Posted By: rreayDockable or floating palette windows. I'd like to leave any number of windows up while working, that way I don't need to do things like open the sheets dialog, hide everything, close it, make one small change, then reopen, reveal those things, and close it again. When I'm drawing multiple contours I'd love to keep the Select Drawing Tool window open so I don't have to open it each time I want to change. If you get really fancy allow multiples of the same palette window where it makes sense; like symbols.
I would like to second rreay's suggestion. Pretty please?
Posted By: Stevenav For example. draw a wall, then draw a wall perpendicular to it with the start point of that new wall at the end point of the other wall. You end up with a little notch in the corner instead of a nice sharp corner.
In DD1 you had a more complex corridor tool, but it worked better because you didn't end up with funky notched walls.
Can you please give me an idea of what goes wrong and what you'd like to see? Either post an attachment, or email me an fcw.
I think he means if you have a Path with a thickness greater than 0 (e.g. 1'-0"), you can get a missing square "chunk" or "notch" in the corners if you start drawing the wall at a corner. To work around this, I always start drawing walls in the "middle" of a wall and avoid starting at corners. Lines with a width greater than 0 will always have notches no matter where you start (since they are composed of individual line segments every time you click a point), which is why you should always use Paths instead of Lines to draw walls. Boxes work nice too for square rooms, and can be "cut" by door symbols as well.
I think he means if you have a Path with a thickness greater than 0 (e.g. 1'-0"), you can get a missing square "chunk" or "notch" in the corners if you start drawing the wall at a corner. To work around this, I always start drawing walls in the "middle" of a wall and avoid starting at corners. Lines with a width greater than 0 will always have notches no matter where you start (since they are composed of individual line segments every time you click a point), which is why you should always use Paths instead of Lines to draw walls. Boxes work nice too for square rooms, and can be "cut" by door symbols as well.
Correct. However this is not what I "want" to happen. What I want is that if these lines are sharing a common layer and type, that the program be intelligent enough to recognize "Oh, hey, these two lines are sharing a common endpoint, maybe i should calculate their angle from each other and insert a corner.
This should be able to be accomplished with a piece of proximity code. Have it check all entities on the "walls" layer, produce a list of endpoints (endpoints and startpoints are all that need be checked) and test if any start or end points are shared in common. Then apply the same wrapping code that's used already.
Only invoke it when a redraw is clicked.
We should not have to start walls in the middle as a workaround. If you want this to be an organic and intuitive app, then you want it to behave as people would expect it to behave. I take Autocad as a perfect example of this. When you build walls with thicknesses in Autocad and they intersect, you have a command on hand that will combine them into a single Cornered wall. No notches are left.
I know that paths should be used for complex walls, but I've had times when particularly complex walls with thicknesses greater than 0 will have varied wall thicknesses. (For example the wall goes left and right and at an angle then left and right again, and by the time it's done the wall thicknesses on screen vary from what was set for them to be. I'll be happy to provide an example of this if you like)
The point being, is that if you lay down Wall 1 and wall 2, you should be able to join them up. Not being able to join them up simply looks bad. It should be a fairly basic tool to offer.
Or you could just use a Box or Poly instead of a Path, not to mention other options that already exist as well like Combine Paths and Path to Poly etc.
Honestly, it's never been that big of an issue for me (but I'm not saying it isn't a valid issue for you though). It's probably more elegant* anyway to use a Box/Poly in cases where this would be an issue rather than a Path. I've been trying to force myself to use those more in my vector dungeon maps rather than relying solely on Path. If I need to add a corner later and want to avoid the "notch", I start the path not on the existing corner but on the wall overlapping. That's not very elegant either though - I should probably be use Combine Paths more in those cases.
The problem with the combine path tool is that it's tremendously spotty. It will frequently delete sections if you use it to join up first two paths, then combine that combined path with yet another path. (joining up 3 paths) or use complex wall paths.
I attribute this to the cad engine not being as robust as it could be.
