Can I create models without owning unity?

[CobaltWolf]

1 hour ago, steedcrugeon said:

@CobaltWolf so on your unity models you apply the layers to individual shaders there. Just seeing how you have 5 different .psd for the apollo module makes me feel bad for having only put single shaders on pretty much all of my stuff so far.

@cxg2827 that's really helpful, i'm going to sift through that thread slow time and tease out the tidbits, there is so much useful stuff i their it's just deciphering it all.

I actually have just 3 textures - the diffuse, the alpha (which is copied into the alpha channel of the diffuse, but is in a separate document to work with it), and a normal (which is actually a grayscale height map when I created it). I normally use the KSP Bumped Specular shader.

[sumghai]

@paul23, I'm going to weigh in my two cents here.

As others have said, Unity is free for personal use (including mod authoring). You only have to pay if you're running a game development company with over $100k in revenue.

Now, I too came from an engineering background, with experience in CAD tools such as PTC Pro/Engineer and SolidWorks. The thing about tools like Pro/E, SolidWorks and CATIA is that they are parametric or feature-based 3D modelling tools, which is great for engineers because they work to exacting dimensions, tolerances and relationships, and want an easy way to quickly change certain features at any time to meet technical needs.

However, in video game models, loading the entire feature tree used to make an engineering model is computationally inefficient, since video cards only care about the final geometry. Therefore, game models are generally created using direct or explicit modelling tools such as Blender, Maya and 3DS Max, which allow game artists to directly manipulate individual or groups of vertices, edges, faces and meshes.

In terms of part appearance and rendering, the reason you find it easy to apply material appearances and textures in parametric CAD such as CATIA is because CATIA does all of the hard work for you, but all this extra information is only usable by CATIA and nothing else - AFAIK, you can only import geometries between different CAD software, and even then feature recognition/extraction is unreliable at best. But in video games, it is up to you as the modeller to specify how you want the individual faces to be rendered, because video cards and game engines work at a much lower level than CAD software.

UV mapping is, as @cxg2827 aptly described, essentially flattening out your game model like sheet metal parts to apply textures - it's quite efficient at changing the appearance several faces at a time. If you are clever, you can split your model up into different meshes and apply different materials to each of them, something you don't necessarily have full control over if you're just using parametric CAD software.

Drawing on my practical experience turning CAD parts into game models for FusTek Station Parts, what I did was to first CAD up my station modules in SolidWorks, then mentally split them up into primitive cylinders, cuboids and extruded polygons. I would then gradually rebuild the model from scratch in Blender, looking up critical dimensions in SolidWorks as I go.

(Of course, I did once try importing a model from SolidWorks into Blender, but the resulting mesh was so horribly unoptimized that it was practically unusable).

In short, you need to temporarily cast aside your engineering CAD mindset, learn to make simple Blender models first, then gradually reintegrate your engineering knowledge back into your game model making process. There is no easy shortcut to get around this, but the results will be extremely rewarding once you get over the learning curve.

[steedcrugeon]

1 hour ago, sumghai said:

In short, you need to temporarily cast aside your engineering CAD mindset, learn to make simple Blender models first, then gradually reintegrate your engineering knowledge back into your game model making process. There is no easy shortcut to get around this, but the results will be extremely rewarding once you get over the learning curve.

This is the sagest advice I could give you too. I've finally left the drawing office after three long years of wiring installations and rough architectural drawings (for none work related purposes) using AutoCAD, not a special version just vanilla AutoCAD. I followed the tutorials in the Modding Thread about how to use blender and pretty much all the pods and decouplers for my REKT mod started life as 3D solids on AutoCAD, exported as FBX files into blender to be tweaked to the sizes i wanted before using Unity to make the .mu part. It has taken me a little while but i have now fully transitioned to making my models in blender, it's quicker than using CAD but it requires you to think differently on how you want to implement things as the interface (and the whole left/right mouse button thing!) is not consistent with what I'd expect CAD to do.

Over the past month or so the models i have been making for SpaceDock and the new Monoprop Fuel Cell for REKT were done entirely in Blender. I've definitely used my knowledge of CAD to help me build these parts and engineering knowledge in general to apply a modicum or realistic potential to them. However, as @sumghai states, for making models in this game it really is beneficial learning another new toolset.

Edited November 21, 2016 by steedcrugeon
typos

[paul23]

I decided I just won't make my mods public and hence "steal" resources for my personal mods. If it's not possible to make it parametric and give dimensions(!) I have 0 fun in creating them, I'm not going to do something I have no fun doing. I know the numbers (width of cylinder etc), so I just want to have it rendered given the numbers and a given image to display on the side that states what it is. Heck while designing games in the past I've found it easier to just manually load those numbers and then dynamically create models using openGL than using gimb. (since then I can just provide it matrices instead of randomly dragging around).

 

I still don't understand why there is no software that allows parametric design for games? Doesn't have to be catia, but just any parametric software that can "print"? Just like how illustrator/flash can "print" to bitmap formats. On top of that: there's a reason flash is used so much: using parametric software allows so much faster design that you can put all focus on making the design looking good instead of working only on the details.

I just don't get it.

Edited November 21, 2016 by paul23