How to do Scaling Too Stealthy

[Geep 174]

Background: I'm building my first TDM game under Win10 with DR, and used Springheel's vids to learn basics (since Great Site Crash of June 2019 made other info inaccessible until recently). I've worked with other IDE's in past *cough Unity*.

In DR, I was having difficulties scaling up standard models, e.g., grammaphone. DR's Modify->Transform and Scale menu always had the scaling menu grayed out. I made some headway using the rotation matrix's XYZ values (a deprecated method), but with the game-time anomalies others had reported (to lighting and presumably collision model) or didn't report (rendering stops prematurely on scaled-up objects at periphery of player's vision).

Finally, I discovered a forum post that mentioned the Model Scaler, which solved the anomalies. Yeah!

But further thoughts as a DR newbie:

1) How come wiki.thedarkmod has NO mention of Model Scaler at all? Nor the major forum posts about scaling? There's really a need for guidance in wiki about when to use Modify/'Rotation and Scale' versus Rescale versus Model Scaler. (I'm willing to write a page if you help me know best scaling practices.)

2) If that info is in some video (appreciate pointer to it), here's a more general task suggestion: consider getting video transcription software, apply to each important vid and post to wiki web pages, so full-text search can find info.

3) The use of Model Scaler doesn't evidently changed the rotation matrix values (seen in Entity viewer).  So it's changing some undocumented spawnarg? I need to be able to scale models by a fixed amount but can't control or even see that value... nor revert to unscaled (other than undo).  Maybe I don't know where to look. Or the scaling factor's not retained because model edges are just resized and the original sizes forgotten?

4) Could (3) be is a feature request? Show a tooltip saying, e.g "2.763 x" as Model Scaler handles are moved.

Otherwise, DR is working well for me, game builds fine. Exploring behavioral aspects now. Thanks.

Geep

[peter_spy 1409]

I don't use the model scaler much, but one major thing to note is that it doesn't work like in other game engines, i.e. unity or unreal. This isn't just a translation tool, it saves every scaled model as unique one. And it also works in a different way than in other game engine, or in modeling software. It scales models in relation to the selected grid.

[Geep 174]

Does that imply the scaled vertices will snap-align with current grid when a scaling handle is released, with shape distortion commensurate with grid spacing?

[Springheel 4505]

The model scaler is relatively new--I think from the most recent DR version--which is probably why there isn't much documentation about it.

[Geep 174]

I can write a stub description in the wiki. I tried to log in to the wiki with my forum credentials (so I could create a new page), but they weren't honored. Are wiki login creds separate from forum creds. Or is wiki login not working?

[Destined 559]

They are seperate. But I think Springheel has Admin rights for the Wiki, so he can grant you access.

[Geep 174]

Springheel or other wiki admin -

Attached is the proposed page content (but not yet wiki-formatted). If the contents look OK, please create the page for me to complete. Proposed page title is

Rescaling Models with Dark Radiant's “Model Scaler”

Probably I can complete the page formatting as a guest, save the access grant to the future.

thanks

Model Scaler.txt

[Springheel 4505]

I've added it here:  http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Model_Scaling

[grayman 2849]

I added instructions in the "Alternative Techniques" section on how to scale in one direction only.

[Geep 174]

Thanks, Springheel, grayman. Unfortunately, it appears that it's not true that one can edit the wiki without logging in... and forum credentials (as discovered earlier)  don't cover logging in at the wiki. Could someone please create me a "Geep" wiki account with editing privileges? Thanks.

[peter_spy 1409]

Wiki editing credentials are not granted to everyone who just registered on forums. It's even better when users post their tutorials on the forums first, to get some feedback on quality of their work.

[Geep 174]

Understood. Makes it hard to complete format tweaking, though, which is generally an iterative process for me. (Ideal system would be some forum sandbox to post and refine wiki page previews. Don't really expect that.)

I guess I can further format the wiki source blind and attach the suggested revised version here. Is that the best approach?

[Geep 174]

OK, here's a revision. I promoted grayman's addition into it's own section, corrected the bullets and links, tweaked the headings, verbiage, & italics a bit. As I mentioned, the reformatting was done blind.  Please review, fix any remaining bloopers, and update http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Model_Scaling

Thanks

Model Scaler v2.txt

[Geep 174]

Or if time doesn't allow reviewing, please someone, just replace the original page content with the update (Model Scaler v2.txt), which I promise is better. Thanks.