Snap-To-Grid For Scale Tool

[raisins]

Hey is it possible to use grid snapping for the scale tool? The grid snapping works for the Move tool but it doesn't work for the scale tool.

I made this level with basic shapes available in the editor. The edges are not aligned because the scales are off. It's kind of hard to get it right.



Thanks.

[TattieBoJangle]

i will post a video soon m8 it may help it may not

[raisins]

Thanks I appreciate it.

[TattieBoJangle]

the way i do it is try and stick to squares as it helps and if you ever get a little bit that overlaps or doesn't scale properly i find it best to use the property panel to manually change the scale, the video below is a simple house but you can do complicated structures just takes more time but when you have it you can save it all as a prefab my only wish is when it saved it as a prefab it would put all the parts into a tree so its easy to select them all at one time

[raisins]

That's a good technique!

Performance wise how will it fair against stretched panels? I'm guessing it's better because each mesh are identical so it can be grouped together? (I don't know if this is how it works behind the scene) Where as having stretched panels mean multiple settings for each mesh with a difference size - 1 state change per unique mesh(?)

I really like this technique though, thanks for sharing.

[TattieBoJangle]

well that house was only 160 poly lol i have buildings that are a good 5000-8000 poly so as you can imagine if you were going to make a game using this way it would be great performance wise.

[raisins]

buildings that are a good 5000-8000

That's a lot! And yeah I agree the number of poly in your video is good.

Anyway, thanks again.

[SolarPortal]

nice work guys

No multi select in the video lol

1) We are planning on making multi-presets spawn into the scene and group into a header in the scene entity list if they are a grouped object. This is still to implement, but all the features and options are already stored in each preset you make.
We were not sure whether to drop all presets from the same file into a sub header even if they were not grouped.

By Groups: we mean entities that are part of the same design (e.g. your building) that can be placed onto 1 scene node to improve performance of the whole thing. When you select or drag this, only the 1 sceneNode that is referencing all entities will move and take everything else with it.

In Preset files, the entities can still be seperated and come back into the scene as seperate objects. For example, you could store many mechanics in one preset and drag everything you need into the scene from one preset and you would want them to be seperated rather than grouped together.

2) As for performance, this option of creating a building will be better once the grouping is in place.
There are also plans of batching all the meshes together essentially making it one single mesh which will lead to huge performance gains.
Then the other side or technique we can use when integrated will be occlusion culling, which works really well with modular built designs as it can clip away what it doesnt see.

3) Snap scaling is not yet in the engine because our scaling does not work from absolute unit values. instead the scale is relative to the base scale of the mesh.
A mesh 10 meters across may have a scale of "x=1,y=1,z=1", yet a small 10cm sphere will also have a scale of "x=1,y=1,z=1".

[raisins]

I made a demo map (see below) using this technique today and it worked really well. One problem I found: it was difficult having to click on the top right of the screen to change the grid size everytime I add-in a different mesh. It would be nice to have someway of storing different grid sizes and someway of switching between each one using hotkeys? (mock up below ) It would be very useful.



I've got these sizes for my custom prefabs and as you can see there's a lot of variables to choose from and switch to

Code: Select all

Floor            271.008926 2.0 243.492
Sphere -          6.820796 7.031798 6.820796
Box -             7.288 7.288 7.288

Stairs Warped -       23.0 32.0 32.5
Stairs Shifted -       23.0 32.0 32.258819
Stairs Ramp -          23.0 32.0 32.707107
Stairs Normal -       23.0 32.0 32.0

L Cube -          8.0 32.0 7.992
M Cube -          4.0 32.0 4.0
S Cube -          2.0 32.0 2.0

L Cylinder -          8.0 32.0 8.0
M Cylinder -          4.0 32.0 4.0
S Cylinder -          2.0 32.0 2.0

L Chamffered Cube -       8.0 32.0 7.992
M Chamffered Cube -       4.0 32.0 4.0
S Chamffered Cube -       2.0 32.0 2.0

S Single Door Thick -       11.5 20.0 2.0
S Single Door Thin -       11.5 20.0 1.0
S Double Door Thick -       23.0 20.0 2.0
S Double Door Thin -       23.0 20.0 1.0

M Single Door Thick -       23.0 32.0 2.0
M Single Door Thin -       23.0 32.0 1.0
M Double Door Thick -       46.0 32.0 2.0
M Double Door Thin -      46.0 32.0 2.0

L Single Door Thick -       46.0 64.0 2.0
L Single Door Thin -       46.0 64.0 1.0
L Double Door Thick -       92.0 64.0 2.0
L Double Door Thin -       92.0 64.0 1.0


My demo map:



Thanks,
raisins

[SolarPortal]

good idea I am sure this is possible.

There are a couple of jobs on at the moment, but i will see if i can fit this in afterward them.

My current tasks are: Material System Rewrite, bit of website work and then the editor plugins features. After those, i will take a look into this as it shouldn't be too big a task

[Shando]

Hi raisins,

Almost a year ago, I created a standalone Level Creator for Skyline (using Qt, xml and C++), which I never quite finished for one reason or another It basically allows you to create the complete Skyline Scene File from within an external application, which you can then just load up in Skyline. From the few tests I did, it worked fine

If you are interested in giving it a go (that goes for any of the Skyline community), let me know and I'll send you a download link.

I can't guarantee it will work 100% correctly, but as I said before, it seemed to work fine from the few tests I did.

Regards

Shando

[raisins]

@Shando yes please, I'll give it a go.

@SolarPortal thank you, I appreciate it.

[StarFire]

We do have planned an advancement on the grid system where it will work in conjunction with a new editor for rapid level construction from multi preset building blocks. just need to get caught up with current tasks first ( completing new particle editor overhaul, the dynamic character creation editor including some more character and ai scripts and the new FPS system ) so it may be a few months away

[raisins]

Tattie, in your video how did you select multiple objects (to create presets) in the world editor? Did you press shift and click? I tried shift and click but it didn't work. I'm using the latest version.

Thanks.

Edit: wow, discard that. I found it out: it's ctrl + click.

[SolarPortal]

use "Ctrl + LMB" click to multi select and "Shift + LMB + Drag" on gizmo to duplicate

[lordalmighty1]

shift +w,a,s,d also makes the camera move around the map quicker aswell.