I need help with my code

[averageksp]

Hello, I was working on a mod for KSP. When I made my script i got 3 underlined words "SelectImage" , "LoadImage" and "EncodeToPNG". Could any modder tell me what assembly extensions I am missing or some other things. 

[HebaruSan]

Here's the stickied post that explains how to start writing plugins, including how to set up the references. Good luck!

[Lisias]

2 hours ago, averageksp said:

Hello, I was working on a mod for KSP. When I made my script i got 3 underlined words "SelectImage" , "LoadImage" and "EncodeToPNG". Could any modder tell me what assembly extensions I am missing or some other things. 

Follow two hints to try to find the assemblies:

1. Go to  https://www.kerbalspaceprogram.com/ksp/api/index.html  and do a search\
2. Ditto for https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/
3. Go to and do a search for "ksp" and the thingy you are looking for.
   1. like this https://github.com/search?q=ksp EncodeToPNG&type=repositories

Try KSP API first and github by last, as the later will return a ton of noise, and it's less convenient to sort them out.

Unfortunately, we are out of luck as KSP API doesn't have anything named "ExportToPNG".

But we got extremely lucky, as the very first responses from github pinpoints solves our question. I choose to check TextureReplacer just because... well, it handles images!

https://github.com/ducakar/TextureReplacer/blob/6497420a254dfd967cd3ea1be922dceaa28c7dc4/TextureReplacer/Util.cs#L173

We found that EncodeToPNG is a method from a thingy called targetTex:

byte[]           data = targetTex.EncodeToPNG();

And that targetTex is an object from the class Texture2D :

var targetTex = new Texture2D(texture.width, texture.height, TextureFormat.RGBA32, false);

Well, we know that Texture2D is an Unity's class, from UnityEngine . So why it doesn't shows on the Unity's doc search?

Well, let's dig a bit. Let's check the issues : https://github.com/search?q=ksp+EncodeToPNG&type=issues aaand...

Spoiler

 

Quote

Ezriilc/KSP-Graphotron

 

PNG image output is broken in KSP 1.4.5.

The error given was: [EXC 13:45:22.879] MissingMethodException: Method not found: UnityEngine.Texture2D.EncodeToPNG . Graphotron.ModuleEnviroSensorPlotter.DrawWindowMain (Int32 windowID ...

It's an old, deprecated call from before KSP 1.4 times, i.e., it's something from Unity 5 time. Unity's site allows us to look for previous versions on a widget on the top left of the page, and from there we found this: https://docs.unity3d.com/560/Documentation/ScriptReference/Texture2D.html (and EncodeToPNG is there!!).

Oukey, we are screwed then, right? Not exactly. We can reach google with the new information we have now:

https://www.google.com/search?q=unity+EncodeToPNG+is+not+found&newwindow=1&sca_esv=1895c9f6073d5159&sca_upv=1&sxsrf=ACQVn095SnMyMWlUCtrEzjUEM_VTe8AUog%3A1710084211954&ei=c9DtZZzbOZna1sQP24-WgA4&ved=0ahUKEwjc4PSPgOqEAxUZrZUCHduHBeAQ4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=unity+EncodeToPNG+is+not+found&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiHnVuaXR5IEVuY29kZVRvUE5HIGlzIG5vdCBmb3VuZDIFECEYoAEyBRAhGKABSMoSUMsGWJkNcAJ4AZABAJgBjgKgAfgUqgEEMi0xMrgBA8gBAPgBAZgCDqACshXCAgoQABhHGNYEGLADwgIHECEYChigAZgDAIgGAZAGBJIHBjIuMC4xMqAHtSY&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

And I found this: https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/ImageConversion.EncodeToPNG.html

EncodeToPNG is on the helper ImageConversion nowadays. Why it didn't show up the first time I tried on Unity's site? Don't have a clue...

Anyway, replace byte[] x = texVariable.EncodeToPNG() with byte[] x = ImageConversion.EncodeToPNG(texVariable) and this should do the trick.

I expect the other methods to be similar.

--- -- - POST EDIT - -- ---

Usually doing a search on Forum's help, but not always. At least for ExportToPNG now we have a result on this search!

