In the last broadcast i made the following suggestion in response to the discussion about continuing the EBE:



and Lee's response was:



So here are my suggestions and issues:

To start with, I'd like to say i am not for removing the EBE entirely, and i'm not against updating it, however in it's current form it is extremely basic, and while it does what the it says on the tin, it's just not enough by itself to warrant more than occasional usage (in my opinion), and to bring it up to mine and the expectation of others would be quite a task, what i actually meant was relegate it to basic users who don't model or have models to use, not sure why i said to make it for internal structures, live chat makes me all muddled, i feel i have to type too fast to get it in in time lol.

Even with the current entity placement, it is far easier and more flexible to import your own entities and place them by hand, at least it was in classic, but in Max there's some work that needs to be done to model importing to make the current placement smoother and more intuitive, and in both classic and make there are simply options that are really needed to make placement of entities far smoother and less fiddly.

Firstly, and a priority in my opinion is how models are imported into the engine, primarily the scale of objects and the environment. In Classic it was simple, 1 unit was 1 inch, if you created a model that was 100x100x100 inches and imported it into Classic, when you placed it in grid snapping mode it snapped perfectly on all sides, the scale was set and known and snapping entities could be made easily, as many of you know from my Isometric RPG Kits on the Game Creator Store.

However this is not entirely the case in Max, this still works perfectly when the model that you import is in .X format, the default scale for .X still seems to be 1 geometry inch is 1 engine inch, however with the other formats this is not the case, they all seem to import into the engine at slightly different default scales, a 100x100x100 inch FBX model will sometimes be approximately x40 smaller than the same model in .X format (at least this is the case with an FBX exported from Blender), there are different settings in Blender for exporting FBX scales, however I've gone through all of those settings in every combination possible and not one of those settings transfers into Max at the same scale as a .X model.

Now we do have the scale slider on the model itself, and the scale slider for grid snapping, and using these you can get FBX models to snap on a grid, but it would be nice to be able to create a set of snapping meshes that just work on import, which we can do in .X but not in other formats. What i would like to see is the import scaling reviewed and some kind of unified scale applied so that no matter what format you import, it will be the same scale.

Secondly, to improve the usability of the snapping tools we need some additional tools, grid snapping and surface snapping are good, but are very basic, with grid snapping you are confined to creating within the bounds of the grid square, and unless you want a lot of fiddling about, models you want to snap need to have the same origin point in the same location and all be the same size, so for example wall pieces all need to be multiples of 100 units in length, you could not have a half length wall and expect other pieces to snap to it, which limits the scope of snapping projects, and again with the surface snapping it is simply too imprecise, once you bring an entity to the location you want it you have a lot of fiddling and sliding about to get it to line up properly.

What i am proposing is a system much like they have in Unity, where you can hold the V key down then hover over a vertex on one object, and holding the left mouse button down, drag that object to a vertex on another object and the two objects will snap together at those vertices. Likewise I'd like to see variations of this that include edge and face snapping in a similar style, this would allow us to snap items together that are not tied to the size of the grid or the location of their origin point, and allow for easier snapping at angles other than 90 degrees.

Next, I would also like to see other options for the pivot point, currently the pivot point is the origin point of an entity, while this is great in some cases, in other cases it's a pain for positioning and rotating an object into place. What i would like to suggest is a button to switch between the local object pivot point and a geometry based median point in the centre of the geometry.

Lastly, we need a way to group objects together and manipulate them as a combined object, i know we can drag select multiple objects and manipulate them, but again that relies on you being able to drag the cursor over all the objects and select them all without accidentally selecting other objects, or individually control+click each object. I would like to see a system implemented similar to prefabs in Unity where you can create an empty object where you can link objects and manipulate them all in one go by manipulating the empty object, but can also select each individual object and manipulate it linked to the empty object.

I feel that if these items are corrected/added, we will have a lot better user experience when it comes to placing objects and building our scenes, it will be a lot easier to line things up, and for those who model, or can get models externally, it would reduce the need for reliance on such tools as structure editors and such.

However, i do stress though, that we do need to keep some kind of structure editor in a basic (but not as basic form as it currently is) form for those who do not model or do not have access to models, for example the tools used in the old FPSC would provide much more flexibility than the current EBE implementation for those who want to just throw something together in the editor.

Does anybody else in the community have any ideas on the subject of placement and manipulation in the editor? If so let us see your ideas.

I totally agree with what you've said, I'm just not sure Lee will read this as he specifically asked you to post in the EBE thread and instead you've created a new one. I get the thrust of your post is a bit tangential to the EBE discussion, but it's still relevant to it. Anyway, I hope we get vertex-snapping too. The user doesn't need to understand what a vertex is to use it; if it works, it just works and they won't even question it.

AE

Ack! I thought i was posting in that thread, d'oh i'm not quite awake yet lol

Also, thinking about it, i'm not sure it would belong in that thread either, because this isn't entirely about the structure editor and is more about improvements and additions to other areas that loosely link to the need for a structure editor.

Mods: I've posted all this into the Structures thread too, so if you think it's more relevant there and doesn't warrant a separate post then please go ahead and delete this thread.

Its fine here and i agree with some of the points made

Thanks G

Another improvement I would like to see, it would be awesome if we could have a "focus" hot key, where if we selected an entity and pressed that key the camera would move and zoom to the entity and enter a mode where you can orbit around the selected object, its amazing how much easier you can manipulate an entity simply by being able to orbit around the entity you are manipulating.

Lee said there will be no vertex snapping added (sadly) I would welcome that to

Dave

Yeah, but i'm hoping that Lee didn't understand what vertex snapping was, because he said that in the context of no inbuilt modelling program, so i think he thought we meant as in being able to mover the vertices around on a model. Hopefully if he reads this he will see my explanation and change his mind.

I agree with most of your ideas Belidos. I personally would like indoor and outdoor areas to be totally separated into two entirely different modes. Most games I have ever played work that way. For example; In Fallout games if the enterable structure has open windows or doors it is considered to still be outside Exactly like the stock buildings in GG. However for levels that are indoor, you open the door and get transported to an entirely INDOOR level. When completed you go through another (or the same) door and get placed back in the OUTDOOR world. I think the EBE and Max could be adapted to do this. And stop trying to do both at the same time. That would be the best of both worlds in my opinion.

For focus and orbiting around an object I would love to see Blender's method for this in Max. Scroll wheel zooms in and out based on where the cursor is located instead of straight in and out. Press and hold the middle mouse button and move the cursor, it orbits around the cursor itself instead of having to select an object.