And yes, I've been using the Combine Path tool for some time, but the combined path tool requires you to know the anticlockwise rule, and takes note of the way the path was created into account rather than which points are the logical ones to use (sometimes trying to connect completely illogical ends with each other, or even deleting whole sections) Frequently the combine path tool will join up one path to the other, using the start and end points of the two paths. When it should instead look for the most proximate points and join those. And if you use the tool to join paths repeatedly it will sometimes delete one path for no obvious reason.
That's why I'm saying, a simple tool that lets you select a region and if there are two wall sections sharing THE SAME endpoints or start and end or end and start points...that it will corner them at that SHARE point, would be a helpful tool.
Now, Profantasy is asking for NEW FEATURES that we want, and he's said no bug fixes (Otherwise I'd have said "fix the dang combine path tool") For me, this would be the simplest and most organic tool I could ask for to fix the corner notch issue. Also it's "nice" that it's not a big issue for you, then don't comment on it. Saying it isn't an issue for you honestly comes off as you being rather dismissive about the issue which you admit exists.
It's an issue, it should be fixed or a tool offered to make it simple and organic. Also the using a box or polyline option "elegant" comment is wrong. Let me explain why.
Let's say you create a box room, and create a 10' wide corridor, all with .5 foot thick walls You trim a 10 ' break in the room (which remember has .5 thick walls) that break is EXACTLY 10'. When you connect that corridor to that room, each of those corner walls inside the room will have notches. Why? Because, the 10' wide corridor is actually now 9.5 foot wide because the walls measure inward and outward .25 feet on each side of the corridor. That 9.5' empty area has two .25 foot wall edges that eat away .5 feet. And now that 9.5 foot corridor is matching up to a 10' wide hole. End result is notched corners, and it looks ugly.
How I'd expect a corner tool to work: Click the tool Marquee the wall corner area to create. (selecting the two common walls) Tool searches only the wall layer for walls in that area and finds their endpoints or start points in that area. Tool compares all start and end points for commonality Any two walls found that share common start or end points (or maybe even proximity within a tolerance factor) have those points located and a corner created that is of an angle appropriate to their common angle to each other Thickness of corner is based on the averaged thicknesses of the two joined walls. Fill is either the common fill of the two walls or must be selected if they are of different fill stlyes.
Sure there are plenty of work arounds, heck I could just draw a new wall over the top of the two walls to create the corner, but I don't WANT to have to know a cludgey workaround, or go through some ass backwards (start a wall in the middle) technique. It should be simple and easy to create a pair of walls and join them. As it is, such is not the case. A simple corner tool would correct this.
Another interesting tool I'd like to see is a multi type poly tool. You click it like a soft or hard poly tool, but when you do, you have a hard corner, soft corner, or arc section tool.
The tool would be used to create complex combo style paths for rooms or corridors.
Currently you have to piece together rooms that are complex, say a room that has an arced alcove but straight walls otherwise. like so http://www.youtube.com/user/joesweeney88#p/u/17/2dQUgDMDhPk which shows the process of creating a complex room.
You'd have to create the straight wall pieces and use the tools to move the curved section to fit with the straight walls.
Instead, using a multi type poly path, you would select the tool, then select the path type for the initial wall and for each subseqent wall you draw that changes from the previous type, then lay it down, (lets say the first few sections are straight, then you click the option for a curved section, you click arc, and have the option for the kind of arc you want (center point , arc bias (which side of the center does the arc get drawn on) and the end point for example), then switch to soft poly, then back to straight)
Being able to switch path types for designing a complex room for example would be powerful indeed.
I believe most of these would be doable if you simply modified the soft poly tool to allow handle manipulation to set some handles to 90 degree control surfaces (creating the straight angled poly lines) everything else would be a matter of handle manipulation to create arcs and the like.
@Stevenav - If it's something you feel you need then it's certainly a valid suggestion. I guess I just don't get into those situations where I end up with a notch very often. I just avoid starting/ending Paths on corners. That's usually not hard for me to do because I'm usually tracing a scan of a hand-drawn dungeon map anyway and have some idea of what I want so planning is easier. In the rare instances where I do end up with the notch, I know how to easily fix it. Different styles, different approaches.
