Starfire back in development

[StarFire]

Thanks, np on the movie good to show them off

[Sage1969]

That is the best shadowing I have seen yet, really has a true light feel mostly around the character (imo).

Have been doing heavy work with the Quixel stuff the past couple of months. I like a less saturated feel than even their stuff so I think it looks great. If you really want to match the deeper darker look of Bridge just darken the base color a bit, it will match. Have a real nice collection of stuff using just Quixel and Paintshop Pro. Quixels smooth blending of multiple textures allows for some nice creations but I do find soil and rock to be the most tedious with repeat and all.

What is it though with their file names? The actual file name is different than the in Quixel editor name. So if you want to add a displacement layer from another texture you go from "Smooth Granite" to looking through folders for "smooth_rock_ksfdhbhhuaki". lol

Anyway

Great work there! Nice, nice, nice.

[StarFire]

lol yes the quixel naming convention, what can i say ....

That is the best shadowing I have seen yet, really has a true light feel mostly around the character (imo).

Thank you for the Awesome high praise. We are feeling very happy with the new rendering.

We are adding a saturation adjustment to the render panel along with other tone controls. These will be scene properties saved with the scene and could be exposed to lua for in game changes on trigger volumes.

[monkeyfrogstudio]

We are adding a saturation adjustment to the render panel along with other tone controls.

Will Skyline v2 have post processing for things like color grading (filmic, black and white/grey, etc.)? I hope so because this really helps to set the tone of a game ... horror vs. sci-fi, for example, where a horror game might want a more subdued palette and sci-fi might want more bright colors ... depending.

[StarFire]

totally agree and yes there will be other colour correction/adjustment post effects. The basic ones are for that quick hands on adjustment.

[monkeyfrogstudio]

Having the ability to import our own LUT files would go a long way, too.

[StarFire]

We have had a chat about filic colour grading now we have good hdri suppoort, it would make perfect sense to continue down that route with the LUT files. I will look into it and see what i can do.

[monkeyfrogstudio]

Awesome! It's become pretty standard these days, it seems. I'm used to using LUT for video editing, but now I see them being used for real-time 3D game engines, too.

[StarFire]

Another update; I have been working on the Game Objects improving the system. The new extended GO now works with entities alreay in the scene!
Key [R] - Replicates the selected object in the scene. Can use the GO features such as random rotation and scale or snap to the grid, or not choise is yours.

Key [T] - Translator moves any selected obejct to the mouses cursor. Again the GO features are available.

Heres a quick movie of this in action.

[T4r4ntul4]

Looks good.

(any idea when we can test your engine? Just curious)

[StarFire]

Well for the curious, I can say this....

Seriously we are closer to the beta release than the start, which is very good. Can not put a time on it though but the jobs are getting done, each day we make the engine more stable. There is still at least 6 weeks before we can start chatting about a release. But it still stands on how quickly the jobs come together. Sometimes what we think imay be a simple straight forward job that should only take a couple of days, but turns out to be a nightmare of a task requiring major upgrades and weeks of time. Conversly the huge jobs can take up less time.All I can honistly say is that we are moving forwards at a good pace and as soon as we get the signs of stability we will go beta then add the cool new undisclosed features we have in the background.

[monkeyfrogstudio]

Question - What are the keyboard shortcuts (if you have them) to switch between move, rotate, and scale when simply manipulating an object? The reason I ask is the standards in most 3D apps, including game editors like Unreal and Unity, are W, E, and R. So, if "R" is being used for Replicate, this would preclude Skyline v2 from having a standard keymap for these.

[StarFire]

we have already broke the key map lol

Select - Move gizmo
CTRL - rotate gizmo
CTRL + ALT - scale gizmo
ALT - Orbit object and pan with center wheel
SHIFT + Drag - duplicate
WASD - Move
QE - camera local up / down
R - Replicate
T - Translate
G - Grid snap
V - Vertex Snap
F9 - Play Game / Stop Game
F10 - Animate
F3 - Screen Grab of scene

[monkeyfrogstudio]

Thank you.

Will Skyline v2 allow the end-user to change the key map if they want to?

On a side note - I think it would be a good idea to look at what the industry standards are for both 3D modeling apps and 3D game engine editors and adopt as much of that as you can as the default for Skyline v2. The reason being, it makes it easier for people to come from other software and begin to use Skyline without having to initially look at the docs. It can be a pain, for example, to be working all day in your modeling application of choice using whatever keys they have mapped and then have to switch to a game editor and try to get your brain to switch gears to yet another key mapping. So, for the things that are the same between most of them, the key mapping should be the same, when possible.

