While working in the editor it is possible to hide assets that you aren't currently working on, which can make it easier to work on the map as you can hide areas/assets to allow you a clear view of the area you're working on. It can also improve performance within the editor as it's not drawing all the map assets while your working!
Anything you hide this way will still be visible ingame. It is only hidden in the editor!
There are 2 ways of hiding assets. Temporary hiding and grouping.
Temporary hiding:
There are 3 icons on the main toolbar.
The open eye icon means show only the assets selected. The closed eye hides any assets selected! The eye with the 'X' unhides everything.
Basically what you do is highlight everything(including BSP) you don't need to work on then click the hide icon...or...click on the assets you are currently working on and click the open eye icon. This will hide everything else in the editor windows.
After hiding anything not needed you can easily work on the area that you need to without other areas obstructing your view. Once you are done you can click the eye 'X' button and reveal everything again.
Grouping:
Grouping is like an extension to the temporary hiding functions. With grouping you can select a collection of assets and group them then later on you can hide the various groups with a simple click rather than having to reselect everything again.
I find groups very handy as you can keep related assets together. For example I always have a sky group in my maps which say include the star sphere, nebula fogsheets, sun and planet assets etc...
To create a group select all the assets you want to group. Next open the generic browser and select the 'Groups' tab. Next click on the edit menu and select 'New'. Give this group a name and click OK.
You'll now have a new group created which now contains all the assets you had selected. Next to the group name there's a 'tickbox'. While the box is ticked the group assets will be visible in the editor. If the tickbox is unticked the assets will be invisible within the editor.
Later on you can also add aditional assets to any groups. Select the assets you want to add. Open the generic browser and go to the groups tab. Next click on the edit menu and select the 'Add Selected Actors to Group' option. Last but not least... Every mesh in the editor has a groups property which lists the groups that it is in. You can manually add group names to this if the groups already exist!
Groups are very helpful when using the editor as it can keep it uncluttered while working on your map!
I always use groups to split my map into sections. A good example is that I can't work with the skydome(starsphere) visible as it constantly annoys me and makes it harder to spot small things in the editor. Having the default black sky in the editor is much better IMO but I still want a sky for when I quickly build the map to walk around. Every map I've made has a group for all sky stuff which constantly stays hidden during construction of a map, unless I'm working on the sky.
(If ya didn't know about this) If you've hidden stuff and wanna see how everything looks just press the 'g' key on ya keyboard to see ya map as it will be seen ingame. This is a quicker way then reticking groups to make them visible. Just make sure you press 'g' again to turn the view off.
I use group from Ued 2.5, it's very usefull of course. I have a quicky way for that in UT3 :
just enter a name on the line "group" on the property window of any actor you want group, and the group will be create automatically on the browser (after saving the map). And so, each time you duplicate this actor, it will be automatically added on the group. It's a good thing to make that at the start of a new map, have that in mind each time you create something you will have to duplicate and you will have to hide/unhide in the future ;)
Oh bl!tz, take a look on DM-peak lol, I have create some groups on it ;)
Lord_PorkSword wrote:Thanx Nova for the heads up on being able to add the name directly into the mesh properties.
I thought you had to create the group first.
Another thing I want add, making group is usefull to when you have to select some actors wich you want change their properties in the one clic. for example, if you have set some light with the same color, group it, an so, if you have to tweak their color, just double clic on the group name in the browser and so you can go to the properties of all actors on the group and change stuff quickly, same for group of meshes, mover etc...