Request: A novices guide to a non-overwhelming non-assumptive how-to on modelling!

[bashpr0mpt]

As the title suggests, I'm sure I'm not the only person who's exhaustively gone through how-to's here, downloaded Blender, Unity, Python, etc, and followed the tutorials only to hit a point where you're like "Uhm, where the **** did you find that?" to the 'example' they 'just happen' to have laying around that is a completed part with textures and ... well, EVERYTHING you thought the tutorial was about. I've been beating my head against my desk in frustration the last few days, and I was just about to give up when I thought hey, maybe I should say something. If everyone just keeps giving up (the folks who don't obviously have a basic understanding of what's going on, but as a reasonably intelligent able-to-follow-direction type person, if I'm struggling, I'm sure others are doing the same!) then the existing part modders will be an exclusive group with no new blood or fresh ideas to be had with all eyes (and expectations!) on them to build build build.

Could someone please spare a moment to fill in the blanks of all the current tutorials that assume we know what we're doing, that we have a bazillion parts in their raw format and texture files and python code for them and ... well, look. We have Blender, Unity, Python, and the 0.16 PartsPack. That's all the average user who's just stumbled in here with a graphical back ground and a willingness to follow your lead will be armed with. Let's give these guys some decent weaponry and send them into battle and see how it affects the game quality. I'm sure there will be many blank cubes flying through space, but you never know, one of us tards may just bust out something interesting!

Where can we go to find this information if it's already out there (Just a heads up, I really have scoured, and almost all tutes have additional requisites that make no sense, or give instructions that might make sense if you're a twenty year Unity veteran but make no sense if you are a noob (the 0.16 parts pack being a prime example, no offense to Mu, but the instructions are about as vague as things can get, 'add X to the Y and do Z' when there's clearly absolutely NOTHING you can click that says you're adding X to a Y, and once you've dragged and dropped, and imported, and opened every single possible combination of files and got no joy, you're left with nothing but slight head trauma from the head desking)) so something starting from scratch of 'how to build a cylinder, chalk it up as a rocket engine, and add a cool .PNG texture to it' would be enough for me to understand all I need to about making parts.

If I just knew where the **** I can draw stuff, where I can add lines to things and hash out a wire model, then what to do with that wire model, I'm cruising. But every tute skips that first step, and as such, I am a ubiquitous failure at this part making stuff! Honestly, I can't stress and reassure you enough that we're not retarded, we just need to know how to get started with our first wire frame model and how to bring it into the game once we've designed it (with emphasis on the design part, there's actually a few tutes that spring to mind that're great for once you have your wire frame model, your textures, very vague on the mesh however, but nothing about where to go to do the doodley parts!) you'll have hundreds of new modders joining you!

Anyone? Please? Halp?

[dishycourier]

Watch both of these, the first one at least five times.

http://cgcookie.com/blender/2011/01/21/intro_uvmapping/

This should help.

the easy way:

Once you've unwrapped, click on uv's in the image editor window and select export.

Open that .png you've just created in photoshop (or gimp, fireworks, etc. Whatever you use), add a white color layer, select the area you want to edit and go to town on another new layer. Keep the original png layer on top as a guide for your area.

Save as .psd, save as a COPY png. Leave the original export intact.

Open your COPY png in the image editor with image-> replace image

Make alterations to your skin or unwrap and save as copy png (overwrite) (it's easier to just make an action that does this) and then go to blender and hit alt R in the image editor. It will update the texture.

Hit Alt-z in blender to show textures in the viewport once loaded into the image editor.

If you make changes to your mesh, just unwrap and re-export. Delete the original png layer in photoshop and file->place the new one.

Not the most technically proficient way to do this, but it's the easiest way I can explain it.

[LaydeeDem]

First of all, what do you need Python for?

Second of all, it isn't hard to google a basic modeling tutorial.

Third of all, all the KSP modding tutorials are mostly out dated now, and I wouldn't recomend using them.

Go on youtube and look up a basic modeling tutorial. Find out how to UV unwrap. Show me a model, then we can talk about getting it in to KSP.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

HI pretty much a similar situation here except i've modded other games, as already pointed out the basic bones of an addon is the model and any tutorial will help.

