Just to give everyone a glimpse into how busy we have been with Constructor! This is extracted from our changelogs over the last 4 months.

Since this got a little long I had to split it up and continue it over in Constructor Beta9 thru Beta14.

And no, we do not have a firm release date yet =P

Constructor Beta3 thru Beta8 Changes

Below is a list of all changes that have been made to Constructor between Beta2 and Beta8. This covers SVN revisions 554 through 781.

Tools Form Changes

Added some new tools to the Tools Form's Create tab. They are under a new Shapes header and mirror the following menu items: File->Import Static Mesh, File->Import Reference Shape, File->Replace Shapes.


These three new buttons will draw as disabled when another tool is active. This mirrors the same behavior as the commands under the File menu.

Copying Between Selection Modes

It is now possible to copy the current selection to different selection modes. While holding down the CTRL key the selection mode buttons in the Selection Form will draw an arrow over their icons. The next selection mode button that is pressed will then clear its current selection and copy over the current one.


For example while in the Brushes selection mode select two brushes. Hold down the CTRL key and click on the Vertices selection mode button under the Selection Form. Any existing vertex selection will be cleared and all vertices for the selected brushes will now be selected. This also works in the other direction where selecting a couple of vertices can be used to then select faces or brushes.

Holding down the SHIFT key in addition to CTRL will not clear the current selection in the destination selection mode but instead add to it:

New Axis Gizmo Planar Handles

The Axis Gizmo has been expanded. It now includes handles between the world XYZ arrows that allow travel about a plane in addition to the current linear travel. There is the yellow XY plane handle, magenta XZ plane handle and cyan YZ handle. Holding down the mouse and dragging on any of these handles allows the selected items to be moved along the plane. Holding down the ALT key will allow scaling in the two directions of the plane at once. Holding down the CTRL key allows for rotation about the normal to the plane, which is no different from previous functionality but may be an easier to understand form.

Lighting Profile Gui

Added a window for adjusting light/shadow quality and light map size for the in-editor and export lighting profiles (accessible through the menu Scene -> Manage Lighting Profiles...). Light and shadow quality can be reduced to improve lighting performance while working on the scene.

Persistent Scene Lighting

Lighting for scene files (.csx) is saved to a separate file using the same base name with the extension .clx (example: scene file myScene.csx, lighting file myScene.clx). When a scene file is loaded its corresponding lighting file is also loaded, if available, restoring the scene lighting to the state at its previous save. Otherwise all light mapping is ignored until the next relight. Lighting files are portable and can be sent to others along with the scene to avoid lengthy lighting.

Separate Lighting Scale

Added support for separate lighting scales based on object type:

light_geometry_scale - adjusts the lighting scale of normal brushes.
light_smoothing_scale - adjusts the lighting scale of smoothed brushes.
light_mesh_scale - adjusts the lighting scale of static meshes.

Smooth shaded brushes and static mesh objects are more sensitive to lighting scale and generally need to have a lower lighting scale (larger light maps). The separate scales allow tight control over these objects without having to increase the lighting scale of normal brushes (conserving resources).

Sunlight Lighting Preview

Interior light mapping can be calculated with sunlight to preview how it will look in-engine. The sunlight preview is toggled in the Lighting Profile GUI opened with the Scene->Manage Lightging Profiles... menu.

Alpha Lighting and Rendering

Transparent static mesh surfaces partially obscure lighting (currently based on fixed amount). Alpha render sorting is also implemented.

Lighting Progress

The Lighting Progress dialog shows the current operation and progress while lighting the scene. The dialog also allows canceling or pausing (minimizes CPU usage while Constructor is in the background) the process.

Misc Lighting Changes

- Fixed Selected Relight issue that caused the entire scene to be re-lit.
- Fixed spotlight direction issue.
- Improved shadow detection.

Fixed and Improved Slice and Knife CSG operations

Fixed a crash introduced in the Slice and Knife tools. They also now apply a valid texture to the newly created faces (from one of the split faces) and generate a valid set of texgens for them.

Axis Gizmo Drag Duplication

Holding down the SHIFT key while clicking and dragging on the Axis Gizmo will now duplicate all selected objects and move the new objects with the Axis Gizmo. This works with both the axis aligned handles as well as the planar handles on the Axis Gizmo. Valid objects that may be duplicated in this way include map brushes, point entities, reference shape and static meshes.

NOTE: This feature currently overwrites the primary clipboard buffer.

Stepped Rotation with the Axis Gizmo

With the Axis Gizmo now making use of the SHIFT key once again, holding down SHIFT+CTRL keys will rotate the selected objects by fixed step amount. Currently this stepped amount is set to 15 degrees, but will be user modifiable in a future release.

