Beginners Part Modding Tutorial

[Sharpy]

13 hours ago, liquidhype said:

Set your units to "metric" open your properties panel by pressing "N" and scaling the entire model until it is exactly 2.5m along the Z-axis and then apply the scale by pressing "Ctrl+A". It is unreasonably easy and should be one of the first things you learn how to do when learning Blender.

 

Apparently, though, it isn't a common knowledge; neither for me nor for many advanced Blender users, because a thread on the Blender forum had a lengthy discussion with two solutions. 1. install an 'engineering' plugin that allows to enter lengths, 2. write current height on the side and type scale as 2.5/[current height]. And quite a few people answered.

[liquidhype]

10 minutes ago, Sharpy said:

Apparently, though, it isn't a common knowledge; neither for me nor for many advanced Blender users, because a thread on the Blender forum had a lengthy discussion with two solutions. 1. install an 'engineering' plugin that allows to enter lengths, 2. write current height on the side and type scale as 2.5/[current height]. And quite a few people answered.

Well then those people are not "advanced users" as it literally only requires you to click 2 buttons to accomplish, and that feature has been a part of Blender for many many years. It is as basic as clicking an object and rotating it.

[Sharpy]

11 hours ago, liquidhype said:

Well then those people are not "advanced users" as it literally only requires you to click 2 buttons to accomplish, and that feature has been a part of Blender for many many years. It is as basic as clicking an object and rotating it.

*shrug* No matter how you put it - if shortcut keys start reaching into ctrl+alt+shift+key... and you need to start disabling Windows builtin shortcuts normally enabled with stock Windows install, as they conflict with Blender, that's not my definition of 'easy'. (in particular, looking at moving the origin of an object, ctrl+alt+shift+c, and boggling why the heck Windows switches to qwertz keyboard...)

[liquidhype]

8 hours ago, Sharpy said:

*shrug* No matter how you put it - if shortcut keys start reaching into ctrl+alt+shift+key... and you need to start disabling Windows builtin shortcuts normally enabled with stock Windows install, as they conflict with Blender, that's not my definition of 'easy'. (in particular, looking at moving the origin of an object, ctrl+alt+shift+c, and boggling why the heck Windows switches to qwertz keyboard...)

*shrug**shrug**shrug**shrug**shrug* Again, if you or anyone else had the least bit of knowledge about Blender, you would know that there is 1 single button you can click on to set the origin of an object, instead of having to hold and press 4 buttons. Literally all you need to do is click the "Set Origin" button and it does the exact same things as holding down 4 buttons.

*shrug**shrug**shrug**shrug* You need to remember that there are thousands of commands one can do in Blender, so in order to have shortcuts for most of them, some of the shortcuts needs to be a bit crazy, like you mentioned in you little example there.

*shrug**shrug**shrug**shrug* I have never come across a Blender shortcut that conflicts with any of the default Windows keyboard shortcuts. I'm not sure what kind of keyboard setup you've got going on, but I guess all I can do is *shrug**shrug**shrug**shrug**shrug**shrug*  Just because you don't know how to do something, does not mean it is difficult to do. It simply means you don't know how to do it.

Edited October 30, 2016 by liquidhype

[Sharpy]

@liquidhype: Just because you know how to do it doesn't mean it's easy. And considering how many people don't know what button it is or even where to look for it, no, it's not easy. Blender's UI is one of the least intuitive I've ever encountered. Context help on buttons is nearly useless. Meaning of key shortcuts changes depending on what mode you're in. Shortcut keys open menus of 20 items or so. Window management is something not found in any other application ever. There is no visual feedback on many operations, so if you press a wrong key, you may corrupt your model and not know until you run out of your undo levels (32 by default, 255 max, which, considering every smallest change is an undo op, makes the number extremely small). No matter how you skin it, Blender IS hard. The fact you have somehow mastered it, doesn't change it.

[liquidhype]

2 minutes ago, Sharpy said:

@liquidhype: Just because you know how to do it doesn't mean it's easy. And considering how many people don't know what button it is or even where to look for it, no, it's not easy. Blender's UI is one of the least intuitive I've ever encountered. Context help on buttons is nearly useless. Meaning of key shortcuts changes depending on what mode you're in. Shortcut keys open menus of 20 items or so. Window management is something not found in any other application ever. There is no visual feedback on many operations, so if you press a wrong key, you may corrupt your model and not know until you run out of your undo levels (32 by default, 255 max, which, considering every smallest change is an undo op, makes the number extremely small). No matter how you skin it, Blender IS hard. The fact you have somehow mastered it, doesn't change it.

