Couple things about beta5
by Santiago Marina · in Artist Corner · 07/16/2006 (8:11 am) · 6 replies
Well..i have been looking at it for like an hour now and i have a couple suggestions and a couple little bugs i found
in Materials...if i chose TGEDEMO or UVCHART folders and i try to see the textures inside by expanding the texture list, constructor crashes (it only does it with those two folders, in fact i tried adding a new folder with my own textures and it worked fine, althought it had like 100 textures and it took a while to add them all, but it worked)
the new texturing options are working really good, but i have a couple things i noticed while using it:
1) when i change the rotation, or the scale it doesnt show up in the 3d view until i click on it, it should be real time. I know its a detail but its very time consuming to be clicking in the 3d view and back into the texturing properties all the time
2) is there a button to hide the selection mask (or whatever it is called)? When i select a face it turns green showing me that is selected but texturing like this is not well, since im not looking at the face as it will actually look when i finish texturing. There should be a way in which constructor still shows me that the face is selected but without the green thingy (maybe highlighting the edges)
3) and about texturing, there should be a "center" buttom together with the left, right, top and bottom (is specially useful for rounded textures or for textures with a draw in the middle, like a painting)
oh...and one more thing...is the scaling brush option (planar scale) going to stay like this? i dont know the others but for me is almost impossible to get something normal done with it, it totally negates the grid.
there should be a button to kinda expand a brush in the direction you want instead of what the planar scale does now (which is...if i want the brush taller it expandes both from the top and the bottom making me having to move it to whenever i want)
anyway keep up to good work, constructor is looking pretty nice
in Materials...if i chose TGEDEMO or UVCHART folders and i try to see the textures inside by expanding the texture list, constructor crashes (it only does it with those two folders, in fact i tried adding a new folder with my own textures and it worked fine, althought it had like 100 textures and it took a while to add them all, but it worked)
the new texturing options are working really good, but i have a couple things i noticed while using it:
1) when i change the rotation, or the scale it doesnt show up in the 3d view until i click on it, it should be real time. I know its a detail but its very time consuming to be clicking in the 3d view and back into the texturing properties all the time
2) is there a button to hide the selection mask (or whatever it is called)? When i select a face it turns green showing me that is selected but texturing like this is not well, since im not looking at the face as it will actually look when i finish texturing. There should be a way in which constructor still shows me that the face is selected but without the green thingy (maybe highlighting the edges)
3) and about texturing, there should be a "center" buttom together with the left, right, top and bottom (is specially useful for rounded textures or for textures with a draw in the middle, like a painting)
oh...and one more thing...is the scaling brush option (planar scale) going to stay like this? i dont know the others but for me is almost impossible to get something normal done with it, it totally negates the grid.
there should be a button to kinda expand a brush in the direction you want instead of what the planar scale does now (which is...if i want the brush taller it expandes both from the top and the bottom making me having to move it to whenever i want)
anyway keep up to good work, constructor is looking pretty nice
#2
I will put it on my list to allow edge highlighting in Constructor as well as a more obvious way to toggle the mask on and off. You can toggle the texture reference and texture planes over in the Preferences form.
As I mentioned in the release notes you don't have to click in the 3D view, you can hit Enter twice or click the Make button. This is so that you could tweak scale, rotation, and shift all at once and then hit Make to have it take effect.
So are you guys wanting it to apply immediately ever time you change an individual value?
My bad...I just plain forgot to add a "Center" option. This is fairly straighforward and I will look into it when I get back from my trip.
I was planning on adding a new scaling tool to act more like Hammer's (non-uniform) but you guys had seemed to indicate that the texturing tools were a higher priority.
Dave, it does have a totally different mouse cursor when you have the Scale tool activated (a plus instead of an arrow) and this was designed to help you realize that you have a tool activated. Are you saying that it should have a "scale" icon instead and then you wouldn't make that mistake?
Currently the only tools that don't use a different icon are the new texture tools. I decided to try the arrow because it made it more obvious that you could still click around the scene to pick different faces and because dragging the mouse around the scene only changed your selection and not your geometry.
07/16/2006 (12:17 pm)
There currently isn't a way to really turn off the green "mask" however if you play with $pref::Constructor::selectedFaceColor and set it to "255 255 255" then it will disappear. This will make it hard to tell which face is selected since it isn't doing anything special with the edges but you could play with the color till you find one not so intrusive. I would note that Hammer only allows you to toggle the mask on or off and has no edge highlighting either.I will put it on my list to allow edge highlighting in Constructor as well as a more obvious way to toggle the mask on and off. You can toggle the texture reference and texture planes over in the Preferences form.
