Translucent Mode - See your logic and systems easily!

[Benevolent27]

So, when pasting something down, I noticed that the blocks are translucent.

This would be a rather useful toggle to put on when roaming around my ship in build mode so that I could see where logic and other systems are. So then you'd have "lighten" and "translucent".

Example:


To avoid too much lag, I say make it only show maybe up to 10 blocks from where the camera is.

Welp, that's it. This one was pretty simple.

 

[Valck]

so that I could see where logic and other systems are. So then you'd have "lighten" and "translucent"

I'm pretty certain there was a key combination that hid everything except logic connections, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was, or whether it's still in the game.
Not exactly what you propose, but extremely helpful. I'd be tremendously grateful if somebody could refresh my memory...

 

[0ldSkull]

F9 I think? It used to turn transparent blocks opaque when held, but got changed a while back. I really miss that function...

 

[Benevolent27]

I'm pretty certain there was a key combination that hid everything except logic connections, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was, or whether it's still in the game.
Not exactly what you propose, but extremely helpful. I'd be tremendously grateful if somebody could refresh my memory...

F9 is how you do that.

But this idea isn't just for logic systems, it's so you can see the blocks behind other blocks. The new highlighting system is great for selecting a weapons computer and then seeing where the modules are buried inside of the ship, but it doesn't help for logic blocks or finding those computer systems in the first place.

 

[DrTarDIS]

I think you could do this by putting a ~25%alpha on a custom texture set...but I'm not so sure it would render the "hidden" blocks so well?

 

[0ldSkull]

I believe you'd also have to turn on every block's Transparency property in BlockConfig.xml. If I remember correctly that determines whether transparency will be applied to that block's textures at all.

The general suggestion idea is a good one, though I'm not sure what the best way to implement it would be. In the dev build, some blocks highlight if they are the same type as the block selected in the hotbar (in build mode). This mainly applies to blocks related to the new power system, but I wonder if that type of functionality could be extended for something like this?

 

[Cluwne]

How about a filter instead? Like what we have now for block removal, only it renders invisible selected block group/everything but that block group.
Like showing only/everything but the logic blocks, hull, selected systems and etc.

 

[Benevolent27]

How about a filter instead? Like what we have now for block removal, only it renders invisible selected block group/everything but that block group.
Like showing only/everything but the logic blocks, hull, selected systems and etc.

It could use group types. For example "logic", and then highlight them. But the only problem with this is that you'd only see blobs of selected blocks, not the actual blocks themselves. What I'm suggesting will allow you to see ANY blocks near you and would have a more universal usage.

For example, what if you want to look at your logic system inside of your ship and also see how it connects to weapons computers? If you can only select 1 group in some kind of block visibility filter, then this would no allow this. And if you have to select multiple groups, adding it to some kind of multi-filter list, then this would probably be more complicated than desired just to quickly look at some section or other of your ship. Simply turning on "Translucent blocks" would be a simple and effective solution. But I do like the idea of other ways of doing the same thing as well, with visibility being turned on or off using filters.

Edit: And in addition, translucency is already built into the game, so I imagine it wouldn't take a whole lot for the devs to add it as an option.

 

[Coyote27]

Perhaps if blocks are translucent, they're no longer selectable, but the blocks behind them are? That'd be quite handy for adding/removing blocks that are buried inside other blocks, without needing to tear away layers of other systems and hull to get inside.

 

[Valck]

F9 I think?

Awesome, thanks! It still kinda works, but for me it also opens the icon preview, and of course all of it is hidden beneath the player list that also opens on F1...

EDIT:
Nevermind, I rebound the player list key, and that also got rid of the icon preview. Back in shape!

EDIT2:

Just F9--not F1+F9 (last time I tried it).

Yep, found my error just after I posted. Thanks again!

 

[Benevolent27]

Perhaps if blocks are translucent, they're no longer selectable, but the blocks behind them are? That'd be quite handy for adding/removing blocks that are buried inside other blocks, without needing to tear away layers of other systems and hull to get inside.

Yes! So much yes.

But the key here would be a filter then, which would by default only allow certain blocks to be selectible while in this mode, such as computers, logic blocks, and display modules, while other blocks like hull blocks, motherboard, circuits, etc., would not be selectable. But how this might work with systems 2.0 I don't know exactly. Hmm..

 

[DrTarDIS]

If you "blocktype visibility filter" was a series of checkboxes you'd get around "selecting only one type at a time"

 

[0ldSkull]

Awesome, thanks! It still kinda works, but for me it also opens the icon preview, and of course all of it is hidden beneath the player list that also opens on F1...

Just F9--not F1+F9 (last time I tried it).

 

[Nosajimiki]

The big problem with x-raying as this is proposed is client side lag. Seeing 10 deep could force you to render 30x as many blocks which will VERY quickly tank a lot of computers if you try doing this while looking at a larger ship. It would have to be constrained to a block radius of your camera for this to be technologically viable or else your entire model would try rendering at once. It would also get really confusing to look at if you could see more than 3-4 blocks deep in most cases (think about what spectating the labyrinth looks like.)

This idea is good, but I would suggest making sliders that let you adjust how deep to x-ray (1-10?) and what your proximity to camera should be (10-50?).

You should also make sure this only works on the ship you are editing so that it can't be used as a recon exploit.

[EDIT: 30x as many faces assuming backface culling, not blocks. This would not take more memory, but rather more graphics processing]

 

[Benevolent27]

The big problem with x-raying as this is proposed is client side lag. Seeing 10 deep could force you to render 30x as many blocks which will VERY quickly tank a lot of computers if you try doing this while looking at a larger ship. It would have to be constrained to a block radius of your camera for this to be technologically viable or else your entire model would try rendering at once. It would also get really confusing to look at if you could see more than 3-4 blocks deep in most cases (think about what spectating the labyrinth looks like.)

This idea is good, but I would suggest making sliders that let you adjust how deep to x-ray (1-10?) and what your proximity to camera should be (10-50?).

You should also make sure this only works on the ship you are editing so that it can't be used as a recon exploit.

It would be build mode only, and would only apply to the ship a player is working on. The same as "lighten." I disagree about the lag part of your reply because it would not increase the number of blocks rendered by 30x. It would be 10 blocks deep from the current point of view and only the blocks that are set to be viewable. It would ignore hull and other blocks.

Consider how many blocks are already displayed on clients. Think about all the interiors, exteriors, ect. A 10 block radius of translucent blocks will be minimal in comparison.

But I do agree that a slider bar would be useful to set the precision of the translucency.

Edit: To use the labyrinth arena as an example, I have a HECK of a time editing it. If I could set cargo blocks to be invisible while editing the base, that would be great and allow me to be a lot more productive. Currently I have to remove a bunch of the area triggers to see what the heck I am doing and then re-add them. It's time consuming.