Asset grouping and copy paste

reiwulf

I'd really liker the option to "group" a number of assets together, so we can then edit it as a whole entity (copy, move, rotate, tilt, etc) I like to make enterable houses in my quests, and just to get the base building, it's quite some work, so it would save a lot of time. I could create the base house, and then copy it around the map, and put different furniture and stuff inside them. It would be so much faster. When pasting it, we could have the option to "explode" it to edit each asset individually, like one normally would, this is a pretty used option in most 3d editing programs.

Also I'd like to be able to copy assets/maps from one project to another. I know many people use a quest just for making maps and then copying it over, but it's a complicated way of doing it. I like to start with my projects clean, not with 30-40 maps. Also asset copying if we would ever get the "asset grouping" I asked for earlier. So we could copy them over to another project.

WHat do you think? Would you like these options added to the foundry? I'd love to see what you think about it.

huajia2

I would love to be able to group assets. I had put in a table and chairs (and a bunch of dishes on the table) in the quest I'm working on, only to realize once I went in that the ground tilted down in that area. It left the table and chairs floating on one side. It would have been so much easier to group them together and move them instead of having to move each individual piece.

bardaaron

Well in 2D editor you CAN click-&-drag to select a group and from there edit collectively their x-z coordinates and y-rotation. However, we have no way to change all of their y coordinates at once, or all of their p & r rotation, and that would be really great. Copying--hell, even normal editing--is hard if you want to make a whole group of things all tilt together.

One thing I lament currently is that even copying a quest isn't going to be enough for me, since I want to copy one map from one quest, and another map from a completely different quest (thus tying them together in the third, but since they do not have a common source, this is impossible. I'd have to completely rebuild at least one of them piece-by-piece.

reiwulf

Yeah, we can copy them in 2-d mode, but not editing it as a whole (rotate, tilt, etc) Also, I don't know tehr est but I barely use 2-d edit mode anymore. I usually work with lots of different y values (height) and it's not so easy in 2d mode.

huajia2

I would like to copy between quests too - not only maps but NPCs. Having to copy a whole quest and delete 3/4 of it sounds like a pain, and I want to reuse some NPCs from my current quest again.

bardaaron

reiwulf wrote: »

Yeah, we can copy them in 2-d mode, but not editing it as a whole (rotate, tilt, etc) Also, I don't know tehr est but I barely use 2-d edit mode anymore. I usually work with lots of different y values (height) and it's not so easy in 2d mode.

It depends what I am doing. If I'm lining up wall pieces and bookcases and so forth, I can often do that easier in 2d. But I can't tweak any fine details in 2d. I always have to go to 3d for making sure pictures are hanging against the wall, not inside them or floating 2 feet out in the room (2d is useless for being able to tell) and there are all sorts of things that require me to be able to see what I am doing, like placing objects on top of other objects, that I can't do accurately or efficiently in 2d, so yeah, I'd say I spend more time tinkering in 3d than I do placing in 2d.

I am working on a quest set in a library, so for that, I needed to be able to Copy/Paste groups of bookshelves. 2d was much more efficient for that, but it messed up the y-axis heights for them, because pasting in 2d rounds to the nearest 2-foot increment, instead of placing it at the same y value. Although how half of them ended up at -6 I have no idea, apart from just a bug.

chieori

bardaaron wrote: »

It depends what I am doing. If I'm lining up wall pieces and bookcases and so forth, I can often do that easier in 2d. But I can't tweak any fine details in 2d. I always have to go to 3d for making sure pictures are hanging against the wall, not inside them or floating 2 feet out in the room (2d is useless for being able to tell) and there are all sorts of things that require me to be able to see what I am doing, like placing objects on top of other objects, that I can't do accurately or efficiently in 2d, so yeah, I'd say I spend more time tinkering in 3d than I do placing in 2d.

I am working on a quest set in a library, so for that, I needed to be able to Copy/Paste groups of bookshelves. 2d was much more efficient for that, but it messed up the y-axis heights for them, because pasting in 2d rounds to the nearest 2-foot increment, instead of placing it at the same y value. Although how half of them ended up at -6 I have no idea, apart from just a bug.

When copy/paste multiple items in 2d, if you have snap to grid on, it will auto move the items to the nearest grid point. If you want it to copy/paste exactly the same, turn off snap to grid, then move it, it will retain its set values. Then you can turn snap to grid back on for other single copy/pastes.

reiwulf

Ooh I never thought about that, very interesting, thanks for the tip!

essenti

chieori wrote: »

When copy/paste multiple items in 2d, if you have snap to grid on, it will auto move the items to the nearest grid point. If you want it to copy/paste exactly the same, turn off snap to grid, then move it, it will retain its set values. Then you can turn snap to grid back on for other single copy/pastes.

However, the Y-values are not maintained through the copy and paste process... because, like the X and Z coords, it averages the coords to create a centroid for the entire collection... which can introduce some serious offsets in the Y axis, unless everything is at Y = 0.

Although, if you often use Relative to Terrain, you would generally not notice.