Painting in Blender, help.

[Fiddlestyx]

Hi. I am trying to make a part in Blender but I am having trouble painting it. I have never used anything like this before. I watched a lot of tutorials and figured out how the make and manipulate the mesh. Now I am stuck on painting and can't find a tutorial for my problem.

I want to paint inside individual lines(?) but I can only figure out how to paint by hand (can't stay in lines). Refer to pic as I don't know how to explain it.

Thanks for any help.

P.s. My part has 960 triangles, will that lag KSP?

[Zaeo]

Did you UV unwrap it?

If you unwrap your part to show its faces on a 2d surface, then stack the symmetric pieces*the ones that have the same texture anyways* you can really simplify the texturing process.

Heres an example of what NOT to do.

See all the similar sections? you can drag the pieces over eachother in the uv map editor, from then, texturing without annoying seams is a LOTTTTT easier. Not only that, but you can also expand the faces when there is room in the square:the whitespace outside of the shapes

This allows for higher resolution textures in a much smaller texture area*same performance hit, increased detail.*

[Technical Ben]

I'll do my best to show the UV map unwrapping in my next video for you all.

[Fiddlestyx]

I have it unwrapped in Blender. Do I have to save it and paint it with a different program?

Thanks Technical Ben, I watched all your videos so far. They are what got me this far.

[nyrath]

Fiddlestyx, I believe you are trying to use Blender's vertex painting feature

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Materials/Special_Effects/Vertex_Paint

I am pretty sure that technique will not work when making Kerbal mods.

Instead, you should use Blender's UV mapping feature. It is more work, but it makes it easier to keep in the lines.

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Textures/Mapping/UV

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/18376-First-part-in-blender

Edited May 10, 2013 by nyrath

[Zaeo]

By the way, 960 faces is perfectly fine.

count my uv map there, should be around 1030 or so, and thats an rcs sized object

[Fiddlestyx]

So I sort of figured it out. I unwrapped it like an orange instead of a ball, and that gave me a png that was much easier to paint. However, I should have four black parts and four white parts on the model and instead I have three of each? I don't know why and tried all sorts of things. You can see in the small preview (top right) the ball has four of each, but in the model view it has three of each.

I don't even know if I will end up using this, it's starting to look like a beach ball, lol.

[Fiddlestyx]

Does anyone know where to get or make a gold (copper?) foil texture like NASA uses. The same kind that's on the "ROUND-8 Toroidal Fuel Tank" in game. I could use that too.

[Zaeo]

Fiddle, use Gimp.

After that, paint something in a SEPARATE file from your uv map, namely "gold_foil_01.png" would be a good organizational name. this is so you can come back to it for newer parts.

make the full texture 1024x1024, allllways use a larger texture and crop what you don't need.

Following that, make an off yellow/orangish flat color. under filter->artistic select clothify. Play with the slider a bit.

Filter->Blur->Gaussian blur:1 1

After that, duplicate the layer via right click. Apply a "burn effect" it should crisp your color to goldish.

Following that, use filter->Light and Shadows and have fun. thast should get you a "close to foil" texture like they use. be sure to check "bumpmap"

pull your new texture into the uv map component area.

attempt "Make seamless" but this method is not the best. avoid it if you can.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Zaeo

[joedude69]

Does anyone know where to get or make a gold (copper?) foil texture like NASA uses. The same kind that's on the "ROUND-8 Toroidal Fuel Tank" in game. I could use that too.

Im fairly sure the ROUND-8 Toroidal Fuel Tank is just a copper coloured gradient with a "popcorn" (like the celling) normal.

[nyrath]

So I sort of figured it out. I unwrapped it like an orange instead of a ball, and that gave me a png that was much easier to paint. However, I should have four black parts and four white parts on the model and instead I have three of each? I don't know why and tried all sorts of things. You can see in the small preview (top right) the ball has four of each, but in the model view it has three of each.

Fiddlestyx, did you apply seams to your mesh before you unwrapped it? You can set the seams so that you have 8 parts instead of 6.

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Modeling/Meshes/Editing/Edges

[Fiddlestyx]

Fiddlestyx, did you apply seams to your mesh before you unwrapped it? You can set the seams so that you have 8 parts instead of 6.

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Modeling/Meshes/Editing/Edges

Yeah, I made seams and that made it easier to paint the texture. Just the texture doesn't fit right. It's probably something I'm doing wrong. I have been fighting with it all day, I'll try again tomorrow after I watch some more videos about textures.

Thanks.

[Darren9]

Yeah, I made seams and that made it easier to paint the texture. Just the texture doesn't fit right. It's probably something I'm doing wrong. I have been fighting with it all day, I'll try again tomorrow after I watch some more videos about textures.

Thanks.

