Alpha channel - Part thumbnail zoom

[Nookos]

Hi,

Is there a way to control the thumbnail of a part? I have a part that can deploy, making it much larger. And I get the thumbnail zooming out as if it was deployed but it is not so the part is a tiny dot. Is there a way to either change the camera position on thumbnail or make it render the deployed part in the thumbnail?

Also I was doing some test on alpha channel and couldn't find a way to get clean alpha channel with DDS files. Is there any settings that would get rid of those artefacts? Best result was with PNG and no interlacing. Strangely file size is very close to DDS. Does DDS have an advantage beside file size? Result in images below

 

Thanks for any help

 

Edited December 1, 2015 by Nookos

[NecroBones]

 

Here's what I've found for the thumbnail. Animating in Blender, and then importing into Unity, it appears the game honors the "saved state" of the part. That is, if you want the icon to appear in specifically the deployed or undeployed state, make sure you grab the animation's timeline slider in Blender and put it in the position you want before saving the file. That will determine the appearance for the icon.

I think I remember seeing a setting somewhere for changing the icon's position offset, but otherwise the only other thing you can do is hide mesh objects by setting their label in Unity to "Icon_Hidden".

Edited December 1, 2015 by NecroBones

[Nookos]

15 hours ago, NecroBones said:

 

Here's what I've found for the thumbnail. Animating in Blender, and then importing into Unity, it appears the game honors the "saved state" of the part. That is, if you want the icon to appear in specifically the deployed or undeployed state, make sure you grab the animation's timeline slider in Blender and put it in the position you want before saving the file. That will determine the appearance for the icon.

I think I remember seeing a setting somewhere for changing the icon's position offset, but otherwise the only other thing you can do is hide mesh objects by setting their label in Unity to "Icon_Hidden".

Thanks for the info. I just tried it in 3dsMax and doesn't seem to work while exporting from max. Good to know about the Icon_Hidden layer too.

[Shadowmage]

You can also fudge this in Unity, though I have not figured out the exact method to get it working reliably, and is likely actually a bug that I've just been abusing.  It involves using the animation viewer to view the last frame of the animation, and hitting Undo.  -Sometimes- It will disable the animation editor while leaving the animation on the last frame for that prefab.  It will then export/show up in the thumbnail just as exported.

Alternatively, if you use custom plugins, during the prefab parts OnLoad() call you can set the animation state/etc for the icon-part (icon part is cloned directly after prefab has OnLoad() called, so whatever state is set in the OnLoad() block will be used for the icons part).  I use this method extensively for procedural/customizable/modular parts.  Not as directly applicable to standard stock-module animated parts though.

[Nookos]

On 4/12/2015 17:36:41, Shadowmage said:

You can also fudge this in Unity, though I have not figured out the exact method to get it working reliably, and is likely actually a bug that I've just been abusing.  It involves using the animation viewer to view the last frame of the animation, and hitting Undo.  -Sometimes- It will disable the animation editor while leaving the animation on the last frame for that prefab.  It will then export/show up in the thumbnail just as exported.

Alternatively, if you use custom plugins, during the prefab parts OnLoad() call you can set the animation state/etc for the icon-part (icon part is cloned directly after prefab has OnLoad() called, so whatever state is set in the OnLoad() block will be used for the icons part).  I use this method extensively for procedural/customizable/modular parts.  Not as directly applicable to standard stock-module animated parts though.

Thanks for the suggestions. I haven't been able to reproduce the first method yet, I'll keep trying.

Unfortunately the second solution is out of reach for me. I might have a look at plugins one day but right now I'm hopeless in that domain. 

Thanks again.

[Skalou]

Salut!

here is workaround with this mod allowing you to manage the part icon in many maners:

I'm using it personnaly in KSP 1.0.5, it won't be a depency for your mod, just a good suggestion to improve it if you use a Module manager patch:

MM_NookosMod_PartIconFixer by Nookos
//Manage the icons in the VAB/SPH for Nookosmod, needs the mod Part Icon fixer.
//Tested on KSP version 1.0.5 with the mods "NookosMod" version X.Y and "Part Icon Fixer & tweaks" Version 1.2 .

@PART[NookosModpart1]:NEEDS[PartIconFixer]
{
%iconMultiplier = 3
}

@PART[NookosModpart5]:NEEDS[PartIconFixer]
{
%iconMultiplier = 1.8
}

 

Edited December 11, 2015 by Skalou
improved the needs section

[Nookos]

On 10/12/2015 23:51:14, Skalou said:

Salut!

here is workaround with this mod allowing you to manage the part icon in many maners:

 

Awesome! As soon as I go back home I ll give it a try. Thanks a lot!

 

Edit: Finally tried and it works like a charm. Thanks again!

Edited December 12, 2015 by Nookos