TiktaalikDreaming
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Posts posted by TiktaalikDreaming
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It's actually 0.65 in this case. But it's possible I just need to position it better and play with the radius some more.
Mine just won't work at all. I'm going back and creating an extremely simple leg to see if I can get the basics working.
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I think the pad's collider is much better than it used to be. I was able to get very precise height tests with my older legs first, before seeing my new ones off by about 0.45m. Another screenshot showing the legs working great, on flat terrain:
(again, not sure why it works properly with the wheel collider line shortened up by about 0.45m, just above the foot's pivot).
Yeah, that's what I thought too. I'm wondering if there's something funky with how it scales in larger sizes? I found that as long as the piston collider was in the right place, what was determining how much the foot would float above (or sink into) the surface was 100% controlled by how long the wheel collider line was, in this case.
I was just messing around trying to get mine to work at all and I remembered wheelCollider radius. Your's wouldn't be around the 0.45 mark would it?
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Make sure you test it on terrain as well. IIRC the launch pad has a bad collider.
That it does. And a nasty habit of exploding.
My understanding is that the vehicle rests on the end of the "wheel collider suspension line", modified by weight on the springs. But also that the foot should end up moving with said end point. It shouldn't end up sitting on the piston collider, that would be the KSP equivalent of bottoming out.
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I've not done too much myself, but having messed about with the wheels which are similar I have a rough idea what's going on. Maybe time for another tutorial with some of the common mistakes covered!
There do seem to be more than the usual collection of gotchyas. With legs and wheels, legs being a subset of wheels as far as I can tell.
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Nope, that wasn't it. I guess I'll try with Unity 4.2.2 next and see if anything changes.
Yeah, no change for me either. 4.2.2 seems a likely answer
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I had similar problems. Either the leg pistons wouldn't extend at all, or they would extend and retract, but with no suspension strength. I reworked it as per the tutorial probably a dozen times, but what finally fixed it was to get all of the mesh object hierarchy right in Blender, and make sure I didn't need to break the "prefab" status in Unity... then it finally worked.
I'll give that a go later today. I have a dummy cylinder matching the expected fuel tank size in my blender file that I delete, which breaks prefab. I'll kill it from blender, resave etc etc.
God I hope that's all it is. :-)
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That is beautiful. I hope you keep at it!
It may seem like I'm not keeping at it, but I've been bogged down trying to get landing legs to work. Those big second stage tanks were expected to be re-purposed for moon or Mars colonies, which strongly implies landing them. Thus, enornous legs. Plus my video card died and Unity (editor or player) will not function at all without hardware acceleration enabled in DX.
Video card fixed, but my landing legs are still a bit ........
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This might help show how I have things set up in Unity,
Javascript is disabled. View full album
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For any useful kind of diagnosis, screen grabs are really required. Even better, create a Unity package of your scene, model and any materials/textures you're using by selecting them, right clicking and selecting "export package". Assuming you're using 4.2.2?
Using 4.6.4f, but I'll have a go at that. My scene/project is one big blob of everything, and is many bignesses, and thus unsuitable. I'll have a look at the export package options.
(EDIT)
Export package only seems to grab the assets imported from blender or where-ever. The "how it's pieced together in Unity" bit is likely to be the issue. Is that still useful?
I think this should work, but as I said, in Unity 4.6.4f it seems to just export the asset, there's no option to export scene items.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/x4ktauucxsv44yd/landerlegs2.unitypackage?dl=0
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Oops I didn't see this post before I sent you a PM, tiberion. I tried that solution with the Odin leg and it didn't work; the leg always hovered above the ground because the suspensionTransform (lowerPiston) can't be animated. You can animate the parent of it though.
The working hierarchy was as follows:
upperPiston(rotating animation)
=lowerPiston(sliding animation, no mesh, no collider)
= = wheelCollider (WheelColliders layer)
= = piston(mesh, no animation, suspensionTransformName points to this)
= = = foot(rotation animation, mesh)
= = = pistonCollider (WheelCollidersIgnore layer)
Some questions;
Is this still working for 1.0+? If not, then the following questions are moot.
Your lowerPiston(sliding animation, no mesh, no collider), is that an empty game object or ? And assuming an empty transform, which axis points at the ground and where is it centred? I can't find references to it in the posts here, and for some reason I can't open the zipped unity file (blender etc work fine, I think something's changed in Unity since it was saved).
