Talk:Using Kits and Navigating the Render Window

Here's the basic sequence I use to get pieces to line up. First, when I place the first piece, I note the Z axis value. Second, I switch to top-down view. Now when I place additional pieces (assuming I'm on the same 'level' of the interior) I left-click and hold on the new piece, press the Z key, and drag it down until the Z axis is the same as the original piece. No second guessing required, I'm guarenteed that the floors will match up, and top down (at least in my opinion) is great for making sure the edges line up.
Hope this helps someone, [MD]Languard 17:59, 24 March 2006 (EST)

Thanks! That trick works wonders!--Zonr 0 23:26, 1 April 2006 (EST)

Clarification

Hope this tutorial's been helpful to you guys. Just a clarification - the cave set can be rotated, but it should not. It's just a caveat to the way this set was designed by the original artist - rotating one piece ninety degrees means that you'll have to do the same with every other cave piece it connects to, otherwise the textures won't line up. None of the other kits - that I can think of right now - have this feature. - JBurgess

Yes it did help! Are you the author? If so, I bow in recognition... So helpful that I've actually made it one of the focal points of my mod, Caves of Marvels (WIP) - maybe another name will come by since it's actually the sole cave of the mod amongst other areas (interior and exterior-: about a year ago, I began this tutorial with the intention of moving along starting my mod after finishing this, but I experimented so much with it that I kept it... :D. Thanks and kudos! --HawkFest 19:19, 15 February 2009 (EST)

Yes, Joel wrote this. He's also a Beth dev, and an awesome guy.

Dragoon Wraith TALK 19:42, 15 February 2009 (EST)

Hard Work

I'm very curious as to how long this is supposed to take to build since the first room took at least an hour for me to build and how are you supposed to know if the pieces match when you pull them out of the list (when not following an instruction). Am I doing something wrong? Please mail me at molindern@hotmail.com

The only answer to this is, of course, trial and error, and good ol' Canadian knowhow. I guess American knowhow could work too. ;-) --JT 14:49, 31 March 2006 (EST)

Z Axis is Evil

Is there any way we can get a preference for a default Z axis? Would be really useful in constructing my clandestine thief town.

Snap To Grid

The tutorial has a screenshot of the Render Window's "Movement" tab that does not show the "SnapToGrid" setting flagged. I started out placing peices this way and had a terrible time aligning edges. Then I erased everything and started over with the "Snap" on - this helped (me) immeasurably. I can see the usefulnes of unsnapped placement for objects like crates and critters, but for tile peices like this I'd recommend first-timer's use the Snap behavior. Quasimotocar

Note the icons highlighted in this image from the tutorial - with how often you need to toggle snapping, it's much faster to use than going into the Properties tab every time you need to do so. I had actually forgotten you could even toggle it elsewhere.JBurgess

Additionally, if you drag and drop an object (eg. CSRmCornerIn01A) with snap off, then turn it on, you will find 9 times out of 10 the object will not snap to the grid size you've selected when moving it (although it will be extremely close). This means any other objects placed will most likely not align correctly. The best bet is to use snap when placing all room pieces (then switch it off for other objects).

Just trying to help....

I've uploaded an image http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Image:Dungeon_topview.jpg

I think it would be good if this were linked from this page as that would make it easier for a complete beginner to see which bits went where. As I've noted with the image page, It might be nice if someone annotated the page with the correct object names.

Agreed, I found the picture quite confusing due to the angle that the camera sits on. I think we should definitally add this picture to the article. --Sumguy21

Some clarifications hopefully useful !

Pieces stands for "objects" like CSRmCornerIn01A, CSRmWall01A, etc.

