lo-fi

Good stuff, sounds like you're well on your way I'd suggest a mod that messes with science stuff for some source for you to poke through, but it's not something I tend to mess with. Loads of people helped me out when I was learning C# and finding my way around the KSP/Unity API's, so shout if you need help. Good hunting and happy coding!

Well, it seemed like a good idea... I am working on the part attachment problem too, think I might have it figured out Definitely, this just keeps getting better!

Will do, Sirkut. It's one of those things I hack at occasionally, but haven't quite nailed yet. That's not a bad idea at all, artwhaley, I might have a go with that method too

Ah, bummer about KSPI and FS. Can configure it how you like, but currently got it so the tweak sliders set the point the engines deploy to, so you don't have to deploy, then adjust, and the setting is always saved and persistent. They extend out to the point you've set, scroll in and out within limits when you mess with the slider, and retract back from wherever they are left. You could probably do all kinds of other crazy stuff with animations rigged and driven like this - it's certainly going to open up some cool options for landing legs and landing gear Got a little caught up playing with symmetry shenanigans, but I'll get the group system and some action groups sorted and get something back over to you for testing very soon. Moving an engine has a pretty powerful effect on the CoT btw, it's really cool!

Spot the spelling mistake I really need to refactor all the part names now there's only one version of each :/ Cheers dude, I'll get round to some copy/paste this week

Nah, unless it's messing with animations anything is fine multi mode would be really cool

Cheers, really good articles!

The problem is the way KSP creates joints. It doesn't create a joint between the root of the part you're placing and the component of the part you placed it on, it creates a joint between the part you're placing and the rigidbody of the part you're placing on, which will be applied to its root. This is why things that get mounted to animated components stay fixed in place when what they're visually mounted 'on' moves around (and why mounting to cargo bays doors is prohibited). I'm sure you've probably got a plan, Sirkut, but I've been quietly researching this too. I've got some fresh ideas after ploughing through piles of unity docs, but have yet to try again. I'll let you know if I come up with anything useful

Cheers, that'll help speed things along Thrust switcher sounds like a great idea, and I reckon the dual nozzles will look great. I'll keep you posted on my progress. Edit: Works like a charm! The only thing I might struggle with is breaking the symmetry in the editor so the arms can be changed independently, but I have one or two ideas for that. If there's a mod that gives you toggleable in-flight CoT/CoM gizmo's, that would be the icing on the cake too Gotta say, it's absolutely stunning in-game!

Darren, apart from being an awesome bit of silliness, that's actually really good info to have, with respect to performance! 10/10 for perseverance, Gaalidas! The icon fix that EvilReeper posted is an updated version of what's compiled into KF at the moment. I'll shift to using it once the loading bug is ironed out, as it had wider applications than just KF. So good to have working icons, though! its getting stuck on an internal space in your log, which it should not be messing with, but it won't take long for EvilReeper to figure out -thanks for getting that list over. Interesting information on the node helper too!

Errr, that's weird. Are you tweaking the position of the surface attach nodes, or adding stack nodes? I can't think ive ever had a collider interfere with a nodes placement, it just tends to not want to mount the part if the collider clips with what you're trying to mount it to. I've played with the node placement a few times, and other than being a bit slap happy with it, it's never given me any trouble. Wait a minute, TweakScale messes with attach points, though! It has to do so when you rescale a part with stuff mounted to it. That's the only thing I can think of that you've probably got installed that may be causing an issue. Yeah, tempted to work something into the part names and wait for the slap on the wrist

ROFL! Brilliant, as always I honestly had no idea you could do that with repulsors... Kerbals looked like they were having fun! Hmmm, 360 wheel colliders in one scene... That's got to be a record! The latest dev builds have some minor optimizations, but I think that's just the poor physics engine dying under the sheer weight of repulsor craziness Edit: The KSP spandex video is the funniest thing I've ever seen in KSP. Did you used to play Lemmings at lot, by any chance?

You'll find loads of great stuff here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/94638-New-Mod-Development-Links-Compilation I'd suggest before you launch into it too hard, do a load of reading, watch a bunch of tutorial videos and get acquainted. For setting up Visual Studio, this is invaluable: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Setting_up_Visual_Studio There isn't much official documentation, but every mod is open-source, so go have a look at loads of mods that you think might have something similar to what you want to do. This is abandoned, but similar to what you want to do: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/81667-WIP-Mass-Driver-Parts-and-Plugin-request-for-modeling-help%21 The Unity3D forums and API docs are really good, so don't limit yourself to KSP specific stuff. You can do some pretty cool stuff with rigidyBody.AddForce(), which might be helpful, but this is probably a good place to start before you get way ahead of yourself: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/92643-Official-PartModule-Documentation Nice idea, btw. Good hunting!

This was a weird one: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/96795-SOLVED-Part-with-animation-not-loading Similar silly shenanigans as your material snafu the other day with the Skylon parts.

Ah, I see! Teach me to make assumptions! Nothing wasted, it's made me push my animation knowledge and works just as well with only one animation on the part Won't take me log to figure this out now.. No problem dealing with activating stuff across multiple parts, my KF stuff has that all figured out: each KF part has a group number 0-10 set with a slider, plus an apply button. Group 0 will always apply settings only to the currently selected part, any other group will apply settings from the current part to parts on the same vessel with the same group number. Works like a charm in-game, as it's very simple to use. Yep, animation being baked in is cool. I think I could probably add some joint re-enforcement for surface attach if needed - I've done a lot of playing with Unity joints lately while researching how to attach parts to animated pieces of other parts and actually have them move Edit: Any chance I can get hold of the parts as they are now, if they've got the animation rigged in? It'll save me rigging up dummies to test the plugin Edit2: Got deploy button and smoothing working, and found that multiple ModuleEngines on one part don't play well! More or less ready for models, though I've kinda spun my own temp ones just to play with. One other thing that's possible would be to have the actual engine nacelle flip over to reverse thrust, though you may have that covered by other means. I think you may have just invented a brand new type of engine!!