I probably need to verify which mesh is which. My assumption is that there's the foot, rotates on X, Y points at ground. It's connected to the lower piston, or "piston" mesh in the heirarchy above. That slides up and down inside or outside the upperPiston. Then that collection may be animated to place it in position to function, or to retract it, via parent objects like arms etc.
My heirarchy (which isn't working) is;
Legs (game object, KSP Part tools etc)
=Legs(Imported Blender object, has the animation and parents the other meshes)
==Base (does nothing, just the attachment point)
===PistonBody (ignore that it says Piston, this is just an animated part for a piston arrangement to extend the MainLeg mesh. Mesh only)
==MainLeg (animated mesh of long arm that folds out)
===LegCollider (collider matching MainLeg)
===PistonRod (ignore that it says Piston, this is just an animated part for a piston arrangement to extend the MainLeg mesh. Mesh only)
===UpprSuspension (mesh, animated, top of shock absorber, coincides with upperPiston)
====Suspension (Emtpy, no mesh, pointed Y down, coincides with lowerPiston)
====wheelCollider (wheelColliders layer, centred at UpprSuspension root, projects down slightly past foot)
====LwrSuspension (mesh only, suspensionTransformName points to this. expectation is this would move up and down with foot, forming inner/lower section of shock absorber)
=====PistonCollider (WheelCollidersIgnore layer, centred at root of UpprSuspension, capsule collider, covers about half the distance to foot)
=====Foot (mesh only, no collider, referenced as foot in cfg)
Kinda hoping someone can spot a glaring error I can't see. :-)
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I suspect we may need updated tutorials once the Unity 5 KSP comes out, since the wheel collider system is being replaced.
Updated everything tutes once U5 KSP comes out. What's currently probably doing in the heads of Squad devs will be doing our heads in after release. Yay! :-(
Got legs mostly working, but I think my foot isn't moving with my suspension. Looks fine when not lifting a lot of weight, but given what it should be supporting, the feet essentially disappear into the ground suggesting they're not properly assigned. http://imgur.com/a/MbeIe
Not asking for help, I haven't double checked all my layers n stuff just yet, just venting. Folding legs with suspension are is tricky.
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Just wanted to say THANKS!
Still had a bit of trouble sorting out how I wanted MY legs to work, but, on the whole, this tute was exactly what I needed.
Someone needs to compile a list of layers, transforms, etc and how they work with the various modules in KSP. It won't kill the need for tutes like these, but it'd be an awesome reference for parts of a type you've done before, ages ago and just need a refresher on which axis goes where etc. It'd be nice to think that someone should be Squad. But I know it'll be one of us.
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Its possible. I made a 5m-base fairing for Novapunch. Here's the config:
The other things are useful too, but that should get you started.
Done.
I tried it with the cfg I was already working on and got the same weird results, so I re stole the cfg from stock and it worked just fine.
Thanks again
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any news about 1.0 or 1.0.2 ? patiently waiting for an update here lol
I have a test set of parts. I won't be uploading anything until Nyrath's Orion mod is working. There's not a lot of point having extra heavy, sturdy parts for a spacecraft to go on top of an Orion engine that doesn't work.
I will say the new stack/attach nodes both required significant rewriting for the wedge cabin units, but that they also now make sense. Which is nice.
In the meantime I'm working on the Nexus rocket (would have been used to loft Orions out of the atmosphere etc), and some second stages that could double as second stages for the Nexus or the Orion.
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How are you supposed to install the hotfix then? I obviously didn't install it correctly.
Unpack so that the new DLL files live in %KSP%/GameData/Nyrath/
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Its possible. I made a 5m-base fairing for Novapunch. Here's the config:
The other things are useful too, but that should get you started.
Awesome, thanks Tiberion. I haven't had a chance to look at this yet, but I will. I'll let you know if they keep scaling. :-)
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The fairings can expand outward to accomidate wider payloads.
The problem i found is segmental flexibilty within the fairing can lead to part-part collision and failures. The issue for space station cores is that the station 6-direction hub does not allow surface attach because of the concave surfaces and discrepencies between the collision model and the visible model. This means you cannot close the fairing but well on the other side.
