We all started somewhere....

[rottielover]

Figured some of you will get a laugh out of this...

So I got myself setup with Blender, Unity, and GIMP. Created my "basicfueltank" (it's ugly on purpose)

AND .....

It showed up right side up in Unity, not sure why KSP has it rotated on it's side (yet, I'll figure it out).

The attachment nodes are more or less on purpose, I haven't edited them yet.

(and yes, it worked, there is fuel in it and the engine fired)

Edited November 23, 2013 by rottielover
add info

[KhaosCorp]

You just need to turn the model in unity...the model mind you, not the top level game object with part tools in it. Different orientation between different programs takes a bit to get used to...I been teaching myself this stuff for a good 6months now and still manage to put stuff ingame facing the wrong direction all the time =)

[rottielover]

You just need to turn the model in unity...the model mind you, not the top level game object with part tools in it. Different orientation between different programs takes a bit to get used to...I been teaching myself this stuff for a good 6months now and still manage to put stuff ingame facing the wrong direction all the time =)

Thanks that's a good tip. I'm taking a bit of a break for the moment (aggravation and all) but I'll get back to it later tonight.

I figure once I can create fuel tanks pretty reliablely then it's a matter of learning the animation stuff. I'm still looking for a video tutorial on that that shows how to do it in Blender. I found one where he was using 3dsmax.

Anyway, I figured not too bad for 2 min of playing around.

[KhaosCorp]

CGCookie has good tutorial vids, thought they are software specific, not for KSP.

[Dispatcher]

So far in my use of Blender, the orientation (XYZ) of objects that I export and import into Unity have retained the desired orientation. One bit of advice is to make sure you have the latest versions of the required software. As an example, as of October 31, there has been a new version of Blender available. Replies above are good as well.

[Tiberion]

Its important when in Unity to make sure you have the preview pane in the right settings. In the upper left there are buttons for the different maipulator cursors (rotate, scale, move, etc) and then a toggle for Center/Pivot display and a toggle for Global/Local display.

If you are in Global, you're seeing the orientation of your entire 'scene' composed of all objects in your part, even if its just one. If you swap to local, you see the orientation of the specific object you have selected. So you always need to make sure that things are pointed 'up' when in Global before you export.

(You might be wondering when local is useful - you use it when you need to rotate a specific object to point in some direction. For instance for engines, you need an empty GameObject, and it needs to be pointing with +Z (blue) down relative to your engine, in the direction of your exhaust. So you would swap to local to set the orientation of your transform once you have confirmed that your engine model is oriented correctly in Global

(And for completeness sake, Pivot displays the axis widget at the location of your parts origin/pivot point, wherever you made it in your 3d program. Center instead shows it at the geometric center of your object, or whatever combination of objects you have selected. You'll typically want to be in Pivot mode)

[rottielover]

. SNIP *

Wow, you gave me that "ah hah" moment. Soon as I get back home I'm going to check, but I think your absolutely correct!

Once I get that done I'm going to give a shot at making my collision mesh in blender ( I've been following tutorials telling me to create it in unity, but then I found posts saying you can create it in blender and that unity will accept blender files directly now? (Have to try that, I did an export to an intermediate format for this first go).

Then I want to try the new NODE system of creating the attach point object naming that and referencing that in the cfg file, rather than using num cords. This newer method seems like it would be more precise to me.

I have been able to duplicate a couple of old mod parts, but so far have had zero luck tracking down the original authors so I cannot release that work. (Though I do get to enjoy it in my own local save games ).

Funny how you get into this stuff. I already had limited free time to play ksp, now in using most of that time teaching myself how to create stuff for ksp. lol. What a perfectly vicious little circle. I love it.

[Tiberion]

The NODE parameters are currently buggy and mostly non-functional. Hopefully its one of the bugs to be fixed in 0.23.

[KhaosCorp]

Transform defined attach nodes only 1/2 work last I heard, thats why everyone is still using possition defined attach nodes.

Ha..ninjaed by Tib =)

[rottielover]

Oh bother... (Anymore AB fans?)

From what I've read the node size is buggy, is the positioning buggy as well?

Edit : that brings me to another question. I haven't really found documentation on the cfg's. Eg: list of modules and params, list of "fields" like "startingTech" <link to list of tech nodes> (side note I did find that particular document eventually. Clarifying, I found a pic of the tech tree that had the cfg names for each node. Printed that bad boy!)

Is there something done up or is everyone inferring what's needed by looking at stock cfg's?

Edited November 25, 2013 by rottielover

[Dispatcher]

Funny how you get into this stuff. I already had limited free time to play ksp, now in using most of that time teaching myself how to create stuff for ksp. lol. What a perfectly vicious little circle. I love it.

Hehe! Yeah, I understand that! See my sig line. Most of what I make I use as much as any stock part. It is fun to see what you can do because of, or in spite of KSP.

[rottielover]

My next bone-headed part idea is a set of EPU's , keep them relatively simple, assume that mono propellant = hydrazine , and poof an EPU who eats mono and spits out electric charge.

It's more about learning the modeling and texturing anyway, so I think this gives me an attainable starting goal.

[rottielover]

I think I need a mentor. Someone who could sit down and Skype with me for maybe 20 min sometime.

I'm getting everything about 80% of the way right now.

I can create the model in blender, I can UVunwrap it. I can splash some color into a texture with Gimp, and I can even get the part to show up in unity.

Most of the time I even get the part into the game, but something always seems to go wrong and I have no idea what the heck I did wrong this time.

Example. I just spent the last hour fiddling with a simple heatshield that I've been working on to fit the Mk1 LanderCan (the little 1 man can).

It looks awful, and I can't seem to get the attachment nodes where I want them (which is just dead center of the stupid thing, I have no idea why they are off to the left. Node_stack_top/bottom are supposed to be x.y.z angx.angy.angz, size. Right??

Maybe I'm just too tired and beat up right this min.

I'll go to bed, go to work, and then pick back up again later.

In the mean time if anyone has any suggestions please feel free

Topics of greatest interest to me at the moment

Texturing (especially using Gimp)

Cfg editing (seems simple enough, but I seemingly always mess up something)

UVunwrapping in blender. I thought I had this down, but I seem to find a way to screw it up everytime.

Anyway, most grateful for any assistance.

[frizzank]

They have a wiki but its not up to date. Lists of things would be extremely useful. Most of the time I'm searching through other configs trying to find what I need to work. Not the best way to do things.

[rottielover]

Well I picked up my heatshield project again. I finally figured out the attachment node issue, Y is up in the game / unity. I was using the xyz of the partconfig in "realworld" xyz so the nodes were not moving where I thought they should go. When I turned my head around, they clicked into place.

so now if I can just get my textures done right.... *Maybe* one day you'll see a heatshield for the 1 man lander can.