Boolean object addition, subtraction, and intersection functions
For example, you lay down 5 simple floor shapes. You select Boolean add and select all 5 floor objects, click do it. and all three are boolean added to each other and the fill style of the first item is applied to all of them as one.
Subtraction would be select all the items to be selected from, click do it, then select the object to be subtracted.
Interest would be that only where all selected items intersect is the object left behind. So if you had 2 circles overlapping you'd have only the area WHERE they interlap left over everything else would be deleted.
And finally, convert poly to path. Sort of like the multipoly tool. Only in reverse.
Posted By: jaerdaph I think he means if you have a Path with a thickness greater than 0 (e.g. 1'-0"), you can get a missing square "chunk" or "notch" in the corners if you start drawing the wall at a corner. To work around this, I always start drawing walls in the "middle" of a wall and avoid starting at corners. Lines with a width greater than 0 will always have notches no matter where you start (since they are composed of individual line segments every time you click a point), which is why you should always use Paths instead of Lines to draw walls. Boxes work nice too for square rooms, and can be "cut" by door symbols as well.
I believe this is the effect he is talking about. It can normally be fixed by the Path to Poly command though, although it would be nice if it never occurred.
Monsen has it. But like I said, I wouldn't draw it so it ended up with that artifact in the lower left corner - I'd either start the Path in the middle of where one of the wall starts, or, much more elegantly, just use the Box command or the Poly command instead. If I needed a ten foot opening in the middle of one of the walls, I'd use Path and start at where the opening starts, draw around the room enclosure, and end where the opening starts. The right tool for the right job.
Some sort of tool or effect that effectively shows hills & various altitudes on CD3. Whenever I go to put some sort of hill effect, I have to trial & error effects but no matter what, it just doesn't seem to look quite right. Hills, cliff's, chasms, etc. various terrain features in CD3 to show different hights.
Like the modern day ability to join photographs easily together by their common elements, it would be nice to be able to easily line=up and join land masses and have CC do the pixel matching, splicing, keep the polys and fills intact, and remove redundant/duplicate information.
Likewise, in reverse, it would be nice to be able to 'cut' a piece out of a map and keep polys/fills intact (i.e. an easy precursor to 'zooming in' for a more granular scale)
I believe this is the effect he is talking about. It can normally be fixed by the Path to Poly command though, although it would be nice if it never occurred.
We could add a drawing tool option which "closed" a wall making it into a poly if you hit the starting poing exactly. But, Rooms are supposed to be drawing using Room drawing tools, and walls have a different purpse.
Posted By: bearclawSome sort of tool or effect that effectively shows hills & various altitudes on CD3. Whenever I go to put some sort of hill effect, I have to trial & error effects but no matter what, it just doesn't seem to look quite right. Hills, cliff's, chasms, etc. various terrain features in CD3 to show different hights.
Can you give an example of how such a thing would appear after it was drawn?
Can you give an example of how such a thing would appear after it was drawn? Simon
Well, sort of. http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv284/pelldom/Glastona.png This is the best effect I could come up with for hills. The upper right corner has some small hills and the top half part of the city is on a hill. To create this effect, I began with Gandwarf's hill effect he posted somewhere. It didn't quite come across the way I wanted it so it was a lengthy process of trial & error to get this effect.
What about a night/darkness setting/style for CD3? How that would come across but it occured to me that it might be of interest. Actually, I guess that would more be an Annual suggestion now that I think about it.
I keep accidentally zooming in with full effects on, triggering some really long redraws, so I'd really appreciate a "turn off effects on zoom" option.
This is probably too much to ask, but any chance at getting videocard / DirectX support for displaying sheet effects? I'm hoping to see something to speed them up.
Posted By: RogdorI keep accidentally zooming in with full effects on, triggering some really long redraws, so I'd really appreciate a "turn off effects on zoom" option.