I am building a new size2 core with no appreciable concavities so that the lower size3 fairing can be close on a bottom flange on the hub and a second size3 fairing can be placed on top.
The other problem is that the fairings will not accept strut connectors.
To fix this problem I am going to create a thin physicsless <Size3 plate, maybe 0.1 m with very high breakin torque.
So physicswise here is the basic problem... over 250 m/s below 24000 m the wide parts will create alot of downward drag.
typically the SAS will be close to the top. Between the SAS unit and the fairin base you have on the station hub a size2 port which has weak twisting force resistence.
To solve this problem the plate goes on the fairing and the port goes upside down on the plate. The bottom half of the station and bottom half of the hub is covered by the 1st fairing, then inside the fairing will be stut connectos (from plate to hub bottom at ~ 1.4 m out). This then allows the station to have all manner of junky parts on the bottom (gigantor, batteries, sci experiments, light, etc) on karmony or storage. The top fairing will unfortunately be a vistigual part on th station since I want it to have a command capsule.
In any case, this is how I solved the fairing size limitation. The other solution is to change the docking pots, which given thier current bugs, im going to leave alone.
They don't expand enough, and the bases aren't the right size. I'm not asking about this for one or two bits that are wider than normal. That's what the stock fairings are for after all. I'm talking 18m diameter etc.
When you mess with the fairing sizes, they go to hell. I suspect if I had an idea of how the module works, I could just tweak with cfg files. I was hoping someone had worked that out.
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how are the control thrusters supposed to be put on? they don't seem to align with the round fuel tank bits, or is their alignment still in progress?
I can't wait to see this when it's all done and textured.
They did align, but I needed to rotate the tank at one stage by 5degrees due to the support structures. I'll be rotating the torus back, as it's also not aligning with the engine's pipes. I cleverly rotated the whole tank instead of just the meshes I needed to rototate. :-/ I keep meaning to fix it, but always forget.
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Updated version with working Gas Core nuclear thermal rockets and a few options for the second stage.
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Oh, that one. I tried installing But, i don't know if I did correctly. I installed it by dropping the files into the game data folder.
Some of the hotfix files replace existing files. If you're not asked/warned about that, they're going in the wrong spot. It very much did work in 0.90. Just coding issues between releases broking it in 1.0.
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That is basically the idea, except I'm putting in a few nerfs to prevent the engines from being overpowered or cheats.
Good luck. For most purposes they should be annoying as hell and heavy in Earth gravity. They'd kick arse on small moons or planets with non-Oxy atmospheres though. Weight not such an issue, and the atmosphere is essentially heated and accelerated regardless of it's chemistry.
A lot of hard data is missing from the tests and reasons for cancelling etc, but it's suspicious that it was cancelled shortly after they ran the airborne shielding tests. It might be that engine plus shielding was just too heavy. Again, requires kerbals to care. And the trade off would be for extremely long airborne times. Short burns use rockets, long burns use jets, infinite burns use nuke.
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Has anyone looked at how the stock fairings work in 1.0? I'd dearly love a procedural fairing suitable for a collection of different larger sizes, but I have no idea how to scale them. I can rescale the base just fine, but the fairing won't behave, and I can't see how it's done. It looks to be built purely from the module with a texture in dds format.
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Good start!
Don't be scared of polies, KSP is anything but GPU-limited, and a few thousand (heck, a few dozen thousand) faces isn't a problem, as long as your mesh collider is suitably low-rez.
Building off what's been said so far, I'd basically encourage you to add more specific detail, going off the OP's pics it looks a bit like an 'impression' of an engine as it were--"this doughnut represents a pump, this cylinder represents a generator, this cone represents an exhaust"--rather than the high-jagged way those things tend to look in real life.
It took me a while to come to that realization, but it does seem you can afford to add plenty of visible mesh detail, so long as your collision mesh is moderately simple.
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Never mind. While doing my best to explain the issue, I pointed myself at the solution. Make the collision mesh a single non-convex collider, and it all seems to work.
Carry on.
[Tutorial] Animated Landing Leg w/ Suspension
in KSP1 Mod Development
Posted
Having animation attached to the same object that you expect KSP to animate through a module is a bit of an issue.
I think I have my leg issues sorted, although I will be a while getting the spring strength and damping correct, I imagine. But I have an apparently working set of very basic legs. And I had my stuff all wrong before. :-)