As I mentioned in the release notes you don't have to click in the 3D view, you can hit Enter twice or click the Make button. This is so that you could tweak scale, rotation, and shift all at once and then hit Make to have it take effect.
So are you guys wanting it to apply immediately ever time you change an individual value?
My bad...I just plain forgot to add a "Center" option. This is fairly straighforward and I will look into it when I get back from my trip.
I was planning on adding a new scaling tool to act more like Hammer's (non-uniform) but you guys had seemed to indicate that the texturing tools were a higher priority.
Dave, it does have a totally different mouse cursor when you have the Scale tool activated (a plus instead of an arrow) and this was designed to help you realize that you have a tool activated. Are you saying that it should have a "scale" icon instead and then you wouldn't make that mistake?
Currently the only tools that don't use a different icon are the new texture tools. I decided to try the arrow because it made it more obvious that you could still click around the scene to pick different faces and because dragging the mouse around the scene only changed your selection and not your geometry.
#3
about the "still selected tool", i didnt have much trouble with it, except that there are some things that are kept selected and some others that automatically deactivate when u finish using it...its just a detail, i will probably stop making those silly mistakes just by using the program...
but for example: if i create a cube, the "create cube" tool is deactivated as a hit enter...the knife and slice tools deactive everytime i made a cut, but as the same time the translate and scale tools dont deactivate when are used...
its just a thought, i didnt actually have that problem Dave said
and one more thing, the introduction of the Y buttom is a HIT :P cant stop using it now (specially for slicing things...)
07/16/2006 (12:26 pm)
Oh sorry, i must have missed the "hit enter twice" i was hitting it once only or clicking in the "make" buttom, my mistake :Pabout the "still selected tool", i didnt have much trouble with it, except that there are some things that are kept selected and some others that automatically deactivate when u finish using it...its just a detail, i will probably stop making those silly mistakes just by using the program...
but for example: if i create a cube, the "create cube" tool is deactivated as a hit enter...the knife and slice tools deactive everytime i made a cut, but as the same time the translate and scale tools dont deactivate when are used...
its just a thought, i didnt actually have that problem Dave said
and one more thing, the introduction of the Y buttom is a HIT :P cant stop using it now (specially for slicing things...)
#4
07/16/2006 (1:31 pm)
The + cursor is okay, however I was thinking truly more iconic, like what 3DS Max has. For example, when you are scaling, the cursor changes to one of two triangles to show you the type of scaling operation being applied. With the Rotate tool selected, the cursor becomes a circular arrow when you move it over the selected object. Move becomes directional arrows, linking selections makes it a 'link selection' cursor, things like that. Very clear and obvious, iconicly driven cursors that show what the active tool is doing. 
#5
Santiago:
Thanks for the feedback. I'll break down your points into separate sections:
Materials Crashing
Does your crashing with those two albums only happen with the popups directly on the Materials Form or does it also happen with the Texture Browser window? Using the Form menu in the upper left of the Materials Form, does Constructor still crash if you choose a different Texture Popup Style?
Brush Scaling
To scale from a point other than the selection center try an Action Center of Mouse or Tool (ALT+M) and place the mouse at the bottom of the brush. Now when you drag it will scale from that point and keep the base of your brush grounded.
Now that said, this won't be the only method for scaling for v1. What I think you're after (and correct me if I'm wrong) is more along the lines of being able to drag out the brush's bounding box to resize it. And of course then bounding box handles would snap to the grid. This Size tool is something I've already started some work on but didn't get it into beta 5. Maybe I should make this tools week :)
Tool Persistence
The Transform tools stick around so that you may continually refine your geometry. You can also take advantage of continually clicking Make or pressing ENTER or keep reapplying the same transform, such as slowly rotating brushes until they are exactly how you'd like them (undo would be nice here :o)
The geometry creation tools deactivate themselves so that you can immediately do something with your newly created geometry. But if you'd like the tool to stick around you may use the Make & Cont operation or SHIFT-ENTER.
Something we could add is a preference to make the default operation for the geometry creation tools to be a make and continue and then you'd manually deactivate the tool such as by pressing ESC. Does that sound like a worthwhile addition?
'Y' Shortcut
Glad you like it! :o) It was a last minute addition I put in last week, and one of those 'Doh!' moments as I should have had it in there ages ago.
Dave:
We'd still like to have a different cursor for each tool or at least each tool type but can't make any promises. We just need take the time to build them and add them in. I've put you down as a strong supporter. :o) In the mean time you'll have to make note of the current tool's name displayed in the bottom right of the 3D views.
Thanks guys!
