Population Editing

Started by choronr, November 20, 2013, 04:17:59 PM

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choronr

I've noted that when trying to delete instances in a population that when object(s) fall over the Heightfield line, the editing won't work. Also tried to 'erase' the objects with the Painted shader - this didn't work either for the same reason. Any remedies for this issue?

yossam

I ran into that the other day...........thought I was doing something wrong for a minute.  :-[

choronr

If it is something you can't do; then, I guess we'll have to use PS to make the corrections.

Oshyan

Can you explain what you mean by "the heightfield line"? Do you mean the edge of the Heightfield, the Bounding Box of the heightfield node, or something else?

- Oshyan

choronr

Quote from: Oshyan on November 20, 2013, 05:25:27 PM
Can you explain what you mean by "the heightfield line"? Do you mean the edge of the Heightfield, the Bounding Box of the heightfield node, or something else?

- Oshyan
The 'heightfield line'; or, the Bounding Box line.

Oshyan

What I can reproduce is that when the selectable *center point* of a heightfield - or any other shader with position - is in the same location as an instance, the shader's center point is what highlights rather than the underlying instance. Is that what you're referring to?

- Oshyan

choronr

Yes, that's correct. I noted the pop up for heightfield when I go to the object that I want to delete.

Oshyan

So this is probably a more general "shader selection handles take priority over population editing selections" issue. I agree that population editing should take priority when you're in that mode. Hopefully it's something we can adjust. In the meantime simply changing your camera view might allow you to edit the instance you want to access, or you can temporarily disable the Heightfield (if you don't repopulate, it shouldn't change the position of the instances).

- Oshyan

choronr

Thank you Oshyan, I'll try disabling the heightfield. In the case of the project, I'm using a .ter file for the terrain.

jo

Hi Bob,

I've been looking at this problem and it's fixed for the next release.

There is a workaround in the meantime. The crosshairs for objects/shaders have kind of an invisible selection zone around them. This is to make it easier to select items, otherwise you would need to be very precise with the mouse. What is happening when you try to select a population instance that is over or near another objects crosshairs is that the selection zone around the crosshairs is preventing selection of the population instance. The easiest way to way to work around this is to zoom in on the population instance. This makes the crosshairs selection zone smaller relative to the population instance, meaning it will be easier to select the instance.

The quick summary is to zoom in on the population instance and try selecting it further from the crosshairs of the other object.

Like I say, this is fixed in the next release.

Regards,

Jo

zaxxon

This is an issue that has vexed me as well. Rotating ,zooming and panning in the viewport to find a 'workable' angle to select the the instance does work. But when working with a 'dense' scene with numerous populations and objects, that is a pain. Hopefully your solution will allow the instance selections to be made within the zone of the 'current render' screen with minimal viewport movement. The 'edit' function of the populator is by far my favorite upgrade feature since I've owned T2/T3. Also, may be a dumb question: why would you ever select the 'heightfield shader' in the viewport? It always seems so eager to be selected when mousing around. Thanks for your time on this one Jo.

choronr

Thank you Jo, that is good news.