DeleD Community Edition

dirkk · Member Joined: 09 Aug 2004 Posts: 238 Location: Germany

Hi,

I don't understand the grouping feature. I was looking for somthing to create a folderlike substructure in the right that you can do operations on (like scale a whole selection). What does grouping do? Oh and btw: can the object inspector be attached?

Regards,
Dirk

Jeroen · Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:07 pm Post subject:

Grouping objects means that a bunch of objects can be selected as a group, but that's about all it means right now. If you group a number of objects, you then only have to click on 1 of those objects and all of the objects in that group will be selected as well.

I want to enhance this behaviour by showing groups in the Scene inspector. Furthermore, a group of objects should behave as if it was 1 object. This requires some more work but will definately be implemented in the future. I think I'll move this up the TODO list.

By ataching the object inspector, do you mean to have a popup-menu under the Scene Inspector that can bring up the Object Inspector? I kinda like that idea! Very Happy

dirkk · Member Joined: 09 Aug 2004 Posts: 238 Location: Germany

Yes, I mean that the object inspector is either omnipresent in the lower right corner, or can be detached ('ripped off') the menu (that would be the object inspector as it is now) and can be attached again. So you have the best of both worlds - I think there is a Delphi control that can do that(not that I know anything of Delphi Smile

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Jeroen · Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:18 pm Post subject:

Ah yeah, you mean to drag and drop the Object Inspector. That kind of functionality actually has been implemented for the object inspector but it contains some very strange bugs causing DeleD to crash every now and then (but not all the time strangely enough!). I've decided to put that on hold for now but I did include that popupmenu just now! I like that one... Wink

Mr.Fletcher · Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:40 pm Post subject:

Oh when you change the group behavior, it would be nice to set different colors for different groups so that you can discern which line is part of which object in the 2D-Windows.

Jeroen · Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2004 6:07 pm Post subject:

Are there any more request regarding grouping in DeleD? I'm about to spend some time thinking/coding new grouping functionality so go ahead and share your suggestions. Smile

dirkk · Member Joined: 09 Aug 2004 Posts: 238 Location: Germany

Yes!

Grouping should work (be identical with?) like prefabs. When I create a group it should collapse into one unit in the scene browser. Scaling and moving should work onto the whole unit.

Subconsequently I'd like a cloning feature: let's take the greek column example. I'd like to create a column out of several objects, then I group them into one object. Then it would be great to be able to do copies or to clone them. By cloning I had the chance to change all my 412 greek columns in my temple afterwards.

On exporting the clones would be resolved to physical copies.

[EDIT]
Come to think of it, you may want to have several levels of grouping. One (the lightest) would be that you can create collabsable folders in the object view and drag objects into these folders just to sort them (folder house consists of folder roof and walls etc). This would be a simple way to handle objects in the editing process.

The second level could be the grouping of objects in respect of parameters like center position, scale, rotation etc.. Then grouping (dragging them in a grouped folder) would change their global reference parameters (Under the hood this means that the creation of a group means the creation of a pivot point for group actions).

The third level could be that such a group can be closed - then the folder isn't expandable any more (it looks like a prefab) and is secured against any 'internal' 3d editing.

(the second level of grouping is nicely implemented in Gile[s] - works like a breeze)

Jeroen · Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 8:42 am Post subject:

Nice ideas Dirkk, keep 'm coming! Very Happy

I have almost worked out a new design to handle grouped objects and I hope to add your ideas to that design as well (no promises though). Working with grouped objects means I have to change a lot to the overall (internal) design of DeleD so it's going to take some time to finish.

I'm wondering if people are actually very much interested in grouping (i know i am). It is most likely going to take quite some time to implement this properly (huge adjustment to the internal structure of DeleD) so I only want to do that if there is enough interest.

Jeroen · Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 8:47 pm Post subject:

I've been coding pretty hard today and managed to get some basic grouping functionality in there.

The selected objects are contained in a "group" object, which can be seen in the Scene Inspector. When rotating, these objects behave as if they are 1 object (they rotate around their shared center).

There's still lots of things to take care of. In order to maintain clean and extensible code, I had to make some major changes to the design. This has effects on almost everything (Undo system, Object Inspector etc) so it will take a while before everything works as you're used to again. But... I think it will be worth it because grouping functionality sure adds to the fun! Wink

Anyway, the first steps have been made and sofar things are lookin good.

cmoibenlepro · Member Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 26

wow that's great!

cool! I'm very interested in that feature and it looks very useful!

continue! Very Happy

dirkk · Member Joined: 09 Aug 2004 Posts: 238 Location: Germany

This looks very promising, great!

Jeroen · Posted: Sun Aug 29, 2004 1:08 pm Post subject:

I stopped implementing this functionality. See News forum for details.