[OPTing] OPTech v2

[JeremyaFr]

UPDATE

Hello,
I've merged the changes from the WIP version into the stable version.

[Vince T]

Hey Jeremy, like I said I encountered an odd phenomenon.
While OPTing stuff I do a lot of moving around, duplicating etc. so in the end, I usually hit the calculate Hitzones function to "clean things up". It's pretty much the last thing I do before Saving, all the time.

Now I've noticed that in some cases, the next time I load, it and run an error check, it sometimes complains that some meshes have wrong hitzones dimensions although I ran the calculate Hitzone function right before saving. Running the function again the error is gone. I save, load the project and the error appears again.

While I cannot pinpoint it, I have a theory: If I made some changes to a mesh, which I then converted into a LOD for another without running the calcHitzones first, might that cause the phenomenon?

[JeremyaFr]

Hello,
Can you share a project where the issue appear?

[Vince T]

I'll send it to you in a bit.
That one doesn't even have a LOD as it's a hangar model, so guess that theory's a bust.

[JeremyaFr]

WIP

Hello,
Is it better now?

EDIT: link removed

[Vince T]

Looks like it, thanks Jeremy!

[Vince T]

Another request, Jeremy, sorry to be a bother!

Right now, in the geometry panel high- and low-detail meshes are treated somewhat separately, so if I move, rotate or scale a HD mesh, the changes will not be carried over to the LD one and vice versa. Would it be possible to apply the changes made to both versions at the same time?

[JeremyaFr]

WIP

Hello,
I've updated OPTech.

Now, when a mesh is moved, rotated, scaled, you can choose to apply the transformation to only the selected LOD or to all LODs.

EDIT: link removed

[JeremyaFr]

UPDATE

Hello,
I've merged the changes from the WIP version into the stable version.

[JeremyaFr]

UPDATE

Hello,
I've updated OPTech.

Apply functions to selection or whole opt.
Calculate Textures Coordinates, Fix Tris to Quads, Fix Quads to Tris are
applied to the whole OPT if no mesh is selected. If meshes or faces are
selected, the functions are applied only to the selection.

[Bman]

Awesome. Thank you.

[Vince T]

OK another one, this may be a tough nut to crack and I'm not sure if it's solvable: This one came out from a disussion I had with ual002 but it's something that'd been bugging me for a while now:

Two things actually:
1) not sure if you're aware but importing an OPT into OPTech has a degrading effect on the textures. They bcome darker and loose quality. Is there any way to prevent this from happening (without manually replacing all the textures afterwars?
2) Not sure if you're aware of this, but OPTech's render window adds a slight blue-tint to the model image. Is there any way to tweak the render engine to show the textures in their natural color?

3) This is the cherry ontop, and while I'm almost certain it's not possible, I'll ask anyway: Could OPTech's rendering engine be replaced with the engine from OPT Editor?

[JeremyaFr]

Hello,
For the textures issue, you can try that:

EDIT: link removed

[JeremyaFr]

UPDATE

Hello,
I've updated OPTech.

Now the textures are sorted by name.

[JeremyaFr]

UPDATE

Hello,
I've updated OPTech.

Now the mesh selection is cleared when you switch between high and low lod view.

[JeremyaFr]

UPDATE

Hello,
I've updated OPTech.

I've added the hardpoint type in the hardpoints list.

[JeremyaFr]

UPDATE

Hello,
I've updated OPTech.

Changes are:
- add show/hide meshes where there is a meshes list
- add a mesh selection to hardpoints and engine glows
- add a button to set the pivot to the first selected vertex
- modify the default zoom factor
- the zoom factor is not reset with the Quad2Tri and Tri2Quad functions

[Vince T]

Fantastic, thank you, Jeremy!

Edit: Just tested the changes, works great, just a little bug and a suggestion for improvement:
(UIpdated bug list below)

[Vince T]

@JeremyaFr there's a critical error with the latest OPTech version 2.0.78.
When I try to assign a texture to a selection of faces, it fails to read the file name, because it cuts of the first letter.
Example:
Texture name = TEXTURE01.bmp
When I try to assign it, I get an error message "The texture EXTURE01.bmp is missing"
Followed by program crashing. This happens with any model/texture

Other bugs:
- The mesh selection boxes on all tabs except the Geometry one, cannot be scrolled via arrow keys, it always jumps to the first entry no matter what you do.
- The individual checkboxes for each mesh do not reflect the visibility status, if a mesh was hidden with the checkbox below the list - and vice versa.
- The mesh select box on the Hitzones tab is quite small compared to the box on the other tabs (rotation hitzones) Any chance you can make it the same size? There seems to be sufficient space

Request:
- Could you add a show/hide checkbox to the face selection list?

[JeremyaFr]

UPDATE

Hello,
I've updated OPTech.

I've fix the bug with the texture selection where the first char in the texture name is removed.

[Vince T]

Thank you, Jeremy, that did it!

[Vince T]

Hey @JeremyaFr, me again with a few suggestions to improve accessibility. These are mainly about renaming certain elements:

# In the File menu: New/Open/Save/Save as OPZ > Replace "OPZ" with "Project". More telling

# In the Calculate menu:
- "Transformation" > Rename "Reset Transformations"
- "Texture Coordinates" > Rename "Reset Texture Coordinates"
You could even remove these two commands from the menu alltogether. If run accidentally they cause more ham than they do good. I have not had a single instance where I would need to reset texture coordinates and there is a dedicated Reset button in the transformations tab.

# In the transformations Editor:
It may add to accessibility to point out the axes that the 3 values relate to, and maybe a small description text to each of the lines on how to set up rotations properly. Kinda like this:
Rotation:
(Red Axis: must point straight UP from the rotating mesh's plane)
Translation:
(Blue Axis: must point straight LEFT from where the mesh is facing)
Scale:
(Green Axis: must point the way the mesh is facing.)

A few other quality of life improvements:
- Preview Window Controls: Toggle "Display Texture" ON by default
- Transparency / Illumination Editor: below the "Remove Selected" buttom, add a "Remove all".

Right, that's all I have right now. Until next time

[JeremyaFr]

UPDATE

Hello,
I've updated OPTech.

Changes are:
- fix textures names
- fix scroll with arrow keys
- fix visibility checkbox

[Vince T]

Erm @JeremyaFr
That last update kinda messed up the visibility checkbox rather than fixing it.

If I select several meshes and use the visibility checkbox below the list, it will only hide them one by one per each click and only start showing them once all have been hidden.

I'm reverting back to previous version for now.

[JeremyaFr]

UPDATE

Hello,
I've updated OPTech.

Changes are:
- Fix visibility checkbox
- Display Texture ON by default
- Rename OPZ to Project in File menu
- Rename "Calculate > Transformations" with "Calculate > Reset Transformations"
- Add a confirmation MessageBox for "Calculate > Reset Transformations"
- Rename "Calculate > Texture Coordinates" with "Calculate > Reset Texture Coordinates"
- Add a confirmation MessageBox for "Calculate > Reset Texture Coordinates"
- Add descriptions to the tranformation editor
- Add a button to remove all items in the transparency editor
- Add a button to remove all items in the illumination editor