The Ball system for moving sun/moon in FS viewer

[Jackson Redstar]

I suppose maybe that is how the official viewer does it (dunno never used it) but maybe FS can go back to ol tried and true sliders for moving the sun around, This ball system, in a word - kinda sucks. took me 10 min to try to get the sun due west and just above the horizon line - and I still couldnt get it exactly were I wanted it after 10 minutes of fudging around with it

Also, strange behavior with 'save' I save it, then close the panel, and least with the clouds, reverts to the previous saved version, so I have to go back and reload the setting. maybe just a little bug yet to be worked out

[sandi Mexicola]

I find the "ball system" a bit awkward! 

[Gage Wirefly]

40 minutes ago, Jackson Redstar said:

I suppose maybe that is how the official viewer does it (dunno never used it) but maybe FS can go back to ol tried and true sliders for moving the sun around, This ball system, in a word - kinda sucks. took me 10 min to try to get the sun due west and just above the horizon line - and I still couldnt get it exactly were I wanted it after 10 minutes of fudging around with it

Also, strange behavior with 'save' I save it, then close the panel, and least with the clouds, reverts to the previous saved version, so I have to go back and reload the setting. maybe just a little bug yet to be worked out

You are editing the personal lighting floater, not the actual sky. You need to open the EEP editor , just right click a sky and select open. On the bottom of the floater you can select save as instead of save to save a whole new sky after your changes.

 

[Jackson Redstar]

10 minutes ago, Gage Wirefly said:

You are editing the personal lighting floater, not the actual sky. You need to open the EEP editor , just right click a sky and select open. On the bottom of the floater you can select save as instead of save to save a whole new sky after your changes.

 

 

i go to new sky then open that then to sun and moon
 

[Gage Wirefly]

3 minutes ago, Jackson Redstar said:

i go to new sky then open that then to sun and moon
 

Hmm I'm not sure exactly what's happening for you but I have made several skies this way with no issue.

[Candide LeMay]

Yes whoever thought "we have a 2D control surface so let's use the 'depth' axis of the trackballs for something" deserves a golden UI design raspberry award (and ideally won't be allowed to touch UIs again).

[sch511]

God yes.

The sun dial system, although it is 'pretty' (as in, some idiot GIU designer would have been like..wow, look how cool this is!) it is totally, 100% useless and offers so much less control over lighting and shadows than the 2 sliders.

I have forgotten a LOT of year 12 stats, but having 2 sliders with at least 50 different positions PER bar (since both seem to move by about 0.07 increments) is a damn lot of possible combinations. Compare this to the pathetic sundial, which also has a utter LACK of numerical values, and a small surface area to actually move the cursor.

I can look past other annoying issues with the EEP FS viewer (barely)..but as someone who takes a lot of pictures in FS, this is one change that is a 100% deal breaker for me. Especially considering how the FS viewers seem to run worse and worse with every revision.

Someone told me today that EEP has been in development for two years, and I about fell off my chair laughing. 2 years for a system that is about 5% different than what we had, but manages to work worse?

If FS has been testing it the entire time, HOW did not one person tell them the sundial interface is rubbish?

[sandi Mexicola]

EEP server-side is a couple of years old, as far as I know.  As for the FS ball interface, I have no idea.

[Jackson Redstar]

if Im just standing in a pretty sim trying to adjust the lighting and someone askes me what I'm doing, I will reply "I am just trying to adjust my balls!"

[NiranV Dean]

On 1/1/2021 at 12:01 PM, sch511 said:

If FS has been testing it the entire time, HOW did not one person tell them the sundial interface is rubbish?

Told everyone. LONG before it was released. Did anyone listen? No.

[Mollymews]

i think the ball is ok. Is quite intuitive I think in placing a point within a circle/hemisphere

use mouse to stick it roughly where we want it then use the arrows to fine position

each arrow click will move the ball 1 degree in the direction of travel. There are 180 degrees/clicks from one side of the ball to the other when the travel line passes thru the centre of the ball

this said, for speed creation then X and Y edit boxes would be good. Where (X = 0 and Y = 0) == NorthWest and (X = 180 and Y = 180)  == SouthEast. Enter the XY and done

edit add. thinking about this further

might be better if 0,0 is the center of the ball. then range [ -90 .. 0 .. +90 ] on the X and on the Y

