A Dead Mod.

[Deathsoul097]

-dead end-

Edited April 30, 2014 by Deathsoul097

[S3416130]

Okay, easy problem first, the excessively large flames. You've typed the following line,

fx_exhaustFlame_blue = 0.7, -0.7, 0.7, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, running

You've left off _small on the end of the name.

fx_exhaustFlame_blue_small = 0.7, -0.7, 0.7, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, running

This should reduce the flame sizes somewhat.

[Talisar]

That invisibility issue is weird.... It's almost like the normals are flipped, except if that were the case we'd be able to see the other side through it. Unfortunately, I think I've reached the limit of what aid I can be. Sorry I couldn't be more help.

[S3416130]

Perhaps screenshots of the model in unity would help. Also, please include the Hierarchy bar on the left and have it clicked on GameObject so all parts are highlighted. This might give me an idea of where to troubleshoot.

[Deathsoul097]

Alright. Here:

[S3416130]

For starters, your mesh collider for PodMK2-2 should have convex ticked, otherwise no collider will be generated. Even if the capsule wasn't invisible, you wouldn't be able to move it or interact with it.

Secondly, see in the second image the box called Mesh Renderer on the right. Click on the drop-down labelled materials. What is listed there?

[trekkie_]

the first thing I check when a part is invisible is the scale I exported it in, and the scale used in unity. otherwise a part is too large or too small to see. if you can see the node attachment points and sure they're configured properly so that they're in the correct areas, then the issue is something else.

also, if a single part of the model is more than 255 faces, a convex mesh collider will make no difference, the part can end up invisible inside the game until you split it so each piece doesn't go over 255 faces.

[Deathsoul097]

Right, um, checking the convex box made it un-usable from lag.

This might be from having about, oh, 11 THOUSAND tris.

[S3416130]

Wow, that is a pretty high tris count. The wiki recommends that you keep it in and around 1000. The good news though, judging from your screenshots, is that there are many unnecessary triangles. If those sides are straight until the ends where they curve inwards, then many of those smaller panels could be combined into single panels of two triangles each. Also the circular base around the capsule seems to have a large number of sides, further increasing tris count.

You don't really need to model a lot of detail for parts, the textures can give a powerful illusion of detail.

[Deathsoul097]

Well, Instead of trying to figure out this pod, I have just made a new one from scratch. Should have less than 1000 pollys. Also, most of the original pod was modelled in squares, but unity auto-converts to tris, which caused some problems. Unfortunately, so was this one, and it is still at about 2500.

EDIT: Okay! Down to 1600 Pollys. Turns out the heatshield had almost a thousand pollys.

EDIT EDIT: Optimized the thrusters, down to 1544 pollys.

EDIT EDIT EDIT: Optimized the top, down to 1224 pollys.

Edited December 25, 2013 by Deathsoul097

[S3416130]

2500 is still fairly high. Is it possible to combine parallel panels in blender?

[Talisar]

I would suggest that you consider making a separate collider with simpler geometry, and make the mesh that you have visual only. You can get away with having far more polys in your model while having less impact on performance. I've made models with a few thousand polys on the visual mesh with no significant lag in this manner.

[Deathsoul097]

The only problem is the shape, though I guess that doesn't matter in the end, and I don't know how to manipulate meshes in unity. AFAIK, you cant combine panels, but you can remove multiple redundant panels, and replace them with one.

Edited December 25, 2013 by Deathsoul097

[S3416130]

I would suggest that you consider making a separate collider with simpler geometry, and make the mesh that you have visual only. You can get away with having far more polys in your model while having less impact on performance. I've made models with a few thousand polys on the visual mesh with no significant lag in this manner.

I hadn't thought of this.

[S3416130]

The only problem is the shape, though I guess that doesn't matter in the end, and I don't know how to manipulate meshes in unity. AFAIK, you cant combine panels, but you can remove multiple redundant panels, and replace them with one.