Well, with your lack of experience you don't really have the grounds to say if Blender is hard or not, comparatively speaking. I've got years and years of experience in 3D-modeling and I have had to work with multiple different software depending on what project I was working on at the time. I've used Maya, Cinema 4D, Blender, AutoCAD, Cheetah and a bunch of others, and I can with absolute confidence that Blender is by far the easiest to learn and the most user friendly. 

Your experience with Blender might have been a difficult one, but relatively speaking Blender is much, much easier than any other 3D-modeling software. That is just a plain and simple fact. Ask any veteran in the industry and they will tell you the same thing. They might have a different favorite software (I myself prefer Maya), but in terms of which program is the easiest to use, 99% of them will say Blender.

[Sharpy]

4 hours ago, liquidhype said:

Well, with your lack of experience you don't really have the grounds to say if Blender is hard or not, comparatively speaking. I've got years and years of experience in 3D-modeling and I have had to work with multiple different software depending on what project I was working on at the time. I've used Maya, Cinema 4D, Blender, AutoCAD, Cheetah and a bunch of others, and I can with absolute confidence that Blender is by far the easiest to learn and the most user friendly.

Well, my experience is more limited, but I happen to know AutoCAD and I can authoritatively say it's considerably easier to learn than Blender. It has a consistent set of commands that do exactly what you want, no less, no more, it has an immensely helpful rich set of snap modes, it has several immensely helpful modes of entry of values, and the learning curve is very regular - easy things are easy to do and easy to learn; with zero experience and not having read or watched any tutorials you can sit and start scribbling the first thing, and get *some* results. Blender, for a beginner is a total wall. I spent my first half an hour trying to figure out managing the views and only after watching a 15-minute tutorial understood how that bizarre system works. AutoCAD is by no means easy, but it's considerably easier than Blender.

And since apparently you don't know SketchUp, you really lack the benchmark on what constitutes easy 3D modelling software. It's like you were saying "Piloting Dreamliner is easy. I flew Boeing 747, Atonov An-225 and Tupolev Tu-160, and Dreamliner is by far the easiest. And you, having only transferred from a Cessna, really have no grounds to say Dreamliner is difficult."

 

[liquidhype]

47 minutes ago, Sharpy said:

Well, my experience is more limited, but I happen to know AutoCAD and I can authoritatively say it's considerably easier to learn than Blender. It has a consistent set of commands that do exactly what you want, no less, no more, it has an immensely helpful rich set of snap modes, it has several immensely helpful modes of entry of values, and the learning curve is very regular - easy things are easy to do and easy to learn; with zero experience and not having read or watched any tutorials you can sit and start scribbling the first thing, and get *some* results. Blender, for a beginner is a total wall. I spent my first half an hour trying to figure out managing the views and only after watching a 15-minute tutorial understood how that bizarre system works. AutoCAD is by no means easy, but it's considerably easier than Blender.

And since apparently you don't know SketchUp, you really lack the benchmark on what constitutes easy 3D modelling software. It's like you were saying "Piloting Dreamliner is easy. I flew Boeing 747, Atonov An-225 and Tupolev Tu-160, and Dreamliner is by far the easiest. And you, having only transferred from a Cessna, really have no grounds to say Dreamliner is difficult."

 

Of course I did not list SketchUp, why would I? I have used SketchUp to teach beginners what the basics of 3D modeling are, but it has no relevance in this conversation, at all.That is like comparing MS Paint to Photoshop, GIMP or Krita. SketchUp is so insignificant compared to other more advanced 3D-modeling software that I don't even bother putting my experience using it on my CV when applying for a job. That is like applying for a job as a car mechanic and putting "I have seen a tire" on your resume.

You are of course entiteled to your opinions regarding this topic, but those opinions are absolutely not shared amongst your peers. So with that said, I will not spend more of my time arguing with someone who clearly has little to no experience in the matter. Comparatively speaking of course  *shrug**shrug*

[Sharpy]

1 hour ago, liquidhype said:

Of course I did not list SketchUp, why would I? I have used SketchUp to teach beginners what the basics of 3D modeling are, but it has no relevance in this conversation, at all.That is like comparing MS Paint to Photoshop, GIMP or Krita. SketchUp is so insignificant compared to other more advanced 3D-modeling software that I don't even bother putting my experience using it on my CV when applying for a job. That is like applying for a job as a car mechanic and putting "I have seen a tire" on your resume.

