(Not so serious) wishlist topic

[-Jesse-]

I know Brendon is doing all he can to add more great features to BTB and has probably though of (or heard of) everything that will be listed in this topic.

But I'm curious to hear what all you users have wished for while using this awesome tool.

And please just list your wishes, don't start to dispute about the wishes and don't say we "must have" this and that etc. So just list them, thank you!

My personal list:
- Ability to place/move objects in top view
- Ability to edit terrain anchors by entering x,y,z values like you can do with nodes
- Ability to put a topo map as backgound image, then move mouse along the altitude lines (in top view) and terrain would automatically adjust itself to entered height value.
- Terrain .3ds import
- Resizing objects by entering a resize value

 

[iltavilli]

Great suggestions! In addition I think a clipboard feature for the different track shapes and materials would be great, also with a possibility to save them in xpack on the fly or in the venue. I know that you can make predefined shapes and materials in xpack, but it would be easier to do it inside BTB.

 

[eno72]

- placing objects in top view (to follow precisely the background image). Presently, in the 3D view it is difficult to do that, due to perspective (what about a switch to axonometry?)

 

[zuikki1]

- placing objects in top view (to follow precisely the background image). Presently, in the 3D view it is difficult to do that, due to perspective (what about a switch to axonometry?)

Yes. This for sure would be great help.

 

[Lamda]

more than 4 Panels for terrain, that´s most needed for me.

2th, grouping and own sort of tracks/terrain/objects/S0objects in the work area window.

Lamda

 

[Bob Bieber]

All good ideas, I have one that I would love to have!
Ability to lay terrain first, then apply the track over it.
Such as importing a height map then building the track on top of it.

 

[woochoo]

All good ideas, I have one that I would love to have!
Ability to lay terrain first, then apply the track over it.
Such as importing a height map then building the track on top of it.

yeah that would be cool. a more natural way to design a track, and would probably help the quality of 'the drive', such as at a place like the nordschleife where it curves around dips and inclines and such, rather than most of the tilke stuff.

even a random terrain generator, but i guess it would need to have some real-world geographic characteristics.

 

[austinman55]

thinking about it, i'de like something that downgrades the graphics abit to get it to work better for those of us with bad graphic cards

 

[eno72]

- select objects by material

 

[woochoo]

an extended implementation of display layers. as well as the simple wall/object/s-object on-off (please include terrain), it would be nice to define our own layers or groups to display.

for example i'm about to put in some collision-only meshes, so i would like to assign them to a layer so i can hide them once they're in place. other uses might include low-poly LOD models. a 'master switch' for prac/qual/night only objects, so we could hide all the crowds. hide a group of trees so we can move grasses that might be underneath and hard to select. maybe a layer for ennis's rulers, and an option not to export certain layers, such as rulers.

so, a way of assigning items to user-defined groups/layers for display purposes. and i might mention again an option to display only specified camera groups. all in the name of efficient, user-friendly interfaces.

 

[-Jesse-]

Adding another one. Ability to adjust FOV in 3d view

 

[woochoo]

similar to -Jesse-, when changing a camera FOV setting, having it represented in the 3d window. That would be handy for framing arty shots and such.

Also, a smaller radius on the terrain blend tool. for fine adjustments between nodes close together i find i have to move nodes apart, apply the blender and then return the node to it's original position, otherwise a radius of '1' spreads over the two nodes. Moving them apart does the job very well, but it's just a bit too much effort when a smaller radius would do the trick. And the blend tool seems to work sometimes and not others. It seems to always work on the track anchors, but further out in the terrain it seems inconsistent, regardless of what polys are selected. It's great when it works though.

Maybe some sort of 'flip normal' or something for when joining two terrain segments, sometimes the shading gets all wonky on one of the polys, not as a product of it's position or orientation apparently, it just seems to have been produced with funny normals or something like that. The sun/shadow representation are opposite the surrounding polys. I think it only really happens when i've been doing some adding/deleting/merging of polys but at this stage the only solution seems to be deleting a number of surrounding polys and then re-forming them.

edit: well, rather than normals, perhaps it is more like 'weld' in 3d studio max, when the verts aren't only merged, but they pick up the same shading properties. I've just done some more terrain work and it seems, though it might not be the case that merge only joins their position in space, rather than merging their shading properties as well. That was between an older section of terrain, and a new section i had just added from new track anchors.

Also, have i mentioned adding of track anchors?

 

[mianiak]

I found a trick for the blending tool. If it doesn't work, go to the terrain dialogue, select 'Shape" then switch back to 'Materials' the blending too will work then. It just needs the Fonzarelli approach to kick it into gear.

I think the smoothing with the terrain is because they are different sections. In 'Materials', try split the pollys close to the join and merge them with the joining section. You need to move the camera in the 3d view to see it change, just zoom in one click or something.