Read by Council Gizmo & Grouping, the tools that starmade desperately needs right now.

    Do you think starmade needs those tools ?


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    Let's talk about the group tool first. If you have ever worked on a game engine like unreal or a 3d modeler like maya or blender you will know exactly what grouping is.

    Grouping is essentially linking objects together to make them act as one. Why is this usefull ?

    Well, you can perform all the operations you performed on a single block, on the group itself. Now you would think that there arent any use for groups besides copying and pasting them on the ship but you are wrong, here comes the gizmo tool.

    I'm repeating myself, but those who are familiar with 3d modelers like maya or blender will know what this is.
    The gizmo tool can be used to both rotation and movement of the blocks.

    When using the gizmo mode you should be able to select any object or group of objects, to the center of those it will appear the gizmo tool which looks like this:

    The movement gizmo:


    The rotation gizmo:


    Dragging by any of the axis of the gizmo tool in movement mode will move the object along the axis (if possible). Dragging between the small portion of 2 axis will drag the object only on those 2 axis (sort of planar). Dragging the object from the center of it will drag it in all 3 axis.

    When in rotation mode things get different from the usual rotation gizmo because in starmade you can rotate objects just by a 90 degree tick but is still usefull. Dragging by the axis will rotate on those axis just like the movement gizmo.

    Why do I think starmade needs those? Because currently is just too time consuming holding ctrl and searching for the right rotation of a object, trying to build weird structures just to put some blocks were they belong or having to reconnect all modules to a computer because there is no movement tool.
    Also its so much easier to copy groups than trying to copy with the current template system.

    I'm waiting your opinions.
     
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    Hold ctrl and use the scrollwheel for quick rotating!

    Otherwise, copying connected groups of things seems like a good idea!
     
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    These would be excellent.

    Following in the lead of existing, established modelling software is exactly what SM should do re. building controls.
     

    Lukwan

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    This is a good idea. However, If I had to choose I would like Schine to improve the template Copy/Paste system as this is a logical starting point.
    Including both would be ideal.
     
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    • Wired for Logic
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    I might have read this pretty wrong.
    I understand the rotation part but am I missing something because I feel like I am.
     
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    This would be really useful to have, but we need a decent selection system to go with it.
     
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    I might have read this pretty wrong.
    I understand the rotation part but am I missing something because I feel like I am.
    Here's a 48 sec video of it in Rhino 3D.

    It's not a great video, I couldn't find better, sorry, but it shows the capabilities.
    It doesn't show that if you click instead of drag you can also type values in for translation, scale, rotation, for times when precision is needed.


     

    jayman38

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    It sounds like cutting-and-pasting with minecraft's "wrench" tool, with improved preview.

    To improve the selection tool, I'd recommend adding the selection options from your average paint program. Namely, "Replace Selection", which is what selection does now; "Add Selection", which adds the new selection to the current selection (select this AND that); "Subtract Selection", which removes the new selection from the current selection (cutting a slice out of the current selection); and "Intersection Selection", which selects only the blocks that have the new selection and the current selection in common. With these selection types, you use the existing selection system in a more controlled way.
     
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    Hmm so how do you suppose that would work in starmade Jojomo ? Your mouse is kind of bound to where you look.
    the moving I totally understand and that'd be awesome to use but the rotating seems like it would be pretty difficult to use plus every other block of the ship would need to be semi-transparent for you to actually see what you are doing.