Workshop Wearable Offsets Per-Item & Other QoL Changes

[vaporkin]

This has been stuff that I and many others have talked about in the workshop channel on the discord server about certain features that I strongly feel the workshop editor, and in turn workshop models, should have in order to allow custom playermodels (& props/vehicles) to look as best they can, as well as simplifying the creation of and updating models in the future.

- Player Wearables Should Have Per-Item Offsets
What this means is that every single wearable that’s available in the game should be able to store offsets specific to that wearable. Currently, the game uses offsets per wearable type (i.e. Hats, Glasses, etc) which in many cases works for some wearable items, and in other cases does not at all. However, in addition to this, the current per wearable type offsets should remain as a default fallback option in the case of a specific wearable not having offsets specific to that item (which would function identically to how they are now).

- Workshop Editor Should Allow Previews Of All Wearables
Currently the workshop editor only shows one item for each type when setting offsets (for example, Hat wearables show the Top Hat). While this would reflect that specific item very well, it often times will be vastly different for other wearables due to each one seemingly having origin points that deviate from the item selected for previews. This sort of ties in with the allowing per-item offsets, as you would be able to see how they look & can adjust each one to look as best they can.

- Workshop Metadata Should Be Updated If Changes Are Made
I’m not sure how complex of an issue this is internally, but as the Workshop Cache stands, if a model is updated the Workshop Cache needs to be manually cleared by the user and the game restarted before these changes are reflected. This can extend from the model itself to the model’s metadata, which when it comes to updating your own models becomes a time consuming and occasionally frustrating process as the cache is strangely resistant to updates. My only point of comparison for this feature is to Garry’s Mod which, when an update is detected in an addon on startup, GMOD will patch that addon to update whatever has been changed and these changes are then reflected in game without needing for the old data to be cleared beforehand.

-Workshop Editor Should Have Day/Night Cycle Slider (& Flashlight Toggle)
Currently the only source of lighting in the Workshop Editor is a single point light, which applies strange lighting and shadows to models being previewed in the editor. Replacing this one light with the Day/Night skylight instead would give a better idea of how workshop models will look at different lighting environments. This could be implemented with a slider (similar to Condos) that allows those in the editor to change the time of day at will. This can be especially helpful to preview emissive textures and how they appear at nighttime. Paired with this could also be the option to toggle the flashlight while in editor.

-Overwriting Model Import & Copying Over Metadata
For example, if I have a model named “MyModel.plymodel” in my imports tab, and I import a .dae with the exact same name (MyModel), the Workshop Editor will instantly overwrite the previously imported model without any confirmation while also clearing the previous model’s metadata. A feature detecting the names matching & thereby asking if the user intends to overwrite the previous model would be ideal, as well as providing the option to copy over the previous model’s metadata if this action was deliberate.

-Copying Metadata From One Model to Another Should Be Improved/Fixed
I assume this is more of a bug than it is a suggestion, but I thought it best to mention it again. Right now copying metadata from one model to another is tedious as it sometimes just does not copy/paste at all, and for it to work successfully requires a strange set of steps. In my case, this entails:

1. Going to the model to Copy From’s Material Tab
2. Change a metadata value for a material to some other value than what’s set, change it back, then save, THEN copy metadata.
3. Going into the model to Copy To’s Material Tab
4. Paste
   After doing this the metadata is copied successfully, but other times it won’t copy at all.

That’s about everything I could think off of the top of my head. I hope I was able to convey my thoughts in a concise & respectful enough manner. Never thought I’d get this invested in workshop item creation! Hopefully some of the things I brought up here will help other creators if they are implemented.

[Spoom]

These are all things I’ve seen creators asking for and I agree on all of these ideas.

On the topic, and so it’s all in one place I’d like to request that we get a fix to the known Editor issue where normal maps disappear if metadata is changed at all.

I’d also like to suggest the ability to toggle a scale guide for furniture items. Being able to see your furniture lined up next to something iconic and obvious like a catsack would be perfect for finalising the Scale metadata.

Right now copying metadata from one model to another is tedious as it sometimes just does not copy/paste at all, and for it to work successfully requires a strange set of steps.

I’ll share my method since it’s a little easier:

1. Select the model you want to copy metadata from.
2. Expand one of the offset tabs, then copy. You don’t need to make any changes.
3. Switch to the model you want to paste to. SAVE YOUR CHANGES when prompted- else there is a chance it doesn’t copy and instead wipes that model’s metadata.
4. Paste.

This works reliably as long as you don’t do anything else in-between the steps.