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/search/?q=ExportToPNG&quick=1

--- -- - POST² EDIT - -- ---

Telling you there's two hints and giving you three is a pun - mistakes happens all the time, sometimes on purpose!!

Edited March 10 by Lisias
POST EDIT

[averageksp]

3 hours ago, Lisias said:

Follow two hints to try to find the assemblies:

1. Go to  https://www.kerbalspaceprogram.com/ksp/api/index.html  and do a search\
2. Ditto for https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/
3. Go to and do a search for "ksp" and the thingy you are looking for.
   1. like this https://github.com/search?q=ksp EncodeToPNG&type=repositories

Try KSP API first and github by last, as the later will return a ton of noise, and it's less convenient to sort them out.

Unfortunately, we are out of luck as KSP API doesn't have anything named "ExportToPNG".

But we got extremely lucky, as the very first responses from github pinpoints solves our question. I choose to check TextureReplacer just because... well, it handles images!

https://github.com/ducakar/TextureReplacer/blob/6497420a254dfd967cd3ea1be922dceaa28c7dc4/TextureReplacer/Util.cs#L173

We found that EncodeToPNG is a method from a thingy called targetTex:

byte[]           data = targetTex.EncodeToPNG();

And that targetTex is an object from the class Texture2D :

var targetTex = new Texture2D(texture.width, texture.height, TextureFormat.RGBA32, false);

Well, we know that Texture2D is an Unity's class, from UnityEngine . So why it doesn't shows on the Unity's doc search?

Well, let's dig a bit. Let's check the issues : https://github.com/search?q=ksp+EncodeToPNG&type=issues aaand...

  Reveal hidden contents

 

It's an old, deprecated call from before KSP 1.4 times, i.e., it's something from Unity 5 time. Unity's site allows us to look for previous versions on a widget on the top left of the page, and from there we found this: https://docs.unity3d.com/560/Documentation/ScriptReference/Texture2D.html (and EncodeToPNG is there!!).

Oukey, we are screwed then, right? Not exactly. We can reach google with the new information we have now:

https://www.google.com/search?q=unity+EncodeToPNG+is+not+found&newwindow=1&sca_esv=1895c9f6073d5159&sca_upv=1&sxsrf=ACQVn095SnMyMWlUCtrEzjUEM_VTe8AUog%3A1710084211954&ei=c9DtZZzbOZna1sQP24-WgA4&ved=0ahUKEwjc4PSPgOqEAxUZrZUCHduHBeAQ4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=unity+EncodeToPNG+is+not+found&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiHnVuaXR5IEVuY29kZVRvUE5HIGlzIG5vdCBmb3VuZDIFECEYoAEyBRAhGKABSMoSUMsGWJkNcAJ4AZABAJgBjgKgAfgUqgEEMi0xMrgBA8gBAPgBAZgCDqACshXCAgoQABhHGNYEGLADwgIHECEYChigAZgDAIgGAZAGBJIHBjIuMC4xMqAHtSY&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

And I found this: https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/ImageConversion.EncodeToPNG.html

EncodeToPNG is on the helper ImageConversion nowadays. Why it didn't show up the first time I tried on Unity's site? Don't have a clue...

Anyway, replace byte[] x = texVariable.EncodeToPNG() with byte[] x = ImageConversion.EncodeToPNG(texVariable) and this should do the trick.

I expect the other methods to be similar.

--- -- - POST EDIT - -- ---

Usually doing a search on Forum's help, but not always. At least for ExportToPNG now we have a result on this search!

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/search/?q=ExportToPNG&quick=1

--- -- - POST² EDIT - -- ---

Telling you there's two hints and giving you three is a pun - mistakes happens all the time, sometimes on purpose!!

Ok, thank you. I will look more into it. Its kinda hard to make a mod but ill figure it out

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, averageksp said:

Ok, thank you. I will look more into it. Its kinda hard to make a mod but ill figure it out

Nah, it's easy once you get the grasp. The hard part is exactly getting the grasp on it by the first time (and not committing embarrassing mistakes as time goes by, believe-me on this one!! )

In time, there's this classic thread, somewhat in disuse nowadays but there're good info there:

(and it usually pays to have a single point to ask random questions, because I'm following this thread and will get notified if anyone posts on it - instead of relying on random luck as it happened now!)

