Simple ideas to improve Imp & other stuff
Hi dreamates :)
I am using dreams mostly on my VR Headset. Here are some simple suggestions to improve the handling of the imp.
1. Cloning without breaking your thumb
Cloning - if you want to create a curved shape with cloning, you have to use a high ammount of clones, so they blend into each other and do not show jaggy surfaces.
Instead of pushing the clonebutton on your PSVR-Move or Gamepad 64 times, simply hold it for 1 second to que up the maximum numbers would be more comfortable.
2. Getting rid of brushstrokes, negative shapes
Beeing able to delete paintstrokes (modeling mode). Paintstrokes (brushmode in modelingmode) seem to be permanent and cant be deleted in an object. If you are into creating complex paintings those strokes can add up to the minimum usage of graphics memory in an object. I created some objects and experimented a lot with painting on them. Now i canot get rid of the paint strokes a applied and those objects have an inacceptable ammount of memory ussage. Although it would be cool to have more control over negative shapes that are hard or impossible to delete later on.
Add a abbility to simply remove paintbrushstrokes / negative shapes of an object.
3.Overlapping artifacts between two surfaces
I noticed a overlapping effect, when pushing two flat surfaces into each other. Although both objects are perfectly flat, it looks like something is sticking out of those objects where they overlap. It is easy to see when using directional lightning or any kind of glossy shader. It also seems to be influenced by the LOD as far as i can see that. The visual problem is getting more pronounced when moving farer away.
If that is somehow fixable, i would love to see that.
4. Improved cloning operration
Creating curved versions of your sculpt is at the moment very uncomfortable. If you set up a unique shape (not one of the basic shapes) and want to spind them around a certain point - you have to do that in object mode. But in this mode, they will not blend into each other and leaving gaps that have to be filled up. Although id like to see a special curve-tool for cubes and the other shapes - and more than just 4 points to control the shape of it.
Improve cloning for creating curved versions of complexer shapes. Maybe add also the abbility to simply place the cloneobject at the final destination first (and adjust the number of clones, scaling and blendingammount afterwards). To do all of this in just one action like hit or fail feels sometimes a bit innaccurate and overwhelming for me.
5. Stretching on an individual axis
May be it is not possible because your enginge works in a different way. But i would love to be able to scale objects just on one or two axis instead of all.
Hope it is possible to stretch modelled objects instead of just scaling them in all directions somewhere in the future.
6.One for all, all for one -> joining objects (not grouping)
Joining objects into groups is already possible. Joining multiple objects into one would be a cool feature to create new single objects. It allows you to create variations and have more control over the balance between memory and gameplay memory usage. Of course they would share the same attributes/shading - but that is okay. I think this is already possible for paintstrokes in the painting mode.
7. Photos/Images as reference in VR-Mode
I think there are already suggestions for photo import. Would be cool to see a photo in a little preview window just like the Overlays in the tutoriallevels for beginners. If you are modeling in VR you always have to take off your headset to compare your work with a template.
Photopreview in a small window that gets larger when clicked on as object reference for modeling in PSVR-Mode.
8. Custom templates for quicker painting
Painting certain patterns on your model can help to emphasize the intented impression of an object. But for each object you have to this from scratch.
I would love to see, that we can create our own "texture template paintbrush stamps", so we can apply our painting patterns faster to complete new models or unusual shapes in general.
9. Custom negative shapes for cutting stuff out
Cutting with negative shapes can lead to nice looking results. But again you have to do it all over again, as soon you start a new object. Would be interesting, if we could save and use our own individuel negative shapes, that are based on multiple basic shapes.
For example if i would create a letter in positive mode, i should be able to switch all those models into negative shape and saving them, so i can stamp with that template letters in any surface i want to.
10. Shared Object attributes (optimized thermo?)
Whenever you keep placing new or cloned objects they will demand some space of the gameplay memory. Cloning objects is a way to decrease the usage of graphicsmemory at the cost of gameplaymemory. I wonder now. what exactly requires place in the gameplaymemory. I guess it is the location, scale and rotation of each object in the scene. Its likely it includes also all additional attributes for each individual clone like shading, physical stuff.
