Let's say you want to stick a fountain at the center of a plaza, or two fountains the same distance away from the center of a plaza. With no grid, how exactly will that be possible?
According to the game document there will be a grid, but items will not have to conform to it.
However, if this isn't enough, I think it would be useful to have something similar to the inferencing in Google SketchUp for placing items. We could have tools that allow us to snap items equidistant from other selected items, to the same rotation as other selected items, directly adjacent to selected items, etc. Also, maybe there could be a tool which allows us to specify the relation between selected items and the object we're placing, i.e. x amount of points away and x degrees rotated relative to the selected item. I think this would be useful for some of the more complex parks.
Another idea I had was to have items generate there own grid. I.e. if a selected object is rotated, it could generate it's own grid parallel to it's rotation, so that other items can easily be placed placed parallel to that object. Selecting an object with a different rotation would cause a different grid to generate.
I hope all that made sense. ^^;
I think the game document is a bit out-dated in that regard. The game will probably have an alignment manager (discussed in several threads) that manages this and will, if there are no patent issues, likely have something like SketchUps inference engine. The grid will work like the ones most people know from 2D graphics editors (bitmap and/or vector), something like a "drawing aid" and be part of said alignment manager.
Personally I was hoping for a system of adjustable guidelines with snapping on intersections and midpoints, but hey, a grid does the same sort of thing. It might be useful if the grid gould be rotated and transformed though.
we could have a grid system or we could maybe have the ability to drop down lines to make our own grid so we can have as precise as we want.
Presumably terrain will be edited on a grid system? Doesn't that restrict how buildings can be positioned?
Alfinch Wrote:Presumably terrain will be edited on a grid system? Doesn't that restrict how buildings can be positioned?
No.
'No' as in terrain won't be edited on a grid or it won't affect how buildings can be positioned?
I can see that in most cases a player could have a building at any angle so long as the ground was level, but there's a lot of advantages to having the walls of a building parallel to the grid-lines of the terrain, if there are any grid-lines, that is.
Alfinch Wrote:'No' as in terrain won't be edited on a grid or it won't affect how buildings can be positioned?
It's a no on both, though to different degrees. A 'probably' on the first question and a 'definitely' on the second.
Alfinch Wrote:'No' as in terrain won't be edited on a grid or it won't affect how buildings can be positioned?
I can see that in most cases a player could have a building at any angle so long as the ground was level, but there's a lot of advantages to having the walls of a building parallel to the grid-lines of the terrain, if there are any grid-lines, that is.
Apologies, I wasn't in a position to post a long reply last time.
Terrain might be editted on a grid, it might not. We haven't decided on the details of terrain yet. The grid doesn't necessarily have to be regular squares either, it could be regular triangles, or hexagons, nothing has been decided.
Buildings can be positioned arbitrarily, the alignment management tool may well allow snaps to the grid axes, if this were rectangular then these would be a 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees, for triangular grids theres would be similar angles that are consistent across the grid.
If you went with a hexagon grid you could have rotation snaps at 30 degree incriments, allowing for 12 "snapped" directions that would include the 4 cardinals, and not be too tricky to use.
ok. but how are the 'dots' going to be arrainged? Squares, triangels, what?
Again, please do not mix up a grid as a potential alignment aid and the makeup of the terrain, they can be completely independent. They were linked in RCT3, but didn't we agree that we want to leave the boundaries of that behind?
Objects in TPB3D will be able to be placed completely arbitrary, there isn't even reason to use only 1 degree increments.
I have a game that has a grid when placing objects but you can press shift and it turns off the grid so you can place it anywhere could this be a feature in
?
rollercoaster Wrote:I have a game that has a grid when placing objects but you can press shift and it turns off the grid so you can place it anywhere could this be a feature in ?
That's a jolly good idea. It might be mentioned in the Game Design Document already, I'm not sure wether it is though