The Grid: It's doing strange things...

ToranaA9XToranaA9X Join Date: 2010-04-15 Member: 71420Members
edited April 2010 in Mapping
I've run into a strange issue with the editor and for the life of me I can't work out how to reverse or remove the issue I'm having.

I've created a general floorplan layout using a 64" grid pattern. When I move my cursor or box creation tool over the floor of the interior of the building the grid layout (those grey lines) shifts to an odd angle -- around about 40 degrees. If I move that cursor back out to the outside of the walls it returns to the normal facing. This pretty much makes any further adjustments to the interior of the construct impossible.

What the hell have I clicked on to make this happen, and how do I fix it?

Image illustrates what's happening with the grid, in the first the cursor is outside the room and the grid is facing the correct angle. In the image below it the cursor is on the floor (the blue selected face) and you can clearly see the grid shifts to the really odd angle.

<img src="http://www.vortexcore.com.au/vortex/grid.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />

Comments

  • Dalin SeivewrightDalin Seivewright 0x0000221E Join Date: 2007-10-20 Member: 62685Members, Constellation
    As far as I know, the only way to fix it is to undo everything you did before it got to that. As far as I can tell, its mostly caused the way the devs have chosen to handle the grid units (floats). If you move two objects with the tool centered between them, it often moves those options oddly. The editor thinks they're snapped to the grid when in actuality they are some decimal amount off. This causes all sorts of issues besides this one, including vertex alignment problems etc.

    The Move Origin Cycle tool might help. Use it to move the origin of the tool from the center of the selected objects to one of the corners, however this doesn't always help. The only definite solution I know of is to never, ever, ever, ever select more than one prop when moving unless you know that the prop is 100% within the gridsize. For example, some props are exactly 256" by 256" and as long as they're all on the same grid size and snapped to the grid, moving groups of these should be fine.

    Props doesn't really affect anything though... its combining the selection of Geometry (lines,vertices,walls) with Props that will kill you in the end. Never combine the two.

    Also: Another way, although it might speed your map development up or slow it down, is to instead of creating new faces, just create one face. Then you can copy and paste that one face and resize the vertices as needed.
  • ToranaA9XToranaA9X Join Date: 2010-04-15 Member: 71420Members
    After removing the floor and ceiling and refacing it, the odd grid has gone. Is there an easier way to fix this? Is this a bug with Spark?

    What I've seen here is an independent grid, one for the floor, and the global one that effects everything else. There *shouldn't* be another grid unless I ask it to be there. It's supposed to never, ever move.

    There's only one prop in the structure at the moment and it's never been shifted with anything else. So as to how it happened, it's a mystery, which won't help with debugging. Sorry.
  • NossahNossah Join Date: 2002-11-11 Member: 8234Members, Constellation
    uncheck the lock textures button.
  • taledentaleden Join Date: 2003-04-06 Member: 15252Members, Constellation
    Yeah, I think what you're seeing is that every face has its own 2d grid coordinate system (for texturing), independent from the global 3d grid. When you make a face, the editor chooses one edge of the face to which the face's grid will be aligned.

    So when you draw a rectangular face that lies flat on one of the 3d axes, then the face-grid will always line up with the space-grid and you don't notice that they're actually independent.

    But whenever you make a face with an edge that isn't on a 3d axis, then the face-grid might align to that edge, which will be crooked with respect to the space-grid. I'm not sure how to control which vertex/edge forms the basis for a new face's grid; maybe it's the first one you draw/select when making the face, or maybe the last one. I'm also not sure if there's any way to reorient the face-grid, but you could try deleting the face (which should leave the edges and vertices intact), then select the vertices in a particular order and re-create the face to get it to align the face-grid how you want it.
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