Open Source Park Week 2 - Learn to Mod! Or just have fun making a simple part!

[passinglurker]

Ok got my engine in the game but its far from done. texture of course could use some polish (especially on the top, and out side and places people will actually look), I haven't animated the emissive yet, I'm not confident about how I've balanced its stats, thrust effects are just ripped from the rapier, and I can't figure out how to get the gimbal to work, but there is enough here to throw up a file for people to critique and provide feed back on so...

Download if you dare

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The engine is presently a bi-mode engine that is able to toggle between low thrust, high isp, all_vessel "MilkIt" mode and higher thrust, lower isp, stage_priority_search "MoooveIt" mode

[artwhaley]

Passinglurker, that's looking great. I'll try out your part later tonight and let you know what I think.

Here's the third video, covering the Unity bits of the part making process. The most common reason I see here in the forums for people giving up on part making is 'not getting the Unity part,' which I don't understand. It's the simplest part of the process, by far, if you just watch the existing tutorials, or this one, and go step by step. It DOES work a little differently than other 3D programs. (That's the HARDEST PART about modding, remembering how to navigate in Blender, Photoshop, Unity and KSP! I need to come up with a set of config files for all 4 that make one set of keyboard and mouse shortcuts all do the same thing! Am I the only one who's held shift and moved the mouse in flight trying to pan around the object... and been surprised when I turned the engines on?) But all you really have to accomplish in Unity is getting everything in the right place, adding any necessary empty objects, clicking a couple of buttons for your collider and applying your texture. It took 7 minutes in the video.

It covers loading part tools, importing your model, setting up the texture, defining your attachment nodes, and setting a thrustTransform for the engines. Because it's short and I was clicking faster than usual when I made it, the narration isn't quite as step by step as the other videos. If you have any questions, let me know. The basic outline is -

Drag the PartTools directory into the grey Assets Box at the bottom of the Unity interface.

Import your model asset. Set the scale to 1 and apply.

Import your texture.

Create an empty game object.

Drag your model from the assets panel into the game object (in the hierarchy view)

Create a material, set it's shader type to KSP/Diffuse, and select your texture for it.

Drag the material from the assets panel onto your model, either in the hierarchy view, or in the 3D window.

Remove the mesh renderer from your collider object. Add a Physics>MeshCollider to the collider object. Click the checkbox to make it convex.

Position empty game objects at the top and bottom attachment points, with their blue arrows pointing away from your model. Give them names.

Position an empty game object at the engine nozzle with the blue arrow pointed away from your model. Name it thrustTransform.

Add a KSP>PartTools component to the top level empty game object.

Point the parttools component at the right directory, give it a filename and select a texture format.

Click the Write button in the parttools component to make your .mu and .mbm.

[artwhaley]

It lands!

Gimbal would help, especially with the limited torque in the little lander pod.. I've never set up gimbal on a multi-nozzle engine part, so I'm not certain exactly what the hierarchy needs to look like to make the nozzle models all gimbal correctly, but if you just add the module to the .cfg file, the thrust will vector correctly, even if the model doesn't.

And, like you said, the texture on the outer can could use some work, but the model itself looks great!

Edit - One more little thing - it looked to me like the bottom stack node was a bit low... there was about a 10cm gap between the bottom of the engine and the stock decoupler I set it on.

Art

Edited December 20, 2014 by artwhaley

[passinglurker]

http://i.imgur.com/ZTcuAqN.png

It lands!

Gimbal would help, especially with the limited torque in the little lander pod.. I've never set up gimbal on a multi-nozzle engine part, so I'm not certain exactly what the hierarchy needs to look like to make the nozzle models all gimbal correctly, but if you just add the module to the .cfg file, the thrust will vector correctly, even if the model doesn't.

The funny thing is I ran the stock rapier engine through the .mu importer and looked at how it was put together before making my own engine I simply don't under stand what I'm doing differently that's making it not work

And, like you said, the texture on the outer can could use some work, but the model itself looks great!