I wrote a complete noobs guide to modelling, the subject is a bus but the same rules apply, its here if you want to have a look, I've moved on a bit from that style now i know how to use max a bit better, but it has helped a few bodies get the first steps in modding, Always happy to help out when i can. I will say as a first step though make a box and render it, if you can do that, the textures and uv mapping is what confounds most people anyway, you'll be most of the way there, and if you watch the C7 parts tools tutorial enough times you'll get it

[Aescwulf]

I understand where your coming from Bash. I've tried learning to model but after a week of non-stop trying I realized I was in the same situation when I started.

[bashpr0mpt]

Watch both of these, the first one at least five times.

I'm on it! Will report back with success or failure shortly! Well, in however long it takes to watch it five times. Much appreciated!

First of all, what do you need Python for?

Idfk, some tutorial said to get it. :'( I got to the point of educational fatigue where I forfeit all attempts to interpret instructions and just follow things by the letter to see if the outcome of failure changed, yet it didn't.

I will say as a first step though make a box and render it, if you can do that, the textures and uv mapping is what confounds most people anyway, you'll be most of the way there, and if you watch the C7 parts tools tutorial enough times you'll get it

I know beyond any doubt I can do that, provided I figure out first how I can draw the wire frame design in any of the programs. With Blender for example, every time I open a new scene or project it loads a ****ing cube I don't want, I can force it to load without it of course but it's like "R U SURE U WUNNA DO DAT?" like I'm ****ing smashing a puppy with a house brick, so I guiltily load the cube. But can't find any tools with which to draw. :'(

I have however seen many parts that cover the rendering, UV mapping, and all that jazz, over, and over, and over again, but none that show you the basic "Draw your giant space-dong in this box using this pen tool that's hidden here," that should prefix all tutorials. :C

I've tried learning to model but after a week of non-stop trying I realized I was in the same situation when I started.

Don't surrender yet, this thread may help! Checking the first guy reply's videos now. Touch wood I'll find out where I can doodle. (Pun intended. I'm kidding though folks, I won't create a space dong. Although I can already see which part would be which ... >_>)

[bashpr0mpt]

Watch both of these, the first one at least five times.

I got to 0:23 then the instructions ceased to make sense. Use 'c' to enter circular selection mode, use the middle mouse button to 'unselect' the top and bottom of the cylinder. I used C, it loaded the tooltip ring as in the video, then proceeded to middle-mouse button click everything I could click on the cylinder, and it did absolutely nothing. IIRC I got to that point in that video before and threw the towel in for the night for the same reason.

I decided instead I didn't want to make a cylinder, because cylinders are dumb. I made an isosphere, then flattened the bottom of it completely. I went through the process of making the texture (well, unwrapping and saving it as a png) but then the node collider part was pretty ... idk, not very well explained. So I just made another isosphere the same size in every way, applied 'the material we made earlier' that we didn't make earlier, and exported as a .dae now I'm stuck yet again.

How do I then turn that .dae and .png into the .mu's and .mbm's the game seems to need? Can I load it as a .dae and .png? How do I direct the game to the texture? Do I simply add 'texture = blahtexture.png' or is it something counterintuitive?

Thank you again for your time and effort with this. It's great to see a few other people messaging and commenting who're also interested in taking up part making yet were too shy to ask, so on behalf of all those lurking, and future viewers, you're awesome! <3

[bashpr0mpt]

Ok, from what I've read the reason KSP crashed when trying to load the DAE was because the tutorial I followed didn't assign a 'material' to the first shape made. Even though I have no ****ing clue what these materials are or why we have to add them. I'm still lost on including the .png, how do I do that? Going to assign a 'material' to the first one and see if my .dae is converted nicely by KSP now!

Update: I added a material to the first mesh / wire model, and loaded KSP, but it froze at my part again. Once you have assigned the first mesh the option to assign, or rather the button, is no longer visible, instead replaced with really daunting and confusing options and variables. So I merely selected the second wire frame model (the node collider, I believe) and added the new material, and it appeared to automatically associate the two? I'm lost. Giving up until I hear back from someone more experienced before trying further.

Another update: I didn't name the second wire frame construction 'node_collider.001' or whatever as the tutorial (again) didn't tell me to; so perhaps this is what is freezing KSP? Will rectify and try again.

Yet another update: YESYESYESYESYESOMGOMGOMGOMGYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYA IT APPEARS TO HAVE GOTTEN PAST LOADING SCREEN. Both the wire frame and material added that has .001 attached to the end must be named 'node_collider' or **** ****s up bad. Now to see if my half an iso dome is in the game. Then to figure out how the **** to attach things / manage attachment points, and last of all design it's skin.