I'm new to this myself but it looks to me like you've got four of each colour but just not in the correct order, on the 3D model it's displaying white, white, black, white, black, black, white, black - two whites and two blacks together. Click the islands in the UV view and see where they are on the 3D model - it probably didn't unwrap as any normal person would expect it to. Also you could just drag all the white islands on top of each other and paint them once, and the same with the blacks. Edited May 11, 2013 by Darren9

[Fiddlestyx]

I'm new to this myself but it looks to me like you've got four of each colour but just not in the correct order, on the 3D model it's displaying white, white, black, white, black, black, white, black - two whites and two blacks together. Click the islands in the UV view and see where they are on the 3D model - it probably didn't unwrap as any normal person would expect it to. Also you could just drag all the white islands on top of each other and paint them once, and the same with the blacks.

Thanks Darren, you were correct. Computers don't think like humans, lol. I was able to fix it by turning my image into eight different colors (one for each stripe) and using that to see what laid where.

That allowed me to see where the black and white should be. Then I just put them in the correct order.

I added pictures so if someone is having the same problem and sees this in the future, maybe it will help them too.

Thanks to everyone that helped me.

[Fiddlestyx]

Can anyone tell me why when I render the model (F12) it doesn't look like the model.

Please don't tell me I have to start over again.

[tygoo7]

On the texture tab where it says "Generate" put "UV"

[StarVision]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you have to delete the lamp and the camera. That's what tutorial i learned said to do anyway. also putting 'Edge Split' on wouldn't be a bad idea, unless you want it to have visible sides.

[Fiddlestyx]

Yeah, I don't know what was wrong (pretty sure it was set to UV). I closed Blender and re-opened it and it rendered fine. Thanks though.

[Fiddlestyx]

So, my model is coming along pretty nicely. However I have another question. I need to erase the color grey and replace it with black on my texture, and I can't for the life of me figure out how (tried Google, no help). I really don't want to do it pixel by pixel and I know it's possible. I have MS Paint, Paint.net, and Gimp. Thanks

Here is an update of my model

[Technical Ben]

Can you export the image to a paint program? You can then replace the colors easily. Gimp offers this. Not sure if paint.net does.

[Fiddlestyx]

Can you export the image to a paint program? You can then replace the colors easily. Gimp offers this. Not sure if paint.net does.

I was able to figure it out, thanks. Now I am stuck on Unity.

For some reason Unity only gives me a model.mu and no textures. If I add the textures to the part folder myself the part is invisible in game.

[nyrath]

Fiddlestyx, I'm going to give an over-view of what I do. Tell me which sections you'd like me to go into more detail.

I make a new empty game object in the Hierarchy panel, drag into it the PartsTools from Projects/Assets/Plugins/KSP, drag into it my Projects/Assets/Blender file.

Click on Projects/Assets/Blender file. In Inspector panel:

click Model button

set scale to 0.1 or 1, depending on how long 1 meter is in Blender units in your Blender file

checkbox Generate Colliders

checkbox Generate Lightmap UVs

click Apply button

Go to Hierarchy panel. For each object in your Blender file

click on the object

go to Inspector panel

in Mesh Collider section, checkbox Convex

In Materials section

set shader to KSP/Diffuse

in (texture) box, click Select, then in the dialog box select the texture file.

Then export to KSP as normal.

be sure to set Texture Format to MBM, checkbox Copy Textures, checkbox Convert Texture

[Fiddlestyx]

Fiddlestyx, I'm going to give an over-view of what I do. Tell me which sections you'd like me to go into more detail.

-snip-

Nyrath, thank you so much. I think it worked as I now have a model.mu and a model000.mbm file. Thanks again!

Edit: It worked! Now I just have to tinker with the attachment nodes.

Edited May 13, 2013 by Fiddlestyx

[nyrath]

Now all you need is a stub of a part.cfg file and you should be able to slip it into KSP

In your Blender file, locate the place at the top and the bottom where your item will connect. Note the Z coord at both places. In the part.cfg file, enter those values in the appropriate part of the node_stack_top and node_stack_bottom values.

My large Orion has a top value of z= 2.22201, so my part.cfg file contains:

node_stack_top = 0.0, 2.22201, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0

see

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/CFG_File_Documentation#Node_Definitions

[Fiddlestyx]

Now all you need is a stub of a part.cfg file and you should be able to slip it into KSP

In your Blender file, locate the place at the top and the bottom where your item will connect. Note the Z coord at both places. In the part.cfg file, enter those values in the appropriate part of the node_stack_top and node_stack_bottom values.

My large Orion has a top value of z= 2.22201, so my part.cfg file contains:

node_stack_top = 0.0, 2.22201, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0

see

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/CFG_File_Documentation#Node_Definitions

Thanks. I have the part file already and the part is in my game now. It is a little laggy and for some reason, a Kerbal can walk through it and things can't be attached to it except at the node. (I can't stick things to it like a battery or radial decoupler for example).

Also, once it's attached in the VAB, I can't grab it again.

Edited May 13, 2013 by Fiddlestyx