Perhaps a way to render the current view with effects on once, but effects stay off would do it?
We are working on speeding up effects; we've added parallel processing support for some of the slower ones.
Posted By: rreay Sandbox all the macros so that changes don't stick outside the macro.
This is certainly how they are supposed to work. If you can get one to do this, we can fix the bug.
I ran into a macro breaking my environment again but I don't know which and I don't know how.
What I was thinking was an explicit sandbox for macros where a macro can't effect the users settings even if it crashes out. The system settings aren't effected as a macro runs. Any settings changes made inside a macro work for that macro but it's running off a copy of the system setting and do not stick for the user wether the macro end normally or crashes out. If macro actually need to effect to users environment you would add a mechanism by which macros could explicitly change the environment. This way they could make a change they needed to, but there would be no accidental or unwanted changes.
This could also make writing macros a bit easier. The writer doesn't have to explicitly save and restore any settings they change so there is less boilerplatecode you have to write for each macro.
Macros are simple text replacement language; nothing more sophisticated than that. We are better of rewriting macros as commands. In the long term I'd prefer a more sophisticated macro language.
The ability to jog/slide or otherwise move an inserted image (assume for tracing purposes) without the overlaying drawing disappearing or the image overriding everything; in otherwords be able to slide and image underneath whatever drawing has already taken place and see - in real time - how things are lining up, particularly when rescaling the bmp. Right now if you click move or scale the inserted BMP -regardless of sheet order - will redraw on the top of everything until you move it (now you can't see where you are trying to align it to), stop and refresh.
Posted By: Simon Rogers Perhaps a way to render the current view with effects on once, but effects stay off would do it?
That sounds perfect. Also, a button and/or hotkey for that option would work nicely, so that we'd only have to go through the menus for the full toggle on of sheet effects. I'd assume that most of the time, effects would be best not to redraw during any actions, but it would be nice to have them quickly available for preview. Speaking for myself at least, that would speed up workflow considerably.
If you're changing the effects dialog, I would like the ability to modify the effects without having to turn map effects on. I can't tell you the number of times I've turned effects on only to work on them, then forgotten to turn them off when I went back to the main map.
And a way to copy sheets, with effect and all wold be nice... often I am working on things that just need one tiny tweak compared to something else... ( Say a pillar in a room needs a bit shorter shadow than the walls).. then I could just copy my work from the the walls sheet, and tweak a small number on the pillar sheet.
Moved this over here, doesn't belong in my Annual suggestions.
Hmmm. Many more things for characters in CA to wear, carry, have nearby. Hmm. Say like, a pack animal, a pack robot ( 2 leg, 4 leg, or wheeled) A more varied race types in CA. More arm positions than are available at present. Insectoids, cat people, 4 armed whoseits. Tentacle hair. Tentacle arms for many body shapes, not just humanoids.
I would like to be able to design characters in CA that look like something from Ghost in the Shell. Motoko and Bateau come to mind.
More variety in furniture and accoutrements for space ships, space ports, items a space explorer would take to a new planet. Different desk designs, a robot platform for riding, carrying water/ground test equipment, 'floater' ( i.e. anti-grav) items that carry items. Sizes of the carrier from something that can carry small personal items, up to sizes that can carry tons of cargo. Or floaters that can carry an infantry squad.
Round buildings for middle ages and space stations.
The old 1950s spaceships and wheel space stations.
old cars, Conestoga wagons.
yes as vector symbols which I prefer over pngs.
I probably left something out, but that will do for now.
I can't remember if I already posted this or not, so forgive me if I am repeating myself. I would like a symbol set for creating ruined structures and/or dungeons.
Comments
This should be able to be accomplished with a piece of proximity code. Have it check all entities on the "walls" layer, produce a list of endpoints (endpoints and startpoints are all that need be checked) and test if any start or end points are shared in common. Then apply the same wrapping code that's used already.
Only invoke it when a redraw is clicked.
