What part of one of your projects was hardest to do?

Octagons. Building an octogon-shaped tower was a massive chore, as I was constantly having to do calculations to angle everything correctly.

If you ever build another octagonal tower, a trick is to build everything on a wall with normal angles (N, S, E, or W). Then when you're finished building it, rotate it around the center point of the tower by 45 degrees.

An octagon isn't too bad if you're using Jesdyr's layout editor, since he has NW, NE, SW, and SE programmed into the editor. If you want to move something 0.1 to the SW, just click that arrow, instead of having to calculate what the S and W movements are for a right isosceles triangle with a hypotenuse of 0.1.

And if you're really determined to calculate angles yourself, there's always the online trig calculator to do the "heavy lifting" for you, so all you have to do is copy-paste lengths A and B into your movement window...

Jaz, I love you (and JesDyr, too, I guess he can have some love...that Rotate About a Point thing sounds very.....tempting ;->)!

Yet another thing I'm gonna have to save, Bookmark, etc. ;->

Uwk

How To: Rotate Items Around A Point

The hardest thing for me is to create a theme or story background and then totally implemented into the project.

Amen! Planning is one thing, execution is the tough part.

Uwk

Thank you very much. I hope that I'm able to do that project now.

I think one of my hardest projects is the ceilings. it's the line up between together really makes it hard and I don't do layout editor only by hand and concentration.

Probably the cabins in my Hua Mein



With the ground being uneven, getting the paintings to overlap without the flicker, and getting the roofs lined up, and then rotating them all once they were build since the directions were all weird in there.....

Wow Kamoj!! I had to go visit your Hua Mein after seeing your pics. I just have to say how lovely it all looked. I just loved it all!

And then, instead of camping back to Unrest, I went to your Summer Halas house. And then I went to your Personal Library!! And your TT Island!

All I can say is WoW. I just loved them all. I got a ton of ideas for houses of mine that are just sitting hehe.

Well worth visiting for sure =)) TY

Aww shucks, thanks! I appreciate the kind words.

Would using the flat Grass-like Tiles have helped "even out" the terrain at all, or just looked weird? :-/

Uwk
having issues placing a Maj'Dul telescope on the Halfling Vale hills

Hmm! Just had a thought...I keep hearing about EQ3's Landmark program (separate, free) as a sandbox; perhaps there, we could "level the ground" for our buildings in much the same way people do so in real life for putting a house or other building up. ;->

Uwk
crossing fingers the new computer can handle that... ;->

The project I'm working on now is driving me CRAZY, because so much of it is facade that I've built over existing structure and many parts are not on the grid or even exactly diagonal. This is the sort of situation I usually go out of my way to avoid. I'd forgotten how very difficult it can be to achieve a smooth result with hand placement. I imagine there is a way to use the editor, but even after taking a look at the numbers generated by my hand placement of a row of items, I can't figure out how to arrive at the appropriate numbers so my items line up both E-W and N-S. Sigh...math has never been my thing.

The next editor will let you enter an angle offset. Basically it will do all the math for you. If you wanted to rotate North by 20 degrees (clockwise), it will change the displayed location for all the items in the layout. You can then move an item 2 North in the editor and it will actually move 1.87938524 North and 0.684029 East in game.

To be honest, the Layout Editor is a very useful tool that let us escape from the torturing of the hand placement and Decorator mode.
I want to share some of my experience and hope it could be helpful.

1. Just choose one item to track and move. Keep practice until can adapt the coordinate system E-W, N-S relation. I do this every time when a new project start. No need to force yourself memorized it.

2. Divide the project into some smaller area, such as bedroom, library..etc. Save the individual area in separate groups in the layout editor.

3. Set 2 DATUM for each small area for E-W, N-S.
The Datum is not a function or command, it is just a "virtual" point or line as the base reference geometry of the area in our mind. The idea is for the ease of track and organize the item.Thus, all house item in that area are placed or organized referring to that. (Sometime Datum does not have any characteristic, just a reference)

For example, I set the DATUM for dining room are x=20, y=37. (can state the datums in the "note" blank of an item in the editor)
Where X=20 "seem" to be the center line divide the room to half
while Y=37 "seem" to be the center line of the door entrance to the room
So, I place 2 statues at the left and right of the entrance, let's say y=35 and y=39....and so on.

4. Can just add more Datums as long as needed, some details construction, such as clock, microwave.

5. "By my experience", the effective digit is 4. Thus 0.001 is the finest adjustment. I do not feel any different with any lesser change of value. So you may align a row of chair to x=23.40 first. Then x=23.42 for fine tune. I rarely need to adjust something like x=23.424.

1.000=roughly 1 body , 1 tile

0.100=roughly thickness of door

0.010=roughly thickness of clothing on mannequin

0.001=the finest adjustment (just my experience)

6. Just keep practice~

Take it easy and have a nice project~

This is great news! THANKS SO MUCH! I'll really be looking forward to this new feature. SInce I know this is coming, I won't worry so much about those little spots where no matter what I do i can still see a tile line. I'll be able to fix those places later...whew.

After a little more thinking about it, I figured I might as well add another option.



The circle in the middle will move items by "Amount" in the direction displayed. I haven't figured out exactly how you will set the angle, but it will do all the math for you.

Oldpoint, I agree, the layout editor is a wonderful tool. It's just beyond me how to use it to line up items when they are not on the grid but instead at some odd angle. How fabulous to learn from JesDyr about the new feature that will solve this problem!

Thank you for taking the time to post these suggestions. The thing is, I've been practicing with the editor for a long time now, but I have a general sense of undirection in the real world as well as in Norrath, and so no matter how many hours I spend manipulating items in this virtual environment I'm always a bit backwards. Now that we have signs, I sometimes post directional signs, actually, and find these are very useful as reminders.of which way I want to move something and if the numbers are smaller or larger in that direction. Otherwise, I get this turned around VERY frequently. Sometimes it seems like, if I think I want to send something north, I should know already that I really need to send it south...or east, lol, but in any event, certainly not north. How perfect that I decided to take up Norrathian decorating as my favorite hobby, then, as this directional affliction really does add to the fun.

I'm not sure I understand what you are talking about in 3-4 with regard to "datums" But I will keep bumbling along...errr, practicing. Thanks for the encouragement!

I have a horrible sense of direction in RL (and EQ2!) as well; I love doing mazes on paper, looking down at them from above, but get lost inside of 2 turns "on foot" (thank goodness for the "cheat maps" for the NotD hedge maze on Zam and Wiki, otherwise I'd still be stuck in there...). When I'm decorating, I'll make extensive use of the compass window (that little rectangular thingee in the upper right corner in my set-up), but still have to remember that if it says "N", that means I'm actually looking North, facing North, will be heading North if I move, etc., and that anything I move away from me in the front means it's heading North as well. With the Notepad editing method, the only way I'd remember what means where, number-wise (after the ID numbers), is with strange mnemonics: WEUDNS (W-E, Up-Down, N-S [or X, Y, and Z coordinates for the math inclined]), and that "everyone wants to go West, so increase that number to go West" and "everyone wants to go South for the winter, so increase that number" and that Up and Down are self-explanatory. Angles and pitch/tilt (I'm getting slightly better at using Decorator Mode for that) are fairly experimental, since Mistal herself said it depended on the item and its current orientation...oh, and the last number is Size. ;->

Uwk