 

Edited January 5, 2021 by Mollymews

[NiranV Dean]

1 hour ago, Mollymews said:

i think the ball is ok. Is quite intuitive I think in placing a point within a circle/hemisphere

use mouse to stick it roughly where we want it then use the arrows to fine position

each arrow click will move the ball 1 degree in the direction of travel. There are 180 degrees/clicks from one side of the ball to the other when the travel line passes thru the centre of the ball

this said, for speed creation then X and Y edit boxes would be good. Where (X = 0 and Y = 0) == NorthWest and (X = 180 and Y = 180)  == SouthEast. Enter the XY and done

edit add. thinking about this further

might be better if 0,0 is the center of the ball. then range [ -90 .. 0 .. +90 ] on the X and on the Y

 

360° is incredibly little precision, this means we have 180° for the sky above us, assuming a 12 hour cycle of daytime we get 720 / 180 = 4 minutes per degree, this is just 1 minute more precise than we had previously with windlight where we had 5 minute steps. 4 minute steps on a giant horizon is a massive jump per tick. This isn't exactly what i call better, just because we shaved off 1 minute in absolute best case scenario. Not to mention the trackballs are extremely finicky at the outer edges and the "second layer" aka the below horizon line is nowhere mentioned nor in any way visible unless you accidentally stumble across it. For a team that is known to put giant texts into windows explaining even the simplest things in more than 3 sentences this is pretty half-assed.

[EnCore Mayne]

1 hour ago, Mollymews said:

use mouse to stick it roughly where we want it then use the arrows to fine position

who'da thunk it?

selecting any of the N.E.W.S. arrows allows movement by the keyboard arrow keys. without selecting the graphic arrows, the keyboard arrows do nothing. thanks Mollymews for learning us.

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, NiranV Dean said:

360° is incredibly little precision, this means we have 180° for the sky above us, assuming a 12 hour cycle of daytime we get 720 / 180 = 4 minutes per degree

am not sure if the degree limitation is due to the ball control or if it is as you mention maybe a limit of the sky dome itself. Dunno for absolute sure without digging into the source code. But yes I think you are maybe right, dunno tho exactly

Edited January 5, 2021 by Mollymews
exactly

[NiranV Dean]

Just now, Mollymews said:

am not sure if the degree limitation is due to the ball control or if it is as you mention maybe a limit of the sky dome itself. Dunno for absolute sure without digging into the source code. But yes I think you are right

It's a very simple UI configuration limit, in this case a precision problem of the trackballs. Doing this with sliders would allow a theoretically infinite precision.

[Mollymews]

5 minutes ago, NiranV Dean said:

Doing this with sliders would allow a theoretically infinite precision.

i don't mind UI controls that I can click on to do stuff in a close enough is good enough way. But when it comes to editing then I like edit boxes where I can type in what I exactly want

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, EnCore Mayne said:

selecting any of the N.E.W.S. arrows allows movement by the keyboard arrow keys. without selecting the graphic arrows, the keyboard arrows do nothing

when i use keyboard arrows then it does that whole the-other-way thing. Press my down arrow key and the yellow sun dot moves up and I am like reaaally!

[EnCore Mayne]

2 hours ago, Mollymews said:

when i use keyboard arrows then it does that whole the-other-way thing. Press my down arrow key and the yellow sun dot moves up and I am like reaaally!

works for me. up is up till you hit the lighting limit of the sphere then the sun appears going down the other side (in an enhanced transparency noless). quite nifty really. i'll have to play around with it more now that i know how to use it.

Edited January 6, 2021 by EnCore Mayne

[Mollymews]

4 hours ago, EnCore Mayne said:

works for me. up is up till you hit the lighting limit of the sphere then the sun appears going down the other side (in an enhanced transparency noless). quite nifty really. i'll have to play around with it more now that i know how to use it.

ah! ok thanks. That makes sense. Up til now I have just been clicking on it with my mouse

[EnCore Mayne]

as long as you "initialize" it by clicking any of the graphic arrows, then, and only then, will the keyboard arrows work to smoothly transition the worls's sourcelight. clicking the graphic sphere's representing the sun, earth, and surrounding box won't initialize your keyboard arrow's functionality. THAT is a defect in design. otherwise, it's genius. cudos to the poor hapless nameless developers who came up with it.