Now that you have your idea it’s time to actually begin the modelling process. Make sure you have both taniwha’s plugin and the Texel Density Checker installed and set up and ready to go.
To ensure a baseline level of consistency across your parts, you’ll want to adhere to the following:
Oh, and remember that KSP’s part sizes are defined by diameter, but Blender’s circle and cylinder creation tools require you to provide a radius: if you are making a 2.5m part, for example, you’ll need to input 1.25m as the circular radius. You can also type in 2.5/2 into the field and Blender will do the maths for you.
Depending on your ideation process you may want to incorporate multiple variants into your engine. We can prepare for this by considering what parts will change and what won’t with each variant. For example, most CryoEngines are modelled with the engine mount as a seperate object from the actual engine “body”, and the script merely toggles with mount is being used—this will save you a lot of work in the long run when creating multiple variants.
You can model each variant side by side, but they will eventually be placed on top of each other, parented to the same empty.
Obviously as a game asset we can’t exactly do highly resource-taxing subd modelling, and hence we’ll need to smooth shade our model while ensuring we can still control our sharp edges.
There are a few ways to do this, but my preferred method is to set Auto Smooth to its maximum setting of 180 degrees, and use the Mark Sharp feature on any edges I want creased. I’ve seen others use Edge Split as well, but I prefer the former method as it doesn’t require me to stay on top of my modifiers stack, especially if using other features like Array or Mirror.
It’s customary to make the engine mounting ring a tad smaller than the actual diameter of the stack size you’re working on, such that when an engine plate shroud, a fairing, or even your own shroud is placed over top, it doesn’t clip.