Solidworks?

[Mihara]

I am not particularly keen on trying to wrap my brain around Blender or any other of the numerous modelling packages that are known to work, but I use Solidworks for what passes for my day job, and thinking of models in terms of blueprints has become second nature.

Is there a known export path from Solidworks that would result in a model that one could conceivably make work with KSP?

[Alskari]

I come from a ProE/AutoCAD background and hated Blender the first few times I tried to use it. Once I actually took the time to learn how to navigate the menu system and a few shortcuts, it's just as easy, if not easier for what you'll probably end up doing in this game.

[Mihara]

Sure, that's a last ditch option, after all, it's free. I'm afraid that's not really an answer to my question, though.

[EndlessWaves]

http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/HOWTO-importObject.html

I would imagine your best bet is .dxf, autocad is in the same general area as solidworks isn't it?

[iamaphazael]

Not to beat a dead horse, but Blender really is great once you get past the initial confusion factor.

To answer your question, though, I have heard of people using Solidworks to make parts for KSP, so it can be done. Unity supports a wide range of file types for models, including at least FBX, DAE, BLEND, and 3DS, so if you can export to any of those you can pipe them right into Unity. If you can export to DAE, you can make some types of parts without ever messing with Unity, but support for that in KSP is deprecated and will someday go away, and Unity isn't that hard to figure out (at least to the extent that it's needed to make KSP parts).

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. Good luck!

[Mihara]

I would imagine your best bet is .dxf, autocad is in the same general area as solidworks isn't it?

General area about on the same scale as France and Norway are both somewhere in Europe, I'm afraid. Solidworks has it's own ideology of constructing models, which has a lot in common with, say, Autodesk Inventor but nothing in common with Autocad proper. DXF more of a 'lingua franca' interchange format and it never quite goes smoothly when you're trying to get your model into something so radically different. And then there's texturing and UV mapping... Which is why I am asking for a 'known working' export path, i.e. something someone actually did use.

Not to beat a dead horse, but Blender really is great once you get past the initial confusion factor.

I failed to do this twice in the past five years, both times electing to use something else in the end because it was less pain for what I wanted to do, I don't see why this would change this year. Since I don't actually intend to start a modding career, but only want to make a handful of models that I myself need (and can't expect to pester anyone else for) trying to give Blender yet more of my time sounds unwise.

To answer your question, though, I have heard of people using Solidworks to make parts for KSP, so it can be done. Unity supports a wide range of file types for models, including at least FBX, DAE, BLEND, and 3DS, so if you can export to any of those you can pipe them right into Unity. If you can export to DAE, you can make some types of parts without ever messing with Unity, but support for that in KSP is deprecated and will someday go away, and Unity isn't that hard to figure out (at least to the extent that it's needed to make KSP parts).

Well, there's no problem finishing it out in Unity, from where, as far as I can see, you're meant to export KSP's "mu" format, and I know there's a COLLADA export, (I.e. DAE) but since you're saying that's deprecated, what would be the next preferable format to import into Unity?

[iamaphazael]

Well, there's no problem finishing it out in Unity, from where, as far as I can see, you're meant to export KSP's "mu" format, and I know there's a COLLADA export, (I.e. DAE) but since you're saying that's deprecated, what would be the next preferable format to import into Unity?

The first bit is correct. You load the model into Unity, finish it up there (add thrust vectors for engines, boxes for hatches and ladders, that kind of thing), then export it as a .mu.

You misunderstood me about the second part there, though. There's currently a system in KSP that allows you to load .dae models directly into the game, without going through unity. That's what's deprecated. Unity should continue to support dae from now until forever. So, there's your datapath: Solidworks > .dae > Unity > .mu > KSP

[Mihara]

Thank you. I'll try and report the results when I get a chance, someone might find them useful...

[Greys]

That would be true if you were OK with only ever being able to use solid color/tileable textures and not having colliders. Unfortunately if you want to make anything decent you are going to have to wedge Blender into that datapath, but I promise, you won't have to know what you're doing.

Step 1, in Solidworks make two solids, one that is the actual thing that you want, and one that is a simplified version for the collision mesh. They will probably need to be separate parts in order to export correctly.

Step 2, export both as either DAE/COLLADAs or .STL, whichever you can easiest.

