Hey! New mapper here, working on his first map. However, I've found a few basic features lacking in the Spark editor.
-Box Selection - Works great! Unless you don't want stuff on the other side of a wall getting wiped out too! Rough experience... Had already spent several hours on one part of a level, and was working on the next part. Well imagine my horror when, after a few more hours of work, I looked back to find pretty much ALL of the first room I'd made earlier has been wiped out and discombobulated beyond recognition. Yessir, I had been foolishly using the box selection assuming I was only affecting things I could actually SEE. And not realizing something was wrong until MUCH MUCH later, I had already made many saves and there was no way the undo stack was THAT deep... well and truly screwed I was! Well after I stopped bawling my eyes out about 12 hours later, I sucked it up and started over again.
-Curves! Yes yes we all know curves are a kick in the balls to deal with in Spark, so I'll throw my vote in there for better tools, especially when it comes to texturing the darned things! One thing I'd like in particular is a way to easily select an edge loop. HOLD ON HOLD ON! I'm not talking about the erm... "edge loop" selection that you get by double clicking an edge... that's pretty much just selecting the edges of a face... that's next to useless! No, I'm talking about selecting a bunch of edges in a line. For instance, if I have a long curved rail, as it is now if I wanted to make the edges smooth, I'd have to go through and select every edge, one-by-one, pressing S. That's a lot of time wasted! What would be more useful would be if it went through and selected all the edges that were in a line Just google image search "edge loop selection" to see what I'm talking about.
-A way to "dissolve" vertices. Say you have a rectangle... a 5 sided rectangle... oh wait that won't do! It's a four-sided shape, but there's a pesky fifth vertex free-loading on one of the four edges! (well five I guess....). It would be GREAT to be able to be able to select that ONE vertex and click "dissolve" which would remove the vertex, but keep the face intact... even if that means the face has to deform a little bit because it no longer has 5 sides (in this example, it wouldn't).
-Same as above, but with edges.
-A little feedback!!!!!! If I draw a rectangle and a face ISN'T created... I'd kinda like to know WHY! I'm sick to death of playing hide and seek with Mr. Double-edge.
-Box Selection Subtraction - I'm really not a fan of the way it works now. Correct me if I'm wrong but here's my impression: If ctrl isn't held, make a new selection. If ctrl is held: and something boxed is already selected, deselect EVERYTHING in the box, otherwise add it to the selection. What if I want to add to the selection, but don't quite have a surgeon's precision in selecting ONLY things that aren't already selected?
Anyways, these are minor grievances really... Fantastic job building all this from scratch! Also, thanks for reading... I hope these suggestions are found useful.
-Box Selection - Works great! Unless you don't want stuff on the other side of a wall getting wiped out too! Rough experience... Had already spent several hours on one part of a level, and was working on the next part. Well imagine my horror when, after a few more hours of work, I looked back to find pretty much ALL of the first room I'd made earlier has been wiped out and discombobulated beyond recognition. Yessir, I had been foolishly using the box selection assuming I was only affecting things I could actually SEE. And not realizing something was wrong until MUCH MUCH later, I had already made many saves and there was no way the undo stack was THAT deep... well and truly screwed I was! Well after I stopped bawling my eyes out about 12 hours later, I sucked it up and started over again.
-Curves! Yes yes we all know curves are a kick in the balls to deal with in Spark, so I'll throw my vote in there for better tools, especially when it comes to texturing the darned things! One thing I'd like in particular is a way to easily select an edge loop. HOLD ON HOLD ON! I'm not talking about the erm... "edge loop" selection that you get by double clicking an edge... that's pretty much just selecting the edges of a face... that's next to useless! No, I'm talking about selecting a bunch of edges in a line. For instance, if I have a long curved rail, as it is now if I wanted to make the edges smooth, I'd have to go through and select every edge, one-by-one, pressing S. That's a lot of time wasted! What would be more useful would be if it went through and selected all the edges that were in a line Just google image search "edge loop selection" to see what I'm talking about.
-A way to "dissolve" vertices. Say you have a rectangle... a 5 sided rectangle... oh wait that won't do! It's a four-sided shape, but there's a pesky fifth vertex free-loading on one of the four edges! (well five I guess....). It would be GREAT to be able to be able to select that ONE vertex and click "dissolve" which would remove the vertex, but keep the face intact... even if that means the face has to deform a little bit because it no longer has 5 sides (in this example, it wouldn't).
-Same as above, but with edges.
-A little feedback!!!!!! If I draw a rectangle and a face ISN'T created... I'd kinda like to know WHY! I'm sick to death of playing hide and seek with Mr. Double-edge.
-Box Selection Subtraction - I'm really not a fan of the way it works now. Correct me if I'm wrong but here's my impression: If ctrl isn't held, make a new selection. If ctrl is held: and something boxed is already selected, deselect EVERYTHING in the box, otherwise add it to the selection. What if I want to add to the selection, but don't quite have a surgeon's precision in selecting ONLY things that aren't already selected?
Anyways, these are minor grievances really... Fantastic job building all this from scratch! Also, thanks for reading... I hope these suggestions are found useful.