Another other update: Oook. It appeared as a node. Just a node. You know those green things you line up to attach to things? Yup. One of those. Just one. No image. No skin. No wire frame. The current texture is loaded in the .cfg as 'texture = texture.png' and is simply the exported texture map colored in white so it'll appear in game non-transparent. Nope. I give up. :'(

I'm bad at giving up(date): I colored in my texture again, then imported it into Blender, and saved the DAE again, and am running KSP to compile it. I am assuming the texture has to be reimported into the .DAE and then rendered by KSP into the **** that KSP runs on? If so, again, that tutorial is the anti-christ of how to make parts in this game and I'm going to hunt down the creator of it and flay them alive with my giant cock shaped spaceship. WAIT. I mean isodome. >_>

Anotherotherother update: Now it's not even loading in game. It's trying to do something to it, KSP is I mean, as it creates a mesh folder and adds junk to it, but nothing in the game / VAB at all now, not even an empty invisible tool tip. I don't know where it's gone wrong this time and have finally run out of ideas.

Also, classic noob mistake; I didn't read the instructions you gave in full over again because I was at the "Must complete tutorial videos until I understand them before reading further." point of my fail@life psychosis trying to get this shiz working. Will try your method of importing the texture and stuff momentarily, IRL is cock blocking me atm, desperate to get this working so I can write up a basic primer that will fill the gap of what we're missing in noobese for my fellow nooblings to be able to help out.

The fat lady has sung update: Followed all instructions by the letter intermixed with new ad lib requirements to actually get it in the game as what worked last time importing just a single green ball with an invisible iso dome, failed entirely to appear in the game. Appears to have rendered a mesh folder perfectly like before. Went through the steps all over again (each time I've been opening a new project and starting from scratch to avoid cross contamination of past errors) and yielded the same lack of results. :C

Edited October 4, 2012 by bashpr0mpt

[bashpr0mpt]

Any input greatly appreciated. :'(

[CardBoardBoxProcessor]

I could help you greatly. but you are always a dick to me so good luck.

[LaydeeDem]

Hey brashpr0mpt. Calm the hell down. Before you even START making parts, you need to watch a few tutorials. You don't even know what a material is. You aren't ready for mod making yet.

Watch these before you go and have your little temper tantrums on the forums:

http://cgcookie.com/blender/2011/01/21/intro_uvmapping/

[Tiberion]

Okay the first thing to realize is the video where you're making DAEs and PNGs is the "old system" of importing objects into KSP, where it loads these files each time and "serializes" them into a game object at each load (thats where the old Mesh folders came from)

Starting in KSP 0.15 they added the Partslabs tools, which lets the mod community use Unity to generate game objects in much the same way the devs did. So you need Unity (free edition) and Partslab, and you use the 3d models and PNG textures you make in Blender and Photoshop (or whatever) and import them into unity and set them up.

The main difference with using Partslab is that you create the node colliders within Unity (you can convert a node_collider mesh to a unity-style node collider, so don't worry if you made one in Blender) There are a lot of advanced things you can do as well that you could not do with the old method, but those are not important.

Its fine to get comfortable with making DAE/PNG files work first though, and getting familiar with editing things in Blender. Rather than drawing shapes, in Blender you use prototype objects (cubes, cylinders, spheres) and sculpt your shapes out of them by selecting edges, faces or vertexes and moving them. So getting a hand on how to select specific pieces of an object and manipulating them is 90% of learning to model in Blender.

The circle-select mode you were talking about only works in Edit Mode (tab swaps between edit mode, where you can edit the faces, edges and vertex of an object) and Object mode where you apply changes to the object as a whole (like modifiers materials, etc) Right click only selects different modules (hitting A to select all objects works, as does shift+right click to add another object to your current selection)

Right click (and circle select mode) are much more flexible in edit mode. On the edit bar (the bar across the bottom of the main 3d view, that swaps between Edit mode and Object mode) has 3 "selection modes" where you can select either Faces (triangles, squares, though blender can handle N-sided polygons aka Ngons as well), edges, and vertices. They're the cube icons with the yellow highlights, should be pretty obvious) When in circle select mode, left-clicking adds anything in the circle to the selection, and middle-mouse removes anything in the selection from the selection. Scroll-wheel changes the size of the circle selection. Keep in mind its left click in circle select mode, where selecting is right-click everywhere else.