The WASD keys are unique to game editors and games for movement, so they should definitely stay. Yet, most 3D modeling apps and game editors use W, E, and R to toggle between translate (W), rotate (E), and scale (R). The WASD keys only work for movement in conjunction with a mouse button being pressed at the same time. Normally, it's continuously pressing the right-mouse button while using the WASD keys to move about. This is true for both Unity and Unreal. So, if Skyline v2 used the same key map, then it would be easier for people to move from these popular game engines and over to using Skyline.

Blender is it's own thing, when it comes to 3D modeling apps. But I believe the other main 3D apps use W, E, and R to also toggle between translate, rotate, and scale. I know that MODO does. Even the Blender Industry Key Map (https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/late ... tible.html) uses W, E, and R for the transform tools. Looking at the developer page for this key map, they show that 3DS Max and Maya use this as well (https://developer.blender.org/T54963 - under Transform Tools). So, using W, E, and R is pretty close to an industry standard (Max, Maya, MODO, Unreal Engine, and Unity). Thus, re-configuring Skyline's key map to match would bring Skyline inline with industry standards, making it easier for newcomers to get up to speed quickly when working in Skyline's editor.

[Sage1969]

While others are asking questions I will take a moment to ask one.

When you save a preset will v.2 take a screen shot of the open file you are saving as to provide a thumbnail for the preset? There are a number of steps to do it now (and time consuming). Just curious as it is nice to have a thumb along with your preset.

Good deal with the objects below, Looks great!

[StarFire]

Ok Sage1969 I think that should be pos we will have a look for you.

Do you save the preset by menu?
I drag asset to the asset manager preset folder then click the camera icon.

@monkeyfrogstudio just looking into your request atm to see how it feels.

[Sage1969]

Interesting, I can drag out of the asset manager to the editor but nothing drags from the editor to the asset manager.

[monkeyfrogstudio]

@monkeyfrogstudio just looking into your request atm to see how it feels.

Thanks.

To sum up:

WASD + RMB to move about the viewport
W, E, R for Translate, Scale, and Rotate (W operates as Translate when no mouse button is being pressed)
Definitely keep the ALT command to orbit selection.

[StarFire]

I am currently running a version with these keys, shall see how it feel over the next few days. Although so far I am adjusting.

@Sage1969 - sorry i was not clear, you can drag the object from the scene entity list to the asset manager, not directly from the scene view.

[Sage1969]

Much better, that suits my needs. I had not yet figured that one out. thanks

p.s. glad to see you guys getting excited again

[Sage1969]

Should I wait for v2 to make the rest of my presets? Hate to do it twice if it is going to have its own install and not carry over

[StarFire]

We are trying to keep it as backward compatable as possible as can be. There is a built in upgrader for the presets as we have many early presets that needed upgrading and most still work. If you are using scripts on the preset objects, there has been a few changes to lua which will need a small tweek here and there.
We will get you a beta copy as soon as pos, gettting closer eadch day.

I have to mention I am loving the new work flows, you can populate as scene much quicker now. Only problem now is that you have to pay attention to the performance tweeks in the entity properties such as:

* turn off constant update.
* Set a visability distance
* Set as static if its never going to move.
* If it a directional light for a small area set shadows to fixed if there is no interaction.
* turn off casting shadows for decals

[monkeyfrogstudio]

I am currently running a version with these keys, shall see how it feel over the next few days. Although so far I am adjusting.

Very cool. Thanks for looking into this.

As I am sure you already know, you can try this out in either Unreal or Unity to see how it functions there. They're both free downloads. In any case, can't wait to see the first beta.

[StarFire]

We have both been fine with the new editor changes, so now you have to press RMB to move and look while [W E R] are translation gizmo.
I have reworked the game objects library to include all enabled asset library game object folders to be combined into on display i.e. all same name folders now share . This means you can have lots of go libs and see them all at once. This solves a problem for us on how to install asset packs into the asset library yet still access basic system go.

[monkeyfrogstudio]

We have both been fine with the new editor changes, so now you have to press RMB to move and look while [W E R] are translation gizmo.

Awesome! Glad it worked out. Following industry standards, as much as possible, helps us all, I believe. Especially those that will come to Skyline from other apps. Thanks for considering my request, too.