Some observations

captainpeter · 11th November 2005, 01:34 PM

First of all I must admit that I'm used to working in Blender to create X-Plane OBJ files.

With the advent of OBJ8 format, AC3D was for some time the only app with an export plugin. Therefor I had to move a huge project from Blender to AC3D.

The project in Blender consisted of 4x20 different layers and it obviously took a while to get all correctly imported - that was to expect.

I'm now working on this very project for more than a month in AC3D now and would like to suggest a few features which would certainly help everyone building complex geometry.

First of all LAYERS!
It would be awesome to have an easy way to switch on/off certain geometry in a layers palette, mark certain layers as 'template only' so they don't get exported.
It should inlude functions to re-order layers (not only to abs. top or bottom) and allow collapsing the display of certain layers in the list to just a one-liner.

In addition, the pop-up in the hierarchy which is opened by CENTER-click is a really important one and obviously a bit hard to access for Mac users with one mouse-button. It works nicely with MightyMouse btw.
The current state of layers should furthermore be saved in the AC3D file upon exit.

SECOND
I missed a 'select by texture' command. I know X-Plane's texture support is limited to 1(2) per object but what if I build a complex area which will later consist of multiple obj files.

THIRD
A way to customize keyboard shortcuts.

Those are the primary issues I have with AC3D which keep me from using it exclusively for x-plane work.

Oh, and would it be possible to use the scrollwheel for zoom and, with modifier key for pan? MightyMouse can scroll left/right as well....

Other than that I must admit that I only had positive experiences with AC3D.

cheers
Peter

11th November 2005, 01:34 PM	#1
captainpeter Senior Member Professional user Join Date: May 2004 Location: Vienna / Austria Posts: 207	Some observations First of all I must admit that I'm used to working in Blender to create X-Plane OBJ files. With the advent of OBJ8 format, AC3D was for some time the only app with an export plugin. Therefor I had to move a huge project from Blender to AC3D. The project in Blender consisted of 4x20 different layers and it obviously took a while to get all correctly imported - that was to expect. I'm now working on this very project for more than a month in AC3D now and would like to suggest a few features which would certainly help everyone building complex geometry. First of all LAYERS! It would be awesome to have an easy way to switch on/off certain geometry in a layers palette, mark certain layers as 'template only' so they don't get exported. It should inlude functions to re-order layers (not only to abs. top or bottom) and allow collapsing the display of certain layers in the list to just a one-liner. In addition, the pop-up in the hierarchy which is opened by CENTER-click is a really important one and obviously a bit hard to access for Mac users with one mouse-button. It works nicely with MightyMouse btw. The current state of layers should furthermore be saved in the AC3D file upon exit. SECOND I missed a 'select by texture' command. I know X-Plane's texture support is limited to 1(2) per object but what if I build a complex area which will later consist of multiple obj files. THIRD A way to customize keyboard shortcuts. Those are the primary issues I have with AC3D which keep me from using it exclusively for x-plane work. Oh, and would it be possible to use the scrollwheel for zoom and, with modifier key for pan? MightyMouse can scroll left/right as well.... Other than that I must admit that I only had positive experiences with AC3D. cheers Peter