We should not have to start walls in the middle as a workaround. If you want this to be an organic and intuitive app, then you want it to behave as people would expect it to behave. I take Autocad as a perfect example of this. When you build walls with thicknesses in Autocad and they intersect, you have a command on hand that will combine them into a single Cornered wall. No notches are left.
I know that paths should be used for complex walls, but I've had times when particularly complex walls with thicknesses greater than 0 will have varied wall thicknesses. (For example the wall goes left and right and at an angle then left and right again, and by the time it's done the wall thicknesses on screen vary from what was set for them to be. I'll be happy to provide an example of this if you like)
The point being, is that if you lay down Wall 1 and wall 2, you should be able to join them up. Not being able to join them up simply looks bad. It should be a fairly basic tool to offer.
Honestly, it's never been that big of an issue for me (but I'm not saying it isn't a valid issue for you though). It's probably more elegant* anyway to use a Box/Poly in cases where this would be an issue rather than a Path. I've been trying to force myself to use those more in my vector dungeon maps rather than relying solely on Path. If I need to add a corner later and want to avoid the "notch", I start the path not on the existing corner but on the wall overlapping. That's not very elegant either though - I should probably be use Combine Paths more in those cases.
*for issues like entity count, file size etc.
I attribute this to the cad engine not being as robust as it could be.
And yes, I've been using the Combine Path tool for some time, but the combined path tool requires you to know the anticlockwise rule, and takes note of the way the path was created into account rather than which points are the logical ones to use (sometimes trying to connect completely illogical ends with each other, or even deleting whole sections)
Frequently the combine path tool will join up one path to the other, using the start and end points of the two paths. When it should instead look for the most proximate points and join those. And if you use the tool to join paths repeatedly it will sometimes delete one path for no obvious reason.
That's why I'm saying, a simple tool that lets you select a region and if there are two wall sections sharing THE SAME endpoints or start and end or end and start points...that it will corner them at that SHARE point, would be a helpful tool.
Now, Profantasy is asking for NEW FEATURES that we want, and he's said no bug fixes (Otherwise I'd have said "fix the dang combine path tool") For me, this would be the simplest and most organic tool I could ask for to fix the corner notch issue. Also it's "nice" that it's not a big issue for you, then don't comment on it. Saying it isn't an issue for you honestly comes off as you being rather dismissive about the issue which you admit exists.
It's an issue, it should be fixed or a tool offered to make it simple and organic. Also the using a box or polyline option "elegant" comment is wrong.
Let me explain why.
Let's say you create a box room, and create a 10' wide corridor, all with .5 foot thick walls
You trim a 10 ' break in the room (which remember has .5 thick walls) that break is EXACTLY 10'.
When you connect that corridor to that room, each of those corner walls inside the room will have notches. Why?
Because, the 10' wide corridor is actually now 9.5 foot wide because the walls measure inward and outward .25 feet on each side of the corridor. That 9.5' empty area has two .25 foot wall edges that eat away .5 feet. And now that 9.5 foot corridor is matching up to a 10' wide hole. End result is notched corners, and it looks ugly.
How I'd expect a corner tool to work:
Click the tool
Marquee the wall corner area to create. (selecting the two common walls)
Tool searches only the wall layer for walls in that area and finds their endpoints or start points in that area.
Tool compares all start and end points for commonality
Any two walls found that share common start or end points (or maybe even proximity within a tolerance factor) have those points located and a corner created that is of an angle appropriate to their common angle to each other
Thickness of corner is based on the averaged thicknesses of the two joined walls.
Fill is either the common fill of the two walls or must be selected if they are of different fill stlyes.
Sure there are plenty of work arounds, heck I could just draw a new wall over the top of the two walls to create the corner, but I don't WANT to have to know a cludgey workaround, or go through some ass backwards (start a wall in the middle) technique. It should be simple and easy to create a pair of walls and join them. As it is, such is not the case. A simple corner tool would correct this.
The tool would be used to create complex combo style paths for rooms or corridors.
