of something before going straight into it in order to make sure things look right).

[Franklin]

Ugh people here can be so booorrrinngggg. Bring back the barn!

I don't think anyone was particularly against the barn, just that it was really sloppily done. Of course the models they went with for .90 are also sloppy (check the VAB interiors, you see more of the cartoon-giant sheets of metal with Kerbal-sized rivets, ladders connected to nothing, air-vents used completely unlike how air-vents work, doors blocked by walls, flickering textures laid on top of other textures, etc.) so I don't know, maybe our idea of good and their idea of good is just different.

Edited December 17, 2014 by Franklin