Cheers!

 

Edited March 10 by Lisias
tyops!

[averageksp]

Ok, your thing that you gave me before fixed some things. But I have still some problems . Firstly it says that "ImageConversion" isnt avaible in this context (which probarly means i am doing something wrong that i dont know). Seconldy I have "LoadImage" and "SelectImage" underlined where Texture2D is missing so I need help with that (or probarly you cant use it for ksp modding idk). Also could you help me with making a clickable button that opens the gui for my mod. The thing is that I made the Button and Gui but its not showing up when I press the button so if you could help me I would apreacite it!

Ty!

[Lisias]

3 hours ago, averageksp said:

Firstly it says that "ImageConversion" isnt avaible in this context (which probarly means i am doing something wrong that i dont know).

I think you need to update your project's references. Unity 2019 changed how things are deployed - before that, lots of things were being packaged on a single Assembly. From 2019 they had granularized the packages a lot. Make sure you are referencing at least UnityEngine.CoreModule but also UnityEngine.ImageConversionModule.

It's a bit weird, but the CoreModule "kinda knows" about where everything are, including the things it doesn't have itself. I think that Visual Studio hints you about the need to reference needed Modules somewhere in the log system.

3 hours ago, averageksp said:

Seconldy I have "LoadImage" and "SelectImage" underlined where Texture2D is missing so I need help with that (or probarly you cant use it for ksp modding idk).

Try this link  - but I can't help on SelectImage, I didn't knew about this one until you mentioned it. Google tells me it may be something related to Unity's AR?

 

4 hours ago, averageksp said:

Also could you help me with making a clickable button that opens the gui for my mod. The thing is that I made the Button and Gui but its not showing up when I press the button so if you could help me I would apreacite it!

Are you using the IMGUI? This thing is kinda weird - you need to "draw" your widgets inside a callback called OnGUI . This thing is called on every frame so, yeah, you need to be careful about what you put on that callback. It's better to precompute everything you will need on OnGUI outside it, perhaps on OnStart or some other callback, and then use such precomputed info on OnGUI to save CPU cycles - not to mention avoiding screwing up with the Garbage Collector (that it's already screwed up by itself, it doesn't need help on that!)

[averageksp]

On 3/11/2024 at 8:52 PM, Lisias said:

to update your project's reference

My Refrences are from the KSP files. In the managed filed and there are the dlls used for KSP that you need to use to make mods. Probarly those refrences are outdated so I need to find another source to find .dll refrences. Anyways I might need to try other ways doing the Mod that I am trying to do. Will take a while, but will be worth it! 

Could you provide where you get your refrences? - Also yes I'm using IMGU Refrence. And I use Visual Studio 2022 and Unity (my unity is outdated so i have to install new version). Ok last "anyways" now. Thank you for helping me cause I didn't know that you can't use EncodeToPNG until I found the forums very useful here.

 

[Lisias]

On 3/12/2024 at 5:26 PM, averageksp said:

My Refrences are from the KSP files. In the managed filed and there are the dlls used for KSP that you need to use to make mods. Probarly those refrences are outdated so I need to find another source to find .dll refrences. Anyways I might need to try other ways doing the Mod that I am trying to do. Will take a while, but will be worth it! 

What I do is to have a copy of the "managed" subdirectory inside KSP somewhere (in Windows, you will find them on KSP_Data - check this for more information: https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Root_directory ) into a fixed directory called "LIB" on my KSP development workspace:

