Interface Concept

[Josh]

Tell me what you think. Everything is customizable:

[Naughty Alien]

..well..its a nice screenshot ..heheheh..reasembling some form of modelling aplication..not sure what as there is no much controls exposed to be seen..also, this material window, should be separated from main working area, or if possible, drag it to another screen, if user has 2 screens(monitors)..

[Road Kill Kenny]

I like the look of that Josh. Just want to know, you said "Everything is Cusomizable" so can you:

 

-Edit viewport scale and configuration

- Have only one viewport

- Hide any of those side panels and then get them back easily

 

Can you drag one of those side tabs out and it becomes a window if you want to? Or are they stuck as side tabs.

It would be great if eery tab could be pulled out into a window because it allows everyone a lot of freedom of how they want to do things. Me for example would drag out the material editor and even the object list into windows on my second screen and make my first screen almost all viewport.

 

My only criticism is that it looks like the UI takes up a lot of the screen making the viewports rather small. I'm sure you've come up with a solution but it's difficult to see on just one screenshot. Maybe a quick video would help us give better feedback.

[Josh]

Each tabbed item can be moved to the left, right, bottom panels, or popped open in its own window. The left, right, and bottom panels can be hidden and shown by click on the edge, or they can be resized by clicking and dragging.

 

Here I have the asset browser popped open in its own window, maximized in a second monitor:

 

 

[Rick]

I'd say you're on your way to making the perfect editor! Now if you would allow us to hook into the editor via plugins so we can make custom stuff that would be cool

[Josh]

I'd say you're on your way to making the perfect editor! Now if you would allow us to hook into the editor via plugins so we can make custom stuff that would be cool

Yeah, I'm going to make all dockable elements derived from a DockableElement class for future-proofing.

 

There are some big challenges there. Would plugins be script or code? If code, the engine API would have to be re-exposed through the editor, because objects your code creates won't be the same engine instance the editor is using. If I use script, then I need to provide a binding for BMX and the engine. It's probably possible, but the debugging isn't as good as the engine's debugging features.

[Road Kill Kenny]

Excellent I love it.

[Benton]

Haha you have Hammer open

 

It looks beast. Stuff like Unity looks good at first glance, but it can be slow and really weird at times. This looks simple yet fast and powerful.

[DaDonik]

That looks pretty nice!

Looks like we can have a look at it ourselfs, soon

[shadmar]

Looks great

[shadmar]

Will there be a "Play Game" button aswell in that editor? With the option to change game script like we have now.

Can we edit mat files from the editor and reload material? (without having to restart editor)

Could we have an edit current vert/frag button too?

[Canardia]

I would prefer also the possiblity to switch to single viewport mode, and have CSG editing on/off via tab key (like in Blender where the tab key switches between vertex editing and model editing mode).

 

And the floating number fields should have another field below them where you can set the increment for the up/down buttons. And of course no cutting of digits, but have it 64-bit double accuracy ("double" datatype in C++).

[Josh]

Haha you have Hammer open

 

It looks beast. Stuff like Unity looks good at first glance, but it can be slow and really weird at times. This looks simple yet fast and powerful.

I had Hammer, UDK, and Crysis Sandbox open all day yesterday. I took ideas from each:

 

Hammer: Standard Windows interface, four viewports, objects dropdown boxes, texture browser search filter.

UDK: Asset browser, asset edit windows.

Crysis Sandbox: Tabbed side panel.

[Road Kill Kenny]

I would prefer also the possiblity to switch to single viewport mode, and have CSG editing on/off via tab key (like in Blender where the tab key switches between vertex editing and model editing mode).

 

I agree, I like to be able to use only one viewport with a big view or 2 or 3 or 4 depending on what I'm doing.

 

On that thought, Josh do the num-pad keys do anything currently for the editor? Now don't take me for a Blender fanboi because I legitimately think this might be a good idea. The reason why Blender works so well with just one view port and other software usually by default use 4 is because of Blender's well mapped out hot keys for view-port navigation.

 

The single view port (which can be 4 if you want it to be) has all the standard zoom pan rotate stuff with the mouse and such but it also has the num-pad keys helping it out. This is how it works:

- Num7 = Snap to Top view

- Num1 = Snap to Front View

- Num3 = Snap to Right View

- Ctrl + Num7 = Snap to Bottom view

 

- Ctrl + Num1 = Snap to Back View

- Ctrl + Num3 = Snap to left View

- Num 5 = toggle perspective and orthographic rendering

- Num 4 = increment around Z axis to the left (relative to camera facing)

- Num 6 = increment around Z axis to the Right (relative to camera facing)

- Num 8 = increment around X axis upwards (relative to camera facing)

- Num 2 = increment around X axis downwards (relative to camera facing)

 

Here's the thing, in Blender you have the option to go one big view-port or 4 like the default on most modelling software... you are completely not restricted. However, because this numpad viewport navigation works so fast and you can quickly snap to any view you want, most Blender users forgo the multiple view-ports for the larger size.