You can also do special selections form the Select menu, like Ring or Loop selections, where you select one vertex or edge and then hit select Edge Loop and it selects the edges that form a loop/ring around the object (like a ring on a cylinder, for instance)

Anyway, if you mess with it a while it starts to make sense, and with experience you can do some pretty cool things just with selecting an edge loop and scaling it or moving it to morph the shape.

Also useful are the Transform shortcut keys. in edit mode while you have something selected, hit S to scale, R to rotate, G to Grab/Move - then use your mouse to drag the shape to the desired location. You can lock these to a single axis too, so hitting G then X causes the mouse to only drag the object along the X axis. You can also exclude an axis by using shift+X or whatever (so you'd hit S to scale, then Shift+Y to force the selection to only scale up or down on the X and Z axis, the Y scale will stay the same.)

Thats a lot to absorb so I will stop rambling for now. If you find other things you don't understand, we can go over those. There are lots of blender vids out there on each little part, so you might look around for those, even if they aren't KSP specific; once you're proficient in blender importing things into KSP/Unity is much more trivial.

Edited October 4, 2012 by Tiberion

[bashpr0mpt]

I could help you greatly. but you are always a dick to me so good luck.

Lawl, with that kind of attitude that's probably why! Nah, I'm kidding, I'm an equal opportunity dick. But I'm sorry your butt hurts. :<

Edit: Oh wow, I actually wondered what this dude was going on about, about 'being a dick to him', so I dug back to find the post in question: -

Originally Posted by CardBoardBoxProcessor

Must Use DRAGON_RIDER .Craft FOR "Built In" ENGINES AND RCS.

That's kind of a -MASSIVE- design flaw. You should really consider rectifying that. Might I suggest utilizing the method by the guys who made the Noyuz? Simply add extra details to the capsule that are aesthetic and extra-bulky / three dimension enhancing elements such as antennae and dishes and crap that function as the above with disproportionate figures to size (ie: small antennae being the RCS tank, isn't game breaking, and a great way to hide the tanks if you state it simply 'wires running through this links the RCS tanks to the control panel and is essential') making your capsule function not just as the MAIN capsule of the ship?

I'd love to be able to use your capsule in my Kir space station project, it currently has about 300 parts and is the most in depth space station KSP has ever seen (not to mention the most realistic!) but using it as an evac pod I'd require loading it as the .craft which is a deal breaker as I am using a custom built Soyuz for that keeping with KKKP technology. But I'd like to welcome NSA astronauts to party with my kosmonaughts on Kir, and what better representation of you KSA hippies than your faggy uber white clean shiny Lizard Pod?

I wasn't going to say anything, but **** dude if constructive criticism where you're even spoon fed a solution is 'being a dick', then I hope people are 'dicks' to me more often when I create things with massive design flaws! You're an idiot! :b

Edited October 4, 2012 by bashpr0mpt

[bashpr0mpt]

Calm the hell down. temper tantrums on the forums:

You realise I'm ****ing around, right? I'm guessing it's a wonderful instance of Australian humor getting lost in translation. But idk, my bad sense of humor seems to <a href="http://twitter.com/bashpr0mpt">attract a fan base</a> so it can't be too bad! But I appreciate the videos, however I'm not having any trouble with materials, I'm having trouble getting KSP to recognise the part, which means I've ****ed up at one of the steps I mentioned in my other post. Either way, this down time between replies has given me a chance to write up an idiot proof guide to part making for the steps I've got down pat thus far, which isn't by any means version specific either, so hopefully I'll save many others the frustration of head-desk repetition!

I'll still watch the videos on the off chance there's other material I can add to the guide; but thusfar given that all elements of the material used is discarded by KSP (well, according to the how to on the wiki) besides the basic material element itself I'm assuming that that isn't worth going into much detail on besides the fact it has to be included for both the primary mesh and collision mesh, right?

Edited October 4, 2012 by bashpr0mpt

[bashpr0mpt]

Thats a lot to absorb so I will stop rambling for now. If you find other things you don't understand, we can go over those. There are lots of blender vids out there on each little part, so you might look around for those, even if they aren't KSP specific; once you're proficient in blender importing things into KSP/Unity is much more trivial.