I didn't give the UV's enough space on that little 512x512 so that is as fine detailed as it would get presently so the way I see it I have three choices for improving the texture. Either A) bump up to 1024x1024 or try to rearrange the UV's and give the outside bits more space and finally C) both. The other issue is what to put on the top... is there a repository of popular cylinder toppers some where or am I going to have to rip one out of a stock texture myself?

Edit - One more little thing - it looked to me like the bottom stack node was a bit low... there was about a 10cm gap between the bottom of the engine and the stock decoupler I set it on.

oh right I think I know what happened there at one point I had to resize the part cause it imported to big and I forgot to adjust the part.cfg accordingly

[-ctn-]

Welp. I am releasing a "first draft" I guess. I'd like feedback on this part please! If you try it out, let me know what you think!

I'm not too sure about the foil texture but as far as workability goes I think it accomplishes what I wanted it to - which is give an LEM flair to KSP landers, toggle a flag decal ala LEM, and hide most of the engine (I use the LV-909), leaving only the exhaust nozzle visible, which reduces the height on the lander. Hopefully that equals more stable landing. At any rate, this was very fun, a very good first "real" mod, and I hope someone out there likes it.

Also to note - for my personal version I have the dust plume covers that the LEM had - but they mess up the collision mesh so although it looks nice, it ruins the modular ability of the surfaces. If anyone wants that version, send me a PM.

Try me!

[hoojiwana]

If you want just the gimbal with no nozzle movement, simply add the gimbal module to your config.

The gimbal module itself rotates the thrustTransform object in your Unity hierarchy. Anything that is a child of the thrustTransform will also rotate along with it, including particle FX and sub-models. So to get your nozzles working, have them as separate models, and put each one as a child of each thrustTransform.

And the Unity fbx importer loves to scale them really small, to fix that select your fbx file in Unity and set the scale to 1:

You may also be able to change the scale at which your modelling program exports at as well.

[passinglurker]

Got the gimbal working turns out I capitalized the transform I was telling the module to look for by mistake (derp ). Also fixed the bottom node and bumped the texture res up to 1024x1024 which I should be able to work with.(basically minor stuff I didn't have a lot of time to work on it today)

DOWNLOAD

[passinglurker]

I can't believe I didn't notice this before but the OP is missing a lot of important details the first thread had like the rules, a deadline, links to previous threads, etc...

[artwhaley]

The original deadline was set as midnight tomorrow, but I'm extending it a week, to try to get more submissions!

[passinglurker]

The original deadline was set as midnight tomorrow, but I'm extending it a week, to try to get more submissions!

Then you might want to say that in the first post not everyone is going to read the thread to the end. Also the first thread and the openpart mod threads that came before it had a common format for laying out the rules and expectations you might want to edit the first post to mimic that as well for readability sake other wise its going to be hard to get more people to participate as pointing them at the thread will just make them lost and confused.

[artwhaley]

Updated first post with links, as suggested by PassingLurker! The Deadline is Monday the 29th, now, so there's still plenty of time to get a part made!

[artwhaley]

ctn, I finally got a chance to try your part out! Sorry it took so long. It really gets the profile of the 909 down to a manageable size, and I like all the good real estate for attaching components. I like the IDEA of the LEM gold foil texture, but right now the shader is really showing off how flat it is. Maybe a good time to add a normal map to give it some texture?

Keep up the good work!

Art

[-ctn-]

Thanks for the response!

I do have a normal map attached but it's not very effective. I'll see if I can tweak it at all but if will probably have to wait until after all the Christmas craziness.

[passinglurker]

So are we going to get a submission thread at some point?

Any way here's the latest version and probably the last before the submission thread goes up. Its now has an emissive heat animation, and specular shading lots of touch up and I dropped that ugly John Deer green and yellow pain job, and dropped the bi-mode as I didn't see a need for the stack flow mode so this is now purely an All_Vessel LFO engine.