• DO NOT rotate the pieces (i.e. do not right click on a piece and drag it). You don't need to rotate them to align them correctly. Instead do set "Snap to Grid" : 32 (and check the checkbox). Do this right from the beginning! Is there a way to force straight lines to snap btw ?
• Keep in mind that the "Prefix" and "Suffix" sections refer to the cave kit only.
• For the cave kit : Piece01B is the exact replica of Piece01A but rotated 90 degrees clockwise, around the z-axis. Most pieces come in 4 replicas. Repeat : this is true for the cave kit- I don't know for how many others, if any. Apparently pieces in other kits (Ayleid ruins, for instance) can be rotated to a random amount around their z-axis.
• Note that the z-axis referred to is inherent to the piece. It is in the direction of the blue lines you see when you select a piece in the render window. The Z-coordinate in the "Reference window" (double click on a piece in the render window to see this) is the Z-coordinate of the piece (namely of some point, maybe of the center of the parallelepiped the piece is enclosed in) in a global coordinate system X,Y,Z. When dragging a piece with the left mouse button pressed you move it along the X,Y directions. Holding the X or the Y key while dragging disables the movement along the Y,X axis respectively. Holding the Z key while dragging moves the piece along the Z axis (and disables X,Y movement). On the other hand when dragging a piece with the right mouse button pressed you just rotate it along its z-axis - these are the rotations referred to above (prohibited in the cave kit). It is possible to rotate the piece along its x,y axes ([1]). I presume that these rotations are not recommended either.
• Cf "Clarification" section above : can't be rotated means shouldn't be rotated (thanks for the tutorial :).
• It would be great to be able to set the Z-coordinate of any piece we drag into the Render Window to the same default value! Why is it that each piece when dropped into the render window has (slightly) different value for its Z-coordinate ? Maybe I miss something here... Please post if you know anything definite on that :) UDUN 17:36, 3 January 2007 (EST)

Editing these pages

Just wondering , as this is a Wiki , why are we not able to change certain topics? for example this article , there is no EDIT functionality , how is it supposed to be improved ? please allow us access to all content (except main front page i guess) Vvenaya 07:14, 5 April 2006 (EDT)

--Kkuhlmann 07:41, 5 April 2006 (EDT): Done. Initially, all the pages accessed directly from the front page were protected. We were not sure how much of a problem vandalism was going to be. Turns out, not a problem at all (knock on wood).

Thanks KKuhlmann , you are my hero! Vvenaya 07:56, 5 April 2006 (EDT)

Rotating the Cells.

It appears that the cells mentioned in the article ARE able to be rotated around the Y axis as mentioned, (and holding Z and X, the z and X axis. however the article appears to also mention this is impossible. It might be wise to address this in the article, (whether it works in the real world, or if it's just a representation.) Overall though this article is very well written though.
(My First Wiki entry ever, mother would be so proud)Kinglink 18:52, 26 March 2006 (EST)

It is possible but should not be done as once an object has been rotated the textures will no longer align correctly. This is why we are provided with four pre-rotated versions of most pieces.

Z Axis.

Alot of people are having problems with the Z axis being off when you drag objects into the Render Window you can set the X-Y-Z co-ords by hand by double clicking any object and changing the value of X-Y-Z to what ever you need! Cheers, Tyrrin

Made More Work Than Needed!

Someone let me know if I'm wrong on these but two things have bugged me so far (my first 2 hours) with this construction set, a) as mentioned before, how comes every piece that's dragged over is a different height! every piece has to be double-clicked, change the value, and then apply the changes. While this might not seem too bad, if you have a small dungeon you'll have to do this 60-70 times say, a medium dungeon 100-120 times, a large dungeon 200+ times, it really puts you off creating bigger and better levels! b) Why can you not zoom out and see your entire map? I have the clipping on max in the settings (I've tried both extremities on the slider with no difference) and if I zoom out all I can see is about a quarter of what I've done before things start disappearing. I do have all my pieces set at around 7000 (just happened to be what the first piece came out as), could lowering every piece solve my problem? jay2jay99 11:35, 21 Febuary 2007

I've had this problem with the fade for a while and have finally just figured out what you actually need to do, go to File->Preferences and on the tab labeled 'LOD' slide the Fade bars all the way to the right, voila! jay2jay99 13:35, 22 Febuary 2007 (EDT)

I don't know if you dont do this already, but I double click on all the peices and give them the same Z axis value. That usually puts them on the same level. Yes, its still a bit tedious but its a little less likely to cause loss-of-will-to-live then using the Z button. Amthysteyes2 13:32, 1 October 2007 (EDT)

Saving and re-loading

Some people have had trouble with this- me among them. You reload a cave and edit it. When it comes to saving you try to click on the title of what your editing- to re-write it. Easy enough, right? The system doesn't appear to like that. So instead when you choose to save over something, save it under a different name (myfirstdungeon2, prehaps) and continue editing. When you are ready to reload again, check which one you edited last (the program tells you this) and when your ready to save MAKE A NEW FILE again or SAVE OVER the file it wouldn't let you use before- it will now. Its probably a good idea to make sure you know what your saving over before you click ok. So DOUBLE CHECK! Amthysteyes2 13:28, 1 October 2007 (EDT)

Are you sure you set an active file? That will mess with being able to save over the original. --Trigonous 00:26, 27 November 2007 (EST)