by date
Constructor Reviewed...
Constructor Reviewed...
| Name: | Kevin Rogers |  |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Sep 05, 2007 | |
| Rating: |  4.0 out of 5 | |
| Public: | NO | |
| Comments: | YES | |
| RSS Feed: |  or Subscribe with  . | |
| Profile Page: | View profile page for Kevin Rogers |
Blog post
...Or, "Why I can't get a damn thing done in Constructor."
This has been a long time coming, but I finally decided to post it in hopes that the Constructor developers will take note -- I still hope that one day Constructor can and will become my CSG editor of choice; it has so much potential.
When I first heard about Constructor, I really, really wanted to like it. I thought, "Awesome! They're going to take all the coolness - while leaving out the lameness - from Hammer, Radiant, QuArK, 3D World Studio, 3DS Max, trueSpace, etc., and add all the features missing from those editors!" In other words, I was expecting Constructor to be the End-All-Be-All of CSG editors... CSG editor Utopia, Nirvana, Shangri-la, whatever. However, after trying it out and attempting to work with it several times, I am still utterly and completely disappointed.
Here is my list of issues which I hope will be improved in the (near) future. Some are total and complete show-stoppers for me; others are more of the "wish-list" variety.
Issues
1. Number-One-Top-of-the-List Issue (most of the other issues below come right back to this...): Constructor is - plain and simple - a PITA to work with. Too complicated. Too tedious. Maybe I need to work with it a little more, but it just seems to be so much fiddling around.
There are quite a few cases where it takes 3 different steps to accomplish what could be done neatly in one. Like pretty much all the Transform tools, for example. I end up feeling like I'm spending more time clicking on icons, tabs, buttons, etc. than actually building anything. Granted there are hot-keys but IMO, they barely smooth the workflow. And I shouldn't have to rely on them.
Other editors aren't like this! (Well, excepting QuArK, perhaps.) Sure, Radiant is kinda strange, but it's still easier to work with. 3D World Studio: pretty straight up. And Hammer/Worldcraft has always been a breeze...
2. The slowness! Gah, the slowness! Even wireframe rendering is obscenely slow. And there is always lag - Selecting a tool - whether in Create Primitives, Transforms, etc. - takes a full second for it to become active! WTF? (This is on a Core 2 Duo 6400 & NVidia 7300, which should be more than sufficient.)
3. Doesn't remember app window size & position...?! This should be a standard feature of ALL applications. Also, I despise applications that completely take over my desktop; I don't want it maximized by default! Who thought this was a good idea?!
4. Doesn't correctly handle file association for .csx and .map files... no drag-and-drop even? A professional-grade tool would allow this. Currently, double-clicking a .csx file fails with 'Failed to open "main.cs".' Likewise, "Open with..." on a .map file fails. Weak.
5. The current implementation of camera rotation is bizarre. IMO, it should rotate from the camera's position, i.e. first person perspective, not revolve around some point in the middle of the scene. But if you must have it revolve around something, then at the very least it makes sense to have it revolve around the currently selected object. But having said that.....
6. ...It would be huge to have a toggleable pseudo-in-game "fly" camera mode where you can navigate the 3D scene just like you would in-game with WASD. (Currently this only works if the right button is held down and like I mentioned in #5, it's wonky.) And have it maximize/restore the perspective view automatically.
7. In the orthographic views in particular, zooming with mousewheel should zoom at cursor's location, not at center of the view. Or alternatively, it should zoom on the selected object.
8. A placeable camera in orthographic views would be nice. Sometimes it's extremely convenient to be able to say, "Look in this exact direction from this exact point at this exact distance..."
9. The grid display is completely useless! The whole point of displaying a grid is to provide a visual reference, right?. A consistent reference, one would hope, not only within a single view, but between different views. However, with the current implementation, the reference is constantly changing based on the zoom level! In other words, the grid is no longer providing a valid reference! For example, an object can appear to be 4 units in size in one view, 1 unit in another, and 0.25 unit in a third, all depending on where the zoom is in each view.
10. The current implementation of the Planar Scaling tool is just trouble waiting to happen. For example, after scaling an object it's next to impossible to re-align it to the grid or with surrounding objects without resorting to the Size Bounds Tool, which then changes the scale again, requiring further editing to maintain the scale. Meh.
11. When moving objects, the selected object should snap to the grid point closest to the mouse cursor. For example, if I click and drag in the upper right quadrant of a brush, it should snap based on the upper right corner. (Other editors, like Hammer, allow this.)
12. Should allow object movement with arrow keys. It's huge to be able to nudge objects into position with a few key taps.
13. Hotkey to maximize/minimize current view...?
14. When using the Create tools, the current tool should remain selected after creation. If I want to build several primitives in sequence, it becomes extremely tedious to be required to click the tool icon each time I need to create a new object.
15. Also, it would be fantastic if one could place the initial foundation for the object by dragging with the left mouse button on the currently selected plane, and then extend it out with the right mouse button. (Similar to how 3ds Max and trueSpace do it, but off any surface.)
16. If I select a Create tool, there doesn't seem to be any reason to keep the current object selection, so why is it still selected...?
17. When importing a DTS mesh, it should allow immediate placement at cursor location. Dropping it at the origin is just ridiculous, especially in a complex scene where the origin is likely to be completely obscured.
18. And while on the subject, snap (and align) the DTS mesh to the brush face that's under the cursor! It's next to impossible to accurately align DTS's with brushes. Instead of just being able to place things on or against surfaces, time is wasted making sure a object isn't halfway into a wall, or floating above the floor.
19. And how about a Snap to Face/Object tool? This would be far more useful than the Rest on Ground tool.
20. Paste should follow cursor, i.e. place the copy at the location under the cursor. And see #18.
21. If object(s) are selected, the Size Bounds and Translate Tools should be enabled by default. i.e. there should be control points to allow scale/rotate/skew - like Hammer or Radiant. Having to switch to separate tools for these simple tasks is tedious, time consuming and unnecessary.
22. Shift-click-drag to clone an object should work all the time. Separating functions by Tool/window/tab types is arbitrary and just adds to the busy work.
23. Should always show the size of selected object(s) in status bar/area. Hiding this info under a properties tab is non-useful.
24. Vertex editing: Should always show vertices. For one thing, it makes it obvious that you are indeed in vertex editing mode.
25. Vertex editing: Not capable of welding/merging vertices? No "split face" functionality? No edge selection?
26. Would be nice to be able to click anywhere on an object to move it, or if I click-drag on an empty area it should just move the selected object. Why? Because generally it's just hella tedious to have to always be trying to click precisely on those skinny control gizmos. And they really serve no purpose outside of the perspective view. (...oh and the selection rubber-band could use CTRL-click-drag or something similar.)