New Keyboard Shortcuts

• New shortcuts for the Transform tools:
t - Activates the Translate tool
r - Activates the Rotate Single Axis tool
s - Activates the Planar Scale tool

• y - Toggles the current tool on and off. Will also reactivate the last active tool that was deactivated through other means. This allows for a workflow of: activate Translate tool and move selected objects, toggle the tool off and select other objects, reactivate the tool and move the new objects, etc.
• space bar - 'Finishes' the current tool, which is defined as follows: If the tool creates geometry such as the Build Cube or Knife tools then this is the same as pressing the tool's 'Make' button or pressing Enter. The operation is performed and the tool is deactivated. If the tool is of a Transform type such as the Translate or Rotate Single Axis then this is the same as pressing the escape key -- the tool is simply deactivated. This centralizes the deactivation of tools to a central and rest location on the keyboard while providing the final action most common for the type of tool. And of course the 'y' key may still be used to reactivate the last tool that was deactivated with the space bar.
• s - Now activates the Size Bounds (or Transform: Size) tool. Previously it was mapped to the Planar Scale tool.
• SHIFT+s - Activates the Planar Scale tool
• CTRL+z - Undo one step
• CTRL+y - Redo one step
• SHIFT+Space - The equivalent of 'Make & Cont'. The original SHIFT+Enter version still exists.

Custom Form Menu Items

A Form's content may now add custom menu items and submenu items to the Form's menu. These appear at the top of the Form's menu before the standard items. ie: above the standard Add Horizontal Split menu item

Materials Form Current Texture Popup

The Materials Form now has some working options under its Form menu for the Current Texture popup. These options may be found under the 'Texture Popup Style' submenu. The first option is 'Text Only' and has the Current Texture popup display as it always has with a text list. The second option is 'Small Image and Text' that displays a 32x32 preview of the texture beside its name in the popup. The third and last option is 'Large Image and Text' that displays a 64x64 preview of the texture beside its name. The Small Image mode is now the default in all existing layouts.

3rd Party Tool Plug-ins

Script plug-ins placed in the constructor/client/plug-ins directory will now automatically register themselves and may be activated from the Tools->User Plug-ins menu. This menu location is temporary until the full user plug-in system is implemented. An example SimpleBox plug-in has been made available that allows the user to drag out a cube and perform some simple texture changes.

One Click Create

A new check box has been added to the Tools portion of the Preferences Form: 'One Click'. When checked this activates the 'one click create' mode of all standard primitive tools. ie: Build Cube, Build Tube, etc. In this mode the user activates a primitive tool and clicks and drags in a 3D view. Upon release of the mouse the tool is finished off and new geometry is automatically added to the scene.

Tool Bounding Box Update

All tools that make use of the standard bounding box now have corner handles. These operate in the same manner as the original face centered handles. In the perspective view the corner handles operate in a 2D plane as defined by the current back plane. Tools may use a flag to turn off the corner handles.

Size Bounds or Transform: Size Tool

The new Transform: Size tool may be found under the Tools Form's Modify tab or the Tools->Modify menu. Activating the tool displays a bounding box around all selected objects or all objects if none are selected. The bounding box handles may be dragged to resize the contents while the current snap-to-grid settings are respected. As a bonus the selected objects may be moved with the tool's center handle.

Visible Bounding Box

A new check box has been added to the Preferences Form: Draw Bounds. When checked the corners of the selected objects' bounding box will be drawn.

Object Properties Form Update

The Object Properties Form (and the Object tab under the Properties Form) has been expanded to include tabs for the different types of selectable objects: All, Brush, Face, Vertex and Entity. Only those tabs that are relevant to the currently selected objects will be visible at any one time. So if nothing is selected then the Object Properties Form will appear empty, just like the Tools Properties Form. Only the Face and Entity tabs are operational with all of the previously released entity properties found under the Entity tab. The Face tab is described in the next section.

Object Properties Form's Face Tab

The Object Properties Form's Face tab (also accessible from the Object tab under the Properties Form) contains a number of controls for directly modifying a texture's values. With at least one face selected the Face tab provides these parameters in three groups: Position, Justify & Fit, and Advanced.


With multiple faces selected, any text edit fields that would contain different values between the faces (such as two faces having a different absolute scale) show as being blank or empty. Any fields that contain the same value across multiple faces display that value ie: if all faces have a rotation of 0 then the Rotation field would display a '0'. Entering a value into any field will make all selected faces take on that value while leaving a field blank will allow the value between faces to remain distinct. For example with multiple faces selected, entering a '2' into the Scale X and leaving the Scale Y field blank would force all textures to have an x-axis scale of 2 while not touching the current y-axis scale.

Each of the Face tab's three groups is described below.

Texture: Position

These parameters provide the texture's current position and orientation. All values are 'live' so if a texture is modified outside of the Face tab -- such as with a tool -- the texture's current values are represented here. Please note that a texture's scale and rotation occur at the face's center rather than the texture's 'origin'.

