selecting some emitters

[geegee]

The pic shows a grouped emitter+light+fixture.  In this case the particle is lantern_glare_simple which, when selected, obscures the fixture making it harder to accurately place.  Some other particles like al2_lamphaze are similar, tho' thankfully most don't create any mess and the selection is confined to the emitter box.  Is there any way to turn off or hide this -- I guess it's a cluster of textures? 

[OrbWeaver]

I'm not in a position to check right now, but is there a filter in the Filters menu which might help? E.g. "Particle emitters"?

If not, it probably isn't a lot of work to add one.

[Dragofer]

@OrbWeaver
enabling a filter would make the emitters disappear completely, whereas the issue is more with DR's preview of the particle obscuring much of the surroundings.

DR's particle preview isn't very accurate generally speaking: usually there's nothing shown at all, other times it's only very faint and sparse. Larger particles like volumetric fog can be problematic because their previews cause rendering issues over large areas of transparent surfaces like water. And sometimes, like here, the preview becomes opaque when the emitter is selected.

From a mapping point of view the preview inside the Particle Editor would imo be sufficient, keeping the func_emitters as plain boxes.

[OrbWeaver]

We should probably avoid showing particles at all in the non-lighting preview render mode. I can't see any use for them here (other than perhaps sizing large particles relative to geometry, e.g. for fog).

[geegee]

In the meantime a solution is to just delete the particle value before moving the group, then once moved open entity inspector and the key/value is already correctly entered so you just have to click the check mark.  It's just a rare few particles that give any trouble.  I haven't seen any use for showing particles in non-lighting mode either and every time I try something new I have to see how the effect works in game.   There's a lot of subtlety in the TDM particle system and I just wish I was a quicker study...