Snap Parameters?

Jason Galterio

I have a question that I am hoping has a simple answer...

Some of my purchased assests have special parameters named "SnapX," "SnapY," etc. These parameters line up the construction items seamlessly and make constructing significantly easier.

Is there a way to translate, copy or move these parameters to another item?

Specifically I am trying to find a way to assemble a small section of these items (floor, ceiling, walls) then have that Group inherit the Snap parameters to make assembling these groups easier...

Richard Haseltine

I would guess those are integer properties, with the real trasnlations etc. hidden and set to be controlled by the Snap slider. You can't copy that as such, but you can do your own version by puttin the Parameters pane in edit mode (right-click), adding teh desird Snap proerpties (right-click>Add New property, set it to Integer), and then finding the non-snapping control in the Property Hierarchy pane and dragging the Snap version into Controllers>1 st Stage (Add/Subtract).

Jason Galterio

Thanks for the info...  I had a feeling it was going to be something like that. (I was mucking about in the Parameter Editting panel right before I decided to try posting here.)

I can already see it would be a major headache since each measurement / geometry would need to be determined. Since the basic values will be different for one item as compared to a group that includes multiple items.

The only other idea I could think of, which seemed overly complicated...

Create the individual peice parts and group them. Save as a scene subset...

Then position an individual peice to it's snap corodinates...

Merge the sub scene in and parent the group to the individual piece. Then set the group's position to be zero, making it center on the positioned item...

Jason Galterio

Here I am again, with another crazy (but related) question...

So I got this thing running like an assembly line. Lots of piece parts that need assembling and a lot of duplicated assets.

It occured to me that I best start using Instances for these assets, right from the get go, rather than trying to Instance it later.

If there a script / utility out there that will Auto Instance duplicate assets? I have UltraScatter and InstancesPro, but neither (appear) to allow the instances to copy the position and rotation of an existing asset during the instancing process... or do they?

Richard Haseltine

I don't think so, though it's an interesting idea for a script.

Jason Galterio

Richard Haseltine said:

I don't think so, though it's an interesting idea for a script.

Thanks. I had a feeling that was the case.... I think I managed a work around though. It was right in front of my face, of course, but I was missing it.

Using Faveral's Medieval Interior Construction Kit as an example, where I need multiple similar rooms:
Add a Floor piece. Assemble the room around this floor piece. Parent the individual objects to the floor. Save the scene as a subset.

Open the Main Scene. Merge in the Room subset. Use the Snap positioning parameters in the floor piece to move it into place.

Select the floor piece. Create XX Node Instances, which will create the parented pieces as well. However, the instanced Floor pieces no longer have the "Snap" parameters. No worries.

Add a new, blank floor piece. Move that to where I need the second assembled room to be. Show hidden parameters to see the actual X-Y-Z coordinates. Copy these (one at a time, unfortunately), paste them into the cordordinate parameters for the first Instance. Repeat as needed.

This way all of the sub-rooms are instanced with a minimum amount of pain.

I thought about using one of the instancing plug ins (Instances Plus, UltraScatter, Stack Em), but none of these gave me the flexibility I needed to position the individual sub sets.