Editor to make mods

[ianyikos]

I just wanted to suggest making a graphical editor to make mods. 

[Rocket In My Pocket]

What you are suggesting is almost beyond possible. It's hardly even conceivable. (No offense.)

What kind of mods can it make? What kind can't it make? Explain how this would even work? How could one graphical interface cover a subject ranging from the simple adding of parts all the way to new game systems and such?

I'll commend you for dreaming big, but it's just not reasonable.

Spoiler

 

 

Edited July 22, 2018 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Gaarst]

Your favorite IDE is as close as a mod editor you'll ever get. Now if you want VS bundled with KSP you'll have to wait until Microsoft is done buying everything.

[Phineas Freak]

This is an editor for part models:

Spoiler

This is an editor for part textures:

Spoiler

And this is an editor for part modules:

Spoiler

You can decide what you want to make and the above "editors" will make your dream come true.

[Lisias]

I think our green kerbonaut needs a bit of background on the matter.

I think he got a bit too much enthusiasm  by observing tools like wix, where one can build a website more or less as another can build a document using Microsoft Word.

Well… IRL doesn't work like that for everything. There're tens of years of knowledge base and defining patterns that allow some high skilled developers to glue them together in a useful tool. But yet, you are confined on such patterns - anything slightly different, and  you are on your own and need to learn how the tool works in order to extend it - a task usually some orders of magnitude harder than doing the thing by hand.

It's like the old Microsoft Write: it didn't had Full Justified formatting option for paragraphs - so you jus't cant have a full justified paragraph on your document. Now compare it with Microsoft Office, where you can do almost everything one can dream on a document. A single person can code a Write, but Microsoft took more than 10 years with hundreds of developers in order to get Office useful.

KSP modding is the same: while theoretically possible, we don't have yet so many historical knowledge and people around in order to define and consolidate that patterns I mentioned, and the technical challenges to build a useful tool are currently so high that it's easier to learn to craft the mod by hand.

We just don't have the money to fund such tool, even by being able to overcome the technical challenges.

[The Aziz]

Whenever I see someone who thinks that making a software (which needs to be written) that allows making another software by clicking some buttons instead of coding (again) is easy, I see this

 

Edited July 23, 2018 by The Aziz

[passinglurker]

All I'll say is an ingame config file editor would be holy grail levels of awesome for balance mod makers

[sturmhauke]

On 7/23/2018 at 6:33 AM, Lisias said:

I think he got a bit too much enthusiasm  by observing tools like wix, where one can build a website more or less as another can build a document using Microsoft Word.

I'm a professional web developer. While you can slap a basic site together with services like Wix, it takes someone like me to build anything complex that actually works well.

Perhaps OP is thinking of something like Bioware's old Neverwinter Nights game, which shipped with a full-featured campaign editor. Thing is though, that wasn't an add-on. It was an integral part of the game software, and took as much or more development time as the main story campaign.

[Lisias]

2 hours ago, sturmhauke said:

I'm a professional web developer. While you can slap a basic site together with services like Wix, it takes someone like me to build anything complex that actually works well.

No doubt. My argument was focusing on  the tool, not on the results from using  it.

 

2 hours ago, sturmhauke said:

Perhaps OP is thinking of something like Bioware's old Neverwinter Nights game, which shipped with a full-featured campaign editor. Thing is though, that wasn't an add-on. It was an integral part of the game software, and took as much or more development time as the main story campaign.

We have mission builder nowadays. Of course the OP perhaps didn't know about, but I do and your point didn't crossed my mind.

But even by OP misunderstanding a Mission with a Mod, both our arguments prevails. It would be hard and expensive as hell in the best case.

[MR L A]

On 7/22/2018 at 11:12 PM, Rocket In My Pocket said:

What you are suggesting is almost beyond possible. It's hardly even conceivable

beyond possible OR... I imagine OP has something like Skyrim's Creation Kit in mind. Doesn't seem that inconceivable, though obviously models and textures are created elsewhere.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

I think your idea has merit, but only with a smaller scope.

Having an standalone .mu converter and in-game .cfg editor (even something simpler than notepad) would take a bunch of time out of making mods. No idea how possible it is, but a in-game material switcher would be helpful too.

[DoctorDavinci]

4 hours ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

I think your idea has merit, but only with a smaller scope.Having an standalone .mu converter

So how would one use a standalone .mu converter ... from what I understand the .mu is created by importing the model into unity, adding in the transforms and textures ans then exporting it in a .mu format that KSP recognizes (simple explanation) ... so how would the transforms be placed or testures set up if it was ingame?

4 hours ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

in-game .cfg editor (even something simpler than notepad) would take a bunch of time out of making mods

So how would these modified configs be loaded? ... part configs are loaded at runtime so I'm unsure as to how a cfg editor could work without forcing a reload after every change

All I see in this idea is

 

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

14 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

So how would one use a standalone .mu converter ... from what I understand the .mu is created by importing the model into unity, adding in the transforms and textures ans then exporting it in a .mu format that KSP recognizes (simple explanation) ... so how would the transforms be placed or testures set up if it was ingame?

It probably wouldn't be useful for modding, just official support of the blender .mu addon, or a standalone program that converts from .obj or some common format.

Quote

So how would these modified configs be loaded? ... part configs are loaded at runtime so I'm unsure as to how a cfg editor could work without forcing a reload after every change

[...]

Dynamic Texture Loader could load and unload textures on the fly, although looking through the thread now it seems that it may be no longer possible.

