Feature Request: Colour Coded Entity Links

[ijed]

A small feature, but one that'd be useful when building complex logic systems.

Can the orange entity link lines be brighter when 'sending' and duller when 'receiving'?

So if entity A is targeting entity B and I have A selected then a bright line would connect the two, if I have B selected then it would be a dull line.

Might sound pointless, but when using 10+ relays and counters things get confusing fast, especially when building with difficulty levels included.

[rebb]

The original pull-request for entity-links actually had several visualization systems for the direction of links. Unfortunately that was dropped for some reason.

[ijed]

There's quite a few things that'd be nice to have but would probably go to TB version 3.

Specifically being able to dynamically define link types depending on mod, or showing additional information in the point entity label depending on the fgd or view tab.

[necros0]

Rebb, I assume you are referring to this: #292 (Just want to properly attach that issue to this one)

[kduske]

What do you mean by "define link types depending on mod"?

[kduske]

I'm still debating on how to visualize entity links without cluttering everything up. What if entity links are "bright" at the sending end and "dull" at the receiving end, and get smoothly interpolated in between?

[ijed]

Yes, bright and dull would work.

Being able to define link colour per key; Maybe a list at the start of the fgd / def that would be something like;

target 255 0 0
targetname 128 0 0
killtarget 0 0 255
group 0 255 0

and if this list was omitted it'd fall back to orange for everything, with dull for receiving and bright for sending.

[ijed]

To clarify; something existing in the aforementioned list would make such a link visible in many cases, otherwise the editor wouldn't draw other types of links, like group, killtarget or whatever.

I admit that supporting more than target / targetname is for modder content use.

[kduske]

I'm not fond of extending the fgd files with more and more additional info. An alternative would be the game config files in TB 2 which are used to define games.

What is that "group" property there? I have never seen that before.

[kduske]

Btw I think that the entity links really clutter the 3D view and I would propose to add a new tool / mode to the editor, activatable by hitting 'L'. Links are drawn only when you are in this mode, and you would be able to create new links by drag and drop in the 3D view. Thoughts?

[ijed]

Ah, that sounds much cleaner. 'group' is something I'm using in my mod for randomising entities, shorthand for randomgroup.

Yes, it's vague and confusing.

Link mode sounds cool! I don't mind entity links as much as some of the other highlighted elements, I think this is a personal preference thing. And they can be turned off in view - I assume those options will be saved between sessions in TB2?

[rebb]

Interpolating between sender/receiver was in my pull request too, it's a useful visual cue imo.

A link mode sounds interesting - maybe entities could be drawn like the links in it ( color-faded based on occlusion ), drawing and selectable through walls, maybe with distance-faded coloring in the mix to get some idea how far away from the viewer they are. That could make linking a bit easier by not having to fly around geometry to see the entity you are trying to link.

Edit :
Then again, you can simply hide all brushes and do your entity-linking, so theres no geometry in the way to begin with. Oh well ;)

[kduske]

Entity links are now red if connected to a selected entity and green if not. The source end is brighter than the target end. This is a good tradeoff between performance and good visual cues I think.