Quiet, they might be watching... I was going to give them numbers: 36FF, 32C, 28A... Hmmm, no idea what's going on there. I just play with the node_attach values in the config and reload database. It's tedious, but you'll soon get used to how the values work, and it's not as tedious as having to restart the %$^$%&( game every time I want to make a change to the plugin... The only thing I can think of: You'll find that once the parts are launched, their node placement values don't affect their placement on the vessel. You'll have to remove them in the editor and re-place them to see where the new node puts places it, but I could be misreading what you're saying.

Ah, I was wondering if the piston animation was baked in, or driven with LookAt's. Baked in is cool, and probably easier if that's how it is at the mo. I hadn't anticipated quite how much harder it is with multiple animation clips (one for each leg) on one model, so having to re-write. Which is cool, because it will also drive the adjustable, self levelling landing legs I'm creating I'm assuming the legs are integral with the body to keep part count down and rigidity up? Got a the basics working, so I'll hopefully have something workable for you later in the week after I've got the animation states saving to persistence and all that kind of stuff. Aiming to have the legs deploy out a certain way with a button or AG, then have the slider extend and retract them in or out within limits, if you're happy with that? I had to strip the deploy stuff while getting it running happily, and smoothing is yet to be implemented, but I've managed to blend the four clips together and drive them each with a tweakable slider:

I hear ya. I'm all set up for Twitch streaming, so watch out a thread with details. Sounds like a written piece, with a video to back it up is a good way to get. The "do I really have to pause and rewind this this again" drives me nuts too, but at the same time, sometimes a video paints a thousand screenshots (literally - see what I did there? ) when it comes to "well great, but I can't even find that £$&*&(%&^%* menu".

I absolutely agree, though I think there is room for something concise. It did take me a while to ferret out enough info to get get going, and was eventually Tiberion's YouTube that sent me on the way. An extended version that covers part tools install, a few more Unity basics and runs through the process in a similar fashion, along with a text version ought to be valuable, I think. Pointers for further reading along the way are a great idea! Along with the aforemention YouTube, it was the Unity docs and excellent video tutorials that filled in the gaps for me. I reckon it took me about two hours to get a working part (fuel tank, as it happens) in-game from stone cold, never having touched Unity before. I'll be honest, I'm a bit surprised to learn how many people are struggling, and the thread activity seems to suggest there is a demand for a sort of 'quick start' guide. Yes, you're absolutely right. And the workflow is likely to stay unchanged, I suspect. Actually not a bad reason to set something fresh up I'm more than happy to stream my crazy work for an evening every couple of weeks or something. I thought about suggesting it, but I wasn't sure if there would be much demand without a specific focus. @Cpt. Kipard: I clearly missed the quote button, and I'm too lazy to rectify, but I'm more than happy to collaborate on the doc with you, and will follow up with a YouTube.

Ah, I normally just use a few GameObjects in Unity to aid with node placement. You shouldn't struggle too much hopefully as all my stuff should be scale 1. Thanks for doing that, I know I've been a little slap-happy with that the attach points while I've had bigger proverbial fish to fry! Mind boggling things, aren't they! What a thing it would be to stare at a fading image stuck on the crest of the event horizon... Large and medium wheel, plus medium track are in the dev repo now with all their TS paraphernalia in the configs. TS version 1.47, I believe. Which leads me neatly on.... The parts could do with some better names!! I did come up with a funny naming scheme, but I think it might land me in trouble with the moderators :/

Ah, wicked! Might need to do some re-jigging of animations depending on how you've set it up, but I'll do a dummy rig to get the details all straight and get something over to you. Quite exciting!

Nice, I like the sound of all of that! Mini nukes seem like a great option, and a thought just occurred.... I wrote a little plugin a while back that steps through animations based on a tweakable slider. If you setup your engine arm animations for deployment + full extension, you could use it to drive arm movement and have adjustable engine position to tweak CoT. Let me know if you're interested in having a play; I'll tweak it to suit and send over. Probably opens up a whole new can of worms, but an idea to throw into the mix Lovely work, as usual!

I'm happy to do a video that shadows your text version? I'd definitely cover: Unity: which version and why. How projects and scenes work. Part tools install and config.. this causes a lot of confusion, when it's as simple as dragging and dropping the .23 version in. GameObjects: creation, orientation and adding components. Importing 3d models: scale, orientation and position in the scene. KSP sharers: choosing the correct one, assigning maps and applying to the model. How to set up layers and tags. Colliders: how to add and appropriate use! Their relationship to how the object interracts with other parts and the UI. How to use blank gameobjects in the scene to help with node configuration. Saving the scene and organising assets. Prefab: what it means and what it means to break it. Writing out your part. Probably a whole bunch of other stuff, but that seems to be what most people get stuck on. If you want to cover animation too, maybe a cargo bay would be a good candidate? I'm in two minds as to whether that's maybe a step too far for a single tutorial, though.

I just grabbed the latest build, noting that the version has been incremented and it appears to behave. Or at least it does with my parts! I have rudimentary support working for wheels and tracks with no major issues so far.

Wow, this is cool! I can see it getting used in a more than a few cinematics. Thanks, looking forward to giving it a go