New plugin ideas
by Jaimi McEntire · in Constructor · 05/25/2007 (10:06 am) · 42 replies
I'm looking for some new plugin ideas. Here are some of the things I'm considering:
-> New hollowing tool - Will sort of extrude each face, with the slice between each brush being the edge normal. This should make a more predictable hollow than the csg-subtract method. However, it will produce angled cuts, so it can't replace the other hollow completely.
-> Cylinder - Make a hollow cylinder.
-> Corridor maker - Specify the slopes of the sides of the corridor, the thickness of the floor/roof/walls, and optionally create a "plug" at the end that can be used for csg subtracting to connect your corridor to something. Maybe even include options for different corridor connections.
-> Path extruder: Select a set of faces, and extrude it in series to a set of path markers. Should make creating roads (etc) relatively painless.
-> Brush Terrain: Creates a small grid terrain from brushes. Specify the width of the "grid" elements. Will mark all the unseen faces with a null texture. Can be oriented different ways. Might be useful for small plots of land and/or caves.
Put in your vote! What should be next? Or is there something I haven't even thought of?
-> New hollowing tool - Will sort of extrude each face, with the slice between each brush being the edge normal. This should make a more predictable hollow than the csg-subtract method. However, it will produce angled cuts, so it can't replace the other hollow completely.
-> Cylinder - Make a hollow cylinder.
-> Corridor maker - Specify the slopes of the sides of the corridor, the thickness of the floor/roof/walls, and optionally create a "plug" at the end that can be used for csg subtracting to connect your corridor to something. Maybe even include options for different corridor connections.
-> Path extruder: Select a set of faces, and extrude it in series to a set of path markers. Should make creating roads (etc) relatively painless.
-> Brush Terrain: Creates a small grid terrain from brushes. Specify the width of the "grid" elements. Will mark all the unseen faces with a null texture. Can be oriented different ways. Might be useful for small plots of land and/or caves.
Put in your vote! What should be next? Or is there something I haven't even thought of?
#22
First off I'm not if sure there is way to do this already, but if so i havent found it.
I'm sure there's tons of people out there who've made stuff 3DS, UTed, and other programs. Of course it's easy to convert these into .dts files and import them to Constructor, but wouldn't extreemly helpful, and powerfull to have the ability to convert these objects into brushes thereby giving them brush collision and lighting properties?
08/10/2007 (10:19 pm)
FILE CONVERSION----convert to brushFirst off I'm not if sure there is way to do this already, but if so i havent found it.
I'm sure there's tons of people out there who've made stuff 3DS, UTed, and other programs. Of course it's easy to convert these into .dts files and import them to Constructor, but wouldn't extreemly helpful, and powerfull to have the ability to convert these objects into brushes thereby giving them brush collision and lighting properties?
#23
it is possible for you to create an cave genereator into a plugin?
Best Regards
Alex
08/24/2007 (2:03 am)
Hey Jaimi,it is possible for you to create an cave genereator into a plugin?
Best Regards
Alex
#24
@Alex - Maybe... I'll think on it.
@Jacob - Complete!
I have a couple more plugins that I haven't released yet. I'll try to get them prepped for release this weekend.
08/24/2007 (5:00 pm)
@Zeig - Probably not, since the map architecture has to be made of convex solids.@Alex - Maybe... I'll think on it.
@Jacob - Complete!
I have a couple more plugins that I haven't released yet. I'll try to get them prepped for release this weekend.
#26
Great Tools, they are such a time saver, I do have a suggestion/request for your extrude face tool. Do you think you could update it to be able to extrude faces as a group (similar to what you can do in max as an example) where the extrutions vertex's of the faces extruded meet at the same point?
an example shape would be say taking an 8 sided cylinder and extruding each verticle face 2 units, giving the appearence of an initial larger cylinder, which you could then select the new top faces of the extruded faces and extrude them vertically, ending up with a perfect hollowed tower.
Obviously you can do alot more then just that with being able to extrude faces as a group in max, which is why i'm suggesting it. And since we can't dial in or type in position information for vertex's, if you try finding a midpoint by eyeballing and manually creating the same shape after extruding 2 units the shape is usually irregular at best.
