Modelling advice

[Thobewill10]

So it\'s my first time modelling anything, and I want to make a component.

Here is what I have so far:

Where should I go from here to enhance this? How do I add detail (like additional cylinders)?

Also, is a simple animation possible?

[Tiberion]

Have you read all of the blender tutorial thread and watched the video? http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=4032.0

First thing, you can go over to the left menu where it says 'shading' and hit 'Smooth' to get rid of the corners on your cylinder (if you want it smooth, anyway)

To add addtional meshes, you go to object mode, Add, Mesh, , then select from Cylinders, cones, cubes, etc. Edit the new object however you want, right click on them to swap between them, and when you\'re done and have them lined up as you like, shift+rightclick them both to so they\'re both selected, and hit Ctrl+J to join them as a single object. (you can add a mesh directly to the 1st object once you are proficient at using the selection tools to choose which part of the mesh you want to edit)

Quite a few steps left to make it ready for export to DAE format (which KSP uses) but you\'ll want to finish modeling first; Read the tutorial a few times, and then come back with specific questions and we\'ll do what we can.

Blender is really complex, I\'ve been using it for 5 months pretty solidly and I learn a new trick almost every time. Don\'t expect to master it quickly.

[Thobewill10]

I have read the tutorial. Thanks for the advice! I read about smoothing groups shortly after posting this, and it seems to be going well.

What is considered too high of a polycount?

[Tiberion]

Once you get to 10k you\'re pretty bloated; the game will fail to load the part around 20k.

For most parts, you can probably do it under 5k