Part Making/Modding Tutorial?

[The Yellow Dart]

Can anyone direct me to a good tutorial or source of info for creating parts mods or editing existing parts? I would like to try my hand at making a few small parts just to see how they turn out, but I'm not sure where to start. I have seen both blender and Sketchup (by one guy) used for modeling. I've used Sketchup a bit but not blender but would like to learn. Thanks!

[UbioZur]

Thread moved to the Addon modeling forum, you will have a better answer since it is the actual forum to talk about modelling and making parts for the game.

There are several stickies on the forum you can have a look at.

Have fun (I am more on the coding side of the add-on so I can't help much with modelling)

[CaptainKipard]

Inaddition to that ^^:

Modelling techniques are the same for pretty much anything. There's not a lot of KSP specific things so if you're after modelling tutorials then you'd be better off looking through youtube for beginner tutorials.

[The Yellow Dart]

Okay, so I just made this today in Sketchup,

So I guess to be a little more specific is how to texture using photoshop, and how do I open the existing game parts so I can see how their textures are done. I feel like that is how I learn best, by reverse engineering something already made. Also, do I need to be worried about my polygons or whatnot? Is this too detailed? And while we're here, any thoughts on the part?

[CaptainKipard]

Seriously if you're still a beginner then you should be watching and reading beginner tutorials. It's a bit of a waste of time asking basic questions here. Once you get to a point where you'll have KSP-specific questions then people will be more eager to help.

With that in mind:

The polycount looks just right.

You can use the Blender Mu Importer to get Squad models into blender, just remember you're not allowed to redistribute those models afaik.

To open MBM textures, rename the suffix to "raw" and open with an image viewer that supports raw images. You'll need to figure out the import settings (dimensions, depth, etc) by trial and error. You can't redistribute those either. Although I've seen people adapt parts of them without any backlash from Squad.

The part looks ok, but you need to make some of the edges hard in some places. I wouldn't bother with Sketchup to be honest. Blender's the way to go.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Cpt. Kipard

[blizzy78]

To open MBM textures, rename the suffix to "raw" and open with an image viewer that supports raw images.

There's also a mbm2png tool that converts MBM files to PNG files.

The part looks ok, but you need to make some of the edges hard in some places.

Which edges would that be?

Regarding the mesh, I'd recommend making a slightly lower-poly version of it by removing that small ring on the top flat circle. Not remove it completely, but convert that into a normal map feature. It's just so small that it won't hurt if it's only done by normal mapping. Perhaps the complete inset of the top flat part should be done using a normal map.

[CaptainKipard]

Which edges would that be?

On each side of the base the faces form a concave arch. It looks bad with a smooth shader, so that arch should either have hard edges or he should add more geometry to get rid of smoothing artefacts.

edit:

All of these actually. Also that mesh is a bit messy. I'd start over if I were you. In blender. AFAIK Blender gives you more control over your mesh.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Cpt. Kipard

[The Yellow Dart]

Just wanted to say thanks guys, the info here helped get me on the right track. I guess it is just hard to get started sometimes, there are so many tutorials on youtube I wanted to get some input so I would know what I needed to do. Here is what I have so far in blender, no completely happy with the base yet. I'm wondering if I should attempt to make this a moving part or just make it static. What would you say is the difficulty rating on moving parts? Thanks again! (sketchfab screenshot seems to be incorrect, from a previously uploaded version with incorrect shading)

[blizzy78]

With a look like this, it really HAS to be moving

[CaptainKipard]

That's a big improvement. Next thing you should keep in mind is not to go overboard with detail especially detail that wont be visible, e.g. those bolts on the sides don't need to have so many faces.

You can try to make it animated but maybe you should take things slow for now.