27. Customizable keys! 'Nuf said.
28. No color picker?! Color selection should use the TGE Color Picker UI control at least.
29. Can't customize grid or window background colors...?
30. The "Pause" button on the loading dialog.... What purpose is this supposed to serve?! It doesn't
even pause - just makes it look like Constructor has locked up until the level is done loading. "Cancel" is not really super-useful either.
31. For whatever random reasons, menu items are getting disabled. Once it was only a few things like Recent Scenes and everything under System. Another time, it was nearly everything, including every single item under the File menu, making it so I couldn't even save my work. What a neat feature. =(
32. Hitting Enter should apply the current tool, but doesn't always work. This seems to coincide with the menu items becoming disabled.
33. Should be able to use keyboard in Texture Browser dialog: Arrow keys and Page-Up/Page-Down... Enter to "Make Active and Close"
34. Texture application - would be huge to be able to drag from materials to any brush and/or face and have it apply - not just the selected object(s).
35. A Texture application/painting mode would be huge. (Like Hammer's texture editing mode - you can right-click on arbitrary brush faces to apply the current texture and texture settings.)
BTW, this is 1.0.2, so if any of this has been resolved in 1.0.3, nice work!
This has been a long time coming, but I finally decided to post it in hopes that the Constructor developers will take note -- I still hope that one day Constructor can and will become my CSG editor of choice; it has so much potential.
When I first heard about Constructor, I really, really wanted to like it. I thought, "Awesome! They're going to take all the coolness - while leaving out the lameness - from Hammer, Radiant, QuArK, 3D World Studio, 3DS Max, trueSpace, etc., and add all the features missing from those editors!" In other words, I was expecting Constructor to be the End-All-Be-All of CSG editors... CSG editor Utopia, Nirvana, Shangri-la, whatever. However, after trying it out and attempting to work with it several times, I am still utterly and completely disappointed.
Here is my list of issues which I hope will be improved in the (near) future. Some are total and complete show-stoppers for me; others are more of the "wish-list" variety.
Issues
1. Number-One-Top-of-the-List Issue (most of the other issues below come right back to this...): Constructor is - plain and simple - a PITA to work with. Too complicated. Too tedious. Maybe I need to work with it a little more, but it just seems to be so much fiddling around.
There are quite a few cases where it takes 3 different steps to accomplish what could be done neatly in one. Like pretty much all the Transform tools, for example. I end up feeling like I'm spending more time clicking on icons, tabs, buttons, etc. than actually building anything. Granted there are hot-keys but IMO, they barely smooth the workflow. And I shouldn't have to rely on them.
Other editors aren't like this! (Well, excepting QuArK, perhaps.) Sure, Radiant is kinda strange, but it's still easier to work with. 3D World Studio: pretty straight up. And Hammer/Worldcraft has always been a breeze...
2. The slowness! Gah, the slowness! Even wireframe rendering is obscenely slow. And there is always lag - Selecting a tool - whether in Create Primitives, Transforms, etc. - takes a full second for it to become active! WTF? (This is on a Core 2 Duo 6400 & NVidia 7300, which should be more than sufficient.)
3. Doesn't remember app window size & position...?! This should be a standard feature of ALL applications. Also, I despise applications that completely take over my desktop; I don't want it maximized by default! Who thought this was a good idea?!
4. Doesn't correctly handle file association for .csx and .map files... no drag-and-drop even? A professional-grade tool would allow this. Currently, double-clicking a .csx file fails with 'Failed to open "main.cs".' Likewise, "Open with..." on a .map file fails. Weak.
5. The current implementation of camera rotation is bizarre. IMO, it should rotate from the camera's position, i.e. first person perspective, not revolve around some point in the middle of the scene. But if you must have it revolve around something, then at the very least it makes sense to have it revolve around the currently selected object. But having said that.....
6. ...It would be huge to have a toggleable pseudo-in-game "fly" camera mode where you can navigate the 3D scene just like you would in-game with WASD. (Currently this only works if the right button is held down and like I mentioned in #5, it's wonky.) And have it maximize/restore the perspective view automatically.
7. In the orthographic views in particular, zooming with mousewheel should zoom at cursor's location, not at center of the view. Or alternatively, it should zoom on the selected object.
8. A placeable camera in orthographic views would be nice. Sometimes it's extremely convenient to be able to say, "Look in this exact direction from this exact point at this exact distance..."
9. The grid display is completely useless! The whole point of displaying a grid is to provide a visual reference, right?. A consistent reference, one would hope, not only within a single view, but between different views. However, with the current implementation, the reference is constantly changing based on the zoom level! In other words, the grid is no longer providing a valid reference! For example, an object can appear to be 4 units in size in one view, 1 unit in another, and 0.25 unit in a third, all depending on where the zoom is in each view.
10. The current implementation of the Planar Scaling tool is just trouble waiting to happen. For example, after scaling an object it's next to impossible to re-align it to the grid or with surrounding objects without resorting to the Size Bounds Tool, which then changes the scale again, requiring further editing to maintain the scale. Meh.
11. When moving objects, the selected object should snap to the grid point closest to the mouse cursor. For example, if I click and drag in the upper right quadrant of a brush, it should snap based on the upper right corner. (Other editors, like Hammer, allow this.)
12. Should allow object movement with arrow keys. It's huge to be able to nudge objects into position with a few key taps.
13. Hotkey to maximize/minimize current view...?
14. When using the Create tools, the current tool should remain selected after creation. If I want to build several primitives in sequence, it becomes extremely tedious to be required to click the tool icon each time I need to create a new object.
15. Also, it would be fantastic if one could place the initial foundation for the object by dragging with the left mouse button on the currently selected plane, and then extend it out with the right mouse button. (Similar to how 3ds Max and trueSpace do it, but off any surface.)
16. If I select a Create tool, there doesn't seem to be any reason to keep the current object selection, so why is it still selected...?
17. When importing a DTS mesh, it should allow immediate placement at cursor location. Dropping it at the origin is just ridiculous, especially in a complex scene where the origin is likely to be completely obscured.
18. And while on the subject, snap (and align) the DTS mesh to the brush face that's under the cursor! It's next to impossible to accurately align DTS's with brushes. Instead of just being able to place things on or against surfaces, time is wasted making sure a object isn't halfway into a wall, or floating above the floor.
19. And how about a Snap to Face/Object tool? This would be far more useful than the Rest on Ground tool.
20. Paste should follow cursor, i.e. place the copy at the location under the cursor. And see #18.
21. If object(s) are selected, the Size Bounds and Translate Tools should be enabled by default. i.e. there should be control points to allow scale/rotate/skew - like Hammer or Radiant. Having to switch to separate tools for these simple tasks is tedious, time consuming and unnecessary.
