Patch splitting in Dark Radiant -- New version 29 Mar

[RJFerret]

Yes please, I'd be glad to contribute, give feedback, work with, do whatever to facilitate, etc. (FYI, there's nothing I've seen that is deal breaking in the existing version, just some user education will help those new to the tool.)

 

Interesting about the grid size, I have NO idea what it might have been set to during my tests, mine's usually set to eight, but that was on someone else's map I was contributing to.

[SteveL]

Great, thanks very much! I'll get it to dump the full data for the patch to start with, then report each search attempt with the grid size, the timestamp, the number of times the patch has been moved, and the starting and finishing bounding box for the patch. That should let us nail the bad behaviour, and maybe even provide ideas for more optimizations.

[SteveL]

Updated version 0.2 -- 29 March

 

@RJF: I finally got time to load this up in the editor again last night to prep you your verbose version... and I had another realisation. I feel a bit of an idiot now. The first script I posted above is *vastly* more complicated and brittle than it needs to be, and the better solution was staring me in the face all along

 

Without further ado, patchsplitter v0.2 --> patchsplitter.py.txt

 

Usage: Save it to DarkRadiant/scripts/commands as before, removing the .txt extension and overwriting the original. Then restart DR or use File > Reload Scripts. You'll have to set up your keyboard shortcut again in DR.

 

Addresses the following issues:

• Undo leaving verts displaced*
  
• Slowness on big maps
  
• Different success chances depending which verts were selected. Any two verts should work now (except the "tip" of a cone/sphere)
  
• Misreporting of "you've selected the seam of a 3d patch" when user selects only edge vertices (RJF's first bug above)
  
• Clarified the error messages generally
  
• Orthoview is no longer changed
  
• Verts no longer get deselected on failure (not a biggie, but makes testing easier)
  

* but still, save the map first. We're getting this benefit for free. The script can't guarantee it'll work in all circumstances.

 

Known remaining issues

User will get "You've selected the existing edge of a 3d patch" false positive when selecting the tip of a cone. That's always avoidable by choosing the other pink vert and green vert on the line you want.

 

I'm hoping it'll fix the failures you found too RJF, though I can't test that myself.

 

Under the hood

The script no longer pushes and pulls the patch all over the place at different grid sizes to work out a bounding box for the selection. Instead it takes a snapshot of the patch before and after a single nudge from a keyboard command and compares the two snapshots to work out which verts have moved. Unselected green verts can still be dragged a bit, so the script takes the set of verts that share the same maximal displacement, allowing for small errors. It no longer makes multiple attempts -- just one move then it resets the patch.

[RJFerret]

Success!

 

I loaded the same map (of Kyyrma's) that I'd worked on before, went to the same patch, selected far edge vertices on a middle line, instantly cut no problems.

 

Reloaded and did same selecting middle vert and an edge vert, ditto, cut with no problems.

 

Then tried to mess with it, selected middle vert and corner, error that came up made sense. Similarly when selecting a couple edge vertices, error made sense.

 

Not only that but my three ortho views have remained their original axis! Woohoo!

 

Looks great as far as I'm concerned. Kudos!

[SteveL]

Thanks for all the the testing you've done RJF, very much appreciated!

[mmij]

Ignore this. Me dumb. Not can read. I stupid.

Hi. I see that the last post on this was in 2014. Will this patch still work with v2.08/64? Is anyone using this now?

I've been trying to figure out how to split and cut holes in patches, this looks like it can do the splitting part.

 

Sidenote: I'm on Linux. Under /home/me/.darkradiant there is not a folder for scripts. Do I have to make one? (I installed DR from the package manager.)

 

 

Edited August 19, 2020 by mmij
Me Dumb