GECK usage quick questions

[TennesseeTuxedo]

Got a few quick question I haven't been able to find the answers for, would be grateful for any help:

 

How do you turn off the light markers, light effects, and red square/arrow markers thingy's (not sure what those are yet) in GECK? I tried 'L' but it doesn't seem to work. It makes it hard to select items because it keeps selecting the light glow.

 

How to get GECK to put a static or item where you want? I am trying to just drag from object window onto a surface. For example, I will try to drop a poster on the wall and it goes somewhere near there but can be behind walls under the floor etc... Sometimes I can't find the thing, even clicking on it in cell view, and have to delete and try to place it somewhere else. Then there is all the time spent trying to get it into the right place. Is there a tip with this like using "render in place" somehow?

 

Is "Undo" broken? I notice when I undo, it can randomly do one of three things (1) undo the last change, (2) do nothing, or (3) undo something I changed several changes ago, potentially screwing up whatever I am doing!

 

 

[ThatOtherUser]

Yo!

 

Not sure about turning off light effects, but I've got much the same issue as you. If you want accuracy in your selection, I'd suggest just picking it out in the object list in Cell View, and do things that way.

 

Putting a static or other object where you want is gonna involve some elbow grease. I find that when I'm trying to place something, I'll select an object close to where I want it, grab its X/Y/Z coordinates from its Edit window, then apply those to the object I want to place. After that, I fine tune it by adjusting the X/Y/Z coords in the object's own Edit window, since clicking and dragging is hella inaccurate.

 

Undo... yeah, I think that thing's kinda busted. Hasn't functioned right for me at all, as it undoes the actions I took before doing the action I wanted to undo.

[Gribbleshnibit8]

Adding items to the render window is mostly just find a clear place and drop it in, then move it where you want it. You can grab an object with left click and then hold X, Y, or Z on your keyboard to move it along ONLY those axes. Holding X/Y/Z while right clicking will allow you to rotate the object around the axes. Holding Z is the only way to move things up and down anyway, as otherwise the mouse translates along the X/Y axis. When fine tuning placement, it is helpful to keep the Preferences window open (icon to the immediate right of the save icon in the toolbar) Where you can modify the values of the snap-to-grid and snap-to-angle. You can also use that window to modify how quickly the camera pans/zooms/rotates when working with objects. I turn pan way down when working in close.

 

When placing kit pieces (walls, corners, doors, etc), they handily have a fairly large unit scale. Setting your snap-to-grid setting to something like 128 or 256 will allow you to easily move these parts around and they will always line up when together. Some kits have a different scale though, so you might need to go smaller to get them lined up right (wasteland house is useful at 64, vault or utility at 256). Some cells are just not quite lined up, and if you're in one of those, you can open the preference window, click the "Select snap reference" button, and then "Select reference in render window". Click on a large kit piece in the render window and it will become the new snap reference. This is very useful for editing vanilla cells, as sometimes they just don't line up right on the default grid.

 

Sometimes I find it faster to duplicate parts in place at use the replace function later. To do that select what you want to duplicate and hit Ctrl+D, which will make a new one in place, and select the newly created object. From there you can drag it to where you want it, and if you need to change the base object type, hit Ctrl+F to bring up the replace dialog. You'll need to know the name of the part you want to use instead, but you can find that in the Object window easily enough.

 

For the markers there are a couple of keys:

 

M - removes all markers, which include the red XMarker, the large XMarkerHeading, door markers, light markers, FX location markers, etc. All :smile: However, this does not actually disable the effects such as the glow fills, light beams, dust, and other effect items. If you find yourself trying to click on an object and hit one of those instead, you can tap the 1 key 2 times to fully disable the object (temporarily) so that you can get past it. Hit F5 to refresh the cell and reload all those disabled items. Note that this is NOT the same as opening the reference window and checking the "initially disabled" option.

 

L - toggles the light radius wireframe sphere, which is useful when putting lights in to see how far they go, and that's about it.

[ThatOtherUser]

I had no idea you could hold those keys and move things along a certain axis. That's really freakin' helpful!

[TennesseeTuxedo]

Putting a static or other object where you want is gonna involve some elbow grease. I find that when I'm trying to place something, I'll select an object close to where I want it, grab its X/Y/Z coordinates from its Edit window, then apply those to the object I want to place. After that, I fine tune it by adjusting the X/Y/Z coords in the object's own Edit window, since clicking and dragging is hella inaccurate.

Yeah that's kind of where I have been gravitating to is cutting and pasting X/Y/Z coords. Some objects it still doesn't work well, I think because their coords are measured from a point off from the object. But at least now I know I haven't been doing it the hard way, thank you!

 

 

Adding items to the render window is mostly just find a clear place and drop it in, then move it where you want it. You can grab an object with left click and then hold X, Y, or Z on your keyboard to move it along ONLY those axes. Holding X/Y/Z while right clicking will allow you to rotate the object around the axes. Holding Z is the only way to move things up and down anyway, as otherwise the mouse translates along the X/Y axis. When fine tuning placement, it is helpful to keep the Preferences window open (icon to the immediate right of the save icon in the toolbar) Where you can modify the values of the snap-to-grid and snap-to-angle. You can also use that window to modify how quickly the camera pans/zooms/rotates when working with objects. I turn pan way down when working in close.

 

When placing kit pieces (walls, corners, doors, etc), they handily have a fairly large unit scale. Setting your snap-to-grid setting to something like 128 or 256 will allow you to easily move these parts around and they will always line up when together. Some kits have a different scale though, so you might need to go smaller to get them lined up right (wasteland house is useful at 64, vault or utility at 256). Some cells are just not quite lined up, and if you're in one of those, you can open the preference window, click the "Select snap reference" button, and then "Select reference in render window". Click on a large kit piece in the render window and it will become the new snap reference. This is very useful for editing vanilla cells, as sometimes they just don't line up right on the default grid.

 

Sometimes I find it faster to duplicate parts in place at use the replace function later. To do that select what you want to duplicate and hit Ctrl+D, which will make a new one in place, and select the newly created object. From there you can drag it to where you want it, and if you need to change the base object type, hit Ctrl+F to bring up the replace dialog. You'll need to know the name of the part you want to use instead, but you can find that in the Object window easily enough.

 

For the markers there are a couple of keys:

 

M - removes all markers, which include the red XMarker, the large XMarkerHeading, door markers, light markers, FX location markers, etc. All :smile: However, this does not actually disable the effects such as the glow fills, light beams, dust, and other effect items. If you find yourself trying to click on an object and hit one of those instead, you can tap the 1 key 2 times to fully disable the object (temporarily) so that you can get past it. Hit F5 to refresh the cell and reload all those disabled items. Note that this is NOT the same as opening the reference window and checking the "initially disabled" option.

 

L - toggles the light radius wireframe sphere, which is useful when putting lights in to see how far they go, and that's about it.

Goldmine of info!!! Tapping the '1' key is something very convenient I have been missing. Thanks!