noonespecial

Yup, the docking ports are from Fustek. I used them for that photo because of the pretty lights. Haha. But the octagonal modules are from the KSO Space Station Kit by helldiver. And before someone asks, I just used them for the picture, the KSO parts are not included in this mod

Yeah... apparently it's hardcoded to only work with Photoshop. But it's a great tool for anyone who has photoshop. Here is an example, I threw this together in about 5 minutes. I baked material colors in blender (cycles render, bake diffuse color) to generate the color map. dDo uses the coloring in the color map for texture handling.

I animated all four of them in Blender as a single animation, so ModuleLanderLeg doesn't have any issues. I guess I'll just have to go without the suspension. I'll see if I can get anywhere "hacking" it, but we'll see.

I'm using it and yes, I do have photoshop. I also have GIMP, but haven't tried it to see if it works with GIMP. Yeah, it is pretty amazing. It can give you quite a head start on texture. Detail stuff you still need to do manually, but you can generate a passable base texture in just a few minutes. I have seen some forum posts about it working with GIMP though.

Haha. I whole heartedly agree (about the initial stuff being ugly). It was horrible!

That is an obvious workaround. But not what I'm looking to do. For this particular part, I'd rather go without the suspension than make it an additional part.

I see you included a link to MaPZone for texturing. You might also want to consider adding a link for Quixel's dDo. The older version has been made free since they are releasing a new version. dDo website (link for free Legacy version at the bottom) : http://quixel.se/ddo Or direct link to the free version for those to lazy to scroll: http://quixel.se/dDo/dDo_release.zip

In Blender, object must have unique names. In this case suspensionParent, suspensionParent.001, suspensionParent.002, and suspensionParent.003. Why four suspensionParents? Because the lander I'm working on has 4 legs. Now, my issues (which you've probably already guessed), AFAIK you can only specify a single suspensionParent under KSP's ModuleLandingLeg. Unity does allow transforms with identical names. However, remaining the different suspensionParents breaks the animation. Even though I've made the animation readable, I can find no way to edit the information within the Unity Animation Window. Animating the lander solely within Unity, though possible, is not desirable because Unity does not respect the track constraints applied in Blender to keep the hydraulics lined up properly. Any ideas for a possible solution? FYI, the animation works perfectly in KSP with the exception of suspension (and the occasional falling through the floor, but I think I have that latter issue solved).

Update Oct 3 2014 Version 0.2 Released. See OP for details. Eye Candy

If you're using Blender, easiest way would be: (from Edit Mode) Push "P", select "By Material", and your model will automatically be divided into separate meshes depending on your material. As long as you don't move them, there will be no visible difference in Unity or KSP.

Yeah. I know how to animate an ordinary light in Unity. But, do I do as OrbitusII suggested and do ALL of the animation in Unity, or is there a way to do the emissive animation clip that plays at the same time as the animation export from blender? In essence, there is a light assembly INSIDE one of my parts. An animation done in blender "deploys" the light, not I need to turn it on.

From all the tutorials I've read, it seems that animations should be done in Blender but emissive/light animations should be done in Unity. So how would one go about combining the two? Say I have an animated part that includes a light that I want to turn on when the animation is played (part deployed). How would I go about doing that?

I originally had it toward the center, but the animation exceeding the length of the piston. I moved it down for test purposes (the picture is resulting from that), but I didn't like that. So I moved it about 1/3rd of the way up, just at the limits of the extension. Although, after looking at the concept art again from here (page 52 has the best view). Looks like I'm going to change it again.

and the results:

JSIPartUtilities allows meshes and/or attach nodes to be turned on and off. The trusses have multiple mesh configurations (crew passage or purely structural truss) and the 6 direction hub is configurable with extensions to produce extended L-shape, T-shape, X-shape, or what have you. It's the JSI that makes that possible. See the photos for examples.

Thank you. Works perfectly!

The two piston parts look at each, I got that part. What I need to do is constrain the yellow piston to the pink base on the landing leg so that it will "stay" as the leg lowers and raises.

I need a little help with rigging this landing gear for an animation I'm making for a lander for Chaka Monkey. Currently I have seven parts. Four parts show in these pictures and three empties. I've used "damped track" to bind the piston parts together so they will follow each other and move like a piston is supposed to. But what I need to do now is bind the yellow piston to the pink part shown so that the piston will stay attached as the leg moves up and down. Any advice?

I think the greater point of my post, through it may have gotten lost in the rambling, was to start with 3DMax if that is what you are comfortable with, but eventually progress to blender. Or if you're brave, just jump straight into blender. To echo what nli2work said, I do believe that the vast majority of KSP modders exclusively use Blender and.... as he said... it's free

If you're just writing (rewriting/compiling) this just for yourself, cool. But if you are looking to add to the community, I have a suggestion for this part. Choosing a 3D Modeling program can be daunting, especially for those of us who had zero 3D modeling experience before deciding to mod. There are so many choices, most of which are very expensive. Not to mention, the learning curve on most of them is pretty monstrous. So here is my recommendation for this first part based on my own experience. I first wanted to mod about 6 months before I actually started. I downloaded Unity and Blender. Open blender, saw a cube and panicked. Couldn't figure out what to do and quickly became discouraged and gave up. Months later, I came across a video that wasn't using blender, but was using a completely different program, Google SketchUp. It is much more user friendly and intuitive to a new modeler (caveat: it is horrible for making 3D models for KSP though). So at first, I made the models exclusively in SketchUp. A little later, I made most of the model in SketchUp and used Blender as a finishing/post-processing tool, originally just for cleaning up the vertex mess that SketchUp creates and for doing the UVMapping. As I became more comfortable with blender, I eventually migrated exclusively to blender. Blender is a good program, but I still found it rather inadequate in many areas. At this point, the I had enough experience in modeling to download virtually every high end 3D software out there that offered a trial and be able to make a decision based on my personal preferences and needs.... which I'm still doing . Haven't settled on my final choice yet, but I'm leaning toward zBrush.

Unfortunately, to comply with Squad's rules, you must make the source code publicly available for any downloadable files. I also recommend (and is also required by the rules) that you choose a license. Please check the forum rules. Specifically rules 1 and 2 in this case.

Hey Gryphon, As one knew to modding myself, I understand what you mean. My advice, watch as many tutorials as you can get your hands on. Get the Blender mu importer so you can look at examples, and practice practice practice. Start with the expectation that your first few models, you will probably redo from scratch several times. My first mod (about 4 months ago) looked like this: Notice the lack of texture and rather horrible model. Yesterday, I released this: It just takes time and a little patience to develop your skills. Good luck

I will be as soon as I learn how. Luckily, nli2work just released an extensive tutorial on the subject TweakScale is easy to add. I want to keep mod dependencies to a minimum, so I may add the support for it, but not include it in the download. Life Support, that's a tricky one (for me at least). With so many life supports mods, I'll need to figure out Module Managers installed mods check and use it to add the support for which ever life support mod is installed on the players system (I think...). But I'll look into it.

Update Sept 29 2014 Alpha Release 0.1 download available in the OP. I still need to balance costs/drag/weight etc. Additionally, I will be adding Kethane and Karbonite (ORS) support.... once I figure out how. I'm toying with the idea of adding TweakScale support. Please have a look and leave feedback. Any feedback, any, will be highly appreciated.

OMG Thank you so much!