[Bf-funboard] Re: Large Texture buttons redesign proposal

[William Reynish]

> I wonder why a "problem" caused due the reorg is
> solved with a more
> radical change which makes things slower and
> unclear.

Why is it slower and more unclear?

> The first
> "problem" created was the order, and the "solution"
> is to hide all the
> channels and force you to move the mouse there and
> click if you only
> want to see what you got or in which order. There
> was no way to fix
> the first problem instead?

The "levels" order discribed in the proposal is one
thing. How the channels work is another. I didn't mean
to mix these two things together. 


> This is a step backwards
> (quick view of
> what you got, for a lots of things that work as a
> tight team).
> Drop down menus are better for things in which one
> and only one item
> is valid at a given time, like you propose for
> texture type (that is a
> nice way to save space, and in that place it is
> fine, agreed). But the
> channels are a different thing. The right proposal
> for that should be
> some kind of tree or something, not more half fixes,
> if you think the
> limit (8 max) has to be changed. Imagine any 2D
> image editor in which
> layers were handled with your idea, instead of
> stacks or lists. ;]

The channels could be handled differently than I have
proposed. I chose to make my proposal as easy to
follow for the programmers as possible, and therefore
there are not many huge changes in how things actually
work, but instead, how to display the current system
as clearly as possible. Right now it is a right mess,
and we are constrained by only being able to have
eight textureblocks per material.

The only way I can find where we have infinite
textures (or alot anyway) is to make a list of some
sorts, beit a photoshop layers style approach or an
approach like I did. A photoshop style layers thing
would be cool, but it might require a little more
programming. It's a good idea though, I might look
into it.



> Also, that path you define exists sometimes,
> probably when starting
> from zero. But other times the user goes in a
> different order, for
> example when adjusting all you are not going to
> follow that path at
> all, but jump "randomly". I would not make it a so
> big issue.

With my design you can jump around just as much as you
would like. Just because you dont always edit things
in the order you create them doesn't mean we shouldn't
organise things logically. As you say, you don't make
a big deal out of it, but it really doesn't make sense
to organise things confusingly and randomly because
because you can edit things how you like.

> BTW, did I miss anything, or now you can not leave
> empty slots (not so
> big issue, I think) or reorder them (this is a real
> issue)? 

Yes you can indeed reorder textures and leave empty
slots as you like. Actually it works quite like the
current system.

How to leave spaces in my design:
1-Click New to add an empty channel.
2-Leave the texture block saying "add new"(like it
currently does) alone and create a new channel
In other words, just don't attach a textureblock to a
channel and you have an empty channel.

How to reorganise textures in my design:
Channel: 1 - Textureblock: "clouds"
Channel: 2 - Textureblock: "wood"

To reorganise the above two textures do the following:
1-enter channel 1 and select "wood" instead of
"clouds" in the textureblock.
2-enter channel 2 and select "clouds" instead of
"wood" in the textureblock.
This is exactly how it is in the current system.


> "new & delete" buttons look like you can add at will

You can. Why should you not be able to create a
channel when you want?

> and order does
> not make much sense (IIRC 8th was special, ie). GUI
> has to match the
> guts, 

That is just what I have strived to accomplish. I know
Blender, and I know how the texturebuttons work, but
it currently doesn't communicate very well how it is
supposed to be used. 

Thanks for the comments and reply.


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