22. Shift-click-drag to clone an object should work all the time. Separating functions by Tool/window/tab types is arbitrary and just adds to the busy work.
23. Should always show the size of selected object(s) in status bar/area. Hiding this info under a properties tab is non-useful.
24. Vertex editing: Should always show vertices. For one thing, it makes it obvious that you are indeed in vertex editing mode.
25. Vertex editing: Not capable of welding/merging vertices? No "split face" functionality? No edge selection?
26. Would be nice to be able to click anywhere on an object to move it, or if I click-drag on an empty area it should just move the selected object. Why? Because generally it's just hella tedious to have to always be trying to click precisely on those skinny control gizmos. And they really serve no purpose outside of the perspective view. (...oh and the selection rubber-band could use CTRL-click-drag or something similar.)
27. Customizable keys! 'Nuf said.
28. No color picker?! Color selection should use the TGE Color Picker UI control at least.
29. Can't customize grid or window background colors...?
30. The "Pause" button on the loading dialog.... What purpose is this supposed to serve?! It doesn't
even pause - just makes it look like Constructor has locked up until the level is done loading. "Cancel" is not really super-useful either.
31. For whatever random reasons, menu items are getting disabled. Once it was only a few things like Recent Scenes and everything under System. Another time, it was nearly everything, including every single item under the File menu, making it so I couldn't even save my work. What a neat feature. =(
32. Hitting Enter should apply the current tool, but doesn't always work. This seems to coincide with the menu items becoming disabled.
33. Should be able to use keyboard in Texture Browser dialog: Arrow keys and Page-Up/Page-Down... Enter to "Make Active and Close"
34. Texture application - would be huge to be able to drag from materials to any brush and/or face and have it apply - not just the selected object(s).
35. A Texture application/painting mode would be huge. (Like Hammer's texture editing mode - you can right-click on arbitrary brush faces to apply the current texture and texture settings.)
BTW, this is 1.0.2, so if any of this has been resolved in 1.0.3, nice work!
Submit your own resources!| Peter Simard (Sep 05, 2007 at 23:55 GMT) |
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=66790
| AndrewOsborne (Sep 06, 2007 at 00:34 GMT) |
| Broken_Sword (Sep 06, 2007 at 01:17 GMT) |
| Marcus (Sep 06, 2007 at 01:21 GMT) |
| Barry Gallagher (Sep 06, 2007 at 01:31 GMT) |
I cross my fingers most times that it doesnt delete or break stuff.
| Surge (Sep 06, 2007 at 02:44 GMT) |
.
I used to be working endless nights, days off and weekends with the GG Suite of products.
I did make alot of progress, learned how to build my characters and all that...Weapons, mounting objects!
Learned how to mod the engine and get basic AI and things working. A great learning tool!
I had been praying to the Torque Gods for Constructor since the very first post way back in the day.
Ever since Constructor came out, i've really lost my intrest in the product.
Basically I agree with the reasons posted by Kevin. And thats just for starters.
Its just the WANKY way things work..or dont..or almost do.or.or just..damn did it just freeze on me?..CRASH!
I feel like Constructor should be made to work seamlessly with the scene, and its always a up-hill battle.
I want to be able to work in the editor like Im in the game itself.
Im a GG supporter, and I have been a patient man. But it should all be so much more fluid i think!
-SURGE
....The Array tool is very cool...
....The interface is pleasing......
..Come on make it Kick ass GUYS!...
.
.
Edited on Sep 06, 2007 03:13 GMT
| Tom Eastman (Eastbeast314) (Sep 06, 2007 at 02:56 GMT) |
I'm sure it's being worked on, so a list like this is surely helpful.
| Tim Heldna (Sep 06, 2007 at 04:37 GMT) |
| Gareth Fouche (Sep 06, 2007 at 07:38 GMT) |
Not to put down the problems you guys are experiencing, but just to provide a counter view, for me Constructor is an absolute joy to work with. My productivity has skyrocketed, and if you are familiar with 3DS Max CTors interface is pretty familiar (its actually much simpler).
Saying it has some bugs still, sure. Saying you "can't get a damn thing done" though, huh? I've managed to get "something" done with the tool despite being a programmer :
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=1500
http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=13254
I've also recently converted Steve of Arteria Gaming to CTor, he was rather surprised by how productive he can be with it :
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/snapshot/view.php?qid=1513
BTW :
5 & 6 > Um, there is already a FPS camera as you describe. Hit Ctrl-C I believe it is and you go into WSAD camera navigation.
14 > I believe there is a "build and remain in tool" button. You click it, it creates a shape then stays with that create tool with those settings. I'm not sure it has a hot key though, since I generally just clone objects using shift.
Now if you want to help, post bug lists or suggestions on the forum. But comments like "All of the reasons above are why they don't charge for this horrible program." annoy me just a little bit. GG have done and continue to do a fantastic job on this tool (and thats not rabid fanboyism, I've clocked dozens of hours on the tool, creating art and dealing with it's issues.). Especially when comments like "wheres the FPS camera navigation mode?" indicate a lack of basic document reading.
| Bobby Leighton (Sep 06, 2007 at 08:23 GMT) |
| Stevie (Sep 06, 2007 at 08:51 GMT) |
The first pack i made using constructor was my new elven city pack. Ironically i had already made all the standard mesh versions of the models in my regular 3d model program which is hexagon 2, but then on the strengths of the new extrude tool and also a desire to give my torque customers difs, i took the plunge and opened up constructor, and i must say i was pleasantly pleased. I have tried constructor over the time since it was released, but never found my ground with it until the 1.3 version.
With version 1.3 im findinf quicker ground for modelling my buildings, and also i have to say that the quick and easy texture tools - e.g. being able to slide up the value quickly back and forth to move the texture over the face is tremendous and adds to a very intuitive work experience.
Also the fact that GG give this tool away free is amazing and everyone should be very greatful.
Here is the pack i made using constructor. As you can see, the dif format or constructor didnt cause me any limitations. All i can say, is if constructor was tedious to use i for one would not be using it, as i run a full time company with arteria and time is of the essence in releasing product lines
www.mmo-kingdoms.com/elvencity.htm
Edited on Sep 06, 2007 08:52 GMT
| Matt Fairfax (Sep 06, 2007 at 08:59 GMT) |
How would you propose speeding up the Transform tools other than using hotkeys and the like?
2. This seems quite odd given that Constructor was developed on a laptop with a P4 1.73 GHz Centrino and a nVidia 6800 Go and it runs quite smoothly there. Perhaps there is a video driver issue? Maybe your dual core? I know there was some odd bugs with older versions of Torque (Constructor is loosely based on TGE 1.3) when you don't set a processor affinity.
How many brushes/meshes do you have in your scenes?