- LightWave Dave
07/17/2006 (12:32 pm)
Greetings!Santiago:
Thanks for the feedback. I'll break down your points into separate sections:
Materials Crashing
Does your crashing with those two albums only happen with the popups directly on the Materials Form or does it also happen with the Texture Browser window? Using the Form menu in the upper left of the Materials Form, does Constructor still crash if you choose a different Texture Popup Style?
Brush Scaling
To scale from a point other than the selection center try an Action Center of Mouse or Tool (ALT+M) and place the mouse at the bottom of the brush. Now when you drag it will scale from that point and keep the base of your brush grounded.
Now that said, this won't be the only method for scaling for v1. What I think you're after (and correct me if I'm wrong) is more along the lines of being able to drag out the brush's bounding box to resize it. And of course then bounding box handles would snap to the grid. This Size tool is something I've already started some work on but didn't get it into beta 5. Maybe I should make this tools week :)
Tool Persistence
The Transform tools stick around so that you may continually refine your geometry. You can also take advantage of continually clicking Make or pressing ENTER or keep reapplying the same transform, such as slowly rotating brushes until they are exactly how you'd like them (undo would be nice here :o)
The geometry creation tools deactivate themselves so that you can immediately do something with your newly created geometry. But if you'd like the tool to stick around you may use the Make & Cont operation or SHIFT-ENTER.
Something we could add is a preference to make the default operation for the geometry creation tools to be a make and continue and then you'd manually deactivate the tool such as by pressing ESC. Does that sound like a worthwhile addition?
'Y' Shortcut
Glad you like it! :o) It was a last minute addition I put in last week, and one of those 'Doh!' moments as I should have had it in there ages ago.
Dave:
We'd still like to have a different cursor for each tool or at least each tool type but can't make any promises. We just need take the time to build them and add them in. I've put you down as a strong supporter. :o) In the mean time you'll have to make note of the current tool's name displayed in the bottom right of the 3D views.
Thanks guys!
- LightWave Dave
#6
i THINK that this crash wasnt in the previous beta, i should check that too.
Anyway, Using the popup DOES NOT CRASH, it doesnt work if i click in the red circle.
if i click there while having TGEDEMO or UVCHARTS selected, it crashes
About the tool persistant, as i said in the other post, i didnt particularly have a problem with that...is just an issue of being used to work with a different editor :P
About Brush Scaling: yes, actually i would like to have a more easy way of resizing an already created brush, like in the hammer way (yes, i used to be a hammer user thats probably why i want everything that was in there... :P) ...pics:
and now that we are talking about adding stuff.... is there a way of deleting one of the parts of a brush that i slice? the default tool keeps both parts, which sometimes i dont want (continue with hammer, it has 3 modes in which one keeps the left side, the other one keeps the right side and the last one keeps both... its not a TOP PRIORITY thing of course, but it helps doing everything faster)
and about slice thing...i dont know why but sometimes i cant slice a brush...i have the brush selected and i use te slice tool but nothing happens to the brush, and i dont know the reason (it happens sometimes only)
07/17/2006 (3:14 pm)
About the materials thingi THINK that this crash wasnt in the previous beta, i should check that too.
Anyway, Using the popup DOES NOT CRASH, it doesnt work if i click in the red circle.
if i click there while having TGEDEMO or UVCHARTS selected, it crashes
About the tool persistant, as i said in the other post, i didnt particularly have a problem with that...is just an issue of being used to work with a different editor :P
About Brush Scaling: yes, actually i would like to have a more easy way of resizing an already created brush, like in the hammer way (yes, i used to be a hammer user thats probably why i want everything that was in there... :P) ...pics:
and now that we are talking about adding stuff.... is there a way of deleting one of the parts of a brush that i slice? the default tool keeps both parts, which sometimes i dont want (continue with hammer, it has 3 modes in which one keeps the left side, the other one keeps the right side and the last one keeps both... its not a TOP PRIORITY thing of course, but it helps doing everything faster)
and about slice thing...i dont know why but sometimes i cant slice a brush...i have the brush selected and i use te slice tool but nothing happens to the brush, and i dont know the reason (it happens sometimes only)
Associate Dave Calabrese
Cerulean Games
Another things that threw me out of whack very often was always needing to shut off a tool before moving things around. Best example of this is the Planar Scale tool, actually. I would select a brush, select the tool, make my changes, then go to move the brush - only to instead scale the brush since the tool was still active! I must have done that 80 times last night, and thanks to the undo feature not yet being implemented, I was able to notice just how often I did that. In 3DS Max, I never have had this issue - I believe the difference is the iconic cursor. Something about looking at a cursor that looks like what the tool does helps to let me know what is currently active. So, I'm not sure if you guys are planning iconic cursors or not (I've seen them mentioned), but after seeing this, I think it's the perfect solution.