Whoa, that's arrogant! Been a while since I've seen arrogance of this scale.

Reminding you, that we're talking in context of 3D graphics for KSP, I'd like to inform you that the entirety of current KSC - all three upgrade levels of all the buildings - were made in SketchUp.

 

[CobaltWolf]

Can AutoCAD even output polygons..? How much control do you have over the polycount?

(Psst, if you don't like Blender, look into getting a student license of Maya)

[Kerbart]

Shame on you, @Beale for posting that utterly off-topic tutorial post in this Blender vs AutoCAD thread...

(Keep sticking to Wings is my advice... because then you're not choosing sides! :p)

[Beale]

13 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Shame on you, @Beale for posting that utterly off-topic tutorial post in this Blender vs AutoCAD thread...

(Keep sticking to Wings is my advice... because then you're not choosing sides! :p)

I'm lost for words 

[Adam.A]

Hi, I'm interested in taking a mod that was last compatible with 0.90 and making it work with 1.2.  I don't want to change anything about the parts (well, maybe some of the .cfg files), but I really have no idea where to start. If anyone could help me out a little bit or refer me to a preexisting tutorial on this subject, that would be great! 

[Mecripp]

1 hour ago, Adam.A said:

Hi, I'm interested in taking a mod that was last compatible with 0.90 and making it work with 1.2.  I don't want to change anything about the parts (well, maybe some of the .cfg files), but I really have no idea where to start. If anyone could help me out a little bit or refer me to a preexisting tutorial on this subject, that would be great! 

Would help to know what mod and there isn't really anything i have seen on editing cfg's but might have missed it about the only things that you would need a model software for and unity is for the landing legs or adding props to a part

[Adam.A]

On 11/5/2016 at 2:09 PM, MeCripp said:

Would help to know what mod and there isn't really anything i have seen on editing cfg's but might have missed it about the only things that you would need a model software for and unity is for the landing legs or adding props to a part

It's the old ISS Community mod, and I'm trying to retexture and resize two modules.  I'm going to try and use Wings3D.  The issue is that I can't open the part in the editor and I don't know how. 

[Mecripp]

55 minutes ago, Adam.A said:

It's the old ISS Community mod, and I'm trying to retexture and resize two modules.  I'm going to try and use Wings3D.  The issue is that I can't open the part in the editor and I don't know how. 

You mean make one of them long or just scale it up ?

[TheRagingIrishman]

 

1 hour ago, Adam.A said:

It's the old ISS Community mod, and I'm trying to retexture and resize two modules.  I'm going to try and use Wings3D.  The issue is that I can't open the part in the editor and I don't know how. 

There's a Blender add-on that let's you import .mu files. 

[Adam.A]

2 hours ago, MeCripp said:

You mean make one of them long or just scale it up ?

Scaling down actually. 

2 hours ago, TheRagingIrishman said:

There's a Blender add-on that let's you import .mu files. 

Really? Do you have a name or a link? 

[Mecripp]

19 minutes ago, Adam.A said:

Scaling down actually. 

Really? Do you have a name or a link? 

And to scale it down have you tried to rescale = * in the cfg ?

[Adam.A]

9 hours ago, MeCripp said:

And to scale it down have you tried to rescale = * in the cfg ?

Thanks! 

[SpacePilotMax]

I made a fuel tank with a copied stock cfg and it's horribly undersized. Any ideas on why this is happening? (Made in Blender)

[SpacePilotMax]

Found the problem, Blender is retarded and confuses radius and diameter. Let this be a lesson to future noobs.

Edited March 10, 2017 by SpacePilotMax

[Stas_lol]

Plz help me...

What version of Wings did you use in this tutorial? Because MY VERSION CRASHES EVERY TIME WHEN I just trying to MAKE A NOZZLE CYLINDER! Sorry for my bad english, I'm from Belarus.

Edited May 21, 2017 by Stas_lol

[Beale]

On 2017-5-21 at 1:52 PM, Stas_lol said:

Plz help me...

What version of Wings did you use in this tutorial? Because MY VERSION CRASHES EVERY TIME WHEN I just trying to MAKE A NOZZLE CYLINDER! Sorry for my bad english, I'm from Belarus.

Hello!

Currently I use 1.5.4

[Stas_lol]

thanks!

Edited May 23, 2017 by Stas_lol