Currently you have to piece together rooms that are complex, say a room that has an arced alcove but straight walls otherwise. like so http://www.youtube.com/user/joesweeney88#p/u/17/2dQUgDMDhPk which shows the process of creating a complex room.
You'd have to create the straight wall pieces and use the tools to move the curved section to fit with the straight walls.
Instead, using a multi type poly path, you would select the tool, then select the path type for the initial wall and for each subseqent wall you draw that changes from the previous type, then lay it down, (lets say the first few sections are straight, then you click the option for a curved section, you click arc, and have the option for the kind of arc you want (center point , arc bias (which side of the center does the arc get drawn on) and the end point for example), then switch to soft poly, then back to straight)
Being able to switch path types for designing a complex room for example would be powerful indeed.
I believe most of these would be doable if you simply modified the soft poly tool to allow handle manipulation to set some handles to 90 degree control surfaces (creating the straight angled poly lines) everything else would be a matter of handle manipulation to create arcs and the like.
Boolean object addition, subtraction, and intersection functions
For example, you lay down 5 simple floor shapes. You select Boolean add and select all 5 floor objects, click do it. and all three are boolean added to each other and the fill style of the first item is applied to all of them as one.
Subtraction would be select all the items to be selected from, click do it, then select the object to be subtracted.
Interest would be that only where all selected items intersect is the object left behind. So if you had 2 circles overlapping you'd have only the area WHERE they interlap left over everything else would be deleted.
And finally, convert poly to path. Sort of like the multipoly tool. Only in reverse.
Likewise, in reverse, it would be nice to be able to 'cut' a piece out of a map and keep polys/fills intact (i.e. an easy precursor to 'zooming in' for a more granular scale)
Simon
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv284/pelldom/Glastona.png
This is the best effect I could come up with for hills. The upper right corner has some small hills and the top half part of the city is on a hill. To create this effect, I began with Gandwarf's hill effect he posted somewhere. It didn't quite come across the way I wanted it so it was a lengthy process of trial & error to get this effect.
This is probably too much to ask, but any chance at getting videocard / DirectX support for displaying sheet effects? I'm hoping to see something to speed them up.
We are working on speeding up effects; we've added parallel processing support for some of the slower ones.
What I was thinking was an explicit sandbox for macros where a macro can't effect the users settings even if it crashes out. The system settings aren't effected as a macro runs. Any settings changes made inside a macro work for that macro but it's running off a copy of the system setting and do not stick for the user wether the macro end normally or crashes out. If macro actually need to effect to users environment you would add a mechanism by which macros could explicitly change the environment. This way they could make a change they needed to, but there would be no accidental or unwanted changes.
This could also make writing macros a bit easier. The writer doesn't have to explicitly save and restore any settings they change so there is less boilerplatecode you have to write for each macro.
Steve
( Say a pillar in a room needs a bit shorter shadow than the walls).. then I could just copy my work from the the walls sheet, and tweak a small number on the pillar sheet.
Hmmm. Many more things for characters in CA to wear, carry, have nearby. Hmm. Say like, a pack animal, a pack robot ( 2 leg, 4 leg, or wheeled) A more varied race types in CA. More arm positions than are available at present. Insectoids, cat people, 4 armed whoseits. Tentacle hair. Tentacle arms for many body shapes, not just humanoids.
I would like to be able to design characters in CA that look like something from Ghost in the Shell. Motoko and Bateau come to mind.
More variety in furniture and accoutrements for space ships, space ports, items a space explorer would take to a new planet. Different desk designs, a robot platform for riding, carrying water/ground test equipment, 'floater' ( i.e. anti-grav) items that carry items. Sizes of the carrier from something that can carry small personal items, up to sizes that can carry tons of cargo. Or floaters that can carry an infantry squad.
Round buildings for middle ages and space stations.
The old 1950s spaceships and wheel space stations.
old cars, Conestoga wagons.
yes as vector symbols which I prefer over pngs.
I probably left something out, but that will do for now.