Texture: Justify & Fit

This group contains a number of buttons that act immediately on the texture(s). All of the button's functions should be clear from the diagram above and from the tool tips in Constructor with the possible exception of Reset Scale. This button will remove all scaling due to the stretch buttons being applied or a scale entered into the Texture: Position group.

Texture: Advanced

These parameters provide access to the texture planes' normal vector and allow for the changing of a texture's orientation. Please note that currently these values already have the texture's size and the map's geometry scale applied.

Single 3D View Form Update

The 3D View Form has had all of its Gear Menu operations moved to the Form Menu. The 'independently' operations have been placed under a Camera submenu (although they are still not operational) and the 'Draw Grid' toggle has been placed under an Options submenu. With these changes the Gear Menu has now been removed to recover some space at the top of the 3D View Form.

Undo / Redo

• Creating and deleting a brush
• Transforms (move, rotate and scale) using the axis gizmo
• Brush selection and deselection
• Selection
• Adding / Deleting
• Grouping
• Locking
• Hiding
• Transforms (rotation, scale, position)
• Replace Shape

Added an undo form on the main GUI with a list of the current undo stack. Clicking on any item in the undo list will undo/redo directly to that point. Current undo snapshot is the selected one, greyed entries are redo and black are undo. If a snapshot is currently open (for example, if you're using a tool) it will appear in red. If you just did something and the undo form doesn't change, it's likely that what you just did is not currently undoable.

Texture Properties Copy and Paste

A brush face's texture image, offset, scale and rotation may now be copied and pasted (to multiple faces) using the standard menu items and keyboard shortcuts. The texture planes are not pasted so as to preserve the texture's facing.

3D View Grid Update

When fixed grid spacing has been set the 3D View Form grid drawing will not become any smaller than the current spacing. This is to prevent the illusion of being able to move items in smaller steps than are actually allowed by the current grid snap setting.

Spinners Added to Text Edit Fields

All numeric text edit controls used in the Tools Properties Form or the Preferences Form now have an attached spinner control. Using the mouse to click and drag this small up/down arrow control will increase or decrease the value within the text edit control. While using the spinner a number of keyboard modifiers may be held:

• CTRL - Change value 10x faster
• SHIFT+CTRL - Change value 100x faster
• ALT - Change value 10x slower
• SHIFT+ALT - Change value 100x slower

The amount that is added or subtracted by a spinner control is controlled by two preferences depending on the type of value being modified: SpinnerFloatValue and SpinnerIntValue. There is currently no interface to modify these values.

Tool Dynamic Control Update

• Text edit-based dynamic controls now support optional minimum and maximum limits. These limits are checked at the time the user entered value is validated, which also includes limiting a spinner control created value. Tools may implement limits by calling %form.setFieldMinLimit() and %form.setFieldMaxLimit() on the particular field within Plugin::Interface(). Manually created dynamic controls call setMinLimit() and setMaxLimit() directly on the control.
• A new "numericinteger" dynamic control is now available. It operates the same as the "numeric" control but restricts all values to be integers.

New Tool Plug-in Type: Dialog

The tool plug-in Dialog type is now operational. When a Dialog tool is activated a standard modal dialog window is opened with OK and Cancel buttons. The window is then populated with GUI controls from the tool and is automatically sized to fit. Clicking on OK or pressing the Enter key will apply (or Make/Finish) the tool. Clicking on Cancel, pressing the ESC key or closing the window will deactivate the tool. From the tool's perspective defining the GUI is the same as an Interactive tool except the Mouse and Handle methods are not used. The new Center1D tool is and example of a Dialog tool.

New Tool Plug-in Method

Tool plug-ins have a new method: Plugin::HandleDone(%this, %inst, %event, %hindex). This is called when the user releases the mouse button after manipulating a tool's handle. It is optional and only the Size Bounds tool has it defined at this time.

Center 1D Tool

A new Center 1D tool has been added to the Tools Form's Modify tab. Activating the tool will open a window asking for an axis to center on. Pressing the OK button or the Return key will cause all selected objects to move to the world center on the chosen axis. The tool currently does not make use of the Action Center and only operates on the selection center ie: Axis Gizmo location.

Rest on Ground Tool

A new Rest On Ground tool has been added to the Tools Form's Modify tab. Activating the tool will place the bottom bounds of the selected items onto the world's XY (z=0) plane.

Hollow Brush Tool

A new Hollow Brush tool has been added to the Tools Form's Modify tab. Activating the tool with at least one brush selected will open a window asking for the thickness of the wall that will remain after the hollow operation. Pressing the OK button or the Return key (twice) will cause all selected brushes to perform a CSG subtraction to hollow them out. This is not limited to cubes.