lisias@macmini62 ~/Workspaces/KSP/LIB/managed
> ls -l
total 0
dr-xr-xr-x  14 lisias staff  448 Jul 25  2018 0.07.3
dr-xr-xr-x  14 lisias staff  448 Jul 25  2018 0.08.5
dr-xr-xr-x  14 lisias staff  448 Jul 25  2018 0.09
dr-xr-xr-x  16 lisias staff  512 Jul 25  2018 0.10.1
dr-xr-xr-x  16 lisias staff  512 Jul 25  2018 0.11.1
dr-xr-xr-x  24 lisias staff  768 Jul 25  2018 0.12
dr-xr-xr-x  14 lisias staff  448 Jul 25  2018 0.13.3
dr-xr-xr-x  20 lisias staff  640 Jul 24  2018 0.22
dr-xr-xr-x  20 lisias staff  640 Jul 24  2018 0.23
dr-xr-xr-x  20 lisias staff  640 Jul 24  2018 0.23.5
dr-xr-xr-x  20 lisias staff  640 Jul 24  2018 0.24
dr-xr-xr-x  20 lisias staff  640 Jul 24  2018 0.24.1
dr-xr-xr-x  20 lisias staff  640 Jul 24  2018 0.24.2
dr-xr-xr-x  22 lisias staff  704 Jul 24  2018 0.25
dr-xr-xr-x  22 lisias staff  704 Jul 24  2018 0.90
dr-xr-xr-x  24 lisias staff  768 Jul 24  2018 1.0.0
dr-xr-xr-x  24 lisias staff  768 Jul 24  2018 1.0.1
dr-xr-xr-x  24 lisias staff  768 Jul 24  2018 1.0.2
dr-xr-xr-x  24 lisias staff  768 Jul 24  2018 1.0.3
dr-xr-xr-x  24 lisias staff  768 Jul 24  2018 1.0.4
dr-xr-xr-x  24 lisias staff  768 Jul 24  2018 1.0.5
dr-xr-xr-x  29 lisias staff  928 Jul 24  2018 1.1.0
dr-xr-xr-x  29 lisias staff  928 Jul 24  2018 1.1.1
dr-xr-xr-x  29 lisias staff  928 Jul 24  2018 1.1.2
dr-xr-xr-x  29 lisias staff  928 Jun  9  2019 1.1.3
dr-xr-xr-x 152 lisias staff 4864 Aug 16  2021 1.10.0
dr-xr-xr-x 152 lisias staff 4864 Aug 16  2021 1.10.1
dr-xr-xr-x 152 lisias staff 4864 Aug 16  2021 1.11.0
dr-xr-xr-x 152 lisias staff 4864 Aug 16  2021 1.11.1
dr-xr-xr-x 152 lisias staff 4864 Aug 16  2021 1.11.2
dr-xr-xr-x  92 lisias staff 2944 Aug 16  2021 1.12.0
dr-xr-xr-x  92 lisias staff 2944 Aug 16  2021 1.12.1
dr-xr-xr-x  92 lisias staff 2944 Aug  4  2021 1.12.2
dr-xr-xr-x  92 lisias staff 2944 Dec 14  2021 1.12.3
dr-xr-xr-x  92 lisias staff 2944 Nov  3  2022 1.12.4
drwxr-xr-x  91 lisias staff 2912 Jan 12  2023 1.12.5
dr-xr-xr-x  24 lisias staff  768 Jul 24  2018 1.2.0
dr-xr-xr-x  24 lisias staff  768 Jul 24  2018 1.2.1
dr-xr-xr-x  24 lisias staff  768 Jun  9  2019 1.2.2
dr-xr-xr-x  22 lisias staff  704 Jul 24  2018 1.3.0
dr-xr-xr-x  22 lisias staff  704 Jun  9  2019 1.3.1
dr-xr-xr-x  31 lisias staff  992 Jul 24  2018 1.4.0
dr-xr-xr-x  31 lisias staff  992 Jun  9  2019 1.4.1
dr-xr-xr-x  31 lisias staff  992 Jul 24  2018 1.4.2
dr-xr-xr-x  31 lisias staff  992 Jun  9  2019 1.4.3
dr-xr-xr-x  30 lisias staff  960 Jul 24  2018 1.4.4
dr-xr-xr-x  30 lisias staff  960 Jun  9  2019 1.4.5
dr-xr-xr-x  30 lisias staff  960 Jun  9  2019 1.5.0
dr-xr-xr-x  30 lisias staff  960 Jun  9  2019 1.5.1
dr-xr-xr-x  30 lisias staff  960 Jun  9  2019 1.6.0
dr-xr-xr-x  30 lisias staff  960 Jun  9  2019 1.6.1
dr-xr-xr-x  30 lisias staff  960 Jun  9  2019 1.7.0
dr-xr-xr-x  30 lisias staff  960 Jun  9  2019 1.7.1
dr-xr-xr-x  30 lisias staff  960 Jun 13  2019 1.7.2
dr-xr-xr-x  30 lisias staff  960 Jul 14  2019 1.7.3
dr-xr-xr-x 152 lisias staff 4864 Oct 17  2019 1.8.0
dr-xr-xr-x 152 lisias staff 4864 Oct 29  2019 1.8.1
dr-xr-xr-x 152 lisias staff 4864 Aug 16  2021 1.9.0
dr-xr-xr-x 152 lisias staff 4864 Aug 16  2021 1.9.1