3. Duly noted. We simply dodn't have the time to make this a pref.
4. Torque doesn't handle this well out of the box and we didn't have time to look into it.
5. Hitting 'c' or checking the "Free Cam" option in the Prefs will put you in WASD first person camera mode (hold the right-mouse button down to look around). If you hit the Target icon in the top right corner of any viewport (see the docs) it will switch you to a targeted camera mode that will rotate the camera around anything you have selected.
6. See #5.
7. If you are using the targeted camera it will zoom in and out on your selected options. As far as zooming into the mouse cursor, this is something that changes widely from application to application and since it wasn't what any of the developers preferred, it didn't get added.
8. The problem here is that there isn't a single perspective view that you can attach a camera to (like in Hammer) so which "camera" do you rendering the orthogonal views. There may not be a perspective view at all.
9. This is a pretty standard feature in most 3D modelling applications.
10. How would you improve this?
11. These feature was cut due to lack of time. It also didn't handle very well in the Perspective views.
12. Cut due to lack of time.
13. Numpad 0.
14. Either use the "Make & Cont" button or shift-enter.
15. Good idea.
16. This could be useful to help identify where you want to create the new geometry in a complicated scene. It is also useful if you end up cancelling the creation so that you don't lose what you were doing. Is there a compelling reason to deselect?
17. Well...I do see one problem with this...your cursor is going to be in the File menu and not over any of the viewports. Even if we tracked where your cursor exited the viewports it would always drop it on the edge of a view which would be odd. Since there is no concept of a currently "active" viewport like in 3D Studio Max, we can't even drop it into the center of a viewport. I agree that dropping it at the origin is a pretty sucky way of doing things but I didn't see a clear alternative without adding a bunch more to the workflow (the active viewport thing in Max actually slows me down a lot).
18. Select a surface and align the Workplane to it (under the View tab or hit 'home'). Then you can select other objects in the scene and use the Rest on Ground tool to snap it to that surface. Then you can reset the Workplane (also on the View tab or hit 'end').
Yes, this is a few more keystrokes (3) than you might like but it is *very* flexible. You could also very easily make it into its own tool or keystroke.
19. See #18
20. Good idea.
21. Ultimately, the workflow was intended to be driven around the axis gizmo and its modifiers (see #1). This differs from Hammer but is more in line with Max and Maya (even easier).
Since the tools are all script-driven you could pretty easily extend the Size Bounds tool to do everything you want. It just wasn't a high priority since it wasn't the main way of using the tool.
22. See #21.
23. I agree...this feature simply did not make it in. It would be pretty easy to add if you dive into the TorqueScript.
24. In a scene with a lot of brushes you really couldn't make anything out anything with all of the vertices rendering. It also cut into the performance a lot since most OpenGL drivers are not optimized for point rendering. Usually when people are asking for this they are really asking for a way to limit vertex/face selection to selected brushes (which is a pref toggled by 'b').
25. Dragging a vertex onto another vertex should merge them. Splitting a face can lead to concavity problems really quickly. Remember, this is a convex brush editor and not a generic mesh editor.
26. I think this mostly boils down to personal preferences and Constructor simply isn't catering to your exact style of doing things.
27. It is true that it is a pain to customize your keys for Constructor but it is doable by using a SQLite Database browser on the config.db database.
28. As I mentioned in #2, Constructor is based loosely on the Torque 1.3 codebase which did not have a color picker. Merging the one from TGE 1.4 turned out to be problematic and had to be cut.
29. The windows background color is controlled by a GuiProfile. I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head but a single line of TorqueScript can fix you right up. Ask on the Constructor forums and I will provide it when I have more time. I don't know if there is a way to customize the grid color.
30. I had to get a progress bar in place really quickly at the end of the project so that it would be more obvious that Constructor was not locking up during loading and exporting so I re-purposed the one used by the lighting system (which does respect the Pause). I didn't have time to special-case remove the Pause button for when it wasn't useful.
31. This is a bug. If you can provide a reliable way to reproduce it then we would greatly appreciate it!
32. See #31.
33. Good idea.
34. No good way to do this in Torque 1.3. Perhaps someday when we can get this functionality moved over from TGB 1.5.
35. You could probably do this pretty easily with some Tools scripting but I haven't looked into it in-depth. The entire texture application process could really use some love.
I'm sorry that you are unable to use Constructor. It was never really intended to be "the End-All-Be-All of CSG editors... CSG editor Utopia, Nirvana, Shangri-la". It was intended to allow us to add features that don't exist in other editors like Torque lighting and static meshes. It was also intended to help with the WYSIWYG problems that 3rd party editors have where it is very difficult to get what you have on your screen through the exporting process and into Torque. Another important reason for doing Constructor was that there wasn't a reliable or free brush eidting tool available on the Mac (gtkRadiant did finally become available just before Constructor launched). Along the way, we attempted to make an "easier-to-use" brush editor, but we obviously couldn't make it be all things to all people. It also can't change the fundamental constraints of brush editing (specifically the convex/concave problems).
Ultimately, brush editing is going away as the speed of computers allow us to move into "easier" generic polysoup collision and occlusion schemes. At this point GarageGames can either pour more resources into delivering a polysoup solution (check out the stuff Ben Garney, Clark Fagot, and TorqueX is doing) or into further improving a tool with a limited lifetime. Since most people are clamoring for the polysoup we are more focused there and Constructor is definitely in a back seat. This doesn't mean that there are *no* resourcecs going into Constructor, it just means that they are necessarily very limited resources.
If you feel like you are more productive using another brush editor then go for it =) It really won't hurt my feelings (or anyone elses at GarageGames) and, since it is free, it won't hurt our pocket books either =P Personally, I am more productive with Constructor than I have been with any previous brush editor (Hammer does come close in many ways but the legal issues there are too sticky for my tastes) so I use it, quirks and all, for my personal level building.
Edited on Sep 06, 2007 09:13 GMT
| Kevin Erkelenz (Sep 06, 2007 at 08:59 GMT) |
| Aaron Ellis (Sep 06, 2007 at 08:59 GMT) |
By the way, whoever decided to call this stuff brush-based should take a long, hard look at Painter, Photoshop, Silo, and ZBrush. If any workflow doesn't have pressure-sensitive drawing tablet support, then it shouldn't be described as brush-based. ;)
| Matt Fairfax (Sep 06, 2007 at 09:11 GMT) |
| Aaron Ellis (Sep 06, 2007 at 09:19 GMT) |
Thanks. The history sounds about right. Carmack and co. geniuses, but calling convex shapes 'brushes' feels so wrong. :)
I definitely appreciate all the work you did on Constructor, though.
[Edit]
@Stevie and Gareth
Excellent work guys. Those designs look great.