That's actually stuff I didn't find too difficult for the most part! Using Unity is what I feared however, dicking around with that was very daunting as nothing that Mu said to do to use his partslab worked, like every step of the way there was something horribly Lovecraftianly mind breakingly wrong. However, that said, I'm going to try that instead because the whole mesh folder / KSP rendering part was where **** started going pear shaped, so touch wood Unity will be less of a harsh mistress! Also; would you mind if I used your above message in the guide I'll be bashing up for the final post on this thread once I've got the hang of things? Reading it I realised you succinctly said in a few paragraphs what took me over a page to get out. >_> Very well written! Naturally those quoted will be credited given that they'll be quoted not replicated. :b

At present I got to the point where I had an exported DAE with a mesh, collision mesh, material applied to both (named node_collider, both material and mesh, or KSP ****s bricks) and had imported the PNG back into the project before exporting it as the DAE. But importing the PNG, something around there went bad. Because prior, without importing it (ie: invisible parts, yay!) my part's .cfg text loaded into the game however there was no visible part to chose from and when dragged into play in VAB it was just a single green node. Sure, it's invisible, but there were several nodes in the .cfg (recycled 'aerodynamic nosecone's as it was the first strut one I grabbed).

The skin part will be the most time consuming (and best) element of my parts. I'm still in the top percentile of Forza artists for my OCD graphic design work using circles and squares, transparency, and size manipulation only to make all kinds of crazy **** from simulated airbrush art, the cliche flawless carbon fiber, and replicating IRL brands and logos. I actually purchased an 80" TV to be able to do finer work with Turn 10 products, and picked up some freebies along the way for my time and effort, yet found it horribly rewarding working with such a crude medium. It appears that this is far from as restrictive as Forza ever would be, so it makes sense I should thrown down and help out with bringing some of the better ideas I've seen (not to mention the plethora of ideas myself and my mates have had) to life in a way that everyone can use them. Way cooler than Turn 10 proprietary vector graphics IMO! (Some of my old work can be dug up on my <a href="http://twitter.com/bashpr0mpt">twitter feed</a> no doubt if you're curious!)

Now you know more about me, you need no introduction, I'm running most of the **** you've made anyway, so I'd definitely like to be able to milk your brain on your most efficient manner of part production. How would you recommend I begin with Unity, especially given the parts Mu made made Unity **** itself, spend an hour loading stuff, then pretty much do nothing I told it to. D:< How would I go about doing something such as importing a .dae and collision mesh? Should I import the PNG back in to the .DAE before opening Unity, or do it in Unity? So far my node_collider has been easily achieved by using the replicate object command given that none of them are ... ****, I forgot the word, the how to by the devs said that it can be any shape provided it's not X, which mine isn't (ie: no cut outs, missing parts, or concave elements) so it made more sense to just replicate the object, apply a new material, name the parts accordingly, and bam, **** should be cash, right? ... right? >_> :b

Thanks again for any help you can offer with this btw. I appreciate it! <3

Edit: Apologies for any delay in replies over the next couple of hours, IRL obligations. Brb!

Edited October 4, 2012 by bashpr0mpt

[Tiberion]

Well try this video by C7 to get part tools and Unity working;

It covers the basics of getting it going. Its made for the 0.15.2 version, but functionally the 0.16 version of Part tools is virtually the same.

Its 3 AM so I only really skimmed what you wrote there, hopefully that will sort you out for a bit.

And yeah, you can use anything I post in a tutorial writeup.

Edited October 4, 2012 by Tiberion

[bashpr0mpt]

That's the tutorial I started with that had me download Unity. :'( My version of Unity had vacant space where the dudes had buttons and vice versa, and basically every step yielded different results than his video did (for example, loading X brought up a loading bar that took about ten to twenty minutes to load, then absolutely nothing changed, no sign of importation) that had me ragequit trying Unity out. D:< Will I have to import Mu's part pack and stuff to be able to let Unity do it's thing with my DAE and PNG? You know, the worst part about all of this is the more I fail, the more awesome ideas I come up with that I want to build! Next time you've got a chance, I'll PM you my ideas if you'd be willing to lemme know what you think. They're WELL above my skill set at present, and you're more than welcome to steal them. I'm not the kind of guy who gives a crap about 'ownership', and would much rather see someone else make my ideas reality better than I ever could than a half arsed attempt by myself!