An example: I created a stone wall (3% graphicmemory) and i am cloning it like 500 times to build a large castle with it. Wouldnt it be possible to reduce the usage of gameplaymemory in this case, if i could tell the engine, that all of those 500 clones share exactly the same attributes (shading, color, effects, physics and so on). So dreams does not have to put 500x times the informations for each clone into the gameplaymemory but only once.
This is just an idea, may be it already works like that, only the developers know - but if not, may be this could squeeze out a nice amount of extra space for the thermometer.
11. More Fleck control & turn off Flecks
I know this sounds crazy - but it would be fun if we could create our own flecks (shape/color) that are used on models. Although there is one thing about flecks, that raises my attention: Especially in VR they are turned off fairly quick when moving away from objects. They are not rendered and the surface looks perfectly flat. Now here comes the idea: There is that mixed/low detail mode for certain shapes, where the edges are rendered at highresolution and the interiores at low resolution. Of course those objects look very "flecky".
If we simply could turn of flecks or set their colortones to one single color, you would not notice the low resolution at all. Perfect way to save up memory. Edges look sharp, rest ist low - but not detectable by our eyes.
12. Brightness/Contrastslider for individual objects
A Brightness/contrastslider in the object properties would be nice, to add more punch/control to certain painted textures.
Sometimes you get a simelar effect by simply adding more black to an object, but it feels a little bit limited.
Thats is it for now :) I hope at least some of my suggesstions are usefull in the eyes of other dreamers.
If you feel free to write or support any of those ideas, simply post your thoughts and do not forget to mention the number of the matching suggestion.
Goodbye and have a nice day :)
-
3. Overlapping objects. This happens in all engines; the artifacts produced and the circumstances for it happening varies depending on the rendering engine. For example, polygon renderers often have "z-fighting" where each frame a random different one of the triangles is rendered first and so appears on top. Dreams doesn't have that, which is great, but it has its own artefacts.
In Dreams, there are flecks splatted on the surface of all sculpts. So you're seeing more than 1 fleck in the same spot, because there are literally more flecks being rendered there. Not sure you can really do anything about that apart from either a) not overlapping the sculpts, or b) taking that into account with how you build the sculpts.
For example, if you give a very slight chamfer toward the edge that will overlap, the surfaces will only overlap a tiny bit at that edge. Depending on how much you're overlapping them, of course.
4. Multi-clone rotated around a point. The kaleidoscope setting is designed for this. Turn it on before starting, add an edit to set the centre point, then start building your complex shape. May not be exactly what you're looking for, but it may help you.
5. Non-uniform Stretch. You can actually do this, though it can be a touch janky at times depending on the circumstances. https://youtu.be/O-FDCIak-yU
-
Thx for your insights TAP,
i was not aware that there is a way to stretch things - ill have to check this out.
Aboutthe cloning/rotation: I think the kaleidoscope is not the same thing. It is useful for symetrical design, where each side has to look the same. I simply had a better handling in mind for general cloning. But since you mentioned it -> it would be cool to be able to set centrepoint anywhere you prefer it.
For the Z-Fighting: I already tried to chamfer the sharp edges of blocks (so there are not exactly on the same Z-position, but in the engine these tricks do not work so well. The reason for this is the LOD. It works closeup, but few metres away the artifacts come back (in VR-Mode this is much more obvious because of stronger and earlier LOD-steps). If your models have a unique, uneven surface, this problem does not really matter. But i designed for example a square, glossy marbleplate for interiors - which have a flat surface. They are really the worst thing to provoke this optical flaw. The only thing i can imagine to skip this is to create such objects at the size you need them - which brings you back to the troublesome limitations with the thermo. Smaller plates, duplicated and pushed into eacht other to create the illusion of one huge tile was the more favourable solution in my eyes.
A custom LOD setting for those might do the trick - im not sure about it. Ah, just give us unlimited graphicsmemory and let us all forget about such problems @MM :) I wonder how the thermo works in PS5 since it has much more memory to offer.
Vous devez vous connecter pour laisser un commentaire.