Monday 30 July 2012

Monday 23 July 2012

Week 2 Task 2 5 reference images of different landscap

Canadian Rockies, Canada. High snowy mountainess pine tops.

Grand Canyon, Usa. Large dusty brown rocky valley.

Iguazu waterfalls argentina-brazil. High grassy waterfall rockfaces.

Skardu Valley, Pakistan. Huge mountain backdrop with a large lake set in the middle.

Great barrier reef, Australia. Large warm blue reef island.

5 shortcuts or buttons, and what each of their functions are

1)Select objects button shortcut is ctrl-t, it is a overview of a list of all the objects in your screen.
2)Asset browser is a shortcut to a directory of sounds and objects that you would use for your project.
3)Database view db is a list of different paramaters that you can tweak and edit.
4)Lighting panel you can edit the time of day and direction and path the sun will take.
5)Flow graph fg is where you would write script for every animation you want to create.

3 different ways of moving around your level

1)W,S,A,D is the controls to move you around and hold shift to move faster.
2)You can move back and forwald by scrolling your mouse.
3)If you hold alt and press the middle button of the mouse in you can move around a certain point.

5 ways you might customize your Sandbox editor setup

1) Drag and drop each window into one another to maximise work space.
2)You can customise your toolbar and add comments to your tools by going to tools > customise keyboard.
3)Customise > options > Show shortcut keys and screen tips, turns on the little distription box when you hover over a button.
4)Customise > keyboard, you can customise keyboard hot keys that enable you to easily use a chosen technique with the simple hot key chosen.
5)Tools> Preferences, you can customise such things as the console background which will change the colour of the console background to a colour of your choice.

Monday 16 July 2012

10 Tips and Tricks related to the Sandbox User Interface

1) The View menu allows you to turn various windows and toolbars on or off as well as open the various Sandbox Editors and the Database View.
If you close a window and want to open it again, you can use the View -> Open View Pane menu.

2) Viewport Movement, you can control the camera movement with the standard WASD control system. 
W to move forwards 
S to move backwards 
A to move (strafe) left 
D to move (strafe) right

3) There are several information icons that you may see during your use of the Sandbox Editor. For example Low Memory Usage, High Memory Usage, Streaming.

4) The main menu is where you can access everything from basic file operations and display options, to more advanced features such as terrain and level editing tools and AI settings. Many of these commands can also be executed the ToolBar and also by using keyboard shortcuts.

5) The ToolBar menu, users can quickly and easily access many of the features of the Sandbox Editor through the toolbars and icons at the top of the screen. These toolbars can be configured to fit the preferences and needs of individual users.

6) The Selection Strip contains an area at the bottom for prompt and selection information about your scene. There is a coordinate display area in which you can type transform values, buttons to turn on AI/Physics and change speed of Viewport Navigation.

7) The RollupBar holds the objects creation, vegetation, terrain modifying and solid modeling tools.
Additionally you can find display options, some profile tools and the layer controls there.

8) The DataBase serves as the place to organize the libraries of game items.It contains access to the Entity Libraries, Prefab Libraries Vegetation Libraries, the Particle Editor, and music and sound related databases and Game Tokens database. You can access the different libraries by using the tabs at the top part of the DataBase View.

9) The Select Objects window enables you to quickly search for objects, hide/unhide and freeze/unfreeze objects in a list view. You can also browse through hidden or frozen objects without changing their state.

10) The Sound menu contains commands to show the currently playing music and to access the sound and dialog browsers.

5 Things About Sandbox Folder Structure

1)Bin32 and Bin 64 is where the executables are and also where the game files and editor is it also determines which editor you should run depending on the platform of your computer 32 or 64 bit

2)Code folder has a few examples and scrips

3)Engine folder is where the shaders are stored

4)Game folder is where the Pac files are stored. Pac files are basically the whole game they include sound and everything.

5)It is recommended that you turn on the settingsmanager.exe in the tools folder which can be done by clicking it and making sure the green button is on and make sure the root directory is to the file your working on