New GSC feature suggestion: show invisibles

gyroscope

Hi, I'd find it really useful and time-saving - and I'm certain a lot of other users would too - if there was a button on the icon bar above the scene edit/preview window - maybe to the left of the Show Initial State Button - when clicked, would show all Visible unchecked and 0% Alpha actors in the scene, highlighted in yellow or mauve or something... This would be just for easier selecting and editing purposes and wouldn't affect their actual states in the game, of course.

So I'm putting forward this idea for you to consider to implement in a future version of GSC, thanks. :-)

PS This is in the Tech Support Forum as I can't find the New Features Forum.... I guess that's no longer there...unless I need new specs...

colander

+1 going to scene/layers then dig for the actor is tedious.

jamie_c

When I want an actor to Invisible in game, but visible to me when editing the game I give it a little bit of alpha (say 25%) in the editor and then give it a rule that immediately changes it's alpha to 0% when the game is played.

That way it's semi-transparent in the editor (so I know it will be invisible in game) and then invisible in the game.

I guess it's a work around, but it works well.

Braydon_SFX

David, I always found this annoying, too. I keep the actors visible on the scene, but add a simple Change Attribute to change their self.Color.Alpha to 0 directly after the scene fires. I've found that this saves a lot of time trying to find where I put a certain invisible actor on the scene.

I agree, though, this would be a great addition to Creator.

gyroscope

..I keep the actors visible on the scene, but add a simple Change Attribute to change their self.Color.Alpha to 0 directly after the scene fires..

Ah, of course, Bray, obvious but I missed that to an extent. :-) I guess I do a mix of both; perhaps I'll make all needing zero Alpha to be made that on runtime only now... thanks, never too late to learn, they say! (Although a new button feature to show Visible unchecked would still be useful... although in practical terms, I wonder how useful? It makes me wonder how many people use that feature....in fact, I can safely say, I've never used it... just made zero alpha...)

Braydon_SFX

..I keep the actors visible on the scene, but add a simple Change Attribute to change their self.Color.Alpha to 0 directly after the scene fires..

...(Although a new button feature to show Visible unchecked would still be useful... although in practical terms, I wonder how useful? It makes me wonder how many people use that feature....in fact, I can safely say, I've never used it... just made zero alpha...)

I agree - that would be so useful, especially for client work. Usually I open their project and start dissecting the code. A lot of times their code is much different than what their game is actually doing, and I spend a lot of time trying to figure out why. Usually it's an unlocked actor that's invisible on the scene.

gyroscope

Yes, for client work it would be good... I've thought of another consideration too - a fine idea to have everything visible on screen with stuff becoming invisible only at runtime, but sometimes we want to look at our scenes in an "artistic" way - I'm sure you agree - without invisibles showing to clutter it...

Anyway, either way, we wait to see if the powers that be at GSC are interested in this idea eventually... :-) (Hey, I'm rappin' ;-) )

Braydon_SFX

True -- I wonder if @BlackCloakGS could tackle this in the Nightly Builds...?

Don't know how difficult it would be, but it would be a great feature.

gyroscope

@jamie_c Nice idea too... :-)

True -- I wonder if @BlackCloakGS could tackle this in the Nightly Builds...?

Don't know how difficult it would be, but it would be a great feature.

+1 :-)

Manto

In GS CSE (My GS scene editor) you can see all invisible actors by using select all command.

BlackCloakGS

@Braydon_SFX I don't think it would be too hard. I will keep that I mind when i get back to working on creator update.