 

Now of course LE3D is not a modelling software so It works in different ways but I offer up the idea as I have had a pleasant experience with it. Even if you don't think this is a good idea, please don't just discount this feedback as Blender fanboism... If it helps I used 3DS-Max for about 10 years before I switched to Blender which I've been only using for 1 year

[ChrisV]

Looking nice, Josh.

One thing I would like to see, is that there are scrollbars on lower screen resolutions. I mean, I still work on a PC with a resolution of 1024x768 (shame on me ), and in LE2, there were options not viewable at the bottom. So, it would be really great if you could add scrollbars for lower resolutions. Thanks.

[Benton]

yeah I would also like to see a blender-like viewport, we can switch from that to 4 views if we want.

[DigitalHax]

Quick question Josh, what are you using to make your editor? Windows api in LE or something else?

[macklebee]

bmax with maxgui for crossplatform

[Brent Taylor]

The reason why Blender works so well with just one view port and other software usually by default use 4 is because of Blender's well mapped out hot keys for view-port navigation.

 

I agree this works well, with one caviate. Most Blender users do all of their modeling in an environment with zero perspective. This is a really bad idea. By default, all camera views are an orthegonal projection. This is fine for front, side, (and so on) views. However the moment you start orbiting around the object freely, you really need to be looking at a perspective view. Now in Blender you have two options for this. Once you start orbiting an object you can hit the 5 key on the keypad to switch between the two perspective types (on/off), or you can go into the preferences and turn on "Auto Perspective". It isn't on by default. It'll automatically swap between orthographic and perspective views at the appropriate times.

 

I bring this up strictly so Josh knows of the problem. It's easily solved.

[Rick]

I think the more this looks and feels like Hammer the better off you are in pulling in that large group of modders looking to take the next step. Keyboard shortcuts are nice as long as they don't get in the way of what people would "expect" coming from similar tools like Hammer or 3DWS. From what I remember the first time I tried to fly around in 3D mode in Blender it wasn't like 3DWS or Hammer and I was shocked and frustrated. Did I read the manual before I started? Hell now. I figured at the very least I would be able to move around with WASD and mouse like like in I've done in 3DWS and Hammer. It seems like Blender just went crazy with keyboard shortcuts and almost makes them a requirement to use which is great once you remember them or take the time to learn them, but gives a horrible first impression.

 

That was my impression anyway coming from Hammer and 3DWS and not a modelling background.

[Clackdor]

Can't wait to try it live. I hope I have time to continue working on my game.

[Josh]

It seems like Blender just went crazy with keyboard shortcuts and almost makes them a requirement to use which is great once you remember them or take the time to learn them, but gives a horrible first impression.

Most open-source software is written around what makes things easy for the programmer, not what makes things easy for the user. 3D World Studio was written to make things easy for the user. Leadwerks Editor was written to make things easy for me. I think it shows.

[Flexman]

So long as I can set a hot key for everything it's not far off from other editors I'm using which also have asset preview panes etc.

 

 

With a lot of functions come the hassle of navigation. While the above interface was initially laid out with artists tablets in mind, for us non tablet uses hot keys get used a lot.

[Brent Taylor]

I think the more this looks and feels like Hammer the better off you are in pulling in that large group of modders looking to take the next step. Keyboard shortcuts are nice as long as they don't get in the way of what people would "expect" coming from similar tools like Hammer or 3DWS. From what I remember the first time I tried to fly around in 3D mode in Blender it wasn't like 3DWS or Hammer and I was shocked and frustrated. Did I read the manual before I started? Hell now. I figured at the very least I would be able to move around with WASD and mouse like like in I've done in 3DWS and Hammer. It seems like Blender just went crazy with keyboard shortcuts and almost makes them a requirement to use which is great once you remember them or take the time to learn them, but gives a horrible first impression.

 

That was my impression anyway coming from Hammer and 3DWS and not a modelling background.

To be fair, Rick, Blender isn't a CSG map editor. It's a high end 3D modeling app. None of the 3D modelers out there work like Hammer. I get your point however.

[Guest Red Ocktober]

i can work with mostly anything that is reasonable... the upcoming interface looks verrrry reasonable...

 

--Mike