Clip Tool

A new Clip tool has been added to the Tools Form's Modify tab. This tool defines a clipping plane using three points that may be set by the user. When the tool is first activated the user may drag in a 3D view to initially define the plane. The handles may then be moved into their correct position. Please note that while the interface shows a triangle between the three handles, an infinite plane based on the triangle will be used -- the triangle need not physically touch the brushes to clip. A future update will show the clipping plane through the selected brush's bounding box just like how the Knife and Slice tools operate.

The Clip tool also supports the moving of all handles of the clipping plane by holding down the CTRL key and dragging one handle. Constraining the handle's movement with the SHIFT key may be combined with this operation.

Mac Cut/Copy/Paste/Undo/SelectAll Shortcuts

Edit fields now use Mac style editing shortcuts, on the Mac build of Constructor:

• Cmd-X: Cut
• Cmd-C: Copy
• Cmd-V: Paste
• Cmd-Z: Undo
• Cmd-A: Select All

CSX File Bug Fixes

A couple of fixes to the CSX file format have been made.

Incorrect Transform

Fixed a bug with CSX files and brush rotation and scale. In previous releases when both a scale and a rotation were applied to a brush and saved to a CSX file, the order in which they were reapplied during a CSX file load could fail 50% of the time. A full transform matrix is now saved with the brush to ensure the order remains correct. Sadly this fix will not correct existing CSX files but will ensure a correct brush transform from now on.

The following picture illustrates how your CSX file may load in before this fix so you know what to look for:

Incorrect Vertex-Edited Brush Origin

Often while editing a brush's vertices its origin in the world is no longer its centroid. The CSX format had assumed that the brush's position was indeed always its center. So when loading a CSX file that contained a brush with modified vertices the brush would appear to shift a little or a lot. CSX file loading now no longer assumes the brush's center and these modified brushes load in correctly.

The following picture demonstrates how a number of brushes with their vertices modified to form an arch will load in before and after this fix:


In the future a pivot point system will be in place for brushes so that you're not stuck with non-optimal brush origins.

NOTE: The Hollow Brush tool will not operate correctly on vertex-modified brushes that have their origin not in the center. This will be corrected in a future update.

Change Brush Type

With at least one brush selected the Brush Tab of the Object Properties Form (or the Object tab of the Properties Form) will display the brushes' type. It is from here that you may set a brush to be a portal or belong to the 'detail' group. With more than one brush selected, if their brush types differ then none of the radio buttons will be highlighted. However selecting one of the brush type radio buttons will force all selected brushes to take on that type.


What is happening when you modify a brush's type is that a solid entity (or brush entity) is created and the brush is made a child of it. Some solid entities only allow a single child such as the Torque portal solid entity. In this case a new entity is created for each brush. Others allow for multiple children such as Torque's detail solid entity. In this case a new entity is only created if it doesn't already exist and the brush is made its child.

Above the brush type radio buttons is the name and ID of the brush's parent. You may use this information to modify the parent entity's properties from the Manager Entities window opened from the Scene->Manage Entities menu. In the future it is likely that you'll be able to modify the brush's parent entity properties directly from the Brush tab.

When a brush is deleted its parent entity is also deleted if the brush was its only (or last remaining) child. The exception is the 'worldspawn' entity that is the parent for structural brushes as it should also exist.

Linear Clone Tool

A new Linear Clone tool has been added to the Tools Form's Modify tab. This tool will make multiple copies of the selected brushes (or all brushes if none are selected) and apply the given scale, rotation and offset (in that order) to the copies. The amount of offset, etc. applied is cumulative for each copy. So the second copy will be rotated more than the first, etc. At some point this tool will also work with shapes and entities.

Give Me Cubes Tool

A new Give Me Cubes tool has been added to the Tools->User Plug-ins menu. This tool will automatically build a quantity of textured cubes in an array and will be used for optimization testing in the future. When the tool is activated a dialog box will open asking for the number of cubes and their size. The spacing between the cubes is the same as their size. The tool attempts to keep the cubes in a symmetrical array but will forgo this to produce the number of cubes asked for. Each cube face is given the currently active texture but each face's offset and scale is randomly set.

More Information on Constructor

If you are interested in knowing more about Constructor please be sure to read the rest of posts about it:

Deconstructing Constructor - Part 1
Deconstructing Constructor - Part 2
Deconstructing Constructor - Part 3
Deconstructing Constructor - Part 4
Deconstructing Constructor - Part 5

Of mice and men and Constructor
When will Constructor ship?
Constructor Functional Beta Ships!
Constructor Beta2
Constructor Beta9 thru Beta14

TGE-L, Constructor and TSTPro

Torque Constructor Devshot 1
Torque Constructor Devshot 2