DOWNLOAD

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Edited December 29, 2014 by passinglurker

[artwhaley]

This IS the submission thread! So feel free to post final files/links to source files (blender, unity, photoshop, etc)

I'll put a poll up in this thread for voting tomorrow at midnight, or first thing Tuesday morning depending on the coffee supply here!

[passinglurker]

This IS the submission thread! So feel free to post final files/links to source files (blender, unity, photoshop, etc)

I'll put a poll up in this thread for voting tomorrow at midnight, or first thing Tuesday morning depending on the coffee supply here!

Honestly you need to follow the format set out by previous threads , because a competition like this is a chain the beauty of it is it feeds itself and doesn't end when the man who starts it disappears because who's running it always changes, but if you break the chain and do something different the competition falls apart because you break peoples expectations and cause them to loose interest. Thats why the original open part mod flopped it started down hill when kip tried something different with his texturing challange it got worse when ven did his "fit this in a fairing" challange and then wasn't around to answer questions. So you seriously need to....

1. Make a new thread for submissions.

2. format your first posts in both threads like the first posts in the first threads for readability and consistency sake.

3. and I guess to give people enough time to find it you need to extend the deadline again in the vain hope that there is secretly more than just me and a guy I advertised this to participating, and that there's a person or two just waiting for the submission thread to go up and that no potential participants had been made lost and confused by how different your first post is to the one in the previous thread and how it seems to lack any part explaining rules.

Rules (Based off the old Open Parts Mod Week Rules)

• Everything is open. How you handle licensing is up to you (if others can use your stuff) but you must post your source art (as a unity package), screen shots, your finished in-game part with its .cfg and license.txt (if others can use your stuff) packaged in a .zip file so others can learn from what you did. It's not just showing off, it's helping others learn. You also agree if your part wins that week to be included in the best of download pack.
  
• You will use constructive criticism only!
  
• We are here to learn and to teach, not to put people down. I am not a moderator but I can ban people from the contest that are rude or unhelpful with their comments.
  
• You will be open to critiques and constructive criticism of your work.
  
• If you are unclear on what those words mean look them up, but you will not take constructive critiques of your work personally.
  
• The Contest will start when the Part type is announced and will last exactly one week. The part shouldn't be overly complex and take up your whole week, this is just for people who work at different times and/or like to work in small amounts spread out across the week.
  
• 
  
• 
  
• Additions that were not part of the original requirements may be made by the part author, provided that the stated stat requirements are not changed.
  
• Submissions will be handled in this thread after the end date, up till the voting thread is made
  

If you are the winner and will be picking the next part.

The direction and constraints consisting of its size and purpose at a minimum. "Make an engine" (too general) or "Make the Death Star" (too complicated) is not a valid description.

"Make a 2.5m nuclear engine that looks like it was built in the 1960's" would be valid description.

1. The part has to be a single part
   
2. The part must be different visually than any previous part (be creative, if a probe core was done last week, do a science part this one)
   
3. Simple enough for beginners to make
   
4. Have some direction and constraint to it
   
5. Try not to go overboard with the part idea so as not result in people quitting
   
6. In the event that no one submits an entry before the end if the week, extend the time by 1 to 2 weeks which then if no one continues to submit, the hist is required to either abandon it or give it to a new, trusted host who will post a new idea while the old idea is officially open for use in another time
   

sorry about ranting about this a little but I really want to see these competitions take off again, and I honestly believe if that is going to happen that the way the host runs it needs to be predictable.

[artwhaley]

1. I think spreading this out over even MORE threads is a terrible idea. Few threads, bumped more often when people contribute is a much better idea than creating both discussion and submission threads for each challenge.

2. I intentionally ditched a lot of the 'contesty' parts of the last thread, because I wanted to see if they were part of why nobody but nli2work and myself participated then. We're both people with plenty of other modding projects to work on and we didn't need any further inspiration, but we did it to try to get others interested, and it didn't work. So I fiddled with the format this week to try to make it easier for newbies to wade in without worrying about some of the other stuff.

