Question Idiot's guide to making addons?

[Squatchmotsu]

Hi! First of all I've searched and searched and searched and searched. I'm new to Orbiter and downloaded 2010 P1. Learned it, funfun, etc. Wanted some bitchin' add-ons; Orion CEV's, Areseses, and so on. Start downloading them, few, if any, work. Okay, a lot of them don't work, they require other addons. Install them still no luck. The ones that do work work in spotty ways, I can't add them in the scenario editor. So, after all that, I say "Hey. I can model, and texture, how hard can it be?" So I start. Made a bitching mesh. Mesh Wizard doesn't work (Vista). Hours pass. Fiddling. Googling. Downloading. More fiddling. Here I am.

I can code C++ fine. But I guess I was just unprepared for the complexity of getting a ship into orbiter. I am wanting to make my own Mars mission, overall in the style of any of the DRM's or constellation or whatever we're doing now. 2010 P1 runs great on my computer and I don't want to step down but I am having compatibility issues left and right. Is there an Idiot's guide to making addons or something? Please help!

 

[Moach]

what did you use to make the mesh?
if you're working with 3dsMax, you don't really need the meshwisard, theres a exporter script that creates the .msh file right away...

anyways, in the orbitersdk/doc folder, you'll find a set of very enlightening files wthat should give you a good run-down of the whole process, have you read those?


i hear you on the "many addons just don't work" deal... we all have the problem to some extent... which is why it's a good thing to guarantee you have a few rather "non-optional" addons (pretty much all of Dan Steph's work) before anything else....

a few addons are dependency-free (my WIP G42-200 Starliner is too, so far), but i guess thats a minority... most require other stuff, some more than others


if you need anything else, the forums will be here... i also recommend you check the "resources for addon devs" sticky on the OrbiterSDK forum, lots of good info there :thumbup:

 

[Wishbone]

First off, have you installed spacecraft3 and BrianJ's fix for it? Second, ShuttlePB source code is your friend.

 

[Squatchmotsu]

Hi Guys! Thanks for your help. I am using Google Sketchup 7, extracting .dae, converting to .fbx, then to .3ds, and finally to .msh using mshmaker. I have animator as well but strongly prefer sketchup. This morning I Made a quick n dirty space capsule mesh, converted it to a .msh, renamed it "ShuttleA.msh" and stuck it in .meshes/shuttlea/. The mesh appeared just fine, black and untextured and oriented wrong but it was in game. Now in the SDK there's a little mesh tool gizmo, seems like it can handle my orientation problem. And I think texturing in Orbiter is more or less like other 3d whathaveyous. So! My question now is:

1) Is there any utility other than mesh wizard that can be used to specify thruster configuration, weight, etc. I can code it I just don't even want to start doing so until I know I have no other choice
2) What should my next step be?

I know, I know, I can search, but man, I've searched a LOT. I don't wanna. Thanks again for your generous help!

Also yes I have Spacecraft3 and am starting to hunt for the fix, didn't know there was one. Thanks.