In the interim though, I'm still drawing blanks as to how to progress with my DAE and PNG. Did I do the right thing by duplicating the part for the node collider? Does the node collider have to be smaller / less sides than the part itself? Do I have to do anything with the 'material' besides click add, then assign to each isosphere I'm using? Different material per isosphere, of course. I'm still trying to figure out where it went wrong, it loaded at one point when I didn't have a skin for it, so I can't figure out what variable has changed. :'( Thank you again, by the way, Tiberion. I owe you a firstborn daughter, for sure.

[bashpr0mpt]

I decided to be adventurous and added an airlock to my geodesic dome design. I can't seem to get it to output the wire frame to the PNG in the bottom UV window INCLUDING the airlock, it's either the dome, or the airlock, with the other vanishing when I try and select it. Why are all the programs built for this so intent on being as user-unfriendly as humanly possible? :'( Is it job security for professionals who do this? I have a sneaking suspicion it is, because everyone I know who's looked at these tools so far has profaned and exclaimed there's no way they're going to ever try anything like that. That sounds to me like great job security, don't you think?

So, does anyone know where I'm going wrong? I think perhaps I should stick with just my dome for now, and try and get that to exist in game, then stress over trying to add 3d details and better skins afterwards, but I can't help but fiddle while I wait for the gurus to reply, and fiddling leads to accidentally 42 pounds of space peen. :C

[LaydeeDem]

You need Unity and the Part Tools to make a functioning airlock.

[Radion]

Okay, let's start from the beginning, shall we?

First off, you said you know how to make basic models. While I suggest that you go out and watch about a hundred more tutorials (no matter what is said, two to three is never enough to actually get good at something), I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here and move along to the Unity part.

---

I'll record a small tutorial on it in which I'll try to cover all of the aspects of basic Unity use to get your first part into the game, then if you need more help I'll try and go along with text. Just give me an hour or two, surely you can wait that long?

Turns out I have to go to an NJHS meeting in 15 minutes. I'll try to get a tutorial up and running when I get back, but tomorrow is my best bet. Sorry.

And apparently not again. It's next week (thank God), apparently. So, I'll get that tutorial recorded as soon as I can.

Edited October 4, 2012 by Radion
Scheduling Error, again.

[bashpr0mpt]

Thanks man, that's be appreciated. There isn't a current tute on it anywhere yet that's by any means up to date that I've seen. And you're right about watching a hundred more tutorials, I will be doing that by default; but for now I just want to be able to make a basic part and implement it in game without KSP ****ting bricks. Once I've got to that stage then I'll feel more confident tweaking things, using more complex shapes, and the part that I'll be having the most fun with, spending weeks on the graphical skin. :b I got a part in the game earlier, but then changed a couple of variables in what I was doing and everything went pear shaped again. :'(

[Radion]

Sorry, my recording software isn't cooperating with me today, I'll try to get it up tomorrow. Here's the list of everything you'll need for the tutorial, just to make sure we don't spend too much time on downloading -

Unity 3D 3.5.6

KSP 0.16 PartTools

Blender 3D

[bashpr0mpt]

Godommot. Someone's moved the thread but didn't delete the main thread, I replied in the wrong one. They renamed it too; ironically I didn't notice this when hitting F5 to check for updates. (This thread being left with it's current title is of import when I've finally got a part in KSP and do a write up from go to woah as to what I did to do such, hopefully!)

Missing post: So, I've again returned to that fault that makes no sense. After having my -invisible- part appear in the game, I spent some time skinning it, brought that skin back into Blender, alt Z'd, exported the DAE, set up the cfg with the texture still in /textures (and defined in the CFG) just in case even though the textures clearly imported back into the DAE (?), then ran KSP and bam, it freezes at hab. Double checked, node_collider mesh and materials are named node_collider, so it should all be working flawlessly. But nope, won't bring it into the game, won't even load the game. The **** am I doing wrong now? Anyone have any ideas?! :'(

[DYJ]

Well, I split your latest posts into a new thread since they are not related to your request for a tutorial. So I suggest you use that thread for modeling questions and whatnot.

[bashpr0mpt]

The plan is that once I actually get this part implemented in the game without the mystery intermittent LOLNO happening I'll combine all the best advice that has been given here and move it into my exponentially growing notepad.exe then replace the first post with it. So for the sake of those wanting in depth elements I may only skim over (hopefully not, as an academic surely I've got 'writing a tute' down pat!) they can simply refer to the main post in full further along. Would you be in concurrence with that?