Collecting suggestions for a DarkRadiant "Tip of the Day" feature

[greebo]

Since DR has so many little features that might be less known than they are useful, I felt like opening a thread to collect some suggestions from the mapping folks.

I'd like to have some short one or two-liners that can be cycled through if one wants to read more, maybe after clicking on some small "bulb" icon in the top right of the toolbar. It definitely shouldn't end up as obnoxious as I've seen such tips in other programs, where the popup usually just gets in my way when I just want to do something else, so it should be something that is optional, users can try their luck by clicking on it or not.

As an example: "You can increase/decrease the camera movement speed by pressing +/- on your numpad"

I'm sure that mappers have some of those to share, and if I can collect enough of these I'd like to integrate them in DarkRadiant.

[Dragofer]

This is a good idea (for example, it took me 6 years to stumble on how useful 'Snap Rotation to Grid' is). I think for some of these tips it'd be useful to have small icons so mappers can see what to look for.

Here goes, so far:

You can press tab while you have a func_static selected or enable "Select Group Parts" to select brushes and patches in a func_static without having to revert it to worldspawn.

Entities cloned while in 'R'otation mode will not be offset from the original entity.

Applying a spawnarg with a blank value will remove that spawnarg from all entities you've selected.

Whenever you draw a brush in 2D orthoview, its 3rd dimension will be the same as that of your previous selection.

You can quickly isolate your current selection by pressing I to invert the selection and H to hide.

Enabling 'Snap rotation to grid' will make it much easier to stick to the grid whenever you rotate or mirror something.

Whenever you create a patch, its starting dimensions will be the same as your previous selection.

'Floor selection' can be used to quickly place items on surfaces like floors and tables. Note: moveable entities should be placed slightly above surfaces so they don't fall through.

You can click the middle mouse button in Orthoview to take the camera view to that position. (Problem though: 3rd axis is often way off for me)

Patches can't be used to make perfect circles since they're based on Bezier curves.

'Patch' > 'Matrix' > 'Invert' can be used to flip a patch.

Pasting a texture from a brush face to a patch - if both are oriented the same way - the patch will be textured without any deformation. This is useful for irregular-shaped patches.

Monsterclip brushes should reach up to the ceiling in order to avoid unnecessary pathing areas on top of them.

[datiswous]

1 hour ago, Dragofer said:

I think for some of these tips it'd be useful to have small icons so mappers can see what to look for.

Or a small/short gif animation. This is good for descriptions that are a little difficult to visualize in your head at first.

Edited June 9, 2021 by datiswous

[nbohr1more]

Here is the old "Tip of the Day" thread:

 

[Destined]

10 hours ago, Dragofer said:

You can quickly isolate your current selection by pressing I to invert the selection and H to hide.

 

You can click the middle mouse button in Orthoview to take the camera view to that position. (Problem though: 3rd axis is often way off for me)

The first can also be achieved with Ctrl+Shift+H, so there is not need to invert the selection.

Refarding the second: In my case middle mouse button lets you rotate the camera. Moving is Ctrl+MMB. But I am still on version 2.6.0 (maybe I should update ), so the standard setting might have changed. Anyway, you can fix the 3rd axis on another Orthoview window that contains this axis.

[thebigh]

10 hours ago, Dragofer said:

Entities cloned while in 'R'otation mode will not be offset from the original entity.

That actually seems like it's asking for trouble.

10 hours ago, Dragofer said:

Whenever you draw a brush in 2D orthoview, its 3rd dimension will be the same as that of your previous selection.

Super handy if you're Monsterclipping an object you just placed.

[HMart]

1 hour ago, thebigh said:

That actually seems like it's asking for trouble.

I agree, seems like a bug more than a feature.

But fortunately, in idtech4 is easy to detect overlapping mesh's, instead of the ugly z-fighting error that you normally get in this situation, they become overbright, this was even used for a time by idSoftware has a way to do a "poor man" item highlighting.  

[jonri]

On 6/10/2021 at 5:50 AM, HMart said:

I agree, seems like a bug more than a feature.

But fortunately, in idtech4 is easy to detect overlapping mesh's, instead of the ugly z-fighting error that you normally get in this situation, they become overbright, this was even used for a time by idSoftware has a way to do a "poor man" item highlighting.  

I created a script which is now included in DR to detect them so you don't have to run around you map looking for them.  There's a little bit of discussion in that thread about the lack of rotation offset being a bug vs feature too.

Edited June 11, 2021 by jonri

[datiswous]

Pressing the Ctrl-key when moving something, lets it be moved outside the grid, for precise movement without changing the grid-size first (you have to already pressed the left mouse button to start the movement, after which you press the Ctrl-key).