Pivot handling improvements

[Michael Betke]

I'm loosing a lot of production time here spending time flying and zooming around my objects, searching for my pivot and the "move cross".

It's SO annoying!

I attached three pics to demonstrate the problem.

If my pivot is beneth a object its culled by the model. Putting the pivot to another place would mess up my snap to terrain.

The greyish shot demonstrates how it is handled in 3dmax and (all) other programs.

 

Furthermore I can't select the move on X and Y thigie.

So I have to zoom very close to my model to see this doomed pivot or rotate around my model.

 

Improving this feature is more important then anything other in my opinion. In every editor I know the move,scale,rotate cross is drawn on top of the object. I needed around 15mins for a scene I could set up in 5.

 

I really wonder why noone ever complained about it before.

Are you guys just coding and throwing programmer-art into the editor?

 

Finally a key-combo to bring a former placed model to another place after cloning with one click would be a big improvement too.

This would enable me to keep my properties for a placed model. Otherwise I have to drag it from the list again, and set it up....

[Niosop]

People have noticed the problem before. And I agree it's very annoying and a huge detriment to usability. They should be constant size regardless of distance and render on top of the object.

 

As for the cloning, doesn't ctrl-drag do that? Or are you asking for something else?

[Michael Betke]

As for the cloning, doesn't ctrl-drag do that? Or are you asking for something else?

 

Yes. For example: I have a model in level. All properties are set up properly. Now I clone it and want to place it on another place.

In Crysis editor I can keep the cloned model selected and press Control+left mousebutton to place it on the new place with this click.

 

In Leadwerks I have to use the little move arrows to bring it aaaall the way to it's new location.

Or I have to drag it as a new model from the modellist and have to set up my model specific properties again.

 

I like the one click solution very much because of it's speed.

[Niosop]

Ahh, yes I see what you mean. That would be quite handy. Also, it might be cool if dragging an instance from the treeview instead of the parent object would cause a clone to be placed in the new location.

 

This might be something that could be handled by the plugin architecture I added to the feature request forum if plugins could get get callbacks on key/mouse presses/releases/hits and a callback for object selection. I guess it would require a callback for pretty much everything so it could handle all the situations that come up, but it would probably be worth it because we could whip up and distribute features like these very quickly without having to bother Josh about it.

 

+1

[AggrorJorn]

Yes. For example: I have a model in level. All properties are set up properly. Now I clone it and want to place it on another place.

In Crysis editor I can keep the cloned model selected and press Control+left mousebutton to place it on the new place with this click.

Are you sure? I select my model, hold the control key and just use the mouse. I fI use the arrow keys, the object is copied per centimeter over the screen.

 

The other suggestions: I suggested the smal pivot from in the distance before (link to topic), I hope Josh does something about it. The Selecting the field behind the gizmo (last image) is also a good one.

[flachdrache]

Somekind of "move to target" would be helpfull indeed - atm i would look into the x/y coords in the heightmap preview and use "align to terrain" for large objects. For small objects i distribute it over the terrain like foliage.

[Marleys Ghost]

Somekind of "move to target" would be helpfull indeed

 

You can select the instance of the entity in the right hand window and right click and select go to ..

[Niosop]

I think he means move an object to where the camera is pointing, not move the camera to where an object is.

[flachdrache]

? the instance - i mean to pick a target on a surface and move the object in question to the picked x/y/z coords. Not the camera to an object in the list.

 

[edit] Niosop typed faster

 

PS: its kind of mean to show screenshots with completely shadowed characters

[Marleys Ghost]

ok misunderstood

[Michael Betke]

Noticed yesterday after a sync my pivot can be seen like i requested.

Thanks!