In SceneViewer the scene can be edited using a set of editors that can display custom user interfaces for each block type, and normally divide the editing of the scene in a few dialog boxes.
Contents |
The Scene Editors
In SceneViewer there will be a group of dialog boxes that will allow the user to Edit the different blocks that make up the scene.
The Materials Editor
This editor allows the user to edit all the blocks that inherit from the Material class. These are mainly Materials and Textures. This Materials Editor is the place where the user edits all the materials and textures in the scene.
The Materials Editor has a toolbar with the main actions for Materials, like:
- Apply Material to Selection
- Get Material from Selection
- Pick Material from Node
- New Material
- New Texture
- Clone Material/Texture
- Material/Texture Browser
- View Material/Texture in viewport
- Go to Parent
- Go to Sibling
After that, the Materials Editor displays the rollup containers for each material. The main rollup always start with an image with the sample of the material rendered, a box to set the name, a User Properties button to set the user properties for this material (long text) and a Replace button to replace this Material/Texture by another Material/Texture.
The Objects Editor
This editor allows the user to edit all the blocks that inherit from the Object class. These are objects like TriMeshObject, PolyMeshObject, Camera, Light, ObjectModifier, etc...
The Animation Controller Editor
This editor allows the user to edit all the blocks that inherit from the Animation Controller class. These are blocks like PRS3AnimationController, that allows the user to edit the Position, Rotation and Scale of Nodes and other blocks that use this type of AnimationController.
The Blocks Tree and Attributes Editor
This editor allows the user to navigate in the Scene Block Hierarchy Tree and to select blocks. When a Block is selected, if this Block has attributes, the user can edit these attributes in the Attributes Editor. This allows the user to edit hidden blocks or blocks that are not available in other editors.
How the Editors work together
The different editors (Objects Editor, Materials Editor, Animation Controller Editor and Blocks Tree and Attributes Editor) are all dialog boxes of the same width, and they can be stacked together in a single dialog box, or be in separate dialog boxes. They work the same as the GIMP dialog boxes or as the different panels in Developer Studio (Solution Explorer, Class View, Resource Editor, etc) :
Stacking
When the user drops an editor on top of another editor, the target editor opens a new tab and holds that editor in it. Both editors are now accessible by the tab. For example, if we drag the Objects Editor on top of the Materials Editor, then then the two editors are in the same dialog box, and the dialog box has a Tab control that gives access to both editors:
And if the Animation Controllers editor is dropped on top of the dialog holding the materials and object editors, then a new Tab is added to hold this new editor:
Titles
When there is only one Editor in the Control Panel dialog box, then the title of the dialog box is the title of the Editor. If there are more than one Editors in the Control Panel, then the name of the dialog box is the name of the Editor that is active (active Tab).
Resizing and Docking
The Editor dialog boxes will all have the same width, but their height is variable. They can be docked in the Left or Right of the Application.