Edited July 29, 2018 by Mad Rocket Scientist

[DoctorDavinci]

1 hour ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

It probably wouldn't be useful for modding, just official support of the blender .mu addon, or a standalone program that converts from .obj or some common format.

So there is a program for that ... the Unity Editor

1 hour ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

Dynamic Texture Loader could load and unload textures on the fly, although looking through the thread now it seems that it may be no longer possible.

For textures, sure .... but what about the rest of the part config? ... There are many different part modules and other settings that go into the part config so how would the changes to a part other than textures be done?

Only way to do that would be to write a plugin that has a gui for each of the part modules in the game ... the modder uses the appropriate gui for each of the modules and makes adjustments then saves the adjustments .... I did that once for just 1 module in BDAc, worked quite nicely but it took a week to get it working right ... imagine having to do that for each and every part module in the game, that would take months just for stock let alone all the other mods out there

I honestly think this idea is totally unrealistic

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

40 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

So there is a program for that ... the Unity Editor

For textures, sure .... but what about the rest of the part config? ... There are many different part modules and other settings that go into the part config so how would the changes to a part other than textures be done?

Only way to do that would be to write a plugin that has a gui for each of the part modules in the game ... the modder uses the appropriate gui for each of the modules and makes adjustments then saves the adjustments .... I did that once for just 1 module in BDAc, worked quite nicely but it took a week to get it working right ... imagine having to do that for each and every part module in the game, that would take months just for stock let alone all the other mods out there

I honestly think this idea is totally unrealistic

I agree about it being unrealistic, but I do think that my suggestions could be useful, if not worth the effort.

[DMagic]

47 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

So there is a program for that ... the Unity Editor

You can't use Unity as a 3d modelling program. It's just an awkward step between making the model and getting it into KSP.

An official plugin for Blender/Maya for exporting directly to .mu files would be great. Anyone who just cares about making parts wouldn't have to jump through the extra hoops of downloading Unity (a fairly large program, without about a thousand different versions), dealing with the KSP Part Tools (which people frequently run into problems with when installing), and learning Unity's interface, which is just different enough from some modelling programs to make it difficult.

 

49 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

For textures, sure .... but what about the rest of the part config?

KSP already allows for re-loading of part configs from in-game. It's just a matter of allowing for a method to specify a specific config to reload, rather than doing all of them. It's not (easily) possible to allow for code changes without restarting KSP, but simple config changes are not a problem.

[Cheif Operations Director]

The idea is good, the implemention would be difficult. 

[NSEP]

I don't know much about coding, but a 'mod maker' has been made for Minecraft, already. It allows you to make alot of different blocks and items, even dimensions, biomes and mobs (NPCs)

https://mcreator.net/

I think something like this can be made for KSP, but i don't think you will be able to do as much. Maybe you can make your own parts with the use of basic models and textures, but i don't think you can get any further than that.

Edited August 1, 2018 by NSEP

[Cheif Operations Director]

8 minutes ago, NSEP said:

I don't know much about coding, but a 'mod maker' has been made for Minecraft, already. It allows you to make alot of different blocks and items, even dimensions, biomes and mobs (NPCs)

https://mcreator.net/

I think something like this can be made for KSP, but i don't think you will be able to do as much. Maybe you can make your own parts with the use of basic models and textures, but i don't think you can get any further than that.

It's also been done for Rome Total War II

[Gargamel]

On 8/1/2018 at 4:40 PM, NSEP said:

I don't know much about coding, but a 'mod maker' has been made for Minecraft, already. It allows you to make alot of different blocks and items, even dimensions, biomes and mobs (NPCs)

That's just an asset editor, not a mod editor.  Completely different things.  That just modifies things that are already in the game, or makes new ones that game is already designed to handle.   KSP mods are, by their very diverse nature, usually unique things that usually have no pre-existing counterpart in game. 

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

On 8/1/2018 at 9:48 PM, Cheif Operations Director said:

It's also been done for Rome Total War II 

Not really, what that particular thing does is supply a set of tools and exporters that allow you to modify items in the game and to further mod them  using external apps , therefore it is most certainly not an in game mod creator. 

In the time it's taken for the thread to get this far, a motivated player could have learned how to make a basic part, in any app you fancy, and how to run it through unity, and have it working in game,  and be well on the way to being a part mod maker.  It probably wouldn't be pretty , but it would be theirs completely and you can take it from me that even after over 2000 parts there is still a buzz to be had when it all loads and works straight from export

Edited August 3, 2018 by SpannerMonkey(smce)

[XLjedi]

Blender, GIMP, and Notepad...  are all freebie tools, and really all you need.

[Cheif Operations Director]

1 hour ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

Not really, what that particular thing does is supply a set of tools and exporters that allow you to modify items in the game and to further mod them  using external apps , therefore it is most certainly not an in game mod creator. 

In the time it's taken for the thread to get this far, a motivated player could have learned how to make a basic part, in any app you fancy, and how to run it through unity, and have it working in game,  and be well on the way to being a part mod maker.  It probably wouldn't be pretty , but it would be theirs completely and you can take it from me that even after over 2000 parts there is still a buzz to be had when it all loads and works straight from export

Fair enough but the concept works

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

21 hours ago, Gargamel said:

That's just an asset editor, not a mod editor.  Completely different things.  That just modifies things that are already in the game, or makes new ones that game is already designed to handle.   KSP mods are, by their very diverse nature, usually unique things that usually have no pre-existing counterpart in game. 

Just from a quick glance at the website, it looks like it's also an IDE with a visual programming system, a la Scratch.

Edited August 4, 2018 by Mad Rocket Scientist