Newbie question about radial size

[Angelo Kerman]

I am getting ready to add a part but i'm a bit confused about radial size. Thw wiki uses radial size and diameter interchangeably (http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Radial_size) so if I use 3ds max to make a part and my units are in meters, should I create, say, a cylinder of radius 1m for a 1.25m part, or .5 m to get that 1.25 m part? Is the part's diameter actually 2.5m in game for radius 1.25m? If I understand it right, it sounds like to make a 1.25m part, the radius in max should be 1m and the game's rescale factor is 1.25. So 2.5m parts are actually 5m diameters in game?

[Justin Kerbice]

I see that's more than confusing, radial size is more likely to means size of parts surface attached to other. Bad/obsolete page.

IMHO, the best is to use the same size straight away for the models and never play with rescalefactor in part, it may become a nightmare and if by any chance, the default 1.25 is changed to 1.0 one day, all your parts will be on the wrong size !

(I know some people who have some secret/god-like knowledge know for sure this will never happen, never ! )

So in max, you set meter as default unit (be aware that is seems to be the least precise max unit, even in 64bits version :/, you can see some issues when zooming to the maximum factor allowed, but it's ok for the most common modelling thing as you won't ever need to model micrometer sized detail )

As the result, as 1.25m diameter (0.625m radius) cylinder in 3dsmax will be a 1.25m diameter as well in KSP (assuming rescalefactor is set to 1 or 1.0) without any brain puzzling.

Also, don't hesitate to use more polygons than recommended in the wiki, as currently, GPU is greatly underused and the CPU (because of physics unity management) is the bottleneck. Your parts will look smoother.

[Angelo Kerman]

Thank you, that definitely helps. Now I just have to figure out the correct orientation for the hangar, and figure out the attach nodes.