Yes, I have a "collection" of "managed" from every published KSP ever.

Always use the Windows KSP's DLLs, even if developing on MacOS or Linux. By some reason I never bored to understand, compiling using the MacOS DLLs will lock your binaries to be run only on MacOS. Compiling using the Windows DLLs will allow your DLL to run anywhere (including Linux). Never bored to check the Linux DLLs.

In time, a DLL for C# is nothing more than glorified ZIP files The name of the DLL doesn't necessarily matches the Assembly inside it - you can have even more than on Assembly inside a DLL, exactly as you can have more than one file inside a ZIP.

Then I just configure the project file to pinpoint the want I want to use. Please note that Unity 2019 radically changed how the Assemblies is distributed on. Projects intending to be run only from Unity 2019 should use the new ways, but - and this is a really dirty trick - if you use the Unity 2017 schema, it will work on 2019 too! Honest!

Anyway, this is how my Unity5/Unity 2017 looks like on the Project's XML file (this file has a ".csproj" file extension - never edit your vsproj directly, unless you know what you are doing and have it under GIT so you can rollback):

  <ItemGroup>
    <Reference Include="System" />
    <Reference Include="UnityEngine">
      <HintPath>..\..\..\..\..\..\LIB\managed\1.4.4\UnityEngine.dll</HintPath>
      <Private>False</Private>
    </Reference>
    <Reference Include="Assembly-CSharp">
      <HintPath>..\..\..\..\..\..\LIB\managed\1.4.4\Assembly-CSharp.dll</HintPath>
      <Private>False</Private>
    </Reference>
  </ItemGroup>

And this is the equivalent project intended to be used only on Unity 2019:

  <ItemGroup>
    <Reference Include="System" />
    <Reference Include="Assembly-CSharp">
      <HintPath>..\..\..\..\..\..\LIB\managed\1.8.0\Assembly-CSharp.dll</HintPath>
      <Private>False</Private>
    </Reference>
    <Reference Include="UnityEngine">
      <HintPath>..\..\..\..\..\..\LIB\managed\1.8.0\UnityEngine.dll</HintPath>
      <Private>False</Private>
    </Reference>
    <Reference Include="UnityEngine.CoreModule">
      <HintPath>..\..\..\..\..\..\LIB\managed\1.8.0\UnityEngine.CoreModule.dll</HintPath>
      <Private>False</Private>
    </Reference>
  </ItemGroup>

You will need to add more References depending from what you are willing to use (IMGUI, Audio, ImageConversion, etc). Obviously, things will be slightly different in your rig.

For learn more: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/ide/how-to-add-or-remove-references-by-using-the-reference-manager?view=vs-2022

Now, you need to be aware of the C# Runtime version you need: for Unity 2019, it's 4.6 . Anything older needs C# 3.5 .

Compiling things using 3.5 and Unity 2017 will make things work fine on anything from KSP 1.4 to KSP 1.12 (with very few exceptions). You will not be able to run safely something compiled for a new KSP into an older one, but most of the time you can use something compiled against an older KSP into a new (except when you try to use something only available on the newer KSP, or you are relying on a bug or idiosyncrasy from an specific KSP).

Some could argue that you should compile your DLLs against KSP 1.12.5 only - and this dude would not be wrong. However, I know lots of people using KSP 1.10 or even 1.9 due the insurmountable amount of new bugs on the newer versions (my long missions are still on KSP 1.7.3!), so in the long run you will need to check your audience.

For starters, use the KSP you are playing the most, as you will be your first beta tester anyway.