Step 3, go to blender, under File > Import pick whichever you used and load both, as long as you modeled them in the same space and scale relative to the 0,0,0 point they should already be overlapping

Step 4, Learn to do UV Maps, I suggest this tutorial http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/UV_Map_Basics

tip, Blender uses shift, ctr, and alt as modifiers for how you move things and change the camera, you'll also need to use the scrollwheel; it's very different from Solidworks.

tip, Blender uses rightclick to select points, it's weird. Standard shift to select multiple points, ctl and alt rightclick do things sometimes, A deselects all, very useful (selects all if none selected)

Step 5, once you have the UV map laid out the way you want, with all of the meshes you want loaded into Blender at the same time, go to File > Export > Collada

(5.5, make a texture)

Step 6, ignore every tutorial on this forum about how to use Unity to prepare your .mu file, they are all wrong. (PS, you're done with Blender)

[Alskari]

Sure, that's a last ditch option, after all, it's free. I'm afraid that's not really an answer to my question, though.

I'm sorry I got distracted and didn't really reread for clarity. What I meant to say is that the time you'll spend getting a .dxf or .iges file converted over, a UV map exported, and everything into Blender and then Unity you'd be better off just learning Blender since every change you make will need to be done completely over.

I learned Blender in the process of trying to convert some 3-D models over, and now just use it for KSP.

[sumghai]

SolidWorks 2008 can export to STL, which can then be imported into Blender.

However, the mesh is far from usable/texturable - this is because SolidWorks is for parametric modelling for Engineering applications (i.e. you specify precise dimensions / relations for various features), compared to organically deforming a mesh in Blender. When a SW PRT file is exported as STL, it results in something with hundreds of sharp triangles, which needs to be optimized. Geometry with sharp tris are also very difficult to texture, and the time spent fixing all these potential errors is far greater than if one modelled in Blender from scratch.

You've probably seen my SolidWorks mockups that I imported and rendered in Blender - because they are meant to be quick and dirty mockups, I haven't bothered to optimize them properly. My final assets will be made natively in Blender prior to exporting to Unity, once most folks are happy with the overall vision of my design.

[Greys]

That is definitely a consideration that must be made, but if you design your parts with the intent and understanding that they will be turned into polygons, you can keep the tri count reasonable. Specifically this means using no circles, no arcs, and no fillets; though in my experience CATIA cylinders translate into a pretty reasonable number of polygons

This PoS is six concentric cylinders (3 sets of 2) between two truncated cones, with 3 square rods connecting the cones, the model itself is only 622 tris

http://i.imgur.com/UvX39Nn.png

If you stick to more straight edged geometry you can easily get complex looking structures with miniscule poly counts.

[Mihara]

Darn, I forgot about the triangle number limits... No matter, I can design with polygons.

But wait, shouldn't I be able to dial down STL export precision and get halfdecent results even then?

[DYJ]

Problem with solidworks and .STL export is that SW has no clue what good topology looks like, if you dial in export precision to get your cylinders 24faces (which is sort of standard for ksp) you'll end up with insane polycount the second you add a sweep to a cylinder.

As someone who routinely work in both softwares, trust me learn blender. SW is brilliant for what it's made for and the same applies to blender but neither of the softwares does the others job in any acceptable manner.

[Mihara]

As someone who routinely work in both softwares, trust me learn blender. SW is brilliant for what it's made for and the same applies to blender but neither of the softwares does the others job in any acceptable manner.

For one model of something like this?

http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/snews/2005/1103.shtml

[DYJ]

That entirely depends on how much of the detail you want. If it's just the cylinder you can do it in SW, but it's still going to be faster to do it in blender.

[Mihara]

It's tiny (see scissors) and even though the KSP physics engine seems to mistreat really tiny things just like it mistreats really big ones, and I'll have to scale it up for it to be useful, doing too much detail would still be a waste.

[sumghai]

Seeing as you're doing the MINERVA probe, a simplified model could be made as follows:

- Model a simple, plain cylinder of the correct proportions in Blender

- Texture it using a PNG image

- Import into Unity with PartTools

- Add a bump map image to depict all the little details

- Write the completed asset to model.mu

- Write the part.cfg file and install it, the model.mu, textures and bump maps into the game.