#21 Well, if that's the case, we need know the upper limit for number of brushes and work from there. If you plan on making an entire level out of interiors (or something to that effect) make it out of smaller pieces/segments; that way you also have more control and keep track of possible issues / modify / export easier. Making LOD's is also easier for smaller segments.

#22 I completely agree, Its something that needs to be well documented because its the kind of things that can really complicated a work flow if you arn't aware of it before hand.

#23 Texture shifting/scaling

Thanks Apparatus, I thought there were something fishy about those buttons ;-)
But it's also there when I'm not using the scrollbutton, -sometimes it's just off by -0.01 even for the numbers i type in... It would be nice to get on a bugfix todo list...

#24 @Greg:

I've fixed some problems in constructor that caused slowdowns due to a large number of brushes - are you using the current version?

#25 Good point Jaimi: we assume everyone is talking about the last version/patch available unless stated otherwise.

#26 How about the best way to make a 100% self contained hollow area? For underground dungeons where you want complete light control.

#27 You can have complete light control. If we are talking Underground Dungeons then we will need to remove the sunlight from the equation (and from the mission that is); the rest is simple:

1. Ambient (fake) lights for a good lighting / visibility
2. Local lights - for those places where you have light emitters : torches, fires, etc.

When you want to create caves out of dif/interiors try to sketch first on paper the very basic shape of the dungeon. Hollow is the first tool when you think of a cave but it's basically a cube. What you need to do is start with the floor / path. Then add the side walls - something like this < _ > and then the ceiling. Or, make the walls a bit taller and that will make a nice sense of depth (fades away in the fog above).

Keep it simple rule works especially here. If you are using TGEA, normal maps will help you even more to convey the wall of a dungeon. If the wall is made of rock; if it's a crafted wall, made of bricks or whatever, it's even more simple to do.

I think we should cover somewhere making organic-looking shapes with Constructor.

#28 @ Jaimi:

Yes I am fully up to do date. I also have the dso that you sent me to fix the resetting of the value in fields. I check the wiki regularly for updates. My current version number is: 1.051

I defiantly wouldn't have the tenacity to be asking for help or highlighting problems unless I thought I was up to do date.

:)

@ Apparatus:

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Suggestion: I realize that all applications have an upper limit to what they are capable of that is usually relevant to what they are designed to do. Of course, having everything be super open ended is always nice, but it isn't always the case or the best way to design something, depending on its purpose.

I am not necessarily saying this is a huge problem that needs to be fixed, just that it can be a major source of frustration and if the user isn't aware of it when going into a project it can lead to them having false assumptions about what they can do or how they can do it, which ultimately can lead to a lot of wasted time.

In the spirit of this topic I would suggest that we have some kind of list with common misconceptions about Binary Space Partitioning and Constructor as a whole. This way people, especially those new to BSP modeling or constructor, can get vital information up front before they start a project.

The wiki and some of the help written by Garage Games (as well as the interior guide by apparatus) have gone a long way to doing this, but I think there is still room for Constructor-specific issues, and perhaps examples of projects that would be ideal for BSP modeling and those that should be done using alternative techniques/tools.

This would essentially be like a "Before You Start" tips page that could be updated easily and quickly as things change. It would of course be in addition to more detailed documentation. Its just a quick way of conveying important information.

#29 Okay I did some more research into the reversed spot lights that I talked about in a previous post in this topic and it turns out I was wrong about the details. Sorry about that.


The real deal is that spot lights are messed up regardless of whether or not a brush is hollowed out or not. The hollowed brush thing was just illusion I fabricated for myself on accident due to the fact that spotlights work some of the time but not others.

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Bug: If I create a spotlight with the default heading of 0 and pitch of 0 then everything is fine. However, the moment I start rotating it in either the Y or X axis the the lighting and the light mesh (the little light mesh with the yellow cone coming out of it) no longer correspond with one another.

A quick way to see the issue is to give a spot light a heading of 0 and a pitch 90. With these settings the light will now point in the opposite direction it's suppose to, and whats stranger if it is rotated in the Z axis the light will actually drift farther or close away.

Finally, I found out that this is a new bug introduced by the updates that came after 1.03.

If you try the same test in 1.03 the spot light works as expected.
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@Jaimi:

I know that you said you fixed some of the latency issues with selection in your updates. But I loaded a scene up with 2000 brushes in it and then timed how long it took for the selection to respond and it was, from what I could tell, exactly the same delay on 1.03 and 1.051.

At that point I thought I was doing something wrong so I uninstalled constructor and then re-installed and did the test over again with a clean build and got the same results.

#30 I never got a chance to test constructor because it most time crash at startup reinstall didn't help then i installed it on my laptop - same result : it start one or two times then it keep crashing. When I got a new pc i tried it again same result. So I allways wonder that some people report they work with constructor ;)

#31 Are you using a Mac? I haven't had a problem with it on Windows myself, but I know a lot of people have had issues on the Mac.

#32 Thomas, go to this link for help in your case. Post your computer specs, OS, video card info and all before hoping for a response. This thread is for problems using Constructor, not a troubleshooting guide.

#33 Oops! Sorry to jump into your topic like that, Apparatus.

#34 No trouble at all, I hope it did help (with the link at least) : )

#35 Feature request: Scene graph - not a list of brushes, with grouping via nodes/nulls to make scene mangement easier.

#36 Let's do this like Andy:

Feature Request
Bug
HowTo
etc

So everybody please add the corresponding tag to your post. Like this:

Feature request: Scene graph - not a list of brushes, with grouping via nodes/nulls to make scene mangement easier.

#37 Etc: Sorry for bothering, I missunderstood the topic "Everything about Constructor"

#38

Quote:Use the snap, always It's a golden rule. If it jumps too much for your taste, make the snap really small, 0.01.

A good rule unless you're editting vertex positions. Setting snap will snap the selected vertices to the nearest grid-point of the selected interval, which can ruin convexity when you are working with objects whose vertices usually cannot snapped on creation, such as spheres or cylinders. Just a tip I learned :-D Oh and...

Feature Request: Some way to be able to add objects (shapes, lights, etc...) into Constructor, and instead having them saved as part of the DIF, be exported into the mission along with the DIF with the same relative positions. This could be useful for alot of the bugs with adding lighting in Constructor or adding items which can be portalled out. I find it much easier to add elements to a DIF's scene using constructor rather than the Mission Editor. This would also be useful for anyone re-using Interiors with similar layouts, who does not want to set up the same area 15 times.

Could be pretty easy to do if you created some script that would save the positions relative to the Interior's origin (this is where it's getPosition() will return, correct?) and upon adding the Interior (or when clicking a button added to the mission editor) would add each object to the mission with relative positions taken into account. The only issue might be figuring out rotation, but I bet someone can come up with a very simple fix for that too.

#39 Bug: On export of objects to Lightwave the UV mapping is wrong. I think it's scaled x 10 or 0.1. Either way I have manually remap objects in Lightwave after export. Please fix this.

#40 @Andy - yes I know about the bug; But as far as I concern is a very minor bug since the way I see it, the import function is there to help you model the dts detail meshes on top of the dif structure at scale, size, position and so on. Nobody would want to add a bsp structure / model in a 3d app. You'll have to clean all the hidden surfaces and connect all the edges and in general clean up the model w takes longer than actually modeling it in Lightwave/Max or whatever.