 

On 3/12/2024 at 5:26 PM, averageksp said:

And I use Visual Studio 2022 and Unity (my unity is outdated so i have to install new version).

From an Old School dude that did a lot of support including for fellow Add'On authors, stick with Visual Studio 2019 and Unity 2019 for while.

KSP, in its now large lifespan, used the following Unity Versions:

• Unity 3.4, Mono 3.0 - from the beginning of times until KSP 0.18.2 (AFAIK)
• Unity 4, Mono 3.0 - from KSP 0.18.3 to 1.0.5
• Unity 5, Mono 3.0 - from KSP 1.1 to 1.3.1
  • Unit 5.4.0p4 from KSP 1.2.0
• Unit 2017, Mono 3.5 - from KSP 1.4 to 1.7.3
  • 2017.1.3p1 on all of them
• Unity 2019, Mono 4.6 - from KSP 1.8.0 to the 1.12.5 (current latest)
  • 2019.2.2f1 until 1.11.2
  • 2019.4.18f1 from 1.12.0

You should not use a newer Unity/Mono on any KSP than use older ones - besides being able to walk away by trying an older one on a newer KSP (in about 80% of the time since 1.3.1).

So, TL;DR: forget about anything newer then Unity 2019.4.18f1 and Mono 4.6 (for KSP 1.12.0 and newer). You are looking for trouble by doing that (see disclaimer below for an exception).

If you are targeting KSP 1.12, you MUST use Unity 2019.4.18f1 .  Anything newer and you are prone to have weird misbehaviours on the wild that are pretty cumbersome to cope. The worst part of the ordeal is that things will appear to work sometimes - but now and then something will misbehave weirdly in a way that it's very, very difficult to diagnose. The rule of thumb is that Microsoft (neither anyone else) test newer things on older code, only new code over older things - so no one ever did a quality assurance test on something compiled on Mono 4.6 running on a 3.5 runtime - we did tests on things compiled on Mono 3.5 on a new 4.6 runtime, however - because this is what we would get in the wild.

A fellow author I know updated the Visual Studio to 2022 some time ago, and suddenly a lot of their projects ceased to generate the DLLs correctly - since I don't use 2022, I can't say what happened, but reverting back to 2019 solved the problem for them. Your mileage may vary, but the rule of thumb is to use whatever Unity says to use when compiling things on Unity 2019.4 unless you are savvy enough to build and maintain you own development environment as I do (I can generate DLLs to any KSP from 1.1 to 1.12.5, but I had custom built my environment - it's not hard, but you need to know your tools intimately).

If you are willing to use the latest tools, it's best to target KSP2 instead - otherwise you are going to waste precious time figuring out esoteric error messages by trying to use new tools into old environments.

--- -- -

Handling Mono versions is a PAIN IN THE SAS. It's the reason I recomending sticking with Visual Studio 2019 for while.

Some time ago, when I replaced my rig, I was getting trouble on finding the Mono 4.6.57 (the exact one used by Unity 2019). Looking around, I settled with 4.7.2 after carefully comparing the change logs and being sure that the main components used by Unity didn't changed inside the framework in a breaking way (compiler mainly , as everything else comes from Unity). On my projects you will see me targeting Mono v4.7.2 because of that.

Now? Not even 4.7.2 is available anymore - and I need to hunt for a replacement again.

https://download.mono-project.com/archive/

So, since you are still a begginer, really - forget Visual Studio 2022. Get Unity 2019.4.18f1 and use exactly what Unity says to use with this version at the time it was published.

On the KSP 1.4 times, I was using MonoDevelop and that damned thing used to work just fine. But then Microsoft took ver it, used it as Visual Studio for Mac and the original project was literally ditched. So I had to scramble to keep my Unit 5/2017 projects alive (and it's the reason I have such knowledge).

Now Microsoft is ditching Visual Studio for Mac at all, and hanging me to dry.

This is the Microsoft Way. Don't fall for it.

For KSP development, the less friction path is sticking with Visual Studio 2019 and whatever Unity says to use on U2019. We are developing for a deprecated enviroment, trying to teach new tricks to this old dog will not going to happen swiflty.