For detail obsessive folks like myself, the ability to view and inspect player models within the workshop editor is extremely limited. We’re given a small handful of animations and poses to select against a very neutral background. This can make quality checking models a huge pain in the ass if they have problems in circumstances the editor doesn’t replicate
This also increases the tedious labor of fixing things significantly as we have to
- Make the adjustments in our software
- Re-export model
- Import new model
- Adjust meta data
- Upload and/or publish the item
- Wait for new version to replace cached version
- Test the model doing things that the editor doesn’t do.
- Repeat all these steps if the problem wasn’t fixed
Off the top of my head, here are some things the editor doesn’t preview.
- How the model fits in an Orb
- How the model carries an underhanded gun
- How textures appear under different kinds of light (especially with adjusted emissive settings)
- Head turning in any direction for testing neck
- Running/strafing in any direction other that forward
- Crouch walking
- Every emote
I don’t know how feasible this would be, but I would like to suggest that the editor have some sort of playground in which the model is directly controlled, and can have anything experienced in-game replicated, as well as be able to change the area background to a type of green screen.
To drive the point home, here are some scenarios where these became inconventient:
Months ago, I was working on importing a Vegata model that made his hair a separate mesh for the source game to switch between regular and super saiyan. This caused a huge gap in his neck when looking down that would never ever be seen in the editor.
Not only that, the model for some reason had a gap between his shoulders that was only noticable after publishing it to the workshop and playing it on a map that was bright enough to standout against his blue clothes.
I am currently debating on adjusting the size or resting positions of the tails on two of my player models so that the entire mesh will fit within the ball race orb while keeping them as large as possible. I’m not even going to bother with this until the process can be made less tedious.