I think that it would be an excellent added feature to your current tool and hope you'll consider it.
even if you don't thanks for the tools, as i said earlier they are great.
08/26/2007 (7:37 pm)
Jaimi, Great Tools, they are such a time saver, I do have a suggestion/request for your extrude face tool. Do you think you could update it to be able to extrude faces as a group (similar to what you can do in max as an example) where the extrutions vertex's of the faces extruded meet at the same point?
an example shape would be say taking an 8 sided cylinder and extruding each verticle face 2 units, giving the appearence of an initial larger cylinder, which you could then select the new top faces of the extruded faces and extrude them vertically, ending up with a perfect hollowed tower.
Obviously you can do alot more then just that with being able to extrude faces as a group in max, which is why i'm suggesting it. And since we can't dial in or type in position information for vertex's, if you try finding a midpoint by eyeballing and manually creating the same shape after extruding 2 units the shape is usually irregular at best.
I think that it would be an excellent added feature to your current tool and hope you'll consider it.
even if you don't thanks for the tools, as i said earlier they are great.
#27
thanks for your reply. I think it is a hard quest to build the cave feature.
08/27/2007 (12:00 am)
Hi Jaimi,thanks for your reply. I think it is a hard quest to build the cave feature.
#28
any updates on the status of the new plugins?
08/30/2007 (8:39 pm)
Quote:I have a couple more plugins that I haven't released yet. I'll try to get them prepped for release this weekend. Aug 24, 2007
any updates on the status of the new plugins?
#29
09/10/2007 (10:49 am)
A pipe tool would be very helpful, for creating bends in pipes.
#30
I'm on site, as soon as I get home, I can put them up.
Jaimi
09/10/2007 (5:10 pm)
Quote:Any updates on the status of the new plugins?
I'm on site, as soon as I get home, I can put them up.
Jaimi
#31
09/13/2007 (5:32 am)
Cool, and thanks again.
#32
09/17/2007 (5:46 am)
Has anyone been getting concave brushes when using Jaimi's plugins? Ex: When I make a box, extrude a face. I then take some vertexes of the extruded brush and as soon as I move them, I get red lines. I already tried reinstalling, that did nothing. Here's some screenshots of a race track I'm trying to work on:
#33
09/17/2007 (8:16 am)
Britt - I just tried this (dropped a block, and extruded a face) and didn't get any angry red lines. If I grabbed three vertexes (instead of 4 off a block face), then I got them, but this is the same behavior with a regular (non-extruded) cube.
#34
09/17/2007 (10:52 am)
I tried the same thing. No errors. I'm just trying to figure out why this would happen with this scene.
#35
It's probably because you have lots of odd angles going on in your scene. You're ending up with verts that are not on grid points. And then when you move all the verts at once, they all snap to whatever grid resolution you have set in your prefs, messing up the perpendicularity (Wow, that's a real word :) ). To fix the problem just turn off snap to grid, or just be extra careful about your angles and snapping. You may need trigonometry. :)
Jaimi:
Thanks a ton for all your work on these plugins and for making them public. They're great!
10/04/2007 (4:51 pm)
Britt:It's probably because you have lots of odd angles going on in your scene. You're ending up with verts that are not on grid points. And then when you move all the verts at once, they all snap to whatever grid resolution you have set in your prefs, messing up the perpendicularity (Wow, that's a real word :) ). To fix the problem just turn off snap to grid, or just be extra careful about your angles and snapping. You may need trigonometry. :)
Jaimi:
Thanks a ton for all your work on these plugins and for making them public. They're great!
#36
10/04/2007 (8:59 pm)
Cool, I'll give it a shot.
#37
11/24/2007 (8:54 am)
How about a plugin that cuts all the selected brushes into triangles, for easier vert editing? 
#38
Start with:
Select the two brushes and hit the plugin button.
End with:
12/16/2007 (5:08 pm)
How about a plugin that creates a brush connecting two selected brushes?Start with:
Select the two brushes and hit the plugin button.
End with:
#40
12/17/2007 (1:50 pm)
This isn't a voting topic... just a topic for ideas.
Torque 3D Owner Jacob
All your plugins are very useful - Thank You!