3. If anyone has a part they're working on, please post it here today!

I don't think, in it's current format it's going to take off again, and I don't think it's the wording of the first posts that's the problem. I tried running this week as more of a workshop than a contest, and it's had no more interest than last week. I recommend running the next thread however you see fit, and maybe it'll work out for you.

Art

[passinglurker]

Sooooooo how long has the poll been up?

[Helix935]

Sooooooo how long has the poll been up?

i have no idea but since he date at the first post says it closes at December 29 and since it has already been two days since then i should assume they were suppose to be closed by now and the winner announced now....

[passinglurker]

i have no idea but since he date at the first post says it closes at December 29 and since it has already been two days since then i should assume they were suppose to be closed by now and the winner announced now....

Actually the first post says it closes on the 5th. My point was when I found it no one had voted I had only noticed it because I'm bad at the internet and I check threads manually and reread them out of boredom instead of utilizing the forums ability to notify me of new posts. had I not posted no one would have known to vote at all possibly hence my point earlier of making a new thread as its much more visible for voting purposes. People are more likely to check out a new thread than an old one(if there are any professionals in analytic's reading this feel free to prove me wrong). Really its what I though he was going to do even if he was skipping the submission phase or at least make a post saying the poll was up.

Edited January 1, 2015 by passinglurker

[artwhaley]

The poll went up Tuesday morning. It's getting about the same rate of voting that the last one did. Again, I think creating more threads makes it harder for people to contribute. Keeping everything in one post means that all of the info pops up every time the post gets bumped... which keeps people who're just becoming aware from having to crawl all over the forum to figure out what's going on. When you post to an existing thread, you get the same visibility of a new thread... plus you send notifications to everyone who's subscribed to the thread... and I for one am more likely to read any thread in the mod sub-forums that has a few pages of replies behind it... because that tells me that it might be something worth reading... whereas brand new threads with few responses are something I'm more likely to skip, if I'm time crunched while reading, unless the title really grabs my attention.

The problem here is not lack of visibility, it's lack of widespread interest. If there were a dozen people participating, I might believe that tweaking the thread format could make the difference between 12 and 14 people getting involved. Your constant criticism of the format I've chosen for this week's challenge has put a sour taste in my mouth, but I'm trying to remain diplomatic and focus on the original goals of this series. If you win, you're more than welcome to format next week's challenge any way you want, and I really do wish you good luck with it. But I just don't think there are that many people interested in learning mod-making at any given time, so making a time-sensitive challenge just doesn't make a lot of sense. Those of us who are already doing it are busy enough with our own projects, and I think the prospect of 'competing' against the established modders makes this format intimidating for newbies, even if the challenge DOES happen to come up during the week they're ready to learn. If we're going to average 2 entrants per week, I don't think it's worth the effort. I certainly could have better spent all the time I've put into this thread and making a complete set of tutorial videos that nobody seems to be watching.

Art

[passinglurker]

Look after what you said a few posts ago I can get trying some drastic changes cause there isn't much to lose. What I just don't get is starting the poll and saying nothing not even a new post you just let it sit there for almost a whole day till someone happened across it by chance. How does that help anything other than trying to make an empty poll so that it looks like no one cares?

Anyway differences aside I think your time as host has yielded some valuable innovations for example the nature of the challenge. The first weeks challenge had a flaw of being uninspiring this weeks challenge was a notable improvement as instead of simply laying out a specific function and aesthetic it presented a problem many users can relate to and challenged them to fix it by any way they could imagine. It was open yet simple which lead to much more interest even if only two people wound up actually submitting parts it still did a better job getting the creative juices flowing.

[passinglurker]

when we say the poll closes at midnight january 5th do we mean the beginning or the end of january 5th?

[passinglurker]

Alright January 5th has came and went and I'm still at the top of the poll. Since I want this to work out I'm gonna run an interest check before starting the next round. it can be found here