The Parts and Whole: Overview

By Geep 2022

This is a work in progress. To give feedback or suggestions, see the forum thread The Parts and Whole: Discussion

As a broad theme, "The Parts and Whole" explores map objects being brought together into higher-level assemblies... their creation, navigation, manipulation, and benefits. Dark Radiant provides a number of techniques to control the visibility, selectability, and association of multiple objects. Some also can improve game performance. Here's a quick overview. Follow individual links for lots more.

Techniques that Affect DR Only

To speed up complex editing, DR provides 6 techniques to form collections of associated objects, to benefit:

• Ease of selection and subsequent manipulation
• Control of visibility, hiding items that obscure what you really want to see and manipulate.

These techniques do not affect your project's .map file or performance. Those that are persistent across DR sessions store their information in the map/<FM>.darkradiant file.

In a Nutshell

Technique	Purpose	Pros & Cons
Hide/Show	Toggle visibility of selected or deselected objects.	Pros: Quick & easy. Important as adjunct to "Group" and "Selection Set".
Region	Define a box & temporarily hide everything that doesn’t touch it.	Pros: Easy to use. Several way to define box. Also: Can generate auto-sealed map file of region for testing, but with caveats.
Layer	Assign each object to one or more named layers, based on any criteria. Then toggle layer visibility.	Pros: Highly customizable. Quick layer select. Cons: Requires active organization and management.
Filter	Toggle visibility based on class name or other attributes (i.e., spawnargs).	Pros: Good selection of built-in filters. Quick to use & needs no management. Custom filters possible. Cons: Custom filters require programming.
Group	Cluster objects together to select, move, or copy as group.	Pros: Quick, easy, scales well to large number of Groups and of objects within. Cons: Groups are unnamed. Also: Stack-like (LIFO) manipulation method to love/hate.
Selection Set	Cluster objects together temporarily, with naming.	Pros: Consider for one-time complex editing tasks. Cons: Lacks the persistence and fine-grained control of Groups and Layers.

Additional "Cons"

• For all techniques that hide items: you might forget the hiding is in effect when it comes time to copy things, so you fail to copy the totality of what’s needed.

• In the next table’s "Max # of Collections" Column: "Dozens" – typically just a few dozen - refers to practical limitations on suitability of the dropdown menu or scrollable list used to view and manipulate the list.

Characteristics

Technique	Collect Items without Touching Them	Collection Named	Hide Collection Directly	Max # of Collections	Persistent (Kept Across DR Sessions)
Hide/Show			X	1
Region	X	Export filename only	Hides non-collection	1
Layer		X	X	Dozens	X
Filter	X	X (criteria)	X	Dozens	X
Group				No limit	X
Selection Set		X		Dozens

Prefabs

A Prefab is a set of map objects stored as a disk file, for re-use. The set is typically of moderate size and diverse but with a unifying theme, e.g.:

• a house
• a corridor with wall modules
• a few AI characters and their paths, with some adjoining furniture and knick-knacks.

Upon import into DR, a Prefab is converted to its constituent objects, optionally grouped. So, once inside DR, there is no longer a prefab per se. A Prefab file has much the same syntax and content as a Map file, but is meant for DR alone; it cannot be DMAP’d.

Stock Prefabs are an important asset distribution method for TDM. Or you can make your own custom ones. It is one way to promulgate duplicates throughout your current FM. Or share. It may be helpful while crafting new modular architectures.

Technique	Purpose	Pros & Cons
Import Prefab (or RMB Insert Prefab)	Inspect available prefabs (either stock TDM ones, or custom), and place in your project	Pros: Can preview prefabs. On import, can Group if desired; or not, to tweak relative placements. Cons: Only map objects are contained in a prefab; other assets may be needed. If importing duplicates, each instance adds to map filesize and (typically) entity count.
Export Selected as Prefab	Make a custom prefab, to re-use in current or future FMs, or share with others.	Pros: Creates custom asset for import, e.g., duplicates in your FM Cons: If planning to share, some extra steps recommended.

Maps

[Planned: Export Map, Export Selection as Map, Import Map, Merge Map]

Models

TBD

Other Techniques that Affect Both DR and TDM

[PLANNED][Coverage to include:

• Conversion from/to Worldspawn
• Entities with Primitives
• Multiple Instances Combined with SEED
• Combining Models
• Func Groups
• Inlining

]