What new features would you like for the next NewDark update (Suggestions)

R Soul on 9/7/2020 at 17:47

Could it be that the body is being caught by an 0 (infinite) radius light?

Sperry on 11/1/2021 at 10:41

I don't know if anyone has posted this, but I could totally use a feature that would automatically implement the most optimized "Time" for each brush, without changing the in-game geometry, to get the lowest cell-count with just a click!

bbb on 20/1/2021 at 01:38

This is probably asking for impossible but I would love the ability to roombrush shapes other than square/rectangle. I find room brushing inside or around a cylinder for example, is a real pain.

One other thing is being able to see a visual of object in the inject hierarchy. I know there are tools to get around it but would be convenient to have it as part of the hierarchy.

Thanks
bbb

Brethren on 24/1/2021 at 07:26

No idea if anything like this is technically possible, but I would love to have some way to tidy up the players inventory. A key ring for all your keys, a notebook for all your readables, etc.

Master of Dromed on 24/1/2021 at 16:13

Quote Posted by Sperry

I will also like a feature like this. By the way is there a method for optimizing the time for brushes manually to get the lowest cell count? (Other than randomly change the time for each brush which for a big mission with around 7000 terrain brushes is insane..)

DirkBogan on 25/1/2021 at 00:30

There are always edge cases, but the general rules for time efficiency are:
1) Lowest time for big air brushes, especially ones with lots of solid inside them.
2) Large solids after, but still early
3) Small air and solids later, though small air can often have big savings if made early.

Air brushes are 'usually' a bigger source of savings. For example, I recovered 3053 cells by changing only six brush times in Builder's Paradise using the following method:
a) set time to 0
b) if no savings, set time to 100
c) if no savings, set time to 1000
d) give up or try 2000, 3000 etc.

You can always just try swapping times on single brushes in a particularly expensive area. There is no substitute for brute force, unfortunately. It's usually safe to do these with area brushes (lower cell count locally is almost always lower cell count globally) but rarely a lower local count will produce a higher global count.

Always be careful not to unintentionally cause visible geometry changes when doing this. To avoid accidental carving, it's best to have big airbrushes as early as possible anyway.

EDIT: the best method for solids is to try setting it to either a very early time (100 is usually safe to avoid unwanted carving) or To End'ing it, and seeing if either is cheaper than its original time. Oftentimes it will be staggeringly more expensive either way, so always keep track of you cell count before and after. This goes for any change.

Master of Dromed on 25/1/2021 at 01:07

Thanks for the answer DirkBogan! Optimizing the time is a slow process and it would be really cool if Dromed could do this automatically for us.

PinkDot on 25/1/2021 at 16:17

Let's face it - getting automatic optimization of time of brushes is a close to impossible task. There's too many gray areas plus results would be hard to predict, so as Dirk is saying, it often needs to be brute-forced.

What I'd like to see instead would be more control over the portalization process. Namely - order of brush planes for cells splitting. For example, having a floating solid cylinder in an air cube, I'd like to choose, whether the top/bottom faces would be splitting the cube first, or whether sides should go first, and then the top and bottom. Or any arbitrary order really. This could be useful, if we had for example staircase in this room as well - I could observe an impact of different cuts of cylinder on the cuts caused by the steps and choose the best scenario.