[Xmarksit]

On the topic of offsets, in GMT you could set the offsets manually for cosmetics.
This should be a thing in TU so players can adjust cosmetics to their liking.

[macdguy]

@vaporkin

- Player Wearables Should Have Per-Item Offsets
What this means is that every single wearable that’s available in the game should be able to store offsets specific to that wearable. Currently, the game uses offsets per wearable type (i.e. Hats, Glasses, etc) which in many cases works for some wearable items, and in other cases does not at all. However, in addition to this, the current per wearable type offsets should remain as a default fallback option in the case of a specific wearable not having offsets specific to that item (which would function identically to how they are now).

I agree with this. I have been planning to add this feature, but I need to improve the editor UI a bit so you can go through each wearable one by one. This will add data per wearable to the JSON file, which with the way we serialize currently, it’s about 241 bytes per wearable offset.

@vaporkin

- Workshop Editor Should Allow Previews Of All Wearables
Currently the workshop editor only shows one item for each type when setting offsets (for example, Hat wearables show the Top Hat). While this would reflect that specific item very well, it often times will be vastly different for other wearables due to each one seemingly having origin points that deviate from the item selected for previews. This sort of ties in with the allowing per-item offsets, as you would be able to see how they look & can adjust each one to look as best they can.

If we’re doing the offset per wearable, this would just become a feature naturally.

@vaporkin

- Workshop Metadata Should Be Updated If Changes Are Made
I’m not sure how complex of an issue this is internally, but as the Workshop Cache stands, if a model is updated the Workshop Cache needs to be manually cleared by the user and the game restarted before these changes are reflected. This can extend from the model itself to the model’s metadata, which when it comes to updating your own models becomes a time consuming and occasionally frustrating process as the cache is strangely resistant to updates. My only point of comparison for this feature is to Garry’s Mod which, when an update is detected in an addon on startup, GMOD will patch that addon to update whatever has been changed and these changes are then reflected in game without needing for the old data to be cleared beforehand.

This is a bug. There is code to check when the cache was last updated, but I think we should ditch that completely and just overwrite the cache each time the addon was updated regardless. We should also have the cache properly clear out when working on the item in the editor.

@vaporkin

-Workshop Editor Should Have Day/Night Cycle Slider (& Flashlight Toggle)
Currently the only source of lighting in the Workshop Editor is a single point light, which applies strange lighting and shadows to models being previewed in the editor. Replacing this one light with the Day/Night skylight instead would give a better idea of how workshop models will look at different lighting environments. This could be implemented with a slider (similar to Condos) that allows those in the editor to change the time of day at will. This can be especially helpful to preview emissive textures and how they appear at nighttime. Paired with this could also be the option to toggle the flashlight while in editor.

I can work on this feature. I’ll pull in the same day night and post processing settings the Plaza has. I also wanted to make a feature, slightly unrelated, that lets users quickly take a picture of their model for their thumbnail like the workshop upload feature.

@vaporkin

-Overwriting Model Import & Copying Over Metadata
For example, if I have a model named “MyModel.plymodel” in my imports tab, and I import a .dae with the exact same name (MyModel), the Workshop Editor will instantly overwrite the previously imported model without any confirmation while also clearing the previous model’s metadata. A feature detecting the names matching & thereby asking if the user intends to overwrite the previous model would be ideal, as well as providing the option to copy over the previous model’s metadata if this action was deliberate.

This is a bug and high on my list to resolve. I will make it not clear the metadata and if you need to reset meta data completely, I’ll add a button to do that instead.

@vaporkin

-Copying Metadata From One Model to Another Should Be Improved/Fixed
I assume this is more of a bug than it is a suggestion, but I thought it best to mention it again. Right now copying metadata from one model to another is tedious as it sometimes just does not copy/paste at all, and for it to work successfully requires a strange set of steps. In my case, this entails:

1. Going to the model to Copy From’s Material Tab
2. Change a metadata value for a material to some other value than what’s set, change it back, then save, THEN copy metadata.
3. Going into the model to Copy To’s Material Tab
4. Paste
   After doing this the metadata is copied successfully, but other times it won’t copy at all.

This is a terrible bug, I’ll fix it.

@Spoom

I’d like to request that we get a fix to the known Editor issue where normal maps disappear if metadata is changed at all.

I am not sure why this is happening but it is on my list to resolve. Sounds like all of this should be a workshop editor bug fix pass.

[OctopusSandwich]

Really hope this gets added soon. I’ve had to update metadata about 10 times so far trying to get it right for all hats, and with metadata only updating once per session for me I have to restart a ton.