Feature Request: Graphic altitude and angle reference.

[Marcos Silveira]

In the early days of TG 0.9x it was very easy to place certain shader over an angle or altitude because there was a graphic representation of that distribution, based on the data we inserted.

This is what I mean:
[attachthumb=#]

Could something like that be implemented in the final version?!?

[choronr]

This makes good sense; also, the old way of working with colors was much better - hope they bring that back as well.

[jo]

Hi Ro-nin,

There is already this capability in TG2, although it needs some work before it is fully realised I think. Check out this screenshot :

[attach=#1]

In this I've added a surface layer, made it green and am adjusting its maximum slope. The effect of this is displayed in the little preview in the top left, next to the shaders list. You may have to zoom out a bit before you can see the terrain. I have also opened the Surface Layer 01 preview in a new window, something which is in the current alpha. That lets you see things a lot more clearly.

In many ways this is better than the distribution preview in v0.9. For one thing, it's in colour ( although the greyscale preview in v0.9 was sufficient for distribution ). You can resize it, which is a big plus. You also rotate it in 3D, so you can change from a top down view if you want.

It's a little bit slower to display, but then TG v0.9 only had to preview on a heightfield, whereas TG2 has much more complex terrains. This should be something which can be multithreaded in the future, so it would be a lot quicker on multiprocessor/core machines. It would also be handy if you could pan around the preview area, at the moment it just zooms in and out on the origin AFAICT.

Regards,

Jo

[jo]

Hi choronr,

This makes good sense; also, the old way of working with colors was much better - hope they bring that back as well.

What was it specifically that you liked better about the old way? I assume you're using Windows.

Regards,

Jo

[choronr]

Thanks for getting back Jo; specifically, I liked having a slider on each; the R, G and B; and, having the ability to lock or unlock them. For some reason, I like working with something that displays laterally (horizontally) rather than vertically. When the color I want is developed, I then lock the R, G and B to adjust how light or dark I want the color. However, I do like the addition of having the hue and saturation settings in TG2.

I still go back to TG 09's color settings many times to develop the color I'm looking for in TG2 while creating a new scene.

[Cyber-Angel]

I would have say that I my self have been known to go into 0.9.43 to get a particular color because the color picker currently in use in TG2TP is far to small to allow for the accurate picking of color, another thing that comes to mind is that the Luminosity slider on the color picker in TG2TP dose not change when importing R,G,B values over via copy/paste thus not respecting the original color at least the system in 0.9.43 respected your R,G,B values.

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel         

[jo]

Hi,

TG2 uses the OS defined colour picker. On the Mac this is much better than the v0.9 one, and on Windows it's maybe not so good to some. Using the OS colour picker was a deliberate choice, but maybe in the future we could do like Photoshop does and allow the option of a built in one or the OS one.

Regards,

Jo

[choronr]

Thank you Jo and Cyber; we'll be watching and waiting. The potential of this program seems unlimited. This forum and my TG2 friends have helped me tremendously. I think you folks will give Vue a real run for the money.

[Marcos Silveira]

Thanx for the reply Jo!!!
But there is something I didn't get, can I actually open a preview window based on a certain surface shader?!?!? How???

[dhavalmistry]

But there is something I didn't get, can I actually open a preview window based on a certain surface shader?!?!? How???

I dont think you can do that...can you??

[Marcos Silveira]

...I have also opened the Surface Layer 01 preview in a new window, something which is in the current alpha. That lets you see things a lot more clearly.

...It would also be handy if you could pan around the preview area, at the moment it just zooms in and out on the origin AFAICT.

How?!?!

[jo]

Hi,

Opening the preview for the shader is in the latest alpha the alpha testers have, but not yet in a publicly released version. I don't mean to tease or anything, but I thought you might be interested to see it in action and get an idea of how useful it could be. I think it makes a big difference, and with a few improvements will be even better.

Regards,

Jo

[Marcos Silveira]

'derstood now!!! 
Just waiting...