Edited on Sep 06, 2007 09:23 GMT
| CDK (Sep 06, 2007 at 14:20 GMT) |
BTW I find Constructor a bit... clunky? but overall it speeds up my workflow with TGEA, so in that sense I'm happy.
Edited on Sep 06, 2007 14:21 GMT
| Allyn "Mr_Bloodworth" Mcelrath (Sep 06, 2007 at 15:02 GMT) |
Constructor is clunky, Compared to 3dWS and others, it does some things backwords. As far as the grid, hes right, it does work this way in poly-soup tools, but not CSG, the grid needs to be a static size (For reference), that you can change, but not tied to zoom.
I think, its main flaw is, the guys at GG made it they way they worked, and familiar to the tools (mostly poly-soup) they use. And tried to reinvent the wheel, while not taking into account commonality's to other tools of the same category, or reasons why they are that way.
IE: To much trying to reinvent, not enough adherence to standards, and methodology of like tools. Case in point, Textures on faces stretching and distorting when resizing using points.... That eats up allot of time and kills flow.. Make one edit, and you need to reset the entire texture on that surface (especially if you only wanted it to tile anyway). You said it yourself, many times in your post, its mostly patterned after poly-soup programs, and specific ones at that, that have there own unique features..... Easer for you, as you use those tools, but has no relation to other BSP editors..
Constructor is good, has some neet things, but it wont replace what i am currently using... Especially since allot of the "Torque" only features do not even work together (smoothing, portals, etc..)..so the gain is marginal.
The OP gave allot of the same feedback as my self, and many others have given (Beyond the "DOH! should have read the book"), and you gave the same responses... I hope the tool improves with the feedback we have given, even if it doesn't seem that you think its valid.
@Aaron Ellis - IIRCC Zbrush doesn't use brushes, it uses "Tools" ;)
Edited on Sep 06, 2007 15:15 GMT
| Aaron Ellis (Sep 06, 2007 at 15:22 GMT) |
:)
The ZBrush Wiki
Edited on Sep 06, 2007 15:23 GMT
| Florian (Sep 06, 2007 at 16:30 GMT) |
with constructor, ive been able to make things i wasnt with for example QuArK(havent worked with other apps)
Constructor makes a lot of things a lot easier, but at the same time it doesnt.
I guess, when building something, i have to rely on luck
I may have luck that i make something good withouth Constructor crashing.. And then im happy
and sometimes i dont have luck and i end up making something that crashes a minute before saving
ofcourse, because of this, i dont always want to work with constuctor when i want to build something
i was one of those people who was disapointed with constructor, and i think this is partially because my expectations were way to high
anyhow, i appreciate the tool, and since GG is very tight with the community, i bet in time constuctor will grow into a fine tool(i hope so xD)
oh yeah btw
i aint a brush person, actually i hate brushes, and so if TGE or TGEA gets a concave collision system build in, and the same options as a DIF, i will defenitly never make DIF's again, so if I have to choose between waiting for a better constructor or better DTS collision, i think the answer is clear =D
| Chris Calef (Sep 06, 2007 at 17:35 GMT) |
Quote:
I should not be required, and will NEVER, edit the code (Script in Constructors case, or GUI) of a ART tool i am using to get the functionality i need.
@Allyn: Well, I guess we know where you stand on that! I just gotta say, although I know artists generally don't like to code, as a coder I just about peed my pants when I found out constructor exposed huge amounts of its functionality as torque scripts. If you have any friends who are coders, even amateur scripters, it's pretty darn helpful to have access to most of the inner workings of your art tool without having to recompile the whole program, or dig into some complicated API to make a plugin.
Overall, I hope people remember just two things here, or rather three: 1) you're comparing the flagship products of companies like Autodesk with a product created by ONE GUY over a year or two, 2) it's FREE, and 3) as pointed out above, it's easily extendable.
People who have better software and hate constructor can just use their other software, but IMHO people who really want to use constructor should lay off Matt, and instead start fixing things and sharing their scripts. It may not be a final end-all, be-all product, but it's a heck of a good start. End rant.
| Barry Gallagher (Sep 06, 2007 at 18:37 GMT) |
I have personally gone back to using Deled which I am more then happy with. It even supports unwrapping to a degree.
As for having to script or program stuff to get things working, sounds like trying to sticky tape a leak to me. Especially if you expect artists to be using this tool.
Personally I would probably have paid for a stable version of Ctor, assuming I hadnt gotten Deled more or less because of its integration with torque.
| Andrew Hull (Sep 06, 2007 at 19:17 GMT) |
E-mail me: werdna.hull@gmail.com any and all interested.
| David Montgomery-Blake (Sep 06, 2007 at 21:47 GMT) |
| Kevin Rogers (Sep 06, 2007 at 22:11 GMT) |
@Everyone that has had nothing but joy with Constructor: Good for you.
@Chris Calef:
Quote:3D World Studio was created by one guy and I consider it to be professional level. And if something is free, we're supposed to be completely happy with it...? No matter what? LOL!
... Overall, I hope people remember... 1) you're comparing the flagship products of companies like Autodesk with a product created by ONE GUY over a year or two, 2) it's FREE, and 3) as pointed out above, it's easily extendable.
Also, like I implied before: There are plenty of examples of functional, easy-to-use CSG editing techniques from other editors. One can't help but wonder, why weren't these features just cloned? Why not just take Hammer's interface, for example, improve it and add Torque specific functionality? Why, as someone mentioned, has Constructor re-invented the wheel in so many ways?
Edit: Important safety tip -- do not ever try to cut and paste anything from Word that contains special characters! =P
Edited on Sep 06, 2007 22:30 GMT
| Kevin Rogers (Sep 06, 2007 at 22:15 GMT) |
Quote:
1. Using the axis gizmo with either control or alt held down makes the Transform tools a "one-click" operation.
How would you propose speeding up the Transform tools other than using hotkeys and the like?
Ok, tried the Transform tools again while holding Control and/or Alt keys... nothing. I have no idea what you mean here. =\
As for speeding up the flow, something more like Hammer, where you simply click on the brush multiple times to change the transform mode.
Quote:The structures are similar in complexity to the cathedral that comes with Constructor. It seems better now as far as the rendering goes, so maybe there was another process sucking up CPU time. However, the tool selection lag remains, and it still takes a full second to switch between any of the tools.
2. This seems quite odd given that Constructor was developed on a laptop with a P4 1.73 GHz Centrino and a nVidia 6800 Go and it runs quite smoothly there. Perhaps there is a video driver issue? Maybe your dual core? I know there was some odd bugs with older versions of Torque (Constructor is loosely based on TGE 1.3) when you don't set a processor affinity.
How many brushes/meshes do you have in your scenes?
Quote:Ah, okay. Good to know.
