KSA's Part & Art Development Thread

Thought it would be a good idea to start a thread containing all the in-progress progression and WIP content I post to Discord. As the forums are a little more grounded and persistent compared to an endless scrolling list of short-form content; it might make for a better place to discuss ideas and the development of the game's parts, art style, scope etc as it happens. When things are resolved enough I'll post em as their own threads as usual

I'll kick things off with the first look of our initial docking port part - an androgynous system designed to be both passive and active inspired by the APAS75 port created collaboratively by the Soviet Union and the USA. This was to help facilitate docking between a Soyuz and an Apollo CSM, and represented one of the first instances of a universal design that the Cold-warring nations worked together on. It sits a bit ahead on the timeline of the OG Apollo docking parts (as they were probe and drogue systems) but is probably more appropriate for straightforward craft-to-craft attachment this early in dev. We might branch backwards to more complicated passive\active systems as time goes on.

 

[Barney]

I'm thinking probably panel upgrades at this point, radiators have more of a cross-bracing mechanism that might require their own mesh\rig.

Legg. Just a stand-in animation with our new system (until we can detach the foot and have it align itself to the ground when collisions come in). Will replace the broken three in-game already, and will hopefully be a little more useful

prayers have been answered today

 

[hutt]

I understand if that leg swivel isn't in the finished version but it is adorable

 

[CamVPro]

You can tell the lander was asleep by the way it rolls its ankle when waking up.

Acting almost like a Screwjack

 

[Daishi]

Back to it, getting some variable height service module alts done, alongside openable door mechanisms. Love a good ambient occlusion bake on a well sorted sheet of UVs

Part of a big revamp of our oldest part, breaking the mesh down into its base radial components makes it easier to render out when the GPU only has to process one central strut and an attachment plate instead of a merged monolithic block. Will be giving the foil a bit more love tomorrow so hopefully will look a ton better than what we have now

The inner structural tube is missing, and the AO on the inner foil support ring is borked, but ye, much more logically built. Combined some older work I did on a decoupler part that intersected the service module at the top and made the heatshield socket a little bit more interesting

They all still terminate at 3m (our largest diameter), but giving different height options gives the player some tech tree progression in the future (or options to build a stubby, short crew-navigable sneaky version of Gemini that may have acted as a shuttle to a hypothetical space station, wink wink)