It also seems like your textures are bound by the polys themselves. Have you tried mapping a texture made in a photo editing program onto the capsule surface in Blender. This gives the illusion of a capsule of detail more like your original capsule, without sacrificing performance, by having textured curves rather than modelled ones.

Apart from that, you've managed to optimise the mesh massively. Nice work.

[Talisar]

The only problem is the shape, though I guess that doesn't matter in the end, and I don't know how to manipulate meshes in unity. AFAIK, you cant combine panels, but you can remove multiple redundant panels, and replace them with one.

The way that I set up mine is when I am initially making my model (in blender in your case) I make the low poly collider that as closely corresponds to the detailed (visible) mesh as possible, and have them in the same place. Just judging by the pics you've posted, the basic shape is fairly simple, so you could have a collider for your model that is very low poly. Assuming 36 sides in your cylinder, you could get away with around 300 polys for the collider and it would work well. 36 sides is actually a bit high too, I only use that many for very large diameter cylinders. For one that is supposed to be 2.5m, I usually use 28-32.

In unity, you would select the collider piece and right click on "Mesh Renderer" and completely remove that component. Then set it up as you did before with convex collision. For the mesh that you want visible, you would right click on the collider component and completely remove that, making it a non-physics part, so the tris in it won't have a significant hit on performance.

Sorry for the lack of detail here, I don't have unity on this computer, but I hope you get the gist of what I'm suggesting.

[Deathsoul097]

Right. I might just try that, but my mesh has approx. 40 sides, and TBH, I don't know how it would look with less, simply because I gave it more sides so that it looked smoother. For now I will put the current one into unity, and see how I fare. It would be better if I used UV mapping, but I am still having trouble with it.

[trekkie_]

you could make a simple mesh collider, just a simple cylinder with a tapered top is good enough. it doesn't have to be perfect, just as long as it's roughly the same size as your model. also have to be sure to disable the render component of the mesh collider part so it isn't visible in game.

[Deathsoul097]

Thats what I did, and it works fine, however, the pod is still mostly invisible, and the hatch is un-clickable because of it. Due to the stubborness of unity and KSP, I have relented and I am optimizing the mesh further to UV map it. Therefore, I will most likely not post for the next couple of days, because I absolutely suck at UV mapping.

Edited December 26, 2013 by Deathsoul097

[trekkie_]

I don't know why there are still invisible parts exactly, could be UV mapping problems....or a lack of UV mapping altogether. are you using actual textures or just solid colors?

Edited December 26, 2013 by trekkie_

[Deathsoul097]

Just using solid colours. Is it normal for a texture file to not be output when you make the part?

[S3416130]

Okay, see this box on the right. Your Unity should have more than one for your mesh, one for each solid colour.

In this box, you have a Main Colour selected but no Texture. Clicking Select will allow you to pick a material from a list, and the solid colour will be applied on to it. You'll need to import a texture into Unity Assets through the Assets tab, it doesn't need to be fancy, it can be a plain white box made on MS Paint. The texture provides a sort of surface for the colour.

This might fix your invisibility problem.

Edited December 26, 2013 by S3416130

[Deathsoul097]

Right. I am going to try this. (IRL has been in the way, but I can continue to work on this now)

EDIT: Nope! All it did was turn the pod blue. Oh well, back to trying to UV map it, I guess.

It seems KSP only recognizes one of the textures for a part, even though the .mu uses multiple. For some reason, KSP thought it would look good if my entire pod was textured as the windows, except for the windows and heatshield. (Which were, once again, invisible)

Edited January 2, 2014 by Deathsoul097

[S3416130]

Hmm, okay new plan. Don't laugh, but what I would suggest at this point is to export the model from Blender to SketchUp as a dae file and texture it there. SketchUp has a perfectly adequate texturing system (that isn't UV wrapping) that so many people don't know about, it took a lot of research in the SketchUp Help Centre to find out about it. All my models are textured in SketchUp, so I know it works and I can give you a tutorial.

[Deathsoul097]

I might try that, but you are a bit late. I have almost finished the UV. Is sketch-up free? If it is then I might do this.