5. Hitting 'c' or checking the "Free Cam" option in the Prefs will put you in WASD... If you hit the Target icon... it will switch you to a targeted camera mode that will rotate...around anything you have selected.
Quote:I'm admittedly boggled that zooming at the mouse cursor wouldn't be preferred! Instead of spending time zooming and then panning around, you simply point at what you want to zoom in on, zoom, and you're done.
7. ...As far as zooming into the mouse cursor, this is something that changes widely from application to application and since it wasn't what any of the developers preferred, it didn't get added.
Quote:Yes, with multiple perspective views, I can see the problem. But now I'm wondering what benefits having mutiple perspective views brings... does anyone use this feature and what would the benefits be?
8. The problem here is that there isn't a single perspective view that you can attach a camera to (like in Hammer) so which "camera" do you rendering the orthogonal views. There may not be a perspective view at all.
Quote:Ok, while that may be (I haven't seen it personally...), how exactly does this automatic grid scaling help? I can see no redeeming qualities with the current functionality; it's barely more useful than having no grid at all. And while it's perhaps less important for standard 3D modeling -- it is extremely helpful to have a precise unchanging grid when doing any kind of architectural modeling.
9. This is a pretty standard feature in most 3D modelling applications.
Quote:Good question, but I think a step in the right direction would be to allow it to Snap to Grid.
10. [ Planar Scaling] How would you improve this?
Quote:Too bad. I hope you consider implementing this at some point. It a simple and elegant way align objects.
11. [ ... selected object should snap to the grid point closest...] These feature was cut due to lack of time. It also didn't handle very well in the Perspective views.
Quote:Okay.
13. [ Maximize/Restore current view] Numpad 0.
Quote:Ah okay. But still more complicated than it needs to be. And I daresay that from a coding perspective, it would have been easier to have it just leave a tool selected instead of adding more code to handle the "Make & Cont" button or Shift-Enter. =)
14. [ ...current tool should remain selected...] Either use the "Make & Cont" button or shift-enter.
Quote:Okay, that makes some sense. My problem with it remaining selected arises in part from the tool selection lag and my experience with other editors. I'm expecting it to go away when I select a Create tool, it never does, which makes me double-check if the tool actually changed... =\
16. This could be useful to help identify where you want to create the new geometry in a complicated scene. It is also useful if you end up cancelling the creation so that you don't lose what you were doing. Is there a compelling reason to deselect?
Quote:The solution is pretty straight up actually -- don't add the DTS to the scene if the user is mucking around in some menu or non-editor window.
17. [ ... importing a DTS mesh ...] Well...I do see one problem with this...your cursor is going to be in the File menu and not over any of the viewports. Even if we tracked where your cursor exited the viewports it would always drop it on the edge of a view which would be odd. Since there is no concept of a currently "active" viewport like in 3D Studio Max, we can't even drop it into the center of a viewport. I agree that dropping it at the origin is a pretty sucky way of doing things but I didn't see a clear alternative without adding a bunch more to the workflow (the active viewport thing in Max actually slows me down a lot).
Another solution: Like Radiant and Hammer, let the user specify the location by first drawing a brush to define location and scale for the DTS shape to be placed.
And I think that having a current active viewport would be huge. Hammer does this simply by having the active viewport follow the cursor around; if the cursor leaves an editor viewport, the active viewport is left at the last viewport that was under the cursor.
Quote:Ok, good to know! But I think it still could be simplified. And it might make more sense to call "Rest on Ground", "Snap to Workplane".
18. Select a surface and align the Workplane to it (under the View tab or hit 'home'). Then you can select other objects in the scene and use the Rest on Ground tool to snap it to that surface. Then you can reset the Workplane (also on the View tab or hit 'end').
Yes, this is a few more keystrokes (3) than you might like but it is *very* flexible. You could also very easily make it into its own tool or keystroke.
19. See #18
I just had a thought: Have you considered implementing a mode that uses collision? It would be amazingly cool to be able to just grab things and move them up against each other. I'm not expecting anything overly complex here -- even just simple cubic collision volumes could be used.
Quote:While I'm not opposed to customizing script, right now I've got more important things to do, like building levels. =P
21. [ Script customization...] ...
22. ...
23. ...
Quote:Of course I only want to edit the currently selected object(s)... It's completely unnecessary to be editing vertices on every single brush in a level simultaneously. But the fundamental problem here is that I can't see where the vertices are to select them! And if I try to rubber band them, inevitably I select vertices that I don't want. (And this especially happens in a complex scene with dense geometry!).
24. In a scene with a lot of brushes you really couldn't make anything out anything with all of the vertices rendering. It also cut into the performance a lot since most OpenGL drivers are not optimized for point rendering. Usually when people are asking for this they are really asking for a way to limit vertex/face selection to selected brushes (which is a pref toggled by 'b').
Quote:Ok, so it is supposed to merge vertices then. Good to know.
25. Dragging a vertex onto another vertex should merge them. Splitting a face can lead to concavity problems really quickly. Remember, this is a convex brush editor and not a generic mesh editor.
Yes, of course splitting faces can lead to problems! But so can vertex manipulation -- start dragging vertices around without knowing what you're doing and good luck sorting the resulting mess out. But, not only is the capability to split faces quite useful in general, it can be used to actually reduce concavity problems by allowing the addition of polys to faces that would otherwise become concave.
Quote:Indeed. But I firmly believe that the current implementation is a time-waster. It's pretty obvious to me that it's much easier (and therefore faster) to click on objects themselves instead of constantly trying to click precisely on the thin lines of the gizmos.
26. I think this mostly boils down to personal preferences and Constructor simply isn't catering to your exact style of doing things.
Quote:OMG! Seriously? You couldn't just use a TorqueScript file? Just like any other TGE application? Not even an INI file?! Wow. And what happened to the standard key customization UI that comes with every single TGE SDK?
27. It is true that it is a pain to customize your keys for Constructor but it is doable by using a SQLite Database browser on the config.db database.
Quote:Ok. I guess my point is: these should be customizeable along with the other colors.
29. The windows background color is controlled by a GuiProfile. I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head but a single line of TorqueScript can fix you right up. Ask on the Constructor forums and I will provide it when I have more time. I don't know if there is a way to customize the grid color.
Quote:I wish I knew how to replicate it. But if I do figure it out, you'll be the first to know. =)
31. This is a bug. If you can provide a reliable way to reproduce it then we would greatly appreciate it!
Quote:So... is it going to get some love in the future? =)
35. [ Texture application... ] ...The entire texture application process could really use some love.
Quote:Well, with some of the early hype, it was hard not to believe we were getting something that would be the most amazing coolness ever. =)
...It was never really intended to be "the End-All-Be-All of CSG editors"...
Quote:Ok, I can understand that and I appreciate you being straight-up about it. But what you're effectively telling me (and everyone else) is that Constructor has been a big waste of time and probably won't be seeing much improvement in the future...? I hope that's not the case because like I said before, Constructor has so much potential... I think it's 75% on its way to becoming a really fantastic editor -- it just needs some serious polishing.
Ultimately, brush editing is going away... Since most people are clamoring for the polysoup we are more focused there and Constructor is definitely in a back seat. This doesn't mean that there are *no* resourcecs going into Constructor, it just means that they are necessarily very limited resources.
Edited on Sep 06, 2007 22:43 GMT
| Kevin Rogers (Sep 07, 2007 at 00:12 GMT) |
And David Blake has a major point: Why not Radiant? Not only is it multi-platform already, but it doesn't suck either. =)
| Joseph Greenawalt (Sep 07, 2007 at 00:39 GMT) |
Radiant already works just fine for producing map files for TGE, it's just that some of the constructor-specific features would be nice to have.
| Matt Fairfax (Sep 07, 2007 at 01:07 GMT) |
Honestly, my goal isn't to defend Constructor. It is what it is and its development history is what it was. I just wanted to point out a few things that might make your life easier with Constructor and in the meantime I am jotting down your concerns and ideas for future use.
Quote:
Ok, tried the Transform tools again while holding Control and/or Alt keys... nothing. I have no idea what you mean here. =\
Sorry, I wasn't clear here. By default the axis gizmo acts as a "Translate" tool. If you hold down control it switches into a "Rotate" tool mode and dragging any of the axii will cause the object(s) to rotate. If you hold down alt then it will act as a "Scale" tool.
So essentially you can get the same functionality as the Transform tools without having to activate/deactivate them.
Quote:
The structures are similar in complexity to the cathedral that comes with Constructor.
Ah...that makes more sense. The cathedral was out worst case stress test during development. Our goal was to get it working on my computer but with the understanding that it wouldn't work super well. Considering that map2dif won't support more than 1024 brushes and Torque itself wasn't able to handle the number of brushes that the cathedral exported without crashing until we added the capability in TGE 1.5.2, I think that was a pretty reasonable goal.
There are some optimizations that we've identfied with selection but they are pretty widespread and we didn't have the time to make such a risky change that close to release.
Quote:
I'm admittedly boggled that zooming at the mouse cursor wouldn't be preferred! Instead of spending time zooming and then panning around, you simply point at what you want to zoom in on, zoom, and you're done.
See now, I *hate* it when I go to zoom in and my cursor is offcenter and I end up zoomed in somewhere I didn't want. It is something you can get used to but it really bugged me when I was learning 3d modelling in the applications that did it. Just a difference of taste. Perhaps at some point I can add it as an option. If you hit 'g' it will center the viewport you are over to your cursor.
Quote:
Yes, with multiple perspective views, I can see the problem. But now I'm wondering what benefits having mutiple perspective views brings... does anyone use this feature and what would the benefits be?
Personally I like to have an export preview in a separate perspective view so I can quickly see how the changes I am making are going to effect my end result.
Quote:
Ah okay. But still more complicated than it needs to be. And I daresay that from a coding perspective, it would have been easier to have it just leave a tool selected instead of adding more code to handle the "Make & Cont" button or Shift-Enter. =)
Half the artists we showed it to before launch wanted it to deactivate the primitive tools immediately after creation while the other half wanted them to stay active. So, we tried to cater to both with the Make button and the Make & Cont button and their corresponding keystrokes.
Quote:
The solution is pretty straight up actually -- don't add the DTS to the scene if the user is mucking around in some menu or non-editor window.
How are you adding DTS's to the scene without pulling your mouse out the of the viewports to goto File->Import Static Mesh... or hitting the Import Static Mesh... button in the Tools pane?
Quote:
And I think that having a current active viewport would be huge. Hammer does this simply by having the active viewport follow the cursor around; if the cursor leaves an editor viewport, the active viewport is left at the last viewport that was under the cursor.
This is one option I considered since I don't like the extra clicking I have to do in Max to make a viewport active. The problem is that it can be really easy to hit another viewport on your way to the Tools or Menu which could lead to a confusing and inconsistent experience for the end user. I think this is an area that use more exploration but I still haven't seen a great solution for it so I opted for a consistent if sllighlty more cumbersome way of doing it.
Quote:
While I'm not opposed to customizing script, right now I've got more important things to do, like building levels. =P
Very true =) But I would point out two things:
1) The best and most successful artists I know (Joe Maruschak, Danny Ngan, Magnus Blikstad, Logan Foster, Nauris Krauze, Tim Aste, Alex Swanson, and Mark McCoy for example) are ones who are willing to dive into a little bit of script in order to improve their workflow and productivity whether it is MaxScript, MelScript, TorqueScript, or whatever language their modelling application uses.
2) Extending Constructor is all done in TorqueScript which means that your game coders should be able to help you develop the functionality you need pretty easily. Finding a TorqueScript coder is thousands of times easier than finding someone who knows French Object-Oreinted Pascal. There has already been some really cool things developed by our existing community (I have to give a shout out to Jaimi).
Quote:
Of course I only want to edit the currently selected object(s)... It's completely unnecessary to be editing vertices on every single brush in a level simultaneously.
I wanted to make it an option that if you had selection locking on it would render the vertices of the brushes you had selected but I ran out of time. Since it is such a simple change, I might be able to get it into the next version.
Quote:
OMG! Seriously? You couldn't just use a TorqueScript file? Just like any other TGE application? Not even an INI file?! Wow. And what happened to the standard key customization UI that comes with every single TGE SDK?
Yeah, it is a pain and I don't have a defense of it. Some enterprising TorqueScripter could put a gui interface on it and make a *lot* of people happy. They might could even switch it to a keybind file solution like the rest of Torque products use without having to delve into the C++ source code.
Quote:
Ok, I can understand that and I appreciate you being straight-up about it. But what you're effectively telling me (and everyone else) is that Constructor has been a big waste of time and probably won't be seeing much improvement in the future...?
There will still be some development on Constructor but it is going to be pretty slow since most of our resources are focused elsewhere. I know it sucks to hear that but that is the reality of a resource strapped business like ours. There honestly was a point earlier this year where we had to decide to push Constructor out the door in the state it was or completely cut the project and eat our losses. I had to fight pretty hard to get it finished and into your hands. It has been well received and I am still glad I was able to get it out despite the problems that have popped up since. Trust me when I say that I hope that it can reach its full potential even more than you do (there is two years of my blood and sweat poured into Constructor).
A lot of the new stuff that we are working on with tools is based around the tech we developed for Constructor (you can see pieces already over in TGB) and on the lessons we learned from Constructor so it definitely has not been a waste of time for us.
Edited on Sep 07, 2007 01:16 GMT
| Kevin Rogers (Sep 07, 2007 at 18:46 GMT) |
Quote:
How are you adding DTS's to the scene without pulling your mouse out the of the viewports to goto File->Import Static Mesh... or hitting the Import Static Mesh... button in the Tools pane?
Sorry, I was kind of unclear... What I was envisioning is that the user would need to click in the scene or hit Enter to actually add the model to the scene...
So... Ok, here's how it would work. I've seen this in other editors (Farcry's...? Morrowind's...? *shrug*) and it works great! It very intuitive and easy to use:
1) User selects Add DTS Shape tool. This would put the editor into Add Shape mode, i.e. no models are actually added to the scene yet.
2) User then selects a model from a list. Now a temporary, translucent version of the model (or even just a bounding box) is rendered at the cursor's location in the scene. This provides immediate feedback about placement.
3) The user would then click the mouse or hit Enter to permanently add the model to the scene.
Incidentally, I would love it if TGE's world editor worked like this. =)
Ok, one more idea: There could be a "DTS Shape" entity which could be placed in the scene. Then the user could select an entity (Or why not multiple entities?), hit the Add DTS Shape tool, and the entity(s) would be replaced with the shape. (This is similar the Q3Radiant's method -- there, however, the model is loaded via the entity's properties pop-up dialog, IIRC.)
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to discuss this, Matt! It was never my intention to "rip on" Constructor (Ok, maybe a little...), but rather to provide some feedback and insight into some of my frustrations with it. Hope it's been constructive! =D
| Frank Carney (Sep 08, 2007 at 02:25 GMT) |
If constructor is free, could it be open sourced to the GG community?
I could see this helping the "limited resource" issue.
| Allyn "Mr_Bloodworth" Mcelrath (Sep 10, 2007 at 20:09 GMT) |
@Matt Fairfax - I should not be required, and will NEVER, edit the code (Script in Constructors case, or GUI) of a ART tool i am using to get the functionality i need. (Not talking about plugins, but base program)
Your response to basically this statement was:
Very true =) But I would point out two things:
1) The best and most successful artists I know (Joe Maruschak, Danny Ngan, Magnus Blikstad, Logan Foster, Nauris Krauze, Tim Aste, Alex Swanson, and Mark McCoy for example) are ones who are willing to dive into a little bit of script in order to improve their workflow and productivity whether it is MaxScript, MelScript, TorqueScript, or whatever language their modelling application uses.
And my clairafacation is this:
I should not be required, and will NEVER, edit the code (Script in Constructors case, or GUI) of a ART tool i am using to get the functionality i need. (Not talking about plugins, but base program)
Please take note, i am referring to the base program. Now please go ask the people you listed, if they are willing to edit the "scripts" (Code) of Photoshop in order to change the background color? What i was trying to imply is, this type of feature should be a setting, or option, as well as many of the other options we may need. There are 15 different ways to make a selection in photoshop no plug in needed, Base functionality... This is what makes it a TOOL akin to a paint brush ETC.. not just a Batch file runner... thing.
Now, please take note (again), i said i am not talking about plug in systems, or the like that are available to extend a tools functionality. I was only speaking of the core tool. And i am quite sure, if you ask them, that they too are only referring to plug in systems found in art tools (in most cases), not the core program its self.
Clear example of Coders making a tool for coders, and not artists. Just because constructors "Code" is an open language, does not mean its a plug in system. So i should not be required to change the core programs code, to enable simple options. A script, or plugin system is completely different. Once i change a portion of the core program, its no longer stable from factory. If you get my meaning. I don't have time, or the want to deal with that from my art tools. If i want some crazy plugin (Pascal reference), sure..ill talk to a coder... But thats two worlds apart topics here. The two "Scripts" you wrote are PLUG IN SYSTEMS (MaxScript, MelScript,) Not what the tool is written in.
I would honestly like it if you guys to shore up some of the standard "settings" options, and then close up all the torque script, and create a real Plugin system.
I only bring it up in the hopes that it betters the tool.
Respectfully.
Allyn.
@Chris Calef
Quote:
@Allyn: Well, I guess we know where you stand on that! I just gotta say, although I know artists generally don't like to code, as a coder I just about peed my pants when I found out constructor exposed huge amounts of its functionality as torque scripts. If you have any friends who are coders, even amateur scripters, it's pretty darn helpful to have access to most of the inner workings of your art tool without having to recompile the whole program, or dig into some complicated API to make a plugin.
I am glad you are excited, but to me, thats SCARY. Very SCARY. I am a less variables is better kinda guy...and thats freaking scary in regards to my TOOLS stability.
Think about it this way, you want a hammer that easily comes apart, and you can stuff others things into its handle, or maybe add and remove some its functionality. Or do you want a solid, well built, from the factory , reliable "Does what it says on the box" Hammer, that you can tape some stuff to, and also remove the changes later and return to Factory settings (or remove just ONE plug in..etc..)
Most art needs Stable, dependable Tools, so when you are experimenting with the ART, you know its not because you found this handy little 42 in the code somewhere, that you changed, that relates to like 40 things..ETC... That it just crashed and corrupted your entire install and export ..
At least, not unless its in a plugins system and you can remove that plug in.
Edited on Sep 10, 2007 20:30 GMT
| Gareth Fouche (Sep 11, 2007 at 07:13 GMT) |
Now, this is the kind of community where those willing to tinker and dig down a bit flourish. And those not willing to...well, there are other tools, other engines even.
Seriously, why not drop Jaimi a mail, he seems to have quite a good grip on CTor scripting, ask him if he knows how you can change background colours or whatever?
(As a side point, you know Photoshop is on like version 10 or something, right? And users have had to pay large sums of money for every new iteration along the way to what it is now. 3DS max is even worse, beyond the budgets of a lot of indies. Please, PLEASE GG, do not take on this business model because of the whiners, some of us really like the way things work around here. We're just not as vocal :P )
Edited on Sep 11, 2007 07:19 GMT
| Allyn "Mr_Bloodworth" Mcelrath (Sep 12, 2007 at 16:22 GMT) |
| Gareth Fouche (Sep 13, 2007 at 07:09 GMT) |
"I am glad you are excited, but to me, thats SCARY. Very SCARY. I am a less variables is better kinda guy...and thats freaking scary in regards to my TOOLS stability."
is just pretty arb. You're scared of the fact that Matt has worked hard to make this a tool the community can enhance and run with? This is in the best interests of everyone, coders and artists alike, don't slate them for it or act like its a bad thing. This is what I call whining or not understanding the spirit of GG. If tinkering (or the fact that the tools are built around enabling the community to tinker/enhance) scares you, you're in the wrong place man. Sorry if that's insulting to you, but thats